“Torquin, bring him to the tent. Now!” Bhegad snapped. “Summon every doctor we have.”
Marco frowned, drawing himself up to full height with a cocky smile. “Hey, don’t get your knickers in a twist, P. Beg. I’m good.”
But he didn’t look good. His color was way off. I glanced at Aly, but she was intent on her watch. “Um, guys? What time is it? And what day?”
Fiddle gave her a curious look, then checked his watch. “Ten-forty-two A.M. Saturday.”
“My watch says six thirty-nine, Thursday,” Aly said.
“We fix,” Torquin said. “Busted watches a KI specialty.”
“It’s still working, and it’s waterproof,” Aly said. “Look, the second hand is moving. We left at 6:02, our time here in Iraq, and we were back by 6:29. Exactly twenty-seven minutes by my watch. But here—actually in this place—almost two days passed for you!”
“One day and sixteen hours, and forty minutes,” Cass said. “Well, maybe sixteen and a half, if you count discussion time before we actually dove.”
“Aly, this does not make sense,” I said.
“And anything else about this adventure does?” Aly’s face was pale, her eyes focused on Professor Bhegad.
But the professor was rolling forward, intent on Marco. “Did no one hear me?” he said. “Bring that child to the tent, Torquin—now!”
Marco waved Torquin away. But he was staggering backward. His smile abruptly dropped.
And then, so did his body.
As we watched in horror, Marco thumped to the sand, writhing in agony.
CHAPTER NINE
A QUESTION OF TIME
“IF YOU SAY, ‘It’s alive,’ I will pound you,” Marco said.
His eyes flickered. Professor Bhegad exhaled with relief. Behind him, Fiddle let out a whoop of joy. “You are a strong boy,” Bhegad said. “I wasn’t sure the treatment would take.”
“I didn’t think I needed treatments,” Marco replied. A rueful smile creased his face as he looked up at Aly, Cass, and me. “So much for Marco the Immortal.”
Cass leaned down and gave him a hug. “Brother M, we like you just the way you are.”
“Sounds like a song,” said Nirvana, who was clutching Fiddle’s and Torquin’s arms.
I glanced at Aly and noticed she was tearing up. I sidled close to her. I kind of wanted to put my arm around her, but I wasn’t sure if that would be too weird. She gave me a look, frowned, and angled away. “My eyes . . .” she said. “Must have gotten some sand in them. . . .”
“Aly was telling me about your adventure,” Bhegad said to Marco. “The Loculus seeming to call from the river . . . the weather change . . . the city on the other side. It sounds like one of your dreams.”
“Dreams don’t change the passage of time, Professor Bhegad,” Aly said.
“It was real, dude,” Marco said. “Like some overgrown Disney set. This big old city with dirt roads and no cars and people dressed in togas, and some big old pointy buildings.”
Fiddle nodded. “Hm. Ziggurats . . .”
“Nope,” Marco said. “No smoking.”
“Not cigarettes, ziggurats—tiered structures, places of worship.” Bhegad scratched his head, suddenly deep in thought. “And the rest of you—you all confirm Marco’s observation?”
Nirvana threw up her arms. “When Aly talks about it, you assume it’s a dream. But when Marco says it, you take it seriously. A little gender bias, maybe?”
“My apologies, old habits learned at Yale,” Bhegad said. “I take all of you seriously. Even though you do seem to be talking about a trip into the past—which couldn’t be, pardon the expression, anything more than a fairy tale.”
“So let’s apply some science.” Aly sank to the ground and began making calculations in the sand with her finger. “Okay. Twenty-seven minutes there, about a day and sixteen-and-a-half hours here. That’s this many hours . . .”
“Twenty-seven minutes there equals forty-and-a-half hours here?” I asked.
“How many minutes would that be?” she said. “Sixty minutes in an hour, so multiply by sixty . . .”
Aly’s fingers were flying. “So twenty-seven minutes passed while we were there. But twenty-four-hundred thirty minutes passed here. What’s the ratio?”
“Ninety!” Aly’s eyes were blazing. “It means we went to a place where time travels ninety times slower than it does here.”
Fiddle looked impressed. “You go, girl.”
“Whaaat? That’s impossible!” Cass shook his head in disbelief, then glanced at Professor Bhegad uncertainly. “Isn’t it?”
I desperately tried to remember something weird I once learned. “In science class . . . when I wasn’t sleeping . . . my teacher was talking about this famous theory. She said to imagine you were in a speeding train made of glass, and you threw a ball up three feet and then caught it. To you, the ball’s going up and down three feet. But to someone outside the train, looking through those glass walls . . .”
“The ball moves in the direction of the train, so it travels many more than three feet—not just up and down, but forward,” Professor Bhegad said. “Yes, yes, this is the theory of special relativity . . .”
“She said time could be like that,” I went on. “So, like, if you were in a spaceship, and you went really fast, close to the speed of light, you’d come back and everyone on earth would be a lot older. Because, to them, time is like that ball. It goes faster when it’s just up and down instead of all stretched out.”
“So you’re thinking you guys were like the spaceship?” Nirvana said. “And that place we found—it’s like some parallel world going slower, alongside our world?”
“But if we both exist at the same time, why aren’t we seeing them?” Marco said. “They should be on the other side of the river, only moving really slow a-a-a-a-a-n-n-n-d speeeeeeeeaki-i-i-i-i-ing l-i-i-i-ke thi-i-i-i-s . . .”
“We have five senses and that’s all,” Aly said. “We can see, hear, touch, smell, taste. Maybe when you bend time like that, the rules are different. You can’t experience the other world, at least with regular old physical senses.”
“But you—you all managed to traverse the two worlds,” Bhegad said, “by means of some—”
“Portal,” Fiddle piped up.
“It looked like a tire,” Marco said. “Only nicer. With cool caps.”
Bhegad let out a shriek. “Oh! This is extraordinary. Revolutionary. I must think about this. I’ve been postulating the existence of wormholes all my life.”
Torquin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Pustulate not necessary. See wormholes every day!”
“A wormhole in time,” Bhegad said. “It’s where time and space fold in on themselves. So the normal rules don’t apply. The question is, what rules do apply? These children may very well have traveled cross-dimensionally. They saw a world that occupies this space, this same part of the earth where we now stand. How does one do this? The only way is by traveling through some dimensional flux point. In other words, one needs to find a disruption in the forces of gravity, magnetism, light, atomic attraction.”
“Like the portal in Mount Onyx,” I said, “where the griffin came through.”
“Exactly,” Professor Bhegad said. “Do you realize what you were playing with? What dangers you risked? According to the laws of physics, your bodies could have been turned inside out . . . vaporized!”
I shrugged. “Well, I’m feeling pretty good.”
“You told me you could feel the Loculus, Jack,” Bhegad said. “The way you felt the Heptakiklos in the volcano.”
“I felt it, too,” Marco said. “We’re Select, yo. We get all wiggy when we’re near this stuff. It’s a G7W thing.”
“Which means, unfortunately, you will have to return . . .” Bhegad stated, his voice drifting off as he sank into thought.
“Yeah, and this time without the twenty-first-century clothes, which make us stick out,” Marco said. “I say we hit the nearest costume shop, buy s
ome stylish togas, and go back for the prize.”
“Not togas,” Aly said. “Tunics.”
Professor Bhegad shook his head. “Absolutely not. This is not to be rushed into. We must return to our original plan, to finish your training. Recent events—the vromaski, the griffin—they forced our hand. Made us rush. They thrust you into an adventure for which you were not adequately prepared . . .”
“Old school . . . old school . . .” Marco chanted.
“Call it what you wish, but I call it prudent,” Professor Bhegad shot back. “Everything you’ve done—Loculus flying, wormhole traveling—is unprecedented in human history. We need to study the flight Loculus. Consult our top scientists about further wormhole visits. Assess risk. If and when you go back through the portal, we must have a plan—safety protocols, contingencies, strategies, precise timing to your treatment schedule. Now, turn me around so we can get started.”
Fiddle threw us a shrug and then began turning the old man back toward the tents.
“Yo, P. Beg—wait!” Marco said.
Professor Bhegad stopped and looked over his shoulder. “And that’s another thing, my boy—it’s Professor Bhegad. Sorry, but you will not be calling the shots anymore. From here on, you are on a tight leash.”
“Um, about that flight Loculus?” Marco said. “Sorry, but you can’t study it.”
Professor Bhegad narrowed his eyes. “You said you hid it, right?”
“Uh, yeah, but—” Marco began.
“Then retrieve it!” Bhegad snapped.
Marco rubbed the back of his neck, looking out toward the water. “The thing is—I hid it . . . there.”
“In the water?” Nirvana asked.
“No,” Marco replied. “Over in the other place.”
Bhegad slumped. “Well, this makes the job a bit more complicated, doesn’t it? I suppose you do have to go sooner rather than later. Prepared or not. Perhaps I will have to send the able-bodied Fiddle along to help you.”
“Or Torquin,” Torquin grunted indignantly, “who is able-bodied . . . er.”
Fiddle groaned. “This is not in my job description. Or Tork’s. We were told one Loculus in each of the Seven Wonders. Not in some fantasy time warp—in the real world.”
“The second Loculus, dear Fiddle,” Bhegad said, “is indeed in one of the Wonders.”
“Right—so we should be digging, not spinning sci-fi stories,” Fiddle said. “You see those ruins down the river—that’s where the Hanging Gardens were!”
“But our Select have gone to where the Hanging Gardens are.” Bhegad gestured toward the water, his eyes shining. “I believe they have found the ancient city of Babylon.”
CHAPTER TEN
ARABIC OR ARAMAIC?
“LEATHER BACKPACKS WITH hidden compartments?” Professor Bhegad asked, reading off a list of supplies. “Leather sandals?”
“Check,” said Nirvana. “Soaked in the river and dried out, for that ancient worn-in look. And you have no idea how hard it was to find size thirteen double E, for Mr. Hoopster.”
“Sorry,” Marco said sheepishly. “Big feet mean a big heart.”
“Oh, please,” Fiddle said with a groan.
“Tunics?” Bhegad pressed onward. “Hair dye to cover up the lambdas? Can’t let the Babylonians see them, you know. Their time frame is close to the time of the destruction of Atlantis, almost three millennia ago. The symbol might mean something to them.”
“Do a pirouette, guys,” Nirvana said.
We turned slowly, showing Bhegad the dye job Nirvana had done to the backs of our heads. “It was a little hard to match the colors,” Nirvana said. “Especially with Jack. There’s all this red streaked in with the mousy brown, and I had to—”
“If I need further information, I’ll ask!” Bhegad snapped.
“Well, excuuuuuse me for talking.” Nirvana folded her arms and plopped down on the floor of the tent, not far from where I was studying.
We were feverishly trying to learn as much as we could about Babylon and the Hanging Gardens. Professor Bhegad had been tense and demanding over the last couple of days. “Ramsay!” he barked. “Why were the Gardens built?”
“Uh . . . I know this . . . because the king dude wanted to make his wife happy,” Marco said. “She was from a place with mountains and stuff. So the king was like, ‘Hey babe, I’ll build you a whole mountain right here in the desert, with flowers and cool plants.’”
“Williams!” Bhegad barked. “Tell me the name of the, er, king dude—as you so piquantly call it—who built the Hanging Gardens. Also, the name of the last king of Babylon.”
“Um . . .” Cass said, sweat pouring down his forehead. “Uh . . .”
“Nebuchadnezzar the Second and Nabonidus!” Bhegad closed his eyes and removed his glasses, slowly massaging his forehead with his free hand. “This is hopeless . . .”
Cass shook his head. He looked like he was about to cry. “I should have known that. I’m losing it.”
“You’re not losing it, Cass,” I said.
“I am,” he replied. “Seriously. Something is wrong with me. Maybe my gene is mutating. This could really mess all of us up—”
“I will give you a chance to redeem yourself, Williams,” Bhegad said. “Give me the names the Babylonians actually called Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. Come now, dig deep!”
Cass spun around. “What? I didn’t hear that—”
“Nabu-Kudurri-Usur and Nabu-na’id!” Bhegad said. “Don’t forget that! How about Nabu-na’id’s evil son? Marco, you take a turn!”
“Nabonudist Junior?” Marco said.
“Belshazzar!” Bhegad cried out in frustration. “Or Bel-Sharu-Usur! Hasn’t anyone been paying attention?”
“Give us a break, Professor, these are hard to remember!” Aly protested.
“You need to know these people cold—what if you meet them?” Bhegad said. “Black—what was the main language spoken?”
“Arabic?” Aly said.
Bhegad wiped his forehead. “Aramaic—Aramaic! Along with many other languages. Many nationalities lived in Babylon, each with a different language—Anatolians, Egyptians, Greeks, Judaeans, Persians, Syrians. The great central temple of Etemenanki was also known as the . . . ?”
“Tower of Lebab—aka Babel!” Cass blurted out. “Which is where we get the term babble! Because people gathered around it and talked and prayed a lot.”
“Cass will fit right in,” Marco said, “speaking Backwardish.”
Bhegad tapped the table impatiently. “Next I quiz you on the numerical system.” He plopped down a sheet of paper with all kinds of gobbledygook scribbled on it:
“Memorize these numbers,” Bhegad said. “Remember, our columns are ones, tens, hundreds, et cetera. Theirs were one, sixty, thirty-six hundred, et cetera.”
“Can you go slowly,” Marco said. “Like we have normal intelligence?”
“Those, my boy,” Bhegad said, pronouncing each word exaggeratedly, “may perhaps resemble bird prints to you, but they’re numbers. Start from that fact . . . and read! We will have a moment of silence while you attempt to learn. And I attempt to settle my roiling stomach.”
As Fiddle pulled him back toward a table where his medicines were set up, I slid down to the ground with a book in hand, next to a pouting Nirvana. “Dang, what did he eat for breakfast?” she mumbled.
“He’s just worried, that’s all,” I said. “About us being in a wormhole.”
Across the tent, Cass and Aly huddled over a tablet, studying research documents the professor had downloaded—histories, ancient–language study manuals, reports on social behavior norms. “Okay, so the upper class dudes were awilum,” Cass was saying, “the lower class was mushkenum, and the slaves were . . .”
“Wardum,” Aly replied. “Like wards of the state. You can remember it that way.”
“Mud-raw backward,” Cass said. “That’s easier.”
“What? Mud-raw?” Marco slapped the table. “This is ridicul
ous. Yo, P. Beg, this isn’t Princeton. We can’t learn the entire history of Babylon in two days. We’re not going there to live. Let’s just pop over and bring this thing back.”
I thought Professor Bhegad would freak. For a moment his face went beet red. Then he sighed, removing his glasses and wiping his forehead. “You know, in the Mahabharata, the Hindus wrote of a king who made a rather quick journey to heaven. When he returned the world had aged many years, people were feeble and small. Their brains had rotted away.”
“So wait, we’re like that king?” Marco said. “And you’re the world?”
“It’s a metaphor,” Bhegad said.
“I never metaphor I didn’t like,” Marco said, “but dude, your brain won’t rot away. It’s preserved in awesome.”
“I may be dead by the time you return. I am concerned about the passage of time. And I do have a plan.” Bhegad looked each of us in the eye, one by one. “I am giving you forty-eight hours. That will be six months for us. We will continue to maintain a camp here and wait patiently for the five of you. If you are as marvelous as we think you are, that will be enough time to find both Loculi. When the time is up, no matter what happens, you will return. If you need another voyage, we will plan it then. Understood?”
“Wait—you said the five of us,” I said warily. “Fiddle is coming?”
“No, you need protection, first and foremost,” Professor Bhegad looked at Torquin. “Don’t lose them this time, my barefooted friend. And keep yourself out of jail.”
“Step . . . step . . . step . . . step . . .”
Torquin called out marching orders like a drill sergeant. He had tied us together at the waist with long lengths of rope, which dragged on the sand between us as we walked. We were lined up left to right—Marco, Aly, Torquin, Cass, and me.
“Is this necessary?” Aly asked as we reached water’s edge.
“Safety,” Torquin said. “I lose you, I lose job.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Professor Bhegad, Nirvana, and Fiddle were waiting and watching, near a big, domed tent.