Diko agreed, but she had already leaped to the most important question. "Who are you really, Marjam?"
"Oh, I'm really Manjam," he said."But no, don't protest, I understand your real question." He regarded them all calmly for a moment. "We don't talk about what we do, because people would misunderstand. They would think we are some kind of secret cabal that rules the world behind closed doors, and nothing could be farther from the truth."
"That reassures me completely," said Diko.
"We do nothing political. Do you understand? We don't interfere with government. We care a great deal about what governments do, but when we want to achieve some goal, we act openly. I would write to a government official as myself, as Manjam. Or appear on a broadcast. Stating my opinions. Do you see? We are not a secret shadow government. We have no authority over human lives."
"And yet you spy on us."
"We monitor all that is interesting and important in the world. And because we have the TruSite II, we can do it without sending spies or openly talking to anybody. We just watch, and then, when something is important or valuable, we encourage."
"Yes yes," said Hassan. "I'm sure you're noble and very kind in your godlike role. Who are the others?"
"I'm the one who came to you," said Manjam.
"And why are you showing us this? Why are you telling us?" asked Tagiri.
"Because you have to understand that I know what I'm talking about. And I have to show you some things before you will understand why your project has been so encouraged, why you've had no interference, why you've been allowed to bring together so many people from the moment you discovered, Tagiri and Hassan, that we can reach back and affect the past. And most especially since you, Diko, discovered that someone had already done so, canceling their own time in order to create a new future."
"So show us," said Hunahpu.
Manjam typed in new coordinates. The display changed. It was a long-distance aerial view of a vast stony plain with only a few desert plants every square meter, except for thick trees and grass along the banks of a wide river.
"What is this, the Sahara project?" asked Hassan.
"This is the Amazon," said Manjam.
"No," murmured Tagiri. "That's how bad it was before the restoration began?"
"You don't understand," said Maniam. "That is the Amazon right now. Or, technically speaking, about fifteen minutes ago." The display moved quickly, mile after mile down the river, and nothing changed until at last, after what must have been a thousand miles, they came to scenes familiar from the broadcasts: the thick growth of the rain-forest restoration project. But in just a few moments they had passed through the entire rain forest and were back to stony ground growing almost nothing. And so it remained, all the way to the marshy mouth of the river where it flowed into the sea.
"That was all? That was the Amazon rain forest?" asked Hunahpu.
"But that project has been going for forty years," said Hassan.
"It wasn't that bad when they started," said Diko.
"Have they been lying to us?" asked Tagiri.
"Come now," said Manjam. "You've all heard about the terrible loss of topsoil. You all know that with the forests gone, erosion was uncontrolled."
"But they were planting grass."
"And it died, " said Manjam. "They're working on new species that can live in the scarcity of important nutrients. Don't look so glum. Nature is on our side. In ten thousand years the Amazon should be right back to normal."
"That's longer than -- that's older than civilization."
"A mere hiccup in the ecological history of Earth. It simply takes time for new soil to be brought down from the Andes and built up on the banks of the river, where grasses and trees will thrive and gradually push their way outward from the river. At the rate of about six to ten meters a year for the grass, in the good spots. Also, it would help if there were some really massive flooding now and then, to spread new soil. A new volcano in the Andes would be nice -- the ash would be quite helpful. And the odds of one erupting in the next ten thousand years are pretty good. Plus there's always the topsoil blown across the Atlantic from Africa. You see? Our prospects are good."
Manjam's words were cheerful, but Diko was sure he was being ironic. "Good? That land is dead."
"Oh, well, yes, for now."
"What about Sahara restoration?" asked Tagiri.
"Going very well. Good progress. I give us five hundred years on that."
"Five hundred!" cried Tagiri.
"That's presupposing great increases in rainfall, of course. But our weather prediction is getting very good at the climatic level. You worked on part of that project for a while in school, Kemal."
"We were talking about restoring the Sahara in a hundred years."
"Well, yes, and that would happen, if we could continue to keep so many teams working on it. But that won't be possible for even ten more years."
"Why not?"
Again the display changed. The ocean in a storm, beating against a levee. It broke through. A wall of seawater broke across -- fields of grain?
"Where is that?" demanded Diko.
"Surely you heard about the breaching of the Carolina dike. In America."
"That was five years ago," said Hunahpu.
"Right. Very unfortunate. We lost the coastal barrier islands fifty years ago, with the rising of the ocean. This section of the North American east coast had been converted from tobacco and lumber production to grain, in order to replace the farmland killed by the drying of the North American prairie. Now vast acreages are under water."
"But we're making progress on finding ways to reduce the greenhouse gases," said Hassan.
"So we are. We think that, with safety, we can reduce the greenhouse effect significantly within perhaps thirty years. But by then, you see, we won't want to reduce it."
"Why not?" asked Diko. "The oceans are rising as the ice cap melts. We have to stop global warming."
"Our climate studies show that this is a self-correcting problem. The greater heat and the increased surface area of the ocean lead to significantly greater evaporation and temperature differentials worldwide. The cloud cover is increasing, which raises the Earth's albedo. We will soon be reflecting more sunlight than ever before since the last ice age."
"But the weather satellites," said Kemal.
"They keep the extremes from getting unbearable in any one location. How long do you think those satellites can last?"
"They can be replaced when they wear out," said Kemal.
"Can they?" asked Manjam. "Already we're taking people out of the factories and putting them into the fields. But this won't really help, because we're already farming very close to one hundred percent of the land where there's any topsoil left at all. And since we've been farming at maximum yields for some time, we're already noticing the effects of the increasing cloud cover -- fewer crops per hectare."
"What are you saying?" said Diko. "That we're already too late to restore the Earth?"
Manjam didn't answer. Instead, he brought onto the display a large region filled with grain silos. He zoomed in and they viewed the inside of silo after silo.
"Empty," murmured Tagiri
"We're eating up our reserves," said Manjam.
"But why aren't we rationing?"
"Because politicians can't do that until the people as a whole see that there's an emergency. Right now they don't see it."
"Then warn them!" said Hunahpu.
"Oh, the warnings are there. And in a while people will start talking about it. But they'll do nothing, for the simple reason that there's nothing to be done. Crop yields will continue to go down."
"What about the ocean?" asked Hassan.
"The ocean has its own problems. What do you want us to do, scrape away all the plankton so that the ocean dies, too? We harvest as much fish as we dare. We are at maximum right now. Any more, and in ten years our yields will be a tiny fraction of what they are now. Don't you see? The damage our ancestors did was too great. It is not within our power to stop the forces that have already been in motion for centuries. If we started rationing right now, it would mean that the devastating famines would begin in twenty years instead of six. But of course we won't start rationing until the first famine. And even then, the areas that are producing enough food will become quite surly about having to go hungry in order to feed people in faraway lands. Right now we feel that all human beings are one tribe, so that no one anywhere is hungry. But how long do you think that will last, when the food-producing people hear their children pleading for bread and the ships are carrying so much grain away to other lands? How well do you think the politicians will do at containing the forces that will move through the world then?"
"So what is your little non-cabal doing about it?" asked Hassan.
"Nothing," said Manjam. "As I said, the processes have gone too far. Our most favorable projections show collapse of the present system within thirty years. That's if there are no wars. There simply won't be food enough to maintain the present population or even a major fraction of it. You can't keep up the industrial economy without an agricultural base that produces far more food than is needed just to sustain the food producers. So industry starts collapsing. Now there are fewer tractors. Now the fertilizer factories produce less, and less of what they do produce can get distributed because transportation can't be maintained. Food production falls even further. Weather satellites wear out and can't be replaced. Drought. Flood. Less land in production. More deaths. Therefore less industry. Therefore lower food production. We have run a million different scenarios and there's not one of them that doesn't lead us to the same place. A worldwide population of about five million before we stabilize. Just in time for the ice age to begin in earnest. At that point the population could start a slower decline until it's down to about two million. That's if there's no warfare, of course. All these projections are based on an assumption of a completely docile response. We all know how likely that is. All it will take is one full-fledged war in one of the major food-producing countries and the drop will be much steeper, with the population stabilizing at a much lower level."
No one could say anything to that. They knew what it meant.
"It's not all glum news," said Manjam. "The human race will survive. As the ice age ends, our distant children will again start to build civilizations. By then the rain forests will have been restored. Herd animals will once more graze the rich grassland of the Sahara and the Rub' al Khali and the Gobi. Unfortunately, all the easy iron was taken out of the ground years ago. Also the easy tin and copper. In fact, one can't help but wonder what they'll do for metals in order to rise out of the stone age. One can't help but wonder what their transitional energy source is going to be, with all the oil gone. There's still a little peat in Ireland. And of course the forests will have come back, so there'll be charcoal until they burn all the forests back down to nothing and the cycle starts over."
"You're saying that the human race can't rise again?"
"I'm saying that we've used up all the easy-to-find resources," said Manjam. "Human beings are very resourceful. Maybe they'll find other paths into a better future. Maybe they'll figure out how to make solar collectors out of the rusted debris of our skyscrapers."
"I ask again," said Hassan. "What are you doing to prevent this?"
"And I say again, nothing," said Manjam. "It can't be prevented. Warnings are useless because there's nothing that people can do to change their behavior to make this problem go away. The civilization we have right now cannot be maintained even for another generation. And people do sense it, you know. The birthrates are falling all over the world. They all have their own individual reasons, but the cumulative effect is the same. People are choosing not to have children who will compete with them for scarce resources."
"Why did you show us this, then, if there's nothing we can do?" said Tagiri.
"Why did you search the past, when you believed there was nothing you could do?" asked Manjam, smiling grimly. "Besides, I never said that there was nothing YOU could do. Only that WE could do nothing."
"That's why we've been allowed to pursue time travel," said Hunahpu. "So we can go back and prevent all this."
"We had no hope, until you discovered the mutability of the past," said Manjam. "Until then, our work was turned toward preservation. Collecting all of human knowledge and experience and storing it in some permanent form that might last in hiding for at least ten thousand years. We've come up with some very good, compact storage devices. And some simple nonmechanical readers that we think might last two or three thousand years. We could never do better than that. And of course we never managed to come up with the sum of all knowledge. Ideally what we do have we would have rewritten as a series of easy-to-learn lessons. Step by step through the acquired wisdom of the human race. That project lasted up through algebra and the basic principles of genetics and then we had to give it up. For the last decade we've just been dumping information into the banks and duplicating it. We'll just have to let our grandchildren figure out how to codify and make sense of it all, when and if they find the caches where we hide the stuff. That's what our little cabal exists for. Preserving the memory of the human race. Until we spotted you."
Tagiri was weeping.
"Mother," said Diko. "What is it?"
Hassan put his arm around his wife and drew her close. Tagiri raised her tear-streaked face and looked at her daughter. "Oh, Diko," she said. "For all these years I thought we lived in paradise."
"Tagiri is a woman of astonishing compassion," said Manjam. "When we found her, we watched her out of love and admiration. How could she endure the pain of so many other people? We never dreamed that it would be her compassion, and not the cleverness of our clever ones, that would finally lead us to the one road away from the disaster lying ahead of us." He rose and walked to Tagiri, and knelt before her. "Tagiri, I had to show you this, because we feared that you would decide to stop the Columbus project."
"I already did. Decide it, I mean," she said.
"I asked the others. They said we had to show you. Though we knew that you would not see this as parched earth or statistics or anything safe and distant and containable. You would see it as each life that was lost, each hope that was destroyed. You would hear the voices of the children born today, as they grew up cursing their parents for their cruelty in not having killed them in the womb. I'm sorry for the pain of it. But you had to understand that if in fact Columbus is a fulcrum of history, and stopping him opens a way to creating a new future for the human race, then we must do it."
Tagin slowly nodded. But then she wiped the tears off her cheeks and faced Manjam, speaking fiercely. "Not in secret," she said.
Manjam smiled wanly. "Yes, some of us warned that you would feel that way."
"The people must consent to our sending someone back to undo our world. They must agree."
"Then we will have to wait to tell them," said Manjam. "Because if we asked today, they would say no."
"When?" asked Diko.
"You'll know when," said Manjam. "When the famines start."
"What if I'm too old to go?" asked Kemal.
"Then we'll send someone else," said Hassan.
"What if I'm too old to go?" asked Diko.
"You won't be," said Manjam. "So get ready. And when the emergency is upon us, and the people can see that their children are hungry, that people are dying, then they will consent to what you're going to do. Because then they'll finally have the perspective."
"What perspective?" asked Kemal.
"First we try to preserve ourselves," said Manjam, "until we see that we can't. Then we try to preserve our children, until we see that we can't. Then we act to preserve our kin, and then our village or tribe, and when we see that we can't preserve even them, then we act in order to preserve our memory. And if we can't do that, what is left? We finally have the perspective of trying to act for the good of humanity as a whole."
"Or despairing," said Tagiri.
"Yes, well, that's the other choice," said Manjam. "But I don't see that as an option for anyone in this room. And when we offer this chance to people who see their world collapsing around them, I think they'll choose to let you make the attempt."
"If they don't agree, then we won't do it," said Tagiri fiercely.
Diko said nothing, but she also knew that the decision was no longer Mother's to make. Why should the people of one generation have the right to veto the only chance to save the future of the human race? But it didn't matter. As Manjam said, the people would agree once they saw death and horror staring them in the face. After all, what had the old man and the woman in that village on Haiti Island prayed for, when they prayed? Not for deliverance, no. In their despair they asked for swift and merciful death. If nothing else, the Columbus project could certainly provide that.
***
Cristoforo sat back and let Father Perez and Father Antonio continue their analysis of the message from court. All he had really cared about was when Father Perez said to him, "Of course this is from the Queen. Do you think, after all these years, she would let you be sent a message without making sure she approved of the wording? The message speaks of the possibility of a reexamination at a 'more convenient time.' That sort of thing is not lightly said. Monarchs do not have time to be pestered by people about matters that are already closed. She invites you to pester her. Therefore the matter is not closed."
The matter is not closed. Almost he wished it were. Almost he wished that God had chosen someone else.
Then he shrugged off the thought and let his mind wander as the Franciscans discussed the possibilities. It didn't matter anymore what the arguments were. The only argument that really mattered to Cristoforo was that God and Christ and the dove of the Holy Ghost appeared to him on the beach and called him to sail west. All the rest -- it must be true, of course, or God wouldn't have told him to sail west. But it had nothing to do with Cristoforo. He was bent on sailing west for ... for God, yes. And why for God? Why had Christ become so important in his life? Other men -- even churchmen -- didn't deform their whole lives as he had. They pursued their private ambitions. They had careers, they planned their futures. And, oddly enough, it seemed that God was much kinder to those who cared little for him, or at least cared less than Cristoforo did.
Why do I care so much?
His eyes were looking across the table, toward the wall, but he was not seeing the crucifix there. Instead a memory washed through his mind. Of his mother huddling behind a table. Murmuring to him, as someone shouted in the distance. What was this memory? Why did it come to him now?
I had a mother; poor Diego has none. And no father either, in truth. He writes to me that he's tired of La Rabida. But what can I do? If I succeed in my mission, then his fortune is made, he will be son of a great man and therefore he will also be a great man. And if I fail, he had better be well educated, which no one can do better than Franciscans like these good priests. Nothing he would see or hear with me in Salamanca -- or wherever I go next in pursuit of kings or queens -- would prepare him for any life he is likely to lead.
Gradually, as Cristoforo's thoughts drifted toward sleep, he became aware that under the crucifix was a blackamoor girl, simply but brightly dressed, watching him intently. She was not really there, he knew, because he could still see the crucifix on the wall behind her. She must be very tall, for the crucifix was placed quite high. What should I be dreaming of blackamoor women, thought Cristoforo. Only I'm not dreaming, because I'm not asleep. I can still hear Father Perez and Father Antonio arguing about something. About Perez going to the Queen himself. Well, that's an idea. Why is that girl watching me?
Is this a vision? he wondered idly. Not as clear as it was on the beach. And this is certainly not God. Could a vision of a black woman come from Satan? Is that what I'm seeing? Satan's dam?
Not with a crucifix visible behind her head. This woman is like glass, black glass. I can see inside her. There's a crucifix inside her head. Does this mean that she dreams of crucifying Christ again? Or that the Son of Mary dwells always in her mind? I'm not good at visions and dreams. I need more clarity than this. So if you sent this, God, and if you mean something by it, I'm not understanding it well enough and you'll have to make things much clearer for me.
As if in answer, the blackamoor girl faded and Cristoforo became aware of someone else moving in the corner of the room. Someone who could not be seen through; someone solid and real. A young man, tall and handsome, but with questioning, uncertain eyes. He looked like Felipa. So much like Felipa. As if she dwelt in him, a continuous reproach to Cristoforo, a continuous plea. I did love you, Felipa. But I loved Christ more. That can't be a sin, can it?
Speak to me, Diego. Say my name. Demand what is yours by right: my attention, my respect for you. Don't stand there weakly waiting. Hoping for a crumb from my table. Don't you know that sons must be stronger than their fathers, or the world will die?
He said nothing. He said nothing.
Not all men have to be strong, thought Cristoforo. It is enough that some are simply good. That is enough for me to love my son, that he be good. I will be strong enough for us both. I have enough strength to hold you up as well. "Diego, my good son," said Cristoforo.
Now the boy could speak. "I heard voices."
"I didn't want to wake you," said Cristoforo.
"I thought it was another dream."
Father Perez whispered, "He dreams of you, often."
"I dream of you, my son," said Cristoforo. "Do you also dream of me?"
Diego nodded, his eyes never leaving his father's face.
"Do you think the Holy Spirit gives these dreams to us, so we don't forget the great love we have for each other?"
He nodded again. Then he walked to his father, uncertainly at first; but then, as Cristoforo rose to his feet and held out his arms, the boy's strides became more certain. And when they embraced, Cristoforo was startled at how tall the boy had become, how long his arms, how strong he was. He held him, held him long.
"They tell me you're good at drawing, Diego."
"Yes, I am," said Diego.
"Show me."
As they walked toward Diego's room, Cristoforo talked to him. "I'm drawing again myself. Quintanilla cut off my funds a couple of years ago, but I fooled him. I didn't go away. I draw maps for people. Have you ever drawn a map?"
"Uncle Bartolomeu came and taught me how. I've mapped the monastery. Right down to the mouseholes!"
They laughed together all the way up the stairs.
***
"We wait and wait," said Diko. "We're not getting any y ounger.
"Kemal is," said Hunahpu. "He works out constantly. To the neglect of his other studies."
"He has to be strong enough to swim under the ships and set the charges," said Diko.
"I think we should have a younger man."
Diko shook her head.
"What if he has a heart attack, did you think of that? We send him back in time to stop Columbus, and he dies in the water. What good is that? I'll be among the Zapotecs. Will you set the charges and keep Columbus there? Or will he sail back to Europe and make the whole effort a waste?"
"Just by going we'll accomplish something. We'll be infected with the carrier viruses, you remember."
"So the New World will be immune to smallpox and measles. All that means is that more of them will survive to enjoy many years of slavery."
"The Spanish weren't that far ahead, technologically speaking. And without the plagues to make them think the gods are against them, the people won't lose heart. Hunahpu, we can't help but make things better, at least to some degree. But Kemal won't fail."
"No," said Hunahpu. "He's like your mother. Never say die."
Diko laughed bitterly. "He never says it, but he plans it all the same."
"Plans what?"
"He hasn't mentioned it in years. I think I only heard him say it as a half-formed thought, and then he simply decided to do it."
"What?"
"Die," said Diko.
"What do you mean?"
"He was talking, back in -- oh, forever ago. About how the sinking of one ship is a misfortune. Two ships is a tragedy. Three ships is a punishment from God. What good will it do if Columbus thinks God is against him?"
"Well, that's a problem. But the ships have got to go."
"Listen, Hunahpu. He went on. He said, 'If only they knew that it was a Turk who blew up the boats. The infidel. The enemy of Christ.' Then he laughed. And then he stopped laughing."
"Why didn't you mention this before?"
"Because he chose not to mention it. But I thought you should understand why he isn't taking all the other learning assignments seriously. He doesn't expect to live to need them. All he needs is athletic ability, knowledge of explosives, and enough Spanish or Latin or whatever to tell Columbus's men that he is the one who blew up their ships, and that he did it in the name of Allah."
"And then he kills himself?"
"Are you joking?. Of course not. He lets the Christians kill him."
"It won't be gentle."
"But he'll be taken up to heaven. He died for Islam."
"Is he really a believer?" asked Hunahpu.
"Father thinks so. He says that the older you get, the more you believe in God, whatever face he wears."
The doctor came back into the room, smiling. "All very excellent, just like I tell you. Your heads are very fall of interesting things. No one in all of history has ever had so much knowledge in their heads as you and Kemal!"
"Knowledge and electromagnetic time bombs," said Hunahpu.
"Yes, well," said the doctor, "it is true that when the signaling device is set off, it could cause cancer after several decades of exposure. But it does not signal until a hundred years, so I think you are nothing but bones in the ground and cancer is not a big problem for you." He laughed.
"I think he's a ghoul," said Hunahpu.
"They all are," said Diko. "It's one of the classes in med school."
"Save the world, young man, young woman. Make a very good new world for my children."
For a horrible moment Diko thought that the doctor didn't understand that when they went, his children would all be snuffed out, like everyone else in this dead-end time. If only the Chinese made more of an effort to teach their people English so they could understand what the rest of the world was saying.
Seeing the consternation on their faces, the doctor laughed. "Do you think I'm so smart I can put phony bones in your skull, but so dumb I don't know? Don't you know Chinese were smart when all other people were stupid? When you go back, young man, young woman, then all the people of the new future, they are my children. And when they hear your phony bones talking to them, then they find the records, they find out about me and all the other people. So they remember us. They know we are their ancestors. This is very important. They know we are their ancestors, and they remember us." He bowed and left the room.
"My head hurts," said Diko. "Don't you think we could get more drugs?"
***
Santangel looked from the Queen to his books, trying to figure out what the monarchs wanted from him. "Can the kingdom afford this voyage? Three caravels, supplies, a crew? The war with Granada is over. Yes, the treasury can afford it."
"Easily?" asked King Ferdinand. So he really hoped to have it stopped for financial reasons. All Santangel had to do was say, Not easily, no, it will be a sacrifice right now, and then the King would say, Let's wait then, for a better time, and then the issue would never come up again.
Santangel did not so much as glance at the Queen, for a wise courtier never allowed it to seem that, before he could answer one of the monarchs, he had to look to the other one for some kind of signal. Yet he saw out of the corner of his eye that she gripped the arms of her throne. She cares about this, he thought. This matters to her. It does not matter to the King. It annoys him, but he has no passion about it either way.
"Your Majesty," said Santangel, "if you have any doubts about the ability of the treasury to pay for the voyage, I will be glad to underwrite it myself."
A hush fell over the court, and then a low murmur arose. At a stroke, Santangel had changed the whole mood. If there was one thing people were sure of, it was that Luis de Santangel knew how to make money. It was one of the reasons why King Ferdinand absolutely trusted him in financial matters. He did not have to cheat the treasury to be rich -- he was extravagantly wealthy when he came into office and had the knack for easily making more without having to become a parasite on the royal court. So if he was enthusiastic enough about the voyage to offer to underwrite it himself ...
The King smiled slightly. "And if I take you up on that generous offer?"
"It would be a great honor if your majesty allowed me to link my name to the voyage of SeĪor ColĒn."
The King's smile faded. Santangel knew why. The King was very sensitive to how people perceived him. Bad enough that he had to spend his life in this delicate balance with a reigning and ruling queen, in order to assure a peaceful unification of Castile and Aragon when one of them died. He did not like imagining the gossip. King Ferdinand wouldn't pay for this great voyage himself. Only Luis de Santangel had the foresight to fund it.
"Your offer was generous, my friend," said the King. "But Aragon does not shirk its responsibility."
"Nor does Castile," said the Queen. Her hands had relaxed.
Did she know that I would see how she tensed before? Was it a deliberate signal?
"Assemble this new council of examiners," said the King. "If their verdict is positive, we will give this voyager his caravels."
And so it began again, or so it seemed. Santangel, watching from a distance, soon realized that this time the fix was in. Instead of years it took weeks. The new council included most of the pro ColĒn faction from the previous group, and few of the conservative theologians who had so vehemently opposed him. It was no surprise when they made a perfunctory examination of ColĒn's proposals and returned with a favorable verdict. It remained only for the Queen to call ColĒn to court and tell him.
After all those years of waiting, after it had seemed a few months ago that it was all wasted, Santangel expected ColĒn to be joyful when he heard the news. He stood in the court and instead of gratefully accepting the Queen's commission, he began to list demands. It was unbelievable. First, this commoner wanted a noble title befitting the commission that was being given him. And that was only the beginning.
"When I return from the Orient," he said, "I will have done what no other captain has ever done or dared to do. I must sail with the authority and rank of Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, exactly equal in station to the Grand Admiral of Castile. Along with this rank, it will be appropriate that I be granted the powers of viceroy and governor-general of all lands that I might discover in the name of Spain. Furthermore these titles and powers must be hereditary, to be passed down to my son and his sons after him forever. It will also be appropriate that I be granted a commission of ten percent of all commerce that passes between Spain and the new lands, and the same commission on all mineral wealth found there."
After all these years in which ColĒn had shown not a sign of personal greed, did he now stand revealed before them as just another parasitic courtier?
The Queen was speechless for a moment. Then she curtly told ColĒn that she would take his requests under counsel, and dismissed him.
When Santangel took word of ColĒn's requests to the King, he was livid. "He dares to make demands? I thought he came to us as a supplicant. Does he expect kings to make contracts with commoners?"
"Actually, no, Your Majesty," said Santangel. "He expects you to make him a nobleman first, and then make a contract with him."
"And he doesn't budge on these points?"
"He is very courteous, but no, he simply does not bend, not a jot."
"Then send him away," said the King. "Isabella and I are preparing to enter Granada in a great procession, arriving there as liberators of Spain and champions of Christ. A Genovese mapmaker dares to demand the titles of viceroy and admiral? He does not even merit a seĪor."
Santangel was sure ColĒn would back down when he heard the King's reply. Instead, he coolly announced his departure and began packing to leave.
It was chaos all evening around the King and Queen. Santangel began to see that ColĒn was not such a fool to make these demands. For all these years he had to wait, because if he left Spain and went to England or France with his proposal, he would already have two failures behind him. Why would France or England be interested in him, when the two great seafaring nations of Europe had already rejected him? Now, though, it was widely known and witnessed by many that the monarchs of Spain had accepted his proposal and agreed to fund his voyage. The dispute was not over whether to give him ships, but rather what his reward would be. He could walk away today and be assured an eager welcome in Paris or London. Oh, were Ferdinand and Isabella unwilling to reward you for your great achievement? See how France rewards her great sailors, see how England honors those who carry the banners of the king to the Orient! At long last ColĒn was negotiating from strength. He could walk away from the Spanish offer, because Spain had already given him the ftrst and most important thing he needed -- and it had been given him for free.
What a negotiator, thought Santangel. If only he were in trade. What I could accomplish with a man like that in my service! I would soon hold the mortgage on St. Peter's in Rome! On the Hagia Sophia! On the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!
And then he thought: If ColĒn were in business, he would not be my agent, he would be my competitor. He shuddered.
***
The Queen vacillated. She truly wanted this voyage, and that made it very difficult for her. The King, however, was adamant. Why should he even have to discuss this foreigner's absurd demands?
Santangel watched how uselessly Father Diego de Deza tried to argue against the King's inclinations. Has this man no sense of how to deal with monarchs? Santangel was grateful when Father Talavera soon drew Deza out of the conversation. Santangel himself remained silent until at last the King asked for his opinion. "Of course these demands are just as absurd and impossible as they seem. The monarch who grants such titles to an untried foreigner is not the monarch who drove the Moors from Spain."
Almost everyone nodded wisely. They all assumed Santangel was playing the game of flattery, and like any careful courtier they were quick to agree with any praise of the King. Thus he was able to win the general approval for his most important stipulation: "untried foreigner."
"Of course, after the voyage, which Your Majesties have already agreed to authorize and fund, if he returns successful, then he will have brought such honor and wealth to the crowns of Spain that he would deserve all the rewards he has asked for, and more. He is so confident of success that he feels he already deserves them. But if he is that confident, surely he will accept without hesitation a stipulation on your part -- that he receive these rewards only upon his successful return."
The King smiled. "Santangel, you fox. I know you want this ColĒn to sail. But you didn't get your wealth by paying people until after they delivered. Let them take the risk, is that it?"
Santangel bowed modestly.
The King turned to a clerk. "Write up a set of capitulations to ColĒn's demands. Only make them all contingent upon his successful return from the Orient." He grinned wickedly at Santangel. "Too bad I'm a Christian king and refuse to gamble. I would make a bet with you -- that I will never have to grant these titles to ColĒn."
"Your Majesty, only a fool would bet against the conqueror of Granada," said Santangel. Silently he added: Only an even bigger fool would bet against ColĒn.
The capitulations were written in the small hours of the moming, after much last-minute consultation between the counselors of the King and the Queen. When at dawn a beadle was sent to deliver the message to ColĒn, he returned flustered and upset. "He's gone!" he cried.
"Of course he's gone," said Father Perez. "He was told that his conditions were rejected. But he will only have left at dawn. And I suspect he will not be riding quickly."
"Then fetch him back," said the Queen. "Tell him to present himself at once before me, for I am ready to conclude this affair at last. No, don't say 'at last.' Now hurry."
The beadle rushed from the court.
While they waited for ColĒn to be brought back, Santangel took Father Perez aside. "I didn't figure ColĒn for a greedy man."
"He's not," said Father Perez. "A modest man, in fact. Ambitious, but not the way you think."
"In what way is he ambitious, then, if not the way I think?"
"He wanted the titles to be hereditary because he has spent his life pursuing this voyage," said Perez. "He has no other inheritance for his son -- no fortune, nothing. But with this voyage he will now be able to make his son, not just a gentleman, but a great lord. His wife died years ago, and he has many regrets. This is also his gift to her, and to her family, who are among the lesser nobility in Portugal."
"I know the family," said Santangel.
"You know the mother?"
"Is she still alive?"
"I think so," said Perez.
"Then I understand. I'm sure the old lady made him keenly aware that any claim to gentility he had came through her family. It will be sweet indeed for ColĒn if he can turn it backward, so that any claim of true nobility for her family comes through their connection to him."
"So you see," said Perez.
"No, Father Juan Perez, I see nothing yet. Why did ColĒn put this voyage at risk, solely to gain such lofty titles and absurd commissions?"
"Perhaps," said Father Perez, "because this voyage is not the end of his mission, but the beginning."
"The beginning! What can a man do, having discovered vast new lands for Christ and Queen? Having been made viceroy and admiral? Having been given wealth beyond imagining?"
"You, a Christian, you have to ask me that?" said Perez. Then he walked away.
Santangel thought himself a Christian, but he never was sure what Perez meant. He thought of all sorts of possibilities, but they all sounded ludicrous because no man could possibly dream of accomplishing such lofty purposes.
Then again, no man could possibly dream of getting monarchs to agree to a mad voyage into unknown western seas with no high probability of success. And yet ColĒn had achieved it. So if he had dreams of reconquering the Roman Empire, or liberating the Holy Land, or driving the heathen Turk from Byzantium, or making a mechanical bird to fly to the moon, Santangel would not bet against him.
***
There was famine now, only in North America, but there was no surplus food anywhere else to relieve it. To send help required rationing in many other places. The tales of bloodshed and chaos in America persuaded the people of Europe and South America to accept rationing so that some relief could be sent. But it would not be enough to save everyone.
This hopeless inadequacy came to humanity as a terrible shock, not least because they had believed for two generations that at last the world was a good place to live. They had believed theirs was a time of rebirth, rebuilding, restoration. Now they learned that it was merely a rear guard action in a war whose conclusion was already decided before they were even born. Their work was in vain, because nothing could last. The Earth was too far gone.
It was in the midst of the agony of this realization that the ftrst news came out about the Columbus project. The discussion was grim. When the choice came, it was not unanimous, but it was overwhelming. What else was there, really? To watch their children die of hunger? To take up arms again, and fight for the last scraps of food-producing land? Could anyone happily choose a future of caves and ice and ignorance, when there might be another way, if not for them and their children, then for the human race as a whole?
Manjam sat with Kemal, who had come to wait out the voting with him. When the decision came, and Kemal knew that he would indeed be taking the voyage backward in time, he was at once relieved and frightened. It was one thing to plan one's own death when the prospect was still remote. Now, though, it would be a matter of days before he went back in time, and then no more than weeks before he would stand scornfully before Columbus and say, "Did you think Allah would let a Christian discover these new lands? I spit on your Christ? He had not the power to sustain you against the power of Allah! There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet!"
And then someday perhaps, a future searcher in Pastwatch would see him standing there, and would nod his head and say, That was the man who stopped Columbus. That was the man who gave his life to create this good and peaceful world we live in. That was the man who gave the human race a future. As much as Yewesweder before him, this man chose the course of humanity.
That would be a life worth living, thought Kemal. To earn a place in history that could be spoken of in the same breath with Yewesweder himself.
"You seem melancholy, my friend," said Manjam.
"Do I?" said Kemal. "Yes. Sad and happy, both at once."
"How do you think Tagiri will take this?"
Kemal shrugged with some impatience. "Who can figure out this woman? She works all her life for this, and then we have to practically tie her down to keep her from going out urging people to vote against the very thing she worked for!"
"I don't think it's hard to understand her, Kemal," said Manjam. "It's as you said -- it was the force of her will that caused the Columbus project to reach this point. She was responsible for it. That was too much of a burden for her to bear alone. Now, though, she can be satisfied inside herself that she opposed the destruction of our time, that the final decision was taken away from her, was forced on her by the will of the vast majority of humankind. Now her responsibility for the end of our time is not hers alone. It will be shared by many, borne on many shoulders. She can live with it now."
Kemal chuckled grimly. "She can live with it -- for how many days? And then she will wink out of existence along with all the rest of humanity in this world. What does it matter now?"
"It matters," said Manjam, "because she has those few days, and because those few days are all the future she has. She will spend it with clean hands and a peaceful heart."
"And is this not hypocrisy?" asked Kemal. "For she did cause it, just as much as ever."
"Hypocrisy? No. The hypocrite knows what he really is, and labors to conceal it from others in order to gain from their misplaced faith in him. Tagiri fears the moral ambiguity in something that she knows she must do. She cannot live with not doing it, and yet fears she cannot live with doing it, either. So conceals it from herself in order to proceed with what she must do."
"If there's a difference there, it's damned hard to see," said Kemal.
"That's right," said Manjam. "There's a difference. And it's damned hard to see."
***
From time to time, as he rode toward Palos, Cristoforo pressed his hand to his chest, to feel the stiff parchment tucked into his coat. For you, my Lord, my Savior. You gave this to me, and now I will use it for you. Thank you, thank you, for granting my prayer, for letting this also be a gift to my son, to my dead wife.
As he rode long into the day, Father Perez fell silent beside him, a memory came into his mind. His father, stepping forward eagerly toward a table where richly dressed men were seated. His father poured wine. When would that have happened? Father is a weaver. When did he pour wine? What am I remembering? And why does it come to me now of all times?
No answer came to his mind, and the horse plodded on, pounding dust up into the air with every step. Cristoforo thought of what lay ahead. Much work, outfitting a voyage. Would he even remember how, all these years since the last voyage he was really a part of? No matter. He would remember what he needed to remember, he would accomplish all he needed to accomplish. The worst obstacle was past. He had been lifted up by the arms of Christ, and Christ would carry him across the water and bring him home again. Nothing would stop him now.
Chapter 9 -- Departures
Cristoforo stood near the helm, watching as the sailors readied the caravel for departure. A part of him longed to skim down from his lofty station and join in, to handle the sheets and sails aloft, to carry the last and freshest of the stores aboard, to be doing something with his hands, his feet, his body to make him a part of the crew, part of the living organism of the ship.
But that was not his role here. God had chosen him to lead, and it was in the nature of things that the captain of a ship, let alone the commander of an expedition, had to remain as aloof and unapproachable to the crew as Christ himself was to the Church he headed.
The people gathered at the shore and on the hills overlooking the sea were not there to cheer on his mission, Cristoforo knew. They were there because Martin PinzĒn, their favorite among sailors, their hero, their darling, was taking a crew of their sons and brothers and uncles and cousins and friends out into the open ocean on a voyage of such bravery as to seem madness. Or was it of such madness as to seem bravery? It was PinzĒn in whom their trust resided, PinzĒn who would bring their menfolk home if anyone did at all. What was this Cristobal ColĒn to them, except a courtier who had wangled his way into the favor of the Crown and won control by fiat of what he could never have earned through seamanship? They knew nothing of the boy Cristoforo's years haunting the docks of Genova. They knew nothing of his voyages, nothing of his studies, nothing of his plans and dreams. Above all, they had no idea that God had spoken to him on a beach in Portugal, not that many miles to the west of them. They had no idea that this voyage was already a miracle which could never have taken place were it not that it had God's favor and therefore could not fail.
All was ready. The frenetic activity had settled to languor, the languor to waiting, as eyes that had before watched the work now turned to look at ColĒn.
Watch me, thought Cristoforo. When I raise my hand, I change the world. With all their labors, not one of these other men can do that.
He closed his fist. He lifted it high above his head. The people cheered as the men cast off and and the caravels; slipped away from land.
***
Three hollow grey hemispheres formed a triangle, like three serving bowls laid out for a feast. Each was filled with equipment for the different missions that Diko, Hunahpu, and Kemal would carry out. Each had a portion of the library that Manjam and his secret committee had collected and preserved. If any one of them reached the past and changed it so that the future was obliterated, then that one portion of the library would contain enough information that someday the people of the new future would be able to learn of the future that had died for them. Would be able to build on their science, wonder at their stories, profit from their technologies, learn from their sorrows. It is a sad sort of feast these bowls contained, thought Tagiri. But it is the way of the world. Always something must die so that another organism can live. And now a community, a world of communities must turn their dying into a banquet of possibilities for another.
Diko and Hunahpu stood beside each other as they listened to the final explanation from Sa Ferreira; Kemal was by himself, listening attentively enough but obviously not a part of what was going on. He was already gone, like a dik-dik in the jaws of a cheetah, past fear, past caring. The Christian martyrs must have looked like this, thought Tagiri, as they walked into the lion's den. It was not the look of sullen despair that Tagiri had seen on the faces of slaves being chained below decks in the ships of the Portuguese. Death is death, someone had said once to Tagiri, but she had not believed it then and did not believe it now. Kemal knows he is walking toward death, but it will mean something, it will achieve something, it is his apotheosis, it gives his life meaning. Such a death is to be not shunned but embraced. There is an element of pride in it, yes, but it is an honorable pride, not a vain one, that glories in sacrifice that will achieve a good end.
It is how we all should feel, for we all are being killed this day, by these machines. Kemal feels in his heart that he will die first, but it is not so. Of all the people in the world on this day, in this hour, he will be one of only three who do not die when the switch is thrown and the cargo and passengers of these hollow hemispheres hurtle back in time. Only two people alive today have a future longer than Kemal's.
And yet it was not wrong of him to relish his death. He would die surrounded by hate and rage, killed by those who did not understand what he was doing, but their hate would be a kind of honor, their rage a fitting response to his achievement.
Sa was nearly finished. "From the serious to the banal," he said. "Keep all your body parts inside the sphere. Don't stand up, don't raise your hands until you can see that you have arrived."
He pointed at the wires and cables dangling from the ceiling directly over the center of each hemisphere. "Those cables that hold up the field generators will be severed by the successful generation of the field. Thus your separation from the flow of time will have almost no duration. The field will exist, and in the moment it comes to exist, the generator will lose all power and the field will cease to exist. You'll be aware of none of that, of course. The only thing you will know is that the generator will suddenly drop. Since no part of your body will be under the generator -- I'm hoping you will not risk breaking an ankle by testing whether I'm right or not ..."
Diko laughed nervously. Hunahpu and Kemal were impassive. "You will be in no danger from the fall of the generator. However, it will whip the cables down with it. They are heavy, but fortunately the fall is short and there won't be that much force in them. Still, you must be aware of the possibility of being struck with some violence by the cable. So even though you may wish to strike some gallant pose, I must beg you to assume a covered, protected position so that you do not jeopardize the success of your mission by exposing yourself to the risk of personal injury."
"Yes yes," said Kemal. "We will curl up like infants in the uterus."
"Then we're done here. Time to go."
There was only a moment's hesitation. And then the last goodbyes began. Almost in silence, Hunahpu was embraced by his brothers, and Hassan and Tagiri, and their son Acho, held and kissed Diko for the last time. Kemal stood alone until Tagiri came also to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, and Hassan gripped his shoulders and murmured something to him, words from the Quran, and then kissed him on the lips.
Kemal climbed alone into his hemisphere. Hunahpu walked with Diko to hers, and just before she climbed the ladder he embraced her and kissed her gently. Tagiri did not hear the words that passed between them, but she knew -- they all knew, but did not speak of it -- that Hunahpu and Diko had also made a personal sacrifice, perhaps not as complete as that of Kemal, but one with its own kind of pain, its own sweet bitterness. It was possible that Kemal and Diko might see each other again, for they were both going to the island of Hispaniola -- no, the island of Haiti, for it was the native name for it that would survive now. But Hunahpu was going to the swamps of Chiapas in Mexico, and it was quite likely that either he or Diko would die during the long years before their paths could cross.
And that was assuming that all three hemispheres would arrive. The problem of simultaneity had never been overcome. Even though the wiring had been carefully measured so that it should take exactly as long for the signal to go from the switch to the three computers and from the computers to the three field generators, they knew that no amount of careful measurement could possibly make the signals arrive with true simultaneity. There would be some tiny but real difference in time. One of the signals would arrive first. One of the fields would exist, even if it was for just one nanosecond, before the others came into existence. And it was possible that because of the changes caused by the first field, the other fields would never come into being at all. The future in which they existed would have been obliterated.
Thus it was determined that each of the three must act as if the other two had already failed. Each must carry out the mission with as much care as if everything depended on him or her alone, for it very well might be true.
But they hoped that all three time machines would work, that all three travelers would reach their separate destinations. Diko would arrive in Haiti in 1488, Kemal in 1492; Hunahpu would reach Chiapas in 1475. "There is a certain sloppiness in nature," Manjam had told them. "True precision is never achieved, is never even possible, and so everything that happens depends on a certain amount of probability, has a little leeway, a bit of room to compensate for lapses and mistakes. Genetic molecules are filled with redundancy and can cope with a certain amount of loss or damage or extra insertions. Electrons moving through their quantum shells have a certain range of unpredictability about their exact location, for all that matters is that they remain at the same distance from the nucleus. Planets wobble in their orbits and yet persist for billions of years without falling into their motherstars. So there should be room for microseconds or milliseconds or centiseconds or even deciseconds of difference between the beginnings of the three fields. But we have no way of experimenting to see just what the tolerances are. We may have far exceeded them. We may have missed by a fraction of a nanosecond. We may have been so far from success as to have made this whole venture wasted time. Who can know these things?"
Why is it, thought Tagiri, that even though I know that within a few minutes I and my dear husband and my precious son Acho will almost certainly wink out of existence, it is Diko that I am grieving for? She is the one who will live. She is the one with the future. Yet the animal part of me, the part that feels emotion, does not comprehend my own death. It is not death, when the whole world dies with you. No, the animal part of me only knows that my child is leaving me, and that is what I grieve for.
She watched as Hunahpu helped Diko up the ladder, then walked to his own hemisphere and climbed.
And now it was Tagiri's own turn. She kissed and embraced Hassan and Acho, and then climbed her own ladder, up to the locked cage. She pressed the button to open it as Manjam and Hassan also pressed their widely separated buttons, as Diko and Hunahpu and Kemal pressed the buttons on their field generators. The lock clicked and she pushed open the door of the cage and stepped inside.
"I'm in," she said. "Release your buttons, travelers."
"Get in position," called Sd.
Tagiri was now above the hemispheres and could see as Kemal and Diko and Hunahpu curled up on top of their equipment and supplies, making sure that no part of their bodies was under the field generator or extending beyond the boundaries of the sphere that the field generator would create.
"Are you ready?" called Sa.
"Yes," answered Kemal at once.
"Ready," said Hunahpu.
"I'm ready," said Diko.
"Can you see them?" called Sa, now talking to Tagiri and to the other three watchers who were in position to see. All of them confirmed that the travelers seemed to be in a good position.
"When you are ready, Tagiri," said Sd.
Tagiri hesitated only a moment. I am killing everyone so that everyone can live, she reminded herself. They chose this, as much as anyone with imperfect understanding can ever choose. From birth we all were fated to die, and so it is good that at least we can be sure our deaths today might bring about a good end, might make the world a better place. This litany of justification passed quickly, and again she was left with the pain that had gnawed at her for the weeks, the years of this project.
For a fleeting moment she wished that she had never joined Pastwatch, rather than to face this moment, to have it be her hand that pulled the switch.
Who else's hand? she asked herself. Who else should bear this responsibility, if I cannot bear it? All the slaves waited for her to bring them freedom. All the unborn children of countless generations of humanity waited for her to save them from the withering death of the world. Diko waited for her to send her out into the great work of her life. She grasped the handle of the switch. "I love you," she said. "I love you all."
She pulled it down.
Chapter 10 -- Arrivals
Did the Lord say that Cristoforo would be the first to see the new land? If he did, then the prophecy must be fulfilled. But if he did not, then Cristoforo could allow Rodrigo de Triana to claim credit for seeing land first. Why couldn't Cristoforo remember the exact words the Lord said? The most important moment in his life until now, and the wording escaped him completely.
No mistaking it, though. In the moonlight seeping through the clouds everyone could see the land; sharp-eyed Rodrigo de Triana had first seen it an hour ago, at two in the morning, when it was nothing but a different-colored shadow on the western horizon. The other sailors were gathered around him now, offering their congratulations and cheerfully reminding him of his debts, both real and imaginary. As well they should, for the first to see land had been promised a reward of ten thousand maravedis a year for life. It was enough to keep a fine household with servants; it would make de Triana a gentleman.
But what was it, then, that Cristoforo had seen earlier tonight, at ten o'clock? Land must have been close then, too, scarcely four hours before de Triana saw it. Cristoforo had seen a light, moving up and down, as if signaling him, as if beckoning him onward. God had shown land to him, and if he was to fulfill the words of the Lord, he must lay the claim.
"I'm sorry, Rodrigo," called Cristoforo from his place near the helm. "But the land you see now is surely the same land I saw at ten o'clock."
A hush fell over the company.
"Don Pedro Gutierrez came to my side when I called him," said Cristoforo. "Don Pedro, what did we both see?"
"A light," said Don Pedro. "In the west, where the land now lies." He was the King's majordomo -- or, to put it bluntly, the King's spy. Everyone knew he was no particular friend to ColĒn. Yet to the common sailors, all gentlemen were conspirators against them, as it certainly seemed to them now.
"I was the one cried 'land' before anyone," said de Triana. "You gave no sign of it, Don Cristobal."
"I admit that I doubted it," said Cristoforo. "The sea was rough, and I doubted that land could be so near. I convinced myself that it could not be land, and so I said nothing because I didn't want to raise false hopes. But Don Pedro is my witness that I did see it, and what we all see now bears out the truth of it."
De Triana was outraged at what seemed to him to be plain theft. "All those hours I strained my eyes looking west. A light in the sky isn't land. No one saw land before I did, no one!"
Sdnchez, the royal inspector -- the King's official representative and bookkeeper on the voyage -- immediately spoke up, his voice whipping sharply across the deck. "Enough of this. On the King's voyage, does anyone dare to question the word of the King's admiral?"
It was a daring thing for him to say, for only if Cristoforo reached Cipangu and returned to Spain would the title Admiral of the Ocean-Sea belong to him. And Cristoforo well knew that last night, when Don Pedro had affirmed that he saw the same light, Sdnchez had insisted that there was no light, that there was nothing in the west. If anyone was going to cast doubt on Cristoforo's claim to first sighting, it would be Sanchez. Yet he had supported, if not Cristoforo's testimony, then his authority.
That would do well enough.
"Rodrigo, your eyes are indeed sharp, " said Cristoforo. "If someone on shore had not been casting a light -- a torch, or a bonfire -- I would have seen nothing. But God led my eyes to the shore by that light, and you merely confirmed what God had already shown me."
The men were silent, but Cristoforo knew that they were not content. A moment ago they had been rejoicing in the sudden enrichment of one of their own; as usual, they had seen the reward snatched out of the hands of the common man. They would assume, of course, that Cristoforo and Don Pedro lied, that they acted from greed. They could not understand that he was on God's mission, and that he knew God would give him plenty of wealth without his having to take it from a common sailor. But Cristoforo dared not fail but to fulfill the Lord's instructions in every particular. If God had ordained that he be first to lay eyes upon the far-off kingdoms of the Orient, then Cristoforo could not thwart God's will in this, not even out of sympathy for de Triana. Nor could he even share some portion of the reward with Triana, for word would get out and people would assume that it was, not Cristoforo's mercy and compassion, but rather his guilty conscience that made him give the money. His claim to have seen land must stand unassailed forever, lest the will of God be undone. As for Rodrigo de Triana, God would surely provide him with decent compensation for his loss.
It would have been nice if, now that all the struggle was near fruition, God had let something be simple.
***
No measurements are exact. The temporal field was supposed to form a perfect sphere that exactly scoured the inside of the hemisphere, sending the passenger and his supplies back in time while leaving the metal bowl behind in the future. Instead, Hunahpu found himself rocking gently in a portion of the bowl, a fragment of metal so thin that he could see leaves through the edges of it. For a moment he wondered how he would get out, for metal so thin would surely have an edge that would slice right through his skin. But then the metal shattered under the strain and fell in thin crumbling sheets on the ground. His supplies tumbled down among the fragile shards.
Hunahpu got up and walked gingerly, gathering up the thin sheets carefully and making a pile of them near the base of a tree. Their biggest fear, in delivering him on land, was that the sphere of his temporal field would bisect a tree, causing the top half of it to drop like a battering ram onto Hunahpu and his supplies. So they had put him as near the beach as they dared without running a serious risk of dropping him in the ocean. But the measurements were not exact. One large tree was not three meters from the edge of the field.
No matter. He had missed the tree. The slight miscalculation in the size of the field had at least been in the direction of including too much rather than slicing off a portion of his equipment. And with luck they would have come close enough to the right timeframe that he would be in good time to accomplish his work before the Europeans came.
It was early morning, and Hunahpu's greatest danger would come from being sighted too soon. This stretch of beach had been chosen because it was rarely visited; only if they had missed their target date by several weeks would someone be within sight of him. But he had to act as if the worst had happened. He had to be careful.
Soon he had everything out of sight among the bushes. He sprayed himself again with insect repellent, just to be sure, and began the labor of carrying everything from the shore to the hiding place he had selected among the rocks a kilometer inland.
It took him most of the day. He rested then, and allowed himself the luxury of pondering his future. I am here in the land of my ancestors, or at least a place near to it. There is no retreat. If I don't bring it off, I'll end up as a sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli or perhaps some Zapotecan god. Even if Diko and Kemal made it, their target dates were years in the future from this place where I am now. I am alone in this world, and everything depends on me. Even if the others fail, I have it in my power to undo Columbus. All I have to do is turn the Zapotecs into a great nation, link up with the Tarascans, accelerate the development of ironworking and shipbuilding, block the Tlaxcalans and overthrow the Mexica, and prepare these people for a new ideology that does not include human sacrifice. Who couldn't do that?
It had looked so easy on paper. So logical, such a simple progression from one step to the next. But now, knowing no one in this place, all alone with the most pathetic of equipment, really, which could not be replaced or repaired if it failed ...
Enough of that, he told himself. I still have a few hours before dark. I must find out when I have arrived. I have rendezvous to keep.
Before dark he had located the nearest Zapotec village, Atetulka, and, because he had watched this village over and over again on the TruSite II, he recognized what day it was from what he saw the people doing. There had been no important error in the temporal field, so far as date was concerned. He had arrived when he was supposed to, and he had the option of making himself known to this village in the morning.
He winced at the thought of what he would have to do to make ready, and then walked back to his cache in the dusk. He waited for the jaguar that he had watched so many times, dropped it with a tranquilizer dart, then killed it and skinned it, so he could arrive at Atetulka wearing the skin. They would not lay hands readily upon a Jaguar Man, especially when he identified himself as a Maya king from the inscrutable underworld land of Xibalba. The days of Mayan greatness were long in the past, but they were well remembered all the same. The Zapotecs lived perpetually in the great shadow of the Maya civilization of centuries past. The Interveners had come to Columbus dressed up in the image of the God he believed in; Hunahpu would do the same. The difference was that he would have to live on with the people he was deceiving and continue to manipulate them successfully for the rest of his life.
This all had seemed like such a good idea at the time.
***
Cristoforo wouldn't let any of the ships sail for land until full light. It was an unknown coast, and, impatient as they all were to set foot on solid earth again, there was no use in risking even one ship when there might be reefs or rocks.
The daylight passage proved him right. The approaches were treacherous, and it was only by deft sailing that Cristoforo was able to guide them in to shore. Let them say he was no sailor now, thought Cristoforo. Could PinzĒn himself have done better than I just did?
Yet none of the sailors seemed disposed to give him credit for his navigation. They were still sullen over the matter of de Triana's reward. Well, let them pout. There would be wealth enough for all before this voyage was done. Hadn't the Lord promised so much gold that a great fleet could not carry it all? Or was that what Cristoforo's memory had made up for the Lord to have said?
Why couldn't I have been permitted to write it down when it was fresh in mind! But Cristoforo had been forbidden, and so he had to trust his memory. There was gold here, and he would bring it home.
"At this latitude, we must surely be at the coast of Cipangu," said Cristoforo to Sanchez.
"Do you think so?" asked Sanchez. "I can't think of a stretch of the Spanish coast where there would be no sign of human habitation."
"You forget the light that we saw last night," said Don Pedro.
Sanchez said nothing.
"Have you ever seen such a lush and verdant land," said Don Pedro.
"God smiles on this place," said Cristoforo, "and he has delivered it into the hands of our Christian King and Queen."
The caravels were moving slowly, for fear of running aground in uncharted shallows. As they moved closer to the luminous white beach, figures emerged from the forest shadows.
"Men!" cried one of the sailors.
And so they obviously were, since they wore no clothing except for a string around their waists. They were dark, but not, Cristoforo thought, as dark as the Africans he had seen. And their hair was straight, not tight-curled.
"Such men as these," said Sanchez, "I have never seen before."
"That is because you have never been to the Indies before," said Cristoforo.
"Nor have I been to the moon," murmured Sanchez.
"Haven't you read Marco Polo? These are not Chinese because their eyes are not pinched-off and slanted. There is no yellowness to their skin, nor blackness either, but rather a ruddiness that tells us they are of India."
"So it's not Cipanga after all?" said Don Pedro.
"An outlying island. We have come perhaps too far north. Cipangu is to the south of here, or the southwest. We can't be sure how accurate Polo's observations were. He was no navigator."
"And you are?" asked Sanchez dryly.
Cristoforo did not even bother to look at him with the disdain that he deserved. "I said that we would reach the Orient by sailing west, SeĪor, and here we are."
"We're somewhere," said Sanchez. "But where this place may be on God's green Earth, no man can say."
"By God's own sacred wounds, man, I tell you that we are in the Orient."
"I admire the admiral's certainty."
There it was again, that title -- admiral. Sanchez's words seemed to express doubt, and yet he gave the title that could only be given to Cristoforo if his expedition succeeded. Or did he use the title ironically? Was Cristoforo being mocked?
The helmsman called to him. "Do we head for land now, sir?"
"The sea is still too rough," said Cristoforo. "And you can see the waves breaking over rocks. We have to circle the island and find an opening. Sail two points west of south until we round the southern end of the reef, and then west."
The same command was signaled to the other two caravels. The Indians on the shore waved at them, shouting something incomprehensible. Ignorant and naked -- it was not appropriate for the emissary of Christian kings to make his first overtures to the poorest people of this new land. Jesuit missionaries had traveled to the far corners of the East. Someone who knew Latin would surely be sent to greet them, now that they had been sighted.
About midday, now sailing northward up the western coast of the island, they found a bay that made a good entrance. By now it was clear that this was an island so small as to be insignificant. Even the Jesuits couldn't be bothered with a place so small, so Cristoforo was reconciled to waiting another day or two before reaching someone worthy of receiving the emissaries of the King and Queen.
The sky had cleared and the sun shone hot and bright as Cristoforo descended into the launch. Behind him down the ladder came Sanchez and Don Pedro and, shaky as ever, poor Rodrigo de Escobedo, the notary who had to make an official record of all deeds done in the name of Their Majesties. He had cut a fine figure at court, a promising young functionary, but on board ship he had quickly been reduced to a puking shadow rushing from his cabin to the gunwale and staggering back -- when he had strength to rise from his bed at all. By now, of course, he had got something like sea legs, and he even ate food that didn't end up staining the sides of the caravel. But yesterday's storms had felled him again, and so it was an act of sheer courage that he could come to shore and perform the duty for which he had been sent. Cristoforo admired him enough for his silent strength that he determined that no log of his would record the fact of Escobedo's seasickness. Let him keep his dignity in history.
Cristoforo noted that the launch put away from PinzĒn's caravel before all the royal officials had made it down into his launch. Let PinzĒn beware, if he thinks he can be the first to set foot on this island. Whatever he thinks of me as a sailor, I am still the emissary of the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile, and it would be treason for him to try to preempt me on such a mission as this.
PinzĒn must have realized this halfway to the beach, for his launch lay still in the water as Cristoforo's passed him and ran up onto the beach. Before the boat staggered to a stop, Cristoforo swung over the side and tramped through the water, the low breakers soaking him up to the waist and dragging at the sword at his hip. He held the royal standard high over his head as he broke from the water and strode forward on the smooth wet sand of the beach. He walked on until he was above the tide line, and there in the dry sand he knelt down and kissed the earth. Then he rose to his feet and turned to see the others behind him, also kneeling, also kissing the ground as he had done.
"This small island will now bear the name of the holy Savior who led us here."
Escobedo wrote on the paper he held on the small box he had carried from the caravel: "San Salvador."
"This land is now the property of Their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, our sovereigns and the servants of Christ."
They waited as Escobedo finished writing what Cristoforo had said. Then Cristoforo signed the deed, and so also did every other man there. None had the temerity to dare to sign above him, or to sign more than half as large as his bold signature.
Only then did the natives begin to emerge from the forest. There was a large number of them, all naked, none armed, brown as treebark. Against the vivid greens of the trees and underbrush, their skin looked almost red. They walked timidly, deferently, awe obvious on their faces.
"Are they all children?" asked Escobedo.
"Children?" asked Don Pedro.
"No beards," said Escobedo.
"Our captain shaves his face, too," said Don Pedro.
"They have no whiskers at all," said Escobedo.
Sanchez, hearing them, laughed loudly. "They're stark naked, and you look at their chins to see if they're men?"
PinzĒn overheard the joke and laughed even louder, passing the story on.
The natives, hearing the laughter, joined in. But they could not keep from reaching up and touching the beards of those Spaniards nearest them. It was so obvious that they had no harmful intent that the Spaniards permitted their touch, laughing and joking.
Still, even though Cristoforo had no beard to attract them, they obviously recognized that he was the leader, and it was to him that the oldest of them came. Cristoforo tried several languagaes on him, including Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Genovese, to no avail. Escobedo tried Greek and PinzĒn's brother, Vicente Yanez, tried the smattering of Moorish he had learned during his years of smuggling along the coast.
"They have no language at all," said Cristoforo. Then he reached out to the gold ornament the chief wore in his ear.
Without a word the man smiled, took it out of his ear, and laid it in Cristoforo's hand.
The Spaniards sighed in relief. So these natives understood things well enough, language or not. Whatever gold they had belonged to Spain.
"More of this," said Cristoforo. "Where do you dig it out of the ground?"
Met by incomprehension, Cristoforo acted it out, digging in the sand and "finding" the gold ornament there. Then he pointed inland.
The old man shook his head vigorously and pointed out to sea. To the southwest.
"The gold apparently doesn't come from this island," said Cristoforo. "But we could hardly expect a place as small and poor as this to have a gold mine, or there would have been royal officials from Cipangu here to oversee the labor of digging it."
He laid the gold ornament back into the old man's hand. To the other Spaniards he said, "We'll soon see gold in such quantities as to make this a trifle."
But the old man refused to keep the gold. He pressed it upon Cristoforo again. It was the clear sign he was looking for. The gold of this place was being given to him by God. No man would freely give away something so precious if God had not impelled him. Cristoforo's dream of a crusade to liberate Constantinople and then the Holy Land would be financed by the ornaments of savages. "I take this, then, in the name of my sovereign lords the King and Queen of Spain," he said. "Now we will go in search of the place where the gold is born."
***
It was not the safest group of Zapotecs to run into in the forest -- they were a war party, bent on finding a captive for sacrifice at the start of the rainy season. Their first thought would be that Hunahpu would make a splendid victim. He was taller and stronger than any man they had ever seen before, quite suitable for an offering of exceptional value.
So he had to preempt them -- to appear to them as one who already belonged to the gods. In the end, he virtually had to capture them. He had been blithely confident back in Juba that his plan would work. Here, when he was surrounded by the birdcalls and
whining insects of the marshy land of Chiapas, the plan seemed ludicrous, embarrassing, and painful.
He would have to imitate the most savage royal sacrifice ritual anywhere that didn't actually leave the king dead. Why had the Mayas been so inventively self-abusive?
Everything else was ready. He had hidden the library of the lost future in its permanent resting place and sealed the opening. He had cached the items he would need later in their weatherproof containers, and memorized all the permanent landmarks that would allow him to find them again. And the items he would need now, for the first year, were bundled in packaging that would not look too bizarre to the eyes of the Zapotecs. He himself was naked, his body painted, his hair feathered and beaded and jeweled to look like a Maya king's after a great victory. And, most important, on his head and draped down his back were the head and skin of the jaguar he had killed.
He had thirty minutes before the war party from the village of Atetulka would reach this clearing. If his blood was to be fresh he had to wait until the last minute, and now the last minute had arrived. He sighed, knelt in the soft leafmeal of the shadowed clearing, and reached for the topical anesthetic. The Mayas did this without anesthetic, he reminded himself as he applied it liberally to his penis and then waited a few minutes for it to become numb. Then, with a hypodermic gun, he deadened the entire genital area, hoping that he would have some opportunity to reapply the anesthetic in about four hours, when it began to wear off.
One genuine stingray needle and five imitation ones made of different metals. He took them one at a time in his hand and pushed each one crosswise into the loose skin along the top of his penis. The blood flow was copious, dripping all over his legs. Stingray needle, then silver, gold, copper, bronze, and iron. Even though there was no pain, he was dizzy by the end of it. From loss of blood? He doubted it. It was almost certainly the psychological effect of perforating his own penis that made him feel faint. Being a king among the Mayas was a serious business. Could he have done this without anesthetic? Hunahpu doubted it, saluting his ancestors even as he shuddered at their barbarism.
When the hunting party trotted silently into the clearing, Hunahpu stood in a shaft of light. The high-intensity lamp pointing upward between his legs caused the metal spines to glint and shimmer with the trembling of his body. As he had hoped, their eyes went right to where the blood still trickled down his thighs and dripped from the tip of his penis. They also took in his body paint and, just as he had expected, they seemed to recognize at once the significance of his appearance. They prostrated themselves.
"I am One-Hunahpu," he said in Maya. Then he repeated himself in Zapotecan. "I am One-Hunahpu. I come from Xibalba to you, dogs of Atetulka. I have decided that you will no longer be dogs, but men. If you obey me, you and all who speak the language of the Zapotec will be masters of this land. No longer will your sons go up to the altar of Huitzilopochtli, for I will break the back of the Mexica, I will tear out the heart of the Tlaxcala, and your ships will touch the shores of all the islands of the world."
The men lying on the ground began to tremble and moan.
"I command you to tell me why you are afraid, foolish dogs!"
"Huitzilopochtli is a terrible god!" cried one of them -- Yax, his name was. Hunahpu knew them all, of course, had studied their village and key people in the other Zapotec villages for years.
"Huitzilopochtli is almost as terrible as Fat Jaguar Girl," said Hunahpu.
Yax raised his head at this mention of his wife, and several of the other men laughed.
"Fat Jaguar Girl beats you with a stick when she thinks you have been planting corn in the wrong field," said Hunahpu, "but still you plant corn where you want."
"One-Hunahpu!" cried Yax. "Who told you about Fat Jaguar Girl?"
"In Xibalba I watched you all. I laughed at you when you cried under Fat Jaguar Girl's stick. And you, Flower-eating-Monkey, do you think I didn't see you pee on old Great-Skull-Zero's cornmeal and make them into frycakes for him? I laughed when he ate them."
The other men also laughed, and Flower-eating-Monkey raised his head with a smile. "You liked my revenge joke?"
"I told of your monkey tricks to the lords of Xibalba, and they laughed until they cried. And when Huitzilopochtli's eyes were filled with tears, I jabbed him with my thumbs and popped out his eyeballs." With this, Hunahpu reached into the pouch hanging from the string around his waist and brought out the two acrylic eyeballs he had brought with him. "Now Huitzilopochtli has to have a boy lead him around Xibalba, telling him what he sees. The other lords of Xibalba set obstacles in his path and laugh when he falls down. And now I have come here to the surface of Earth to make you into people."
"We will build a temple and sacrifice every man of the Mexica to you, O One-Hunahpu!" cried Yax.
Exactly the reaction he had expected. At once he threw one of the eyeballs of Huitzilopochtli at Yax, who yelped and rubbed his shoulder where it had hit him. Hunahpu had been a pretty good Little League pitcher with a decent fastball.
"Pick up the eyeball of Huitzilopochtli and hear my words, dogs of Atetulka!"
Yax scrabbled around in the leafmeal until he found the acrylic eye.
"Why do you think the lords of Xibalba were glad and didn't punish me when I took the eyes of Huitzilopochtli? Because he was fat from the blood of so many men. He was greedy and the Mexica fed him on blood that should have been out planting corn. Now all the lords of Xibalba are sick of blood, and they will make Huitzilopochtli go hungry until he is thin as a young tree."
They moaned again. The fear of Huitzilopochtli ran deep -- the success of the Mexica in war after war had seen to that -- and to hear such terrible threats against a powerful god was a heavy burden to place upon them. Well, they're tough little bastards, thought Hunahpu. And I'll give them plenty of courage when the time comes.
"The lords of Xibalba have called upon their king to come from a far country. He will forbid them to drink the blood of men or women ever again. For the King of Xibalba will shed his own blood, and when they drink of his blood and eat of his flesh they will never thirst or hunger anymore."
Hunahpu thought of his brother the priest and wondered what he would think of what was happening to the Christian gospel right now. In the long run, he would surely approve. But there would be some uncomfortable moments along the way.
"Rise up and look at me. Pretend to be men." They arose carefully from the forest floor and stood looking at him. "As you see me shed my blood here, so the King of Xibalba has already shed his blood for the lords of Xibalba. They will drink, and never thirst again. In that day will men cease to die to feed their god. Instead they will die in the water and rise up reborn, and then eat the flesh and drink the blood of the King of Xibalba just as the lords of Xibalba do. The King of Xibalba died in a faraway kingdom, and yet he lives again. The King of Xibalba is returning and he will make Huitzilopochtli bow down before him and will not let him drink of his blood or eat of his flesh until he is thin again, and that will take a thousand years, that old pig has eaten and drunk so much!"
He looked around at them, at the awe on their faces. Of course they were hardly taking this in, but Hunahpu had worked out with Diko and Kemal the doctrine he would teach to the Zapotecs and would repeat these ideas often until thousands, millions of people in the Caribbean basin could repeat them at will. It would prepare them for the coming of Columbus, if the others succeeded, but even if they did not, even if Hunahpu was the only one of the time travelers to reach his destination, it would prepare the Zapotecs to receive Christianity as something they had long expected. They could accept it without giving up one iota of their own native religion. Christ would simply be the King of Xibalba, and if the Zapotecs believed that he bore some small but bloody wounds in a place not often depicted in Christian art, it would be a heresy that the Catholics could learn to live with -- as long as the Zapotecs had the technology and the military power to stand against Europe. If the Christians could accommodate the Greek philosophers and a plethora of barbarian holidays and rituals and pretend that they had been Christian all along, they could deal with the slightly perverse spin that Hunahpu was putting on the doctrine of Jesus' sacrifice.
"You are wondering if I am the King of Xibalba," said Hunahpu, "but I am not. I am only the one who comes before, to announce his coming. I am not worthy to braid a feather into his hair."
Take that, Juan Batista.
"Here is the sign that he is coming to you. Every man of you will be taken sick, and every person in your village. This sickness will spread throughout the land, but you will not die of it unless your heart belonged to Huitzilopochtli. You will see that even among the Mexica, there were few who truly loved that gluttonous fat god!"
Let that be the story that would travel with and explain the virulent therapeutic plague that these men were already catching from him. The carrier virus would kill no more than one in ten thousand, making it an exceptionally safe vaccine as it left its "victims" with antibodies capable of fighting off smallpox, bubonic plague, cholera, measles, chicken pox, yellow fever, malaria, sleeping sickness, and as many other diseases as the medical researchers had been able to pile on back in the lost future. The carrier virus would remain as a childhood disease, reinfecting each new generation -- infecting the Europeans, too, when they came, and eventually all of Africa and Asia and every island of the sea. Not that disease would become unknown -- no one was foolish enough to think that bacteria and viruses would not evolve to fill the niches left by the defeat of these old killers. But disease would not give an advantage to one side over the other in the cultural rivalries to come. There would be no smallpox-infected blankets to kill off annoyingly persistent Indie tribes.
Hunahpu squatted down and picked up the high-intensity light from between his feet. It was enclosed in a basket. "The lords of Xibalba gave me this basket of light. It holds within it a small piece of the sun, but it only works for me." He shone the light in their eyes, temporarily blinding them, then reached one finger into a gap in the basket, pressing it on the identification plate. The light turned off. No reason to waste batteries -- this "basket of light" would have only a limited life, even with the solar collectors around the rim, and Hunahpu didn't want to waste it.
"Which of you will carry the gifts that the lords of Xibalba gave to One-Hunahpu when he came to this world to tell you of the coming of the King?"
Soon they were all reverently carrying bundles of equipment that Hunahpu would need during the coming months. Medical supplies for pertinent healings. Weapons for self-defense and for taking the courage out of enemy armies. Tools. Reference books stored in digital form. Appropriate costumes. Underwater breathing equipment. All sorts of useful little magic tricks.
The journey wasn't easy. Every step caused the weight of the metal spines to tug at his skin, opening the wounds wider and causing more bleeding. Hunahpu toyed with having the removal ceremony now, but decided against it. It was Yax's father, Na-Yaxhal, who was headman of the village, and to cement his authority and place him in the proper relationship with Hunahpu, he had to be the one to remove the spines. So Hunahpu walked on, slowly, step by step, hoping that the blood loss would remain minor, wishing that he had chosen a location just a little closer to the village.
When they were near, Hunahpu sent Yax on ahead, carrying the eyeball of Huitzilopochtli. Whatever jumble he might make of the things that Hunahpu had said to him, the gist of it would be clear enough, and the village would be turned out and waiting.
Waiting they were. All the other men of the village, armed with spears, ready to throw them, the women and children hidden in the woods. Hunahpu cursed. He had chosen this village specifically because Na-Yaxhal was smart and inventive. Why would Hunahpu imagine that he would believe at face value his son's story of a Maya king from Xibalba.
"Stop there, liar and spy!" cried Na-Yaxhal.
Hunahpu leaned back his head and laughed, as he inserted his finger into the basket of light and activated it. "Na-Yaxhal, does a man who woke up with painfully loose bowels twice in the night dare to stand before One-Hunahpu, who brings a basket of light from Xibalba?" With that he shone the light directly in Na-Yaxhal's eyes.
Six-Kauil's-Daughter, Na-Yaxhal's wife, cried out, "Spare my foolish husband!"
"Silence, woman!" answered Na-Yaxhal.
"He was up twice in the night with loose bowels, and he groaned with the pain of it!" she shouted. All the other women moaned with this confirmation of the stranger's secret knowledge, and the spears wavered and dipped.
"Na-Yaxhal, I will make you sick indeed. For two days your bowels will run like a fountain, but I will heal you and make you a man who serves the King of Xibalba. You will rule many villages and build ships to sail to every shore, but only if you kneel now before me. If you do not, I will cause you to fall over dead with a hole in your body that will not stop bleeding until you are dead!"
I won't have to shoot him, Hunahpu told himself. He'll obey and we'll become friends. But if he makes me, I can do it, I can kill him.
"Why does the man of Xibalba choose me for this greatness, when I am a dog?" called out Na-Yaxhal. It was a very promising rhetorical position for him to take.
"I choose you because you are the closest to human of all the dogs who bark in Zapotec, and because your wife is already a woman for two hours every day." There, that would reward the old bat for speaking out in Hunahpu's support.
Na-Yaxhal made up his mind and, as rapidly as his aging body -- he was nearly thirty-five -- would allow, he prostrated himself. The others in the village followed suit.
"Where are the women of Atetulka? Come out of hiding, you and all your children. Come out and see me! Among men I would be a king, but I am only the humblest servant of the King of Xibalba. Come out and see me!" Let's lay the groundwork of somewhat more egalitarian treatment of women now, at the beginning. "Stand with your families, all of you!"
They milled around, but it took only a few moments -- they already oriented themselves by clan and family, even when confronting an enemy, so it took little rearrangement to obey his command.
"Now, Na-Yaxhal, come forward. Take the first spine from my penis and paint the blood from it on your forehead, for you are the man who will be first king in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth, as long as you serve me, for I am the servant of the King of Xibalba!"
Na-Yaxhal came forward and pulled out the stingray spine. Hunahpu did not wince because there was no pain, but he could tell how the stingray spine tugged at his skin and imagined how nasty the pain would be tonight. If I ever see Diko again I don't want to hear her complain about anything she had to go through for the sake of our mission. Then he thought of the price Kemal intended to pay, and was ashamed.
Na-Yaxhal painted his forehead and nose, his lips and chin with the blood on the stingray spine.
"Six-Kauil's-Daughter!" The woman emerged from the midst of the leading clan of the village. "Draw out the next spine. What is it made of?"
"Silver," she said.
"Paint your neck with my blood."
She drew the long silver spine across her neck.
"You will be the mother of kings and your strength will be in the ships of the Zapotec people, if you serve the King of Xibalba-on-Earth, and me, the servant of the King of Xibalba!"
"I will," she murmured.
"Speak loudly!" Hunahpu commanded. "You did not whisper when you spoke wisely of the loose bowels of your husband! The voice of a woman can be heard as loud as the voice of a man, in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!"
That's about all we can do for egalitarianism right now, Hunahpu said silently, but it should be revolutionary enough as the story spreads.
"Where is Yax!" cried Hunahpu.
The young man came forward timidly.
"Will you obey your father, and when he is carried to Xibalba will you lead this people in mercy and wisdom?"
Yax prostrated himself before Hunahpu.
"Take out the next spine. What is it made of?"
"Gold," said Yax, when he had it out.
"Paint your chest with my blood. All the gold of the world will be yours to command, when you are worthy to become king, as long as you remember that it belongs to the King of Xibalba, and not to you or any man. You will share it freely and fairly with all who drink the blood and eat the flesh of the King of Xibalba." That should help get the Catholic Church on the side of conciliation with the strange heretical proto-Christians when the two cultures met. If gold flowed freely to the Church, but only on condition that they confessed that they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the King of Xibalba, the heresy should find itself well on the way to become an acceptable variant of Catholic dogma. I wonder, thought Hunahpu, if I will be declared a saint. There will certainly be no lack of miracles, for a while, at least.
"Bacab, toolmaker, metalworker!" A thin young man came forward, and Hunahpu had him withdraw the next spine.
"It is copper, Lord One-Hunahpu, " said Bacab.
"Do you know copper? Can you work it better than any man?"
"I work it better than any man in this village, but there are surely other men in other places who work it better than I do."
"You will learn to mix it with many metals. You will make tools that no one in the world has seen. Paint my blood upon your belly!"
The coppersmith did as he was told. After a king, a king's wife, and a king's son, the metalworkers would now have the most prestige in the new kingdom.
"Where is Xocol-Ha-Man? Where is the master shipbuilder?"
A strong man with massive shoulders emerged from another clan, smiling in pride and slapping his shoulders in piety.
"Take out the next spine, Xocol-Ha-Man. You who are named for a great river in flood, you must tell me, have you ever seen this metal before?"
Xocol-Ha-Man fingered the bronze, getting blood all over his fingers. "It looks like copper, only brighter," he said. "I've never seen it."
Bacab looked at it too, and also shook his head.
"Pee on this metal, Xocol-Ha-Man. Make the current of the ocean within you flow upon it! For you will not paint my blood on your body until you have found this metal in another land. You will build ships and you will sail them until you find the land in the north where they know the name of this metal. When you bring back the name of this metal to me, then you will paint my blood upon your groin."
Only the iron spine remained. "Where is Xoc? Yes, I mean the slavegirl, the ugly girl you captured and no one would marry her!"
She was thrust forward, a filthy thirteen-year-old with a harelip.
"Take out the last spine, Xoc. Paint my blood upon your feet. For by the power of this last metal will the King of Xibalba make all slaves free. Today you are a free citizen of the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth, Xoc. You belong to no man or woman, for no man or woman belongs to any other. The King of Xibalba commands it! There are no captives, no slaves, no servants-for-life in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!"
For you, Tagiri.
But what he had given in pity was used in power. Xoc drew the iron spine from his penis and then, just as a Maya queen would have done, she stuck out her tongue, gripped the tip of it with her left hand, and with her right hand drove the spine through it. Blood flooded down her chin as the spine and her lips made a strange cross.
The people gasped. What Xoc was demanding was not the kindness of a lord toward a slave he plans to free, but the honor of a king for the queen who will bear his children.
What do I do with this? Who could have guessed, watching Xoc's abject servility during her months of slavery, that she had this kind of ambition? What did she mean to accomplish? Hunahpu studied her face and saw in it -- what, defiance? It was as if she saw through his whole charade and dared him to refuse her.
But no, it was not defiance. It was bravery in the face of fear. Of course she acted boldly. This kingly man who claimed to come from the land of the gods was the first chance she had to rise above her miserable condition. Who could blame her for acting as desperate people so often do, seizing on the first opportunity to reach far beyond all reasonable hope? What did she have to lose? In her despair, all salvation had seemed equally impossible. So why not try to be queen, as long as this One-Hunahpu seemed disposed to help her?
She is so ugly.
But smart and brave. Why close a door?
He reached down and drew the iron spine from her tongue. "Let truth flow from your mouth forever as blood does now. I am no king, and so I have no queen. But because you mixed your blood with mine upon this last spine, I promise that for the rest of your life, I will listen every day to one thing that you choose to tell me."
Gravely she nodded, her face showing relief and pride. He had turned away her bid to be a consort, but had accepted her as a counselor. And as he knelt and painted her feet with the bloody spine, she could not help but know that her life had been changed completely and forever. He had made her great in the eyes of those who had mistreated her.