Sighing, Spud, in Phoenician, asked the anxious man if he had heard of a Yeshua Bar Maryam. He clicked his tongue and raised his eyes and eyebrows, the local gesture for “no.” But, after Spud tried describing the young man’s likely appearance, the supervisor nodded, and pointed a dirty thumb at a sun-bronzed lithe youth and a wizened old man toiling in the hot sun several yards away, adding, “The Teacher. He is there.”
“Gratias,” I added in my lowest register, as Spud and I walked over to the two men. Close up, the young man looked familiar, though he was taller than he had been in the holo we’d viewed at Earth Core, and was now sporting a thin mustache and beard. On his knees, his forehead glistening with sweat in the still oppressive heat, he was carefully laying bricks alongside the gray-haired worker, who, perspiration streaming down his face, halted his own labors every few moments to check on the work of his apprentice. Spud and I naturally assumed that the elderly mason had to be “the Teacher,” and we greeted him by name, first in Phoenician, then Aramaic.
The old man chuckled, and, shook his head. “My knowledge is limited to bricks and stones,” he replied softly in Aramaic, as he nodded at the youth. “My young friend is the Teacher, he knows the word of God.”
The youth stood up, wiping the dirt from his hands onto his tunic. “Saul is too kind. I have still much to learn. And much to do. What seek you, gentlemen?”
“I am Akbar of Berytus, and this is my brother Danel. Yeshua Bar Maryam?”
The young man’s eyes widened and he instinctively pulled away. Spud leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Do not be afraid, we are here to protect you.” Observing that the gazes of all the site’s workers were now focusing on our foursome, and fearing that their intervention might prevent us from leaving with our quarry, Spud gently took Bar Maryam by the elbow and guided him away in the direction of the street, while announcing loudly, “Servus illicitusviii! You will come with us immediately and be brought before the magistrate!”
Hearing Spud’s words, the old man stood up to his full height, towering over Spud’s six feet. Saul grabbed the youth by the shoulders, breaking Spud’s hold on Yeshua’s arm, and tore him away. Glaring at us with flashing eyes, he cried in Aramaic, an invitation to his fellow masons, “Roman invaders! We are free men! You shall no more molest our people! We will fight you all!”
I nudged Spud, but he had already noticed that the rest of the bricklayers had risen from their posts and were inching closer to us. Somehow, I didn’t think their approaching us was simply due to friendliness or curiosity. Maybe we would have been better received as tradesmen after all.
As the circle of men now surrounding us grew tighter and tighter, Spud and I looked at each other in desperation. My left hand slid through the folds of my tunic and grabbed my Ergal, wrapping my fingers around the activator on its handle, and—
A cry to attack shook the air, and the men lunged at us. I shouted at Spud, “Vola!” and, to escape our hunters, we both faked a running start and leaped up high over the ring of men. I levved a few seconds at six feet, then dove down feet first to strike two masons unconscious. Spud, show-off that he is, did an arm-stand forward somersault pike and took out three more. One man came up behind me and tried to grab me in a half-nelson, but I threw him over my head and kneed him towards a newly-built brick ledge, which shattered and blanketed him as he slept. I was grateful for those months of practice in the sparring ring with Spud at Mingferplatoi. A few flying karate moves later, Spud and I had knocked out all the men save for our target and his elderly protector.
We were lucky that our out-of-the-way location prevented bystanders from witnessing our acrobatics; passers-by who might not only ask uncomfortable questions about our combat skills, but leap into the fray to help their unconscious brethren. Alone, the old man would be easy to handle now. We could simply stun him and cover him with an E-shieldix, blocking his movement and sensation, until we were ready to X-fan to more secure ground with our charge.
“Yeshua,” I ordered in Aramaic. “Please, listen to us. Move away from the elder, and you will be safe.”
“I am safe,” the youth said quietly. “Not even the blade Saul rests against my back can make me afraid.”
Blade?!!! My partner eased over to the side of the Teacher to scout out said weapon. As he spied it, Spud’s artificially bronzed face turned pasty white under the tanning effect. He looked over at me with alarm.
Puzzled, I too peeked behind Bar Maryam as the elder watched me with a self-satisfied smile. Oh my God!
The sharp point of the knife was only a centimeter long and extended from the barrel of a much longer, and much more dangerous, late-model Zygan stun gun.
“I should thank you for helping me with the, uh, competition,” the elder said in modern English, nodding at the supine men around us. “It would have drawn too much uncontrollable attention for me to … take care of Yeshua with an audience.”
“We’re an audience,” I cried angrily, before realizing the implications of his statement. I tried not to look chagrined … or alarmed.
“Hands up, please. You know the routine.” The old man slid his thumb over the trigger button of his gun.
Reluctantly, we raised our hands above our heads. If only I could reach my Ergal, we could X-fan—
“You move, you’re dead,” the elder instructed ominously.
Bzzt. The shot came from the stun gun. We turned and saw that the youth had been frozen in his standing position, his head bowed and his hands together in a gesture of prayer. The elder stepped away and moved into position for a clear shot at us. Now I looked alarmed. I knew the setting he was going to use this time was not going to be stun.
A loud crack came from my left. No, Spud! Don’t! The old man quickly turned in the direction of the noise and fired a red beam at the source of the sound. I heard the burning hiss of laser against flesh. My partner! My friend!
But, thank the heavens, it was not Spud who’d been hit. The shot had, however, given Spud the opportunity to leap up with his lip-splitting bartitsu kick and knock the weapon out of the elder’s hands. It discharged again, this time striking and completely dissolving a juniper bush with a loud sizzle. I jumped on Saul and got a lock on his neck. The elder began gasping; my persistent pressure on his windpipe and his carotid arteries was turning his leathery skin to blue. Spud quickly Ergaled himself a stun gun and stunned the elder just as he slipped through my arms and collapsed unconscious onto the ground.
We both turned to check on Yeshua. The youth remained erect, frozen in his position of prayer. Beyond him, we glimpsed the elderly Keeper we had run into outside the Temple of Eshmoun a few days before, picking up the remains of a shattered marble statue and appearing surprisingly unflustered. I noted that a corner of his tunic had been singed, but otherwise he seemed none the worse for wear.
“A thousand apologies, Akbar, Danel,” the Keeper said in Phoenician. Oblivious to the scattered bodies laying about the construction site, he calmly continued to put the broken pieces of the statue in a large sack. “Philosir the Priest will now not have his image of Shapash to grace his entrance, I fear, until next year’s harvest.”
The Keeper’s clear hazel eyes gazed intently into each of ours and then at the praying youth. Nodding at Yeshua, the Keeper picked up his sack with a sigh and threw it over his bent shoulders. “I shall have to commission Bodmelqart the Sculptor to make him yet another,” he added with a rueful smile as he trudged off the lot onto the footpath in front of the acreage.
Spud and I glanced at each other, totally taken aback. The Keeper seemed calm and oblivious to the unusual events that had occurred around him. How was that possible? “Thank you,” I finally essayed in my stumbling Phoenician towards the departing cleric. He did not turn back to look at us again, but, he did wave his free hand, from which a gold ring glistened in the sun.
Spud seemed equally puzzled by the Keeper’s behavior, though I’m sure he was as grateful as I was that we’d all c
ome out of the showdown alive. As we, both frowning, watched the Keeper disappear around the bend of the road, I remembered that Yeshua was still standing a few feet from us, frozen.
“Oh, God, we’d better unstun him,” I said to Spud. Spud nodded and pulled out his stun gun.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt,” I reassured him in Aramaic as Spud aimed and fired the wave that would unstun and unfreeze the youth. To our alarm, the young man didn’t move, but continued to stand immobile in his position of prayer.
“Yeshua!” I laid my hand gently on his shoulder.
The young man was mumbling barely audible syllables. “Adonay Elohim atah hachilota lehar'ot et-avdecha et-godlecha ve'et-yadecha hachazakah asher mi-El bashamayim uva'arets asher-ya'aseh chema'aseycha vechigvurotecha.”
“Yeshua, are you okay?” The language didn’t register as Aramaic in my Ergal. I looked over at Spud with concern.
“Deuteronomy 3:24. It’s from the Torah. In Hebrew,” Spud translated. “‘O God, Lord! You have begun to show me Your greatness and Your display of power. What Force is there in heaven or earth who can perform deeds and mighty acts as You do?’” Seeing my admiration, he added, “One obtains a broad classical education in British public schools …”
“You see, gentlemen, I have no fear.” The words from Yeshua were now in Aramaic once again. “Faith will ever vanquish fear. For we walk by faith, not by sight, and He is with us always.”
The young man ambled over and crouched down close to Saul, gently brushing a lock of unruly gray hair from the elder’s blood-, sweat-, and dirt-caked forehead. “Greater is He that is in you, than he who is in the world,” he whispered softly into his mentor’s ear. The youth then stood, and, after quickly gathering a few items from his work area into a makeshift cloth knapsack, dashed off towards the path to Tyre, following the footsteps recently lain by the Keeper.
I turned to Spud, “We’re just going to let him go?”
“Well, we’ve caught and stopped our Andart, and preserved the timeline. That was our assignment.” Spud gestured at the immobile elder. “Anyway, I rather think Yeshua’s got someone watching out for him, you know.”
I snorted. “Yeah, us.”
Spud’s gaze continued to follow Yeshua until he disappeared in the distance. I almost didn’t hear him return a “yeah.”
Chapter 4
Mission Accomplished?
Site wrap-up took over an hour. We had to check each of the bricklayers and made sure their injuries were not life-threatening, as well as repair as much of the damage to the property from our fight as possible. Our pedagogues at Mingferplatoi Academy had stressed this rule repeatedly: take great care when you’re on assignment in the past, because an unexpected or unnecessary death could disturb the timeline and wreak havoc with the future. Our future.
Grunting, I levved a large clay pot to a prominent position in the center of the work area in which we emptied our pockets of all our shekels in hopes of repaying the masons for their, uh, inconvenience. I observed that a few of the men were starting to regain consciousness, and I urged Spud to hurry. We wouldn’t want to have to fight Round Two.
Spud surveyed the scene quickly and agreed. “Appears acceptable. I think we are finished. Let us tractor our Andart back to Core for questioning. And then, well, I am rather keen to have a shower.”
I wiped the sweat off my forehead with a grin. Amen to that!
* * *
Zygan Intelligence Earth Core Station—present day
“Huzzah, huzzah!” Everett Weaver greeted us as we arrived at Earth Core with our prisoner.
“Ev, you are such a geek,” I groaned. “Got a holding suite ready?”
Everett, scowling, waved a hand as the altitudinous catascopes Dieter and Derek appeared silently beside us. “’Bill and Ted’ here’ll take care of him.”
The tight-lipped siblings grabbed the still-frozen elder by the armpits and carried him off to the holding cells, I mean, suites.
“Bill and Ted?” Spud asked, puzzled.
“Our two Doppelgangers in a Bizarro Universe”, I tried unsuccessfully to explain as I tugged a still-confused Spud by the elbow in the opposite direction. “Come on. Gary’s waiting for our report.”
Still decked in our Phoenician duds, we met Gary in his elegant office, and crashed in his plush leather chairs. Layers of dust flew off of us as we sat down, to Gary’s barely concealed dismay.
We briefed Gary on the events we’d experienced over the past few days, which, due to our having been in a time loop, had lasted only about half an hour in Earth Core time. A time loop is a great perk of time travel, by the way. Imagine you’re holding a long string, one end in each hand. If you bring your hands together, you have a loop hanging below them. When we’d journeyed back in time on assignment to Sidon, we’d started our journey at the end of the string in your left hand and traveled down and up the dangling loop to your right hand. Meanwhile, Gary and Ev, who’d remained in the present, simply crossed the short distance from the string end in your left hand over to the string end in your right hand. While we’d spent over two days in Phoenicia, the time that had passed in Earth Core was less than an hour after we’d originally left.
Ev had automatically uploaded our Ergal recordings of the events in Sidon when we arrived back at Core, so there wasn’t really much we could tell Gary that he didn’t already know. I so wish we could use Ergal logs to avoid all our boring meetings.
We did have a few unanswered questions, however. Who was the old man we had captured? One of Benedict’s Andarts, of course, but was he the only guerilla tasked with assassinating Yeshua? Was there a chance that Benedict had had more than one Andart, or attack, planned in Sidon? If so, Yeshua might still be in danger. I hated to bring up the suggestion, but perhaps we needed to go back to Sidon for a few more days to be sure that Yeshua was safe.
Gary held up his hand. “We’ll know more after we NIx Sutherland, your captive. That’s his real name, by the way. You might also be happy to learn that we’ve now got Yeshua Bar Maryam protected throughout his known lifetime with a temporal vector shield.”
My jaw dropped. Temporal vector shields, a Zygan defense barrier that prevents unauthorized access to a designated slice of time, were out of our league here in the boonies of our galaxy. Not even Quadrant Chiefs were authorized or trained to implement temporal vector shields, much less Chiefs of Zygint Field Stations like Gary on primitive planets like Earth.
“We’ve already discovered that Sutherland is one of Benedict’s top lieutenants,” Gary continued. “He should be able to provide Zygint with a wealth of information about Benedict’s plans.” Gary sat forward and looked directly at us. “That’s where you come in.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. From the expression on Spud’s face, I could see he was equally unenthusiastic.
Gary chose to ignore our discomfort. “Central has decided that Sutherland’s interrogation is best done at Headquarters,” he explained, “so, we’ll have him ready for you to transport to Zyga in half an hour.”
I rolled my eyes. Spud’s prediction had been right. In the end, we’d only have enough time to hit the showers.
* * *
My two-seater Zoom Starcruiser had been Ergal-expanded to create a sealed cell for one behind our cockpit. For our one Andart prisoner. We would be transporting Sutherland in that cell to Zygan Intelligence Central Headquarters in Zyga’s capital city of Mikkin, just a couple of miles from our old stomping grounds—literally—at Mingferplatoi Academy.
After a quick bath, I slipped back into my regular uniform of jeans and tank-top and met Spud at the Earth Core hangar. The trip to Zyga would take us about three hours, even on autopilot in hyperdrive, so Spud came prepared for the ride with a backpack full of yellowed papers printed in tiny fonts.
“You’ve got something against illustrations?” I couldn’t resist ribbing.
He returned my serve. “I no longer need them to be able
to read.”
Ouch.
Ward Burton was putting the finishing touches on the preparations for our transport. Through the aft viewscreens of our ship, we could spy Sutherland seated quietly in his solo prison behind us. Shorn of his facial hair, the erstwhile-Saul looked substantially younger than the wizened old man we’d captured in Sidon, but still appeared middle-aged (over 30). I expected to see daggers flying from Sutherland’s eyes aimed at us, but, surprisingly, the Andart kept looking down, almost immobile in the back-seat chamber, staring at his hands.
“He can’t see out,” Wart explained to us as we approached the vehicle.
“That’s probably all for the best,” I said, relieved. “He’s locked in there, right?”
“Tight as a drum,” Wart reassured me. “E-shield’s all around him.”
I nodded, then observed that the Sputnik dent on my fender had finally been repaired, and broke into a grin. “Thanks, Wart. I owe ya one.”
“Anytime.” He grinned back and gave us a combination wave and salute. “Good work, guys, and good luck!”
I waved back and eased into the left front seat behind nav controls. As soon as Spud had pulled down his gull-wing door, I ordered, “Engage.” The ship came to life, our holo-guides popping up to surround us just in front of the foreward viewscreen.
“Zyga” was all I needed to say, and the Zoom Cruiser invisible-ized, levved, and rotated to face the massive warehouse door that led to the decrepit alley where our Chidurian rat guards were standing watch. Wart had always waxed nostalgic about the days ships could just lev out of the roof of the warehouse, before Earth sent up GPS satellites. Now, though our ship was invisible and couldn’t be spotted by Earth’s primitive radar technology, the warehouse’s old hangar gate was clearly observable from the stratospheric cameras.
“Those satellites can see every time the door opens or closes,” Wart had explained. “We sure don’t need a Google Earth fan with too much time on his hands counting when and how often we launch, you know.” (I didn’t have the heart to break it to him about Street View.)