Unburning Alexandria by Paul Levinson Page A

straight ahead–
    She put her hand on the Nubian to stop him. The door was wide open. She could see Heron inside. As far as she could tell, Heron could not see her. What was he doing here?
    Had Jonah lied to her all those years ago about Heron's leaving? Had Jonah simply been mistaken? Or was this a later Heron, who had doubled or tripled or whatever back here?
    That was the most likely explanation, but–
    She started to slowly back off. No–
    She shook her head and her caution off and walked quickly to Heron's open doorway. The Nubian was right behind her. She could not back away from this now. She and the Nubian entered.
    Heron rose. "I've been expecting you–"
    "Sit down," Sierra ordered. The Nubian enforced this with a heavy hand on the inventor's shoulder.
    "You needn't be concerned," Heron said, with some irritation. "None of my men are here."
    "I know," Sierra said.
    "You came here to save some of the texts," Heron said.
    "Yes, but I realize there is no point in my trying to save anything with you at large."
    Heron smiled. "You wish to make me your prisoner?"
    "There is probably no point in my doing that, either."
    "Then. . . ." Heron's bushy brows knitted, and he laughed. "You wouldn't kill me – I still have a near infinity of information that you need. Such as how to fully control the chairs."
    "True," Sierra replied. "But I can get that kind of information from your younger self, any time.
    Heron tried to rise. The Nubian kept him down. "You're not a killer," Heron said.
    "You weren't supposed to be here," Sierra said.
    "You won't kill me – you can't be sure that I'm not an earlier Heron than you suppose, whose future self has already interacted with you in some significant way, and you won't risk killing me and thereby unraveling your own past–"
    "I'm willing to risk it." Sierra nodded to the Nubian, who put his knife under Heron's neck.
    "I can show you something, right now," Heron rasped.
    Sierra considered. She looked at the Nubian. "Kill–"
    "I can show you something that will be useful, essential, to exactly what you want to do, right now. As you must know by now, the process of traveling through time to the future strips the very electrons from your recording devices and renders them useless. You'll get no texts to the future that way. But I can show you a different way to save them."
    "I gave Alcibiades a dictionary from the future, and the electrons worked just fine in that," Sierra responded.
    "Yes, but that was then, and this is now, and travel to the past is not the same as travel to the future, which exacts a far greater toll on electrons."
    "Are you saying you changed the settings in the chairs to prevent transport of recorders from here to the future?" Sierra put her hand on the Nubian's wrist. "I'll take this knife from the Nubian and slit your throat myself."
    Heron was not smiling. "I am saying you need me, alive, with what I know now, at this instant, to show you how to save the scrolls."

 
    Chapter Four
    [Carthage, 413 AD]
    "Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolemais." Augustine's man, the Nubian, spoke the introduction in his rich, mellifluous voice.
    Augustine looked up from his scroll and nodded. "You look more weary than ever – please sit," he said to Synesius, and motioned the Nubian to leave.
    Synesius sat and produced his own scroll. "I could have warned Marcellinus."
    "You discovered something about Maricus's treachery in Alexandria?" Augustine shook his head. "Too late – Marcellinus and his brother were already under arrest."
    Now Synesius shook his head. "I discovered something in this scroll. . . ." Synesius gave the scroll to Augustine. "Your friend Jonah gave this to me, and asked me not to read it until this morning."
    Augustine opened the scroll and sniffed it. Then he read it. "This clearly was not written today," he said, without looking up. "It smells at least months old." Then he looked at Synesius. "There was nothing you could have done today. Only an act of God