Time Travel Omnibus, page 1030
When his breathing had eased, he bent down to pat Grady.
Something in his shirt pocket crackled. The mail he’d picked up before his dash up the stairs, he guessed. He pulled out a letter, addressed to him with way too much postage stuck in the corner.
He opened it and pulled out a single sheet of paper so thick and fine that it felt like something from another time. The logo on it was for something called Timeshares Travel Agency. He’d never heard of it.
The note was written in a neat script.
Rick,
If I’m successful, I don’t think this note will make any sense to you.
But if you read it in time, please forgive me. Forgive me for making your beautiful voice dark. Forgive me for lying to you. But if I’d let you blow up the machine of today, they’d have just built another one. And all that would have accomplished was to delay the inevitable. I had to take out the very first one.
There are so many reasons why I’ve done what I did. It was for the Anasazi, and Newgrange and Stonehenge and the Mona Lisa. For the books and the libraries. But, mostly, it was for the future.
I did it for the mysteries. And for the children. Everyone deserves the right to grow up unspoiled, not knowing.
Sarah Jane
TIMELESS LISA
Robert E. Vardeman
“You’ll be hit with severe diarrhea, maybe for a week,” the time tech said, never looking up as he made his way down the lengthy checklist scrolling on his handheld computer.
“I know,” Alexander Carrington said, shifting nervously. The stainless steel walls, ceiling, and cold, cold floor caused him to squint as light was reflected in all directions. Electrodes in every corner of the room focused on the spot where he stood. He wished the tech would turn up the temperature, though the freezing temperature might be required for the time transit. He didn’t know, and that bothered him. There was so much he didn’t know and everything looked different this time.
“I’ve taken some A-D.” He glanced at the satchel near his feet and felt sweat beading on his upper lip. He fought the urge to swipe it away, fearing he would draw unwanted attention to himself.
“Oh, yeah, right,” the tech said, still not looking up. “This is your second trip back. Must be nice. For what Timeshares pays me, I can’t afford a cup of fancy designer coffee, much less a month in 1519.”
“I’m a Renaissance scholar,” Alex said defensively. He fought the urge to clamp his eyes closed to prevent staring at his satchel. He could be thrown in jail for a long time if the tech found what was concealed in the false bottom. He would get an even longer sentence if he was caught on the way back with the real contraband.
“Yeah, see that. How come an Italian scholar is going to France?”
Crunch time. Alex had to sound convincing and unassuming. He had to lie through his teeth, yet it wasn’t a real lie.
“Leonardo da Vinci moved to France before his death. I need to document his last days and maybe even hear his last words. For posterity.”
“Yeah, for posterity.” The tech heaved a sigh and finally said, looking up, “You know the drill, but I have to go through it all. Or you can just sign here. Says you know about time disjunctions, the need for inertial masses to balance back and forth—doesn’t matter what, just that they do—and how you shouldn’t screw with major events.”
“What about minor ones?”
The tech shrugged. “Mr. Jacobsen is working that over with a team of physicists. Real top level stuff, but right now we haven’t noticed any time waves coming up against our secure little future shore. That’s the way one of them put it. I think it’s bullshit—excuse my French—because any change in the past would be incorporated into what we think is history. How’d we ever know?”
“Yes, how would we?”
“What’d you do?”
“What?” Alex glanced guiltily at his satchel with the exquisitely contrived copy of the Mona Lisa in it. Other than age, there was no way to tell the difference with a single glance—or even with a detailed analysis. If he had figured out the temporal loop properly, substituting his copy for the original would mean the one currently hanging in the Musée du Louvre was this copy—his copy. He blinked as he realized he should have marked the copy in some way to identify it. If he was successful, the mark would have shown up when he studied the Louvre painting, and nobody would have been the wiser. His copy would be the one the world thought was original. But he hadn’t and now it was too late. The last time he had studied the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, he had seen no special distinguishing mark such as he would have put on, so he didn’t dare put one on now. Or when he reached 1519.
“Before? What did you do on your first excursion? I don’t get a chance to talk to returnees. I only see that you’re off safely.”
“Yes, a woman . . .” Alex fought to keep from blurting out his plan to switch the paintings. Would this dolt even care?
“That must have been Jenna. She handles the scholarly types when you guys return. Billy Ray and Jacob get the rest and hear the hot stories. Lucky stiffs.”
“I thought you meant . . .” Alex wiped away the sweat, not caring if the time tech noticed his growing apprehension.
“Oh, so you scored back in time. Lemme see. Florence. A hot one? You found a hot Italian babe?”
Alex could only nod. His throat felt as if iron fingers were clamped around it and he couldn’t swallow. He looked again at his satchel. It hadn’t moved.
“You gotta tell me. Do they, you know, shave?”
“What?” Alex had not expected that question.
“Women shave their armpits and down there now, you know. Of course you do. I mean, back then? Did they?”
“Eyebrows,” Alex said, stunned he was answering. “They shaved the eyebrows. She was an elegant, charming noble lady.”
“Eyebrows? Go figure,” the time tech said, shaking his head. “What was her name?”
Alex Carrington felt as if he had been transported back in time again to see the wife of the silk and cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She had been married to a pig who had no concept of how to treat a woman of her intelligence and grace.
“Lisa,” he said before he realized the name had slipped from his lips again. “She was one of Leonardo’s models.”
“So you boffed her, huh? You didn’t knock her up or anything, did you?”
“No, of course not,” Alex said too hastily. “What a thing to accuse me of.” He tried to keep the fright from his words by covering them with mock outrage. If his calculations were accurate, Lisa’s fourth child was his. Francesco had been on a business trip to Genoa, leaving her alone in their veritable palace with no one to speak to, other than servants and Leonardo when he came to paint her. It had been easy accompanying the great artist and even easier striking up a friendship with a lonely, lovely woman.
His accent had intrigued her, and he had immediately accepted her offer to improve his Italian. She had been so skilled in so many things that it was a shame her husband ignored her so, probably for a mistress half the woman Lisa was.
“Well, since you’re going back to 1519 and France instead of Italy in 1503, you know about the potential for temporal divarication.” The tech saw him floundering and added, “We don’t want to deal with having two of you present at the same instant. That’s something else the physics types are working on.”
“What’d happen if I met myself?”
“It’s complicated. You build up a huge temporal energy charge returning in time. It’s not real energy, not like from a battery, but that’s the easiest way to think about it if you don’t have a dozen PhDs in math and stuff. Mostly, Mr. J doesn’t think there’s a problem, but we need to experiment some before letting customers try it.”
Bleakness gripped Alex. He wouldn’t see his beloved La Gioconda again, nor was he likely to see their child, Camilla. Alex put his hands to his temples as a headache began raging.
“You all right? We can postpone the transit.”
“I’m just excited,” Alex lied. “There’s too much to think about. All that temporal theory.”
“Don’t let it get you down. I don’t. Just enjoy your excursion. You have the remote?” The time tech nodded when Alex fumbled it out from under his period blouse. His hands shook. “Same as before. You have exactly one month and you’ll be automatically returned to this very spot. If you don’t press the blue button once a day, you’ll be returned. There’s a countdown timer on the screen now—that’s different from your first trip.”
“And the red panic button returns me right away,” Alex said.
“You trying to take my job?” The time tech grinned broadly. “Don’t catch some STD that antibiotics won’t cure and have fun.”
Alex would have protested such a comment if he hadn’t been worried about his real intentions. Don’t draw attention to yourself, he told himself over and over.
“Pick up your bag and clutch it to your chest,” the tech said, stepping back. “The temporal field takes about thirty seconds to build, and then you’ll be in France for thirty days unless you want to come back sooner.”
Alex nodded.
“Your only worry will be about how to pay for the excursion. On the behalf of Timeshares, enjoy yourself!”
Alex’s knees buckled. Tiny electric tingles built up on the tip of his nose, his fingers, every spot of his body with pronounced curvatures. He tried to cry out as his innards twisted around and then he clamped his hand over his mouth. He was no longer in the stainless steel room with its faint antiseptic smell. Earthy odors assaulted him as the ground turned to mud. He stumbled forward, barely catching himself in time to prevent being entirely submerged in a large puddle.
He looked around, searching for anyone who might have witnessed his strange eruption into 1519 and declare him a witch. Cows lowed in a nearby field and two men argued some distance away. He cocked his head to one side, and then smiled. They spoke French. He didn’t understand French very well but could get by with his Italian—the Italian Lisa had coached him in so lovingly.
He burst out laughing. He’d have to be careful trying to use all the phrases she had taught him, as much by demonstration as lecture.
It took only minutes for him to realize Timeshares had dropped him some distance from his intended destination. It took him six days to walk to Clos Lucé, which was neighbor to the palace of King Françoise in Amboise. The gentry proved amenable to a solitary traveler asking directions in broken French. When he eventually found a man hurrying along dressed in Neapolitan style, muttering to himself in Italian, Alex knew he would finally complete his mission.
“Pardon, good sir!” he called in Italian. The man stared blankly at him. “I am looking for Master Leonardo.”
“Leonardo? What’s your business with him?”
He bit his lower lip. The man had answered in a vernacular, indicating he was of lower class than suggested by his clothing.
“I’d like to see him,” Alex said. “I have come a long way and . . . and I hear he is in poor health.”
“You might say that. He’s dead.”
Timeshares had missed the exact moment. Alex had wanted to see Leonardo on his deathbed and record his words, but the primary reason for his second trip back was still possible.
“What of his assistant?”
“Salai’s cleaning out the studio. A bunch o’ crap there. Leonardo left him more work than ever, and that’s sayin’ something.”
“For you, if you take me to Salai.” Alex drew out a small silver coin and turned it enough to reflect the bright sun into the man’s eyes. It was only a replica, but counterfeiting wasn’t much of a crime when the fake coin cost more than the real one.
“I know Salai. He’s not worth so much.” The man looked furtively around, and then stepped closer. “Is there more?” He pointed at the coin.
“This is all I have. I . . .” Alex’s mind raced. He swallowed and added, “I must collect what Leonardo owed me. If Salai is his executor, he is the one to whom I must present my petition.”
“He owes you? How much?”
“Enough to make it worth my while to give this to anyone showing me the way to his quarters.”
“He’s in Leonardo’s old studio.” The man looked around again, judging how easy it would be to slit this foreigner’s throat and simply take the coin.
“Naples,” Alex said. “You’re from Naples. I know influential people in Naples who would be very angry if anything happened to me. You have family there?”
“How’d you know I was from Naples?” The man stepped back, eyeing Alex with more interest now.
“The cut of your clothing, your wretched accent,” Alex said. “The way you think to steal my money.”
“What’s wrong with my clothing?”
Alex held the coin in his left palm and slowly closed his hand. As the man reached, Alex grabbed him by the collar and lifted him onto his toes. Alex was barely five-foot-ten, but he towered six inches over his captive Neapolitan. The man twisted around, unable to step away. Alex slowly opened his palm. The coin vanished like mist in the morning sun. He lowered his catch.
“There. There’s the old studio,” the man said, pointing to a building not fifty feet away. With that the man scurried away, looking back twice before vanishing down an alley.
Alex took a deep breath, then hurriedly found the narrow, cool passageway to the stairs leading to the studio’s second story. He rapped sharply, heard mumbled complaints inside, then the door opened.
“Hello, Salai,” he said, recognizing the man although he was fifteen years older.
“You, I remember you. Alejandro! From Florence. But how can it be? You are as I remember, yet it has been so many years!”
“Life has been good to me,” Alex said, following his rehearsed script. He had aged less than six months since he had seen Salai, but it had been fifteen years for Leonardo’s assistant. “The truth is, I have found a curative, a pulvilio brought from the New World.”
“So something good has come from all the money spent finding a heathen-infested land,” Salai said, shrugging. “I am glad for you. Come in, my old friend.” Salai hesitated, and then grinned. “Come in, my young friend. It is I who has aged.”
“I had hoped to arrive in time to speak with Master Leonardo, but I heard the sad news as soon as I reached French borders.”
“He was an old man and ready to go. In spite of his curiosity and need to see the next sunrise—”
“So he could paint it,” Alex cut in.
“No, so he could have his breakfast. What did he care of landscapes?”
“He put in a delightful one behind La Giocanda.” Alex barely trusted himself. His voice choked with emotion, but Salai thought it was for Leonardo’s passing.
“Such a background, such imagination. Icy mountains and rivers and valleys.” Salai shook his head. “So many times he reworked that poor painting.”
“When he did it originally, Lisa’s hair was in a bun. He humanized her with loosely flowing hair. Her hair was as fine as spun gold.”
“You and her, you had a thing for her, eh?” Salai shook his head. “Who didn’t? Except the master, of course.”
“He still captured her exquisite sexuality perfectly,” Alex said. Trying to follow his carefully planned speech, he said as nonchalantly as possible, “Is the painting here? Could I see it?”
“Oh, it is somewhere. I don’t know where. I have so little time to vacate this studio. Now that the king’s grant has been revoked, there is no money to keep up the master’s property.”
“You were given the painting, though.”
Salai looked sharply at Alex, his long, hooked nose lifted slightly. The leathery, wrinkled face turned impassive.
“How is it that you, just arrived in France, know this?”
The question flustered Alex. He had jumped the gun and deviated from his carefully planned script, and now he had aroused Salai’s suspicions.
“I . . . it only makes sense that you, his foremost assistant and trusted companion, would receive such a masterpiece for your services.”
“Masterpiece? Ha. Leonardo fiddled with it for years. You said he changed her hair, but how do you know that?”
“I heard . . .” Alex began.
“He took the money but was never satisfied. Del Giocondo stopped asking. We never saw the woman again.”
“Her daughter Camilla joined a convent,” Alex muttered. His and Lisa’s daughter.
“I did not know.” Salai shrugged and half turned. He fell silent, as if expecting some response from Alex that wasn’t forthcoming. Finally, he sighed and said, “I must return to my work. This studio must be vacated. Leonardo was a man of many vices and did not leave a great legacy to me.”
“Other than his work.”
“Who wants it? No one. Bah!” Salai threw up his hands and turned his back entirely on Alex.
“I could help. I mean, what would you like done that I may aid you?”
“Nothing. Get out. Go! I have no more time for you. I ought to burn the building down. It would be easier.”
“Don’t joke!”
“Who is joking? No one wants his paintings or the scrawled notebooks. Oh, the king has expressed some desire for a painting or two. I might sell some of the larger work.”
“For four thousand ecus,” Alex muttered. This was the amount Salai’s heirs had garnered from the king years in the future for the Mona Lisa.
“Such a princely sum,” Salai grumbled. “Go now. Go. I have no more time, no time at all.”
Alex reluctantly left, taking care to memorize the number of steps he took, the direction, and the location of all the flimsy locks and doors.
That night, total darkness his henchman, masked by rising storm winds whipping through the city streets, he returned to the studio to find the painting of his beloved. He crept silently through the dusty room, poking around. He had a small flashlight but used it sparingly to avoid being seen. Explaining such an anachronistic device would be difficult in a time of auto-da-fé and inquisitions. Alex had to laugh as he said softly, “I can always tell them it is one of Leonardo’s inventions. Why not? He sketched everything else from helicopters to still un-invented gadgets.”
