Chronica (23 page)

"I try not to," Bertram said.

Sierra chuckled. She could tell from his voice that this was about nothing bad. "But you made an exception this time," she said.

"Yes. I just received a call from William Henry Appleton – he's been quite ill, you know."

"Yes, I know," Sierra said. "He was able to call you?"

"Yes," Bertram said. "I was surprised to hear directly from him, too. I've been speaking with Appleton's man Geoffreys for the past few months, whenever Appleton needed to communicate anything regarding club business to me."

"That's wonderful!" Sierra said. "Thanks so much for letting me know!"

"There's more," Bertram said.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Appleton wanted to speak to you and wasn't quite sure where to reach you – he said his memory isn't what it used to be."

"Did you give him my number here at the hotel?" Sierra asked.

"I wanted to," Bertram said, "but giving out a telephone number, even at a hotel, even when requested by a trusted member, is against club policy. So I told him I would pass his request on to you."

***

Max had gone downstairs to fetch the morning newspapers. Sierra couldn't wait.

She called Appleton. Geoffreys took the call. "Yes, he is eager to speak with you," he told her. "I shall get him for you."

"My dear," a warm familiar voice soon said to her. "I know you've been trying to talk to me. I don't know how much longer I will have, but I'm feeling a little better today. In fact, if you are available, I thought I might even hazard a visit to see you at the club."

"No, no, let me come to Wave Hill," Sierra said. "No need to exhaust yourself! You need to conserve your energy."

"But I want to," Appleton said. "It would make me feel better – not only to see you, but see you in the Millennium Club."

***

Sierra made an appointment to see Appleton at the club in two hours. Max returned. Sierra hugged him hard, and told him what had happened. "And you come along, too. He'll want to see you, too," she said.

The phone rang again. "I hope he didn't change his mind, or realize he's still too weak – we can easily go up to Wave Hill today," she said to Max and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Please don't hang up," a familiar voice said to her, softly and slowly. "Please just listen, for a moment."

"Who is this?" she demanded. But she knew instantly who was on the phone. The voice was indelibly seared into her soul. It was Heron.

Chapter 15

[New York City, May, 1899 AD]

Heron sat in the bar in the Millennium Club, slowly nursing a beer. This was the best way. He had realized, as he walked down the hall with that attractive doctor in 2087, fired up by the seductive scent, that his looking like Appleton, even completely, and sounding like him, would not work for his purposes. Sierra Waters knew the real Appleton too well to be fooled for more than a moment. For her to ever really believe that Heron was Appleton, Heron would have had to have taken Appleton's mind as well as his face, bodily appearance, and voice – and that trick was beyond any technology Heron had ever come across, even in the furthest reaches of the future.

He assumed that Bertram and Charles, if they were here, had already recognized him. What could they do? Call the police? And tell them, what? A man from the future and the past is here in our little club, a man who created the means of time travel that brought him here? The two would be carted away to a lunatic asylum, as it was called in this time. No, the most those toads would do is alert Sierra Waters, and he had just done that.

He became aware of three people who entered the far side of the dining area. Sierra Waters and Maxwell Marcus, accompanied by Bertram. They saw Heron. They neither fled nor rushed him with weapons drawn. That was good.

Bertram accompanied the couple halfway across the room, then stopped, watching as Sierra and Max approached Heron's table. What did Bertram expect him to do? Pull out a weapon himself and kill the two or three of them? That's not how he operated. And if he had intended on doing harm here, just how would Bertram have been able to stop him?

Heron rose as Sierra and Max reached the table. Their clothes were damp, as if they had been caught in a downpour. They sat. Bertram receded.

"Thank you for coming here," Heron said. "I knew you would."

"You killed a lot of people," Max said, darkly.

"Not really," Heron responded. "I chose not to stop the killing of an android impersonating Hypatia – not a person, not Hypatia – in Alexandria. That impersonation was no doubt your doing," he said to Sierra.

"It was not," she said.

Heron spread his hands. "I accept that – the android acted on its own – that's surely possible. I had Synesius killed, but that was not long before he was due in unmolested history to die anyway. And I saved many. I helped save Socrates. I saved Alcibiades," he said this especially to Sierra. "I know how important he became to you."

"Let's talk about what we came here to talk about," Max said.

Heron nodded, and looked at Sierra. "But I was just thinking about the first time we met, in ancient Alexandria, when you told me your name was Ampharete. The years have treated you very kindly."

"Thank you," Sierra said. "Not for the compliment. But for saving Alcibiades in Anatolia. It's too bad you tried to do quite the opposite to Max in Britain."

Heron began to respond—

"But you didn't ask us here to pry thanks from us for your life's work," Sierra cut him off.

Heron smiled. "No, I did not. Would you like something to drink?"

Sierra and Max shook their heads no.

Heron nodded again and spread his hands out upon the table. "Thomas Edison the inventor has the
Chronica
that you stole, and I have been told he is calling upon Henry Ford to construct a Chair or some sort of time travel vehicle – on the basis, I assume, of what is in the
Chronica
."

Neither Max nor Sierra responded. "Rescuing a scroll from impending flames is hardly theft," Sierra then spoke, "except a theft from the jaws of oblivion."

Heron smiled again, thinly. "You have a poetic flair. But surely you do not deny that authors have the right to decide what becomes of their work – including destroying it, if that is what they want."

"There are many who disagree with that proposition," Max said, "but now is not the time to debate the rights of authors versus the rights of potential readers."

"You are right, of course," he said to Max. "And my mistake for putting the word 'stole' into what I was telling you. The important message I wanted to convey – the only message, indeed – is that Edison has the
Chronica
, and is endeavoring to implement its information."

Sierra and Max were again silent.

"Neither of you seems surprised by that," Heron said, "and apparently neither of you wants to confirm it, or confirm what you might think is just speculation. But, I assure you, I know that Edison has it . . . . Is that what you want, do you want him and Henry Ford to build time travel vehicles, and make them as commonplace as you know Ford's motor vehicles soon will be?"

Again, there was no response.

"I know you took the
Chronica
, and have been seeking to get it published in some way, so the knowledge it contains would no longer be exclusively mine," Heron said. "I know that, and I know that such knowledge is no longer exclusive in any case, since you obviously have implemented some of it," he said to Sierra. "But I'm asking you: do you really want the price that is paid for the
Chronica
's knowledge no longer being mostly mine to be that everyone else in the world has it?"

Sierra thought about Joe Biden, about Max's parents, about the pain as well as the joy on his face in their room in 2062. She finally answered. "No, probably not."

***

The three said nothing for a long interval. Heron took a sip of his beer. Sierra looked at him, still amazed, disgusted, furious at herself for even sitting at the same table with this man.
 

Max broke the silence. "How would you propose we get the
Chronica
from Edison, if he now has it? Surely we'll never trust you enough to go on some trip with you back in time to stop Edison from getting it."

"True," Heron said.

"How did Edison get it?" Sierra asked, though she knew the answer all too well.

"William Henry Appleton," Heron replied.

And he's supposed to meet me here in less than two hours
, Sierra thought, not happy but horrified about the prospect now, with Heron here. But the last thing she wanted to do was postpone that meeting.

"You haven't answered my question about how you thought we could get the
Chronica
out of Edison's hands," Max told Heron. "Let's rule time travel out. What's left?"

"We arrange to take it from Edison the old-fashioned way: we have it stolen," Heron replied.
 

Sierra thought that time travel was pretty damned old-fashioned, or certainly old, if she and Alcibiades and Heron in the time of Socrates was any indication. But she responded, "you're saying, what? We launch some kind of commando raid? With your legionaries?" Sierra asked.

"Yes," Heron replied.

"We wouldn't feel comfortable – or safe – in their company," Max said, "since I assume we're being honest here."

"You wouldn't need to go on the actual raid," Heron said.

"Then why are you talking to us about it?" Sierra asked.

"Because I don't want you working against it, undermining it, as you have done or tried to do with so many other plans of mine," Heron replied.

Sierra smiled inside with satisfaction, and hoped it didn't show.

"You would be welcome to accompany my men if you like," Heron said. "That's entirely up to you."

"Will you be with them when they steal back the
Chronica
?" Max asked.

"No, I will not," Heron replied.

"And when would you expect to do this?" Max asked.

"I don't know, exactly," Heron replied. "Soon."

"Will you let us know beforehand?" Max asked.

"Yes, if you tell me you won't do anything to oppose this."

"We'll let you know," Sierra said and looked at Max. They stood. "We can leave a message for you with Mr. Bertram."

Heron stood, too. "Thank you. One other thing, if I may, as a token of my good will." He reached into a pocket and withdrew a locket, which he opened and gave to Sierra. "Please," he said, "accept this as an indication of my desire to end our enmity."

It was the locket that contained the miniature painting by Jean-Baptiste Régnault from 1785,
Socrates dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of S.
Sierra had worn it around her neck for years, but had lost it at some point in ancient Alexandria. "Where did you get this?" she demanded.

"From the android that, elected, to die in your stead as Hypatia," Heron replied, with just the slightest touch of sarcasm on the word 'elected'.

"The android that you elected to have hacked to death," Max said, anger again up to the surface.

"The death of Hypatia in that horrible manner was history's decision, not mine," Heron said.

"Where did the android get the locket?" Sierra asked.

"I honestly do not know," Heron replied. "She spent a lot of time with Synesius – perhaps he picked it up one of the times he was with you."

"I didn't sleep with Synesius, if that's what you're implying," Sierra said, anger as well as sadness in her voice now, too.

Max put his hand gently over Sierra's.

The locket was still in Heron's hand. "Please," he urged again, "take this. It's a peace offering. I apologize for offending you with what I just said. That was not my intention. It's just my nature."

Sierra was too upset to accept the locket.

But Max took the locket from Heron's hand, and, Sierra, emotions still churning, was glad and loved him all the more for doing it. She realized that the locket around her neck or in her possession from now on would enable Heron to confirm that she was Sierra and not an android with her face – if, for whatever reason, likely evil, Heron needed such confirmation. Heron was in effect offering her a dare with the locket – take the locket if you dare to give me the means to confirm your identity, for whatever my purposes. It was dare Sierra was willing to take.

***

Sierra and Max walked quickly down the stairs to the front door of the Millennium Club. No doorman was present. Max opened the door. It was raining even harder now than when they had arrived.

"So what do we do now?" Max asked.

Bertram approached them, from the inside of the Club.

"Where's Heron?" Max asked.

"He's in the lavatory, I believe," Bertram said. "But I have a message for you about something else. Mr. Appleton's man Geoffreys just called."

"Is William ok?" Sierra asked, very concerned.

"I assume so," Bertram replied. "But the rain is even worse north of the city, and the forecast promises more. Mr. Appleton did not want to risk going out in these inclement elements, given the poor state of his health. He wanted me to tell you how sorry he was, and hopes you can reschedule, perhaps as early as tomorrow."

Heron appeared behind Bertram, and nodded at all three. He opened the door, scowled at the pouring rain, and walked out into it.

"We have no grounds to have him arrested," Sierra said, quietly.

"Oh, we have ample grounds," Max replied, "just none that we could tell the police." He shook his head. "I don't like him leaving like this." He and Sierra peered down the street through the sheets of rain. They could see nothing except water.

"You could almost believe he has the power to turn on the rain," Sierra said. "But he has something almost as potent as that – the talent of taking advantage of whatever his environment has to offer."

***

Appleton was feeling ill again the next day, and too weak to travel. The same the day after.

Heron contacted Sierra through Bertram late on that second day, with news of his planned raid on Edison's facilities.

"How does Heron know exactly where Edison is keeping the
Chronica
?" Max asked.