“No. I don’t particularly like people who are willing to murder other people on their own side in the name of some higher cause.”
The Brit’s eyes flicked from side to side, seeking some advantage.
I heard more shouts outside. It sounded like someone making demands and someone else answering, though I couldn’t make out the words.
Pam groaned and raised her head, and my eyes and attention focused on her anxiously.
The Brit sprang. He barreled into me full force, grabbing for the detonator. I went backwards, his hand hit my wrist, and I lost my grip. The detonator flew backwards into the open front of the iron Franklin stove, hit the back wall of it, and did what detonators do when subjected to a shock like that.
The explosion wasn’t very big, but the stove magnified the sound. The Brit stumbled to a halt and stared at the stove. “What have you done?” he shrieked.
“Saved some of your countrymen.” The explosive vest completely covered his torso, so I stuck my finger against his neck and pumped the tranq crystal into him. He stiffened, then dropped limply. Tempted as I was to let him slam full force onto the floor, I have a policy of not letting high explosives slam into things if I can help it, so I caught the Brit and lowered him to the floor, vaguely aware of the sounds of more explosions echoing outside.
That’s when I spotted Pam again. She’d gotten to her feet against one wall, her eyes on me and her expression shocked. “What did you do?” she gasped.
“Why is everybody asking me that?” The explosions somewhere outside were rising in crescendo. “What happened?”
Pam looked from me to the stove. “You’re hearing the Colonial militia and the British regulars exchanging fire on Lexington Green. The American Revolutionary War has started.”
No wonder she was upset. “And because of this guy you weren’t able to deploy your gear to help find who fired that first shot.”
Pam gave me a look like she doubted my sanity. “Are you kidding? You haven’t figured it out? You fired the first shot. You’re the shooter.”
“That’s ridiculous. I –“ It hit me then, and I pivoted to look at the stove. The detonator had exploded inside it. The metal box had magnified the sound, much of which had vented into this room, but plenty had gone up the metal tube that formed the chimney. Metal tube. Explosion at one end. The noise on the other end would sound like a gun shot. “I don’t even carry a gun and I’m the shooter.”
Pam shook her head in wonder. “No wonder no one could localize the shot to any possible location! The noise vented upward through the chimney and got deflected to all sides by the rain baffle on top! And no one could identify the weapon because it was an anachronistic detonator ‘fired’ through a chimney ‘barrel.’ But why did you do it?”
“What do you mean why did I do it?” I demanded. “The Brit here was about to kill you. I had to stop that which meant I had to stop him.”
“You started a war to save me?” Pam didn’t seem certain how she should feel about that. “Tom, that’s so very gallant. Also so very stupid, but gallant.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Pam came away from the wall, rubbing her forehead and grimacing. “So the shot that started the American Revolution was an accidental explosion caused because a time traveler here and now to document the American Revolution was trying to rescue another time traveler, who was here and now to find out who fired the shot, from a third time traveler who was here and now to change the events of the day but in the process made them happen the way they historically did. This is the sort of thing that makes people really upset with TIs, you know.”
“It’s not my fault causality is circular through time,” I grumbled, retrieving the Brit’s Dazer. “If I caused the shot, how come nobody discovered me doing it before this?”
“Because even though you did it you hadn’t done it yet!”
“And I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been following you!”
Pam stared at me again. “Which you wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t come here and now to see you.”
I was getting dizzy. “Which you wouldn’t have done if we weren’t going to meet in London about a hundred and thirty years from now. Which wouldn’t have happened unless other people had tried to alter the outcome of a war which was decided by the future United States. I’ve always known how complex it all is, time filled with countless causality wheels interacting and blending and interfering, but where the hell did this one start?”
“There isn’t any beginning and there isn’t any end. You know that. So did the ancients. That’s why the symbol for infinity grew out of the worm Ouroboros swallowing its own tail.” Pam sighed. “But my job here is a success. I’ve learned where the shot came from and why.”
“But no one knew that before you came here. Why don’t I tell anyone? Aside from embarrassment, I mean.”
Pam smiled. “I guess you’re not in your home now to tell anyone.”
“Why wouldn’t -? Oh. I guess this means I have to emigrate to your now.”
Her smile went away and her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Have to? Is that how you see it?”
From the way Pam was looking at me, if I didn’t think fast the first day of the American Revolution might see another casualty. I raised my hand to my head and feigned confusion. “Did I say something that didn’t make sense? That guy hit me pretty hard and I’m still really rattled –“
“Your Assistant told my Assistant that you’re fine. No concussion.”
Traitor, I told Jeannie. “It’s probably something she can’t detect. I’m sure the medical tech in your now can handle it. I’m really happy to be going there to be with you. Did I mention that?”
“Uh huh. Sure.”
“Hey, I started a war because I love you! Doesn’t that count?”
“Next time just give me chocolate,” Pam advised. “What do we do with this guy? Send him home?”
“We can’t. He’s shut down his jump mechanism.”
“Yeah, we can,” Pam announced. “Annie can transmit enough power to reactivate his power source, then his own power source can trigger his jump mech. Once Jeannie gets her upgrade in my now she’ll be able to do that, too. I’ll have Annie reset his jump so he comes out fifty years uptime from his home now. He’ll have a real hard time explaining his presence there and trying to get back to his home now.” Pam held still for a moment, then the Brit’s body popped out of existence. “What was that he was wearing?”
“Explosive vest.”
“Ugh. One of them. He’s going to get a real unpleasant reception when I sent him.” Pam looked toward the outside, alarm showing. “There’s TIs all over the place out there and some of them are getting closer. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Will you be there too?” I asked.
“Dodge City? Yeah, 1878.”
“I’ll be there in 1879!”
“Late! Just like a man. Now let’s jump back to our own home nows before someone else we don’t want to meet catches us here!”
But I waited until Pam vanished, then triggered my own jump.
#
Which is how I found myself filling out the forms for emigration uptime, accompanied by the sponsor’s affidavit from Pam, and saying goodbye to everyone I knew in what would soon be my former home now. The guys I knew all told me I was nuts to be leaving my home now for a girl, and the girls I knew all cried and told me what a great guy I was. They all chipped in a little to help pay for the jump in lieu of presents for a wedding that wouldn’t happen for another century.
I didn’t tell anyone I started the American Revolution by accident. That secret is safe for another century.
Author's Note on Joan
The well-known and extremely-talented author Greg Bear challenged me to write a story about Joan of Arc. I thought I had a good grasp of who she was and what she had done, but was amazed to learn how remarkable a person she was. If the historical record were not so complete and detailed it would be
tempting to dismiss Joan as fictional given her accomplishments. But the Joan most of us know from popular presentations has little to do with reality (the Joan of movies always seems to be prone to religious hysteria and fits, something never seen in the real Joan). This is a story about a woman trying to save the Joan she thought was real, only to learn that the actual Joan was more than she had ever realized.
Joan
Kate paused on her way out of her apartment to adjust one of the pictures adorning one wall. Every picture on that wall had the same subject, a young woman either riding or fighting in Medieval armor, or in Medieval men’s clothing facing hostile questioners, and in one heartbreaking depiction tied to a stake in the middle of a town while flames rose around her.
Her friend Cylene turned a long-suffering look on Kate. “Have you ever thought that maybe you take the Joan of Arc thing a little too far?”
“That depends on your definition of ‘too far.’”
“Learning French.”
“Lots of people learn French. It’s an important language.”
“Buying every picture and book about Joan of Arc that you can find.”
“She was an important historical figure,” Kate argued.
“Joining the Society for Creative Anachronism, buying an entire set of authentic Medieval-type armor and a sword and devoting plenty of hours to fighting other SCA-type people.”
“It’s fun, and it helps you understand history better, and SCA-type people are very interesting.”
Cylene shook her head. “How many of them mention at least once a week how much they love Joan of Arc and how they wish they could somehow save her from being burned at the stake?”
Kate frowned at the floor. “I don’t . . . love her that way.”
“Right. If you were still in junior high school instead of graduate school you’d spend all of your class time practicing writing ‘Kate of Arc’ in your notebook. Look, I’m not as up on history as you are, but I’m pretty sure that Joan of Arc didn’t have a lesbian bone in her body.”
“You can’t be certain of that.”
“Oh, Kate.” Cylene’s expression turned pleading. “You should be living your life today, with . . . people today.”
“Like you?” Cylene blushed slightly at Kate’s blunt question. “I’m sorry. You’re really great, Cy, but I guess I just wish . . . ”
“It was six hundred years ago, Kate!”
“A little more than that, but, yes,” Kate answered in a low voice. “I realize I may seem a little obsessive, but is it so wrong to wish I could have saved her from being burned? She was such a remarkable person and it was such a horrible fate.”
“Yes, it was.” Cylene sighed. “I guess I’ll have to stay the other woman in your life.”
#
The first thing a graduate student learned was that being a grad student consisted of nine parts drudgery to one part learning. Kate and two other grad students were drudging away evaluating under-graduate papers when Professor Barandila poked his head into the room they were using. “Kate, I need some assistance in my lab. Are you available?”
Kate perked up, aware of the other students casting envious glances at her. Prof Barandila’s lab was off-limits, leading to constant speculation about what he was working on. Now Kate would be in a position to find out. “Can you guys handle the rest of these?” she asked her fellow grad students.
They nodded with different degrees of resignation and Kate followed as Barandila shuffled to his lab with a defeated air. “I need the lab papers collected and archived. It has to be completed this week. Don’t worry about the equipment. That will be dismantled later.”
“Oh.” Kate looked from the professor to the massive gleaming hollow cube formed of wires and tubing. “It didn’t work?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows.” Barandila walked over to the equipment and gazed at it morosely. “There’s no sense in not telling somebody now. This should be a working time travel device, something capable of placing a human being in the past and then recovering that person.”
“Isn’t that impossible?”
“Anything is impossible if you don’t do it right!” Barandila pointed to his device. “Time doesn’t even exist if you do the equations properly. The problem was in repositioning someone to a different place, a place they couldn’t be in. Have you heard of tunneling? Yes? A particle goes from one place to another place it cannot go, yet it does? That’s very simplified, but that’s the principle this device uses. It doesn’t actually move something through time, it just establishes conditions under which that object is actually in another time.”
“But, it doesn’t work?” Kate asked again.
“It seems to work.” His burst of energy gone, Barandila slumped against a desk. “But we can’t use a human test subject unless we know it’s safe. Rules and regulations. Animals aren’t even permitted unless it’s proven safe for robots first. We tried using robots, then just cameras and sound recorders. They were all disabled, none of them brought back samples. Something about the travel device wipes everything on any recording device we’ve tried. It’s just blank. The return device seems to work, but is it really returning them? Are they really going anywhere? The return is the instant after they left. It has to be, so there’s no proof anything went anywhere, no proof it is safe, and without that proof we can do nothing.”
“Why not just send something back in time a couple of hours? A note or something?”
Barandila mustered a smile at the suggestion. “Good thinking. We tried that. Nothing happened. It may be a problem with trying to make an object simultaneously exist twice, which is what would happen if we sent something back a short time, and there are no conditions we can establish in which an object or living thing simultaneously exists twice. As far as we can tell the universe will not accept that.” He shrugged. “One more thing that didn’t work. So the machine will be taken apart next Monday.”
“Next Monday?” That left six days. Kate couldn’t take her eyes off of the device, a wonderful and frightening idea coming to her. “Professor, since they’re taking it apart soon, would you mind showing me how it works?”
#
It felt ridiculous sneaking into the university lab complex after midnight with her armor. Being caught with a weapon on campus, even a sword, would get her into major trouble. But Kate kept on going, wondering if she really was far too obsessive for her own good.
But then she thought of Joan. Thought of her tied to the stake as the flames rose.
Kate kept on going.
She put on her armor, trying to imagine any possible cover story if she got caught by campus security. The contents of the bag tied to her waist were illegal on or off campus, but she needed what was in there even though the cost had made her cringe. Kate had to leave her gauntlets off to set the controls, specifying the date, time and location as precisely as she could, making sure the return device was firmly attached to her wrist.
Taking up position on the platform which Professor Barandila had indicated, Kate closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then winced in shock as sunlight flared around her.
#
Rouen in May, 1431 AD was crowded, dirty and overrun with English merchants, knights and other soldiers. The city had been controlled by England for more than a decade, so the invaders carried themselves with easy familiarity. Kate, hidden behind her armor, had to talk her way past guards at the city gate who laughed at what seemed to be the spectacle of a knight who was walking because ‘he’ couldn’t afford a horse.
She had an idea for getting a horse, though.
It wasn’t too hard to find where Joan’s public appearance was going to take place. Many people were heading that way, speculating about the Maid, wondering if the devil or God’s angels would appear to save her.
Two elevated platforms had been set up, a small one for Joan and her guards, and a larger one for the inquisitors. The crowd around the platforms seemed a solid mass, but on the outskirts squires s
tood holding the horses of their masters. Kate walked confidently toward the squires, ignoring their speculative looks.
She stopped in front of two horses which looked very promising, massive war steeds resembling the Belgian draft horses of her own time. The two squires holding them looked at each other nervously, then Kate couched her voice in what she hoped sounded like a man’s tones through her helmet, also hoping that the old English phrases she had wheedled out of a fellow grad student and hastily memorized were accurate enough to be understood. “Your masters need their horses to accompany the Earl of Warwick. Come along.”
The armor concealed her nervousness as Kate turned with the casual arrogance she had seen in alpha girls on campus, and began heading toward the platform where Joan was already being subjected to public trial, humiliation and intimidation under threat of immediate death by burning. Kate could hear the squires leading the horses behind her as Kate shouldered her way through the crowd, making free use of her armor to plow ahead. The citizens of Rouen and English spectators gave way reluctantly and angrily, but in the manner of people everywhere didn’t question someone else who seemed to know what they were doing. Eventually Kate reached a point near the platform holding the Maid of Orleans.
Joan looked awful, weak from illness and maltreatment, worn down by the constant harassment of her inquisitors. In a little while, Kate knew, after holding out against physical and mental torment for a year she would finally bend enough under threat of being burned alive to sign a recantation even though Joan didn’t know what the recantation actually said. A few days later Joan would be declared in violation of recantation, tied to the stake and burned to death.
That had happened, but none of it would happen, if Kate could help it.
Kate faced the squires again, who were looking around for their masters in puzzlement. “I’m to ride one of the horses and lead the other.” She moved to mount the horse which seemed steadier.
“But, sir -!” the squire holding that horse protested as Kate barely managed to hoist herself and the weight of her armor into the saddle.