A chance for what? To die at sea, lost with three caravels and all their crews, starving or dying of thirst or broken up in some storm or swallowed up in a maelstrom?

Columbus was dismissed. Isabella, weary but happy, sank back in her throne, then beckoned to Quintanilla and Cardinal Mendoza, both of whom had also waited through the interview. To Santangel's surprise, she also beckoned to him.

"What do you think of this man?" she asked.

Quintanilla, always the ftrst to speak and the last to have anything valuable to say, merely shrugged. "Who can tell whether his plan has merit?"

Cardinal Mendoza, the man that some called "the third king," smiled. "He speaks well, Your Majesty, and he has sailed with the Portuguese and met with their king," he said. "But it will take much examination before we know whether his ideas have merit. I think his idea of the distance between Spain and Cathay, sailing west, is grossly wrong."

Then she looked at Santangel. This terrified him. He had not won his position of trust because he spoke up in the presence of others. He was not a speaker. Rather he acted. The King trusted him because when he promised he could raise a sum of money, he produced it; when he promised they could afford to carry out a campaign, the funds were there.

"What do I know of such matters, Your Majesty?" he asked. "Sailing west -- what do I know of that?"

"What will you tell my husband?" she asked -- teasingly, for of course he was an open observer, not a spy.

"That Columbus's plan is not as expensive as a siege, but more expensive than anything we can afford at present."

She turned to Quintanilla. "And can Castile not afford it, either?"

"At present, Your Majesty, " said Quintanilla, "it would be difficult. Not impossible, but if it failed it would make Castile look foolish in the eyes of others."

No need to say that the "others" he referred to were Ferdinand and his advisers. Santangel knew that Isabella was always careful to retain the respect of her husband and the men he listened to, for if she gained a reputation for foolishness, it would be an easy matter for him to step in and take over more and more of her power in Castile with little resistance from the Castilian lords. Only her reputation for "manlike" wisdom allowed her to remain a strong rallying point for the Castilians, which in turn gave her a measure of independence from her husband.

"And yet," she said, "why did God make us queen, if not to bring his children to the Cross?"

Cardinal Mendoza nodded. "If his ideas have merit, then pursuing them would be worth any sacrifice, Your Majesty," he said.

"So let us keep him here with the court, so he can be examined, so his ideas can be discussed and compared to the knowledge we have from the ancients. There's no hurry, I think. Cathay will still be there in a month or two, or a year."

Isabella thought for a few moments. "The man has no estate," she said. "If we keep him here, then we must attach him to the court." She looked at Quintanilla. "He must be allowed to live as a gentleman."

He nodded. "I already gave him a small sum to keep him while he waited for this audience."

"Fifteen thousand maravedis out of my own purse," said the Queen.

"That is for the year, Your Majesty?"

"If it takes more than a year," she said, "we'll speak of this again." She waved her hand and looked away. Quintanilla left. Cardinal Mendoza also excused himself and took his leave. Santangel turned to go, but she called him back. "Luis," she said.

"Your Majesty."

She waited until Cardinal Mendoza had gone. "How extraordinary, that Cardinal Mendoza chose to listen to all that Columbus had to say."

"He's a remarkable man," said Santangel.

"Which? Columbus or Mendoza?"

Since Santangel wasn't sure himself, he had no ready answer.

"You heard him, Luis Santangel, and you are a hardheaded man. What do you think of him?"

"I believe him to be an honest man," said Santangel. "Beyond that, who can know? Oceans and sailing vessels and kingdoms of the east -- I know nothing of that."

"But you do know how to judge whether a man is honest."

"He's not here to steal from the royal coffers," said Santangel. "And he meant every word that he said to you today. Of that I'm certain, Your Majesty."

"I am, too," said the Queen. "I hope he is able to make his case to the scholars."

Santangel nodded. And then, against his better judgment, he added a rather daring comment. "Scholars don't know everything, Your Majesty."

She raised her eyebrows. Then she smiled. "He won you over, too, did he?"

Santangel blushed. "As I said -- I think him an honest man."

"Honest men don't know everything either," she said.

"In my line of work, Your Majesty, I have come to think of honest men as a precious rarity, while scholars are rather thick on the ground."

"And is that what you will tell my husband?"

"Your husband," he said carefully, "will not ask me the same questions that you asked."

"Then he will end up knowing less than he should know, don't you think?"

It was as close as Queen Isabella could come to openly admitting the rivalry between the two crowns of Spain, despite the careful harmony of their marriage. It would not do for Santangel to commit himself on such a dangerous question. "I cannot begin to guess what sovereigns should know."

"Neither can I, " said the Queen softly. She looked away, a sort of melancholy drifting across her face. "It won't do for me to see him too often," she murmured. Then, as if remembering Santangel was there, she waved him off.

He left at once, but her words lingered. It won't do for me to see him too often. So, Columbus had struck deeper than he knew. Well, that was something the King didn't need to hear about. No reason to tell the King something that would lead to the poor Genovese dying on some dark night with a dirk between his ribs. Santangel would tell King Ferdinand only that what King Ferdinand would ask: Did Columbus's idea seem worth the cost? And to that, Santangel would answer honestly that at present it was more than the Crown could afford, but at some later date, with the war successfully concluded, it might be both feasible and desirable, if it were judged to have any chance at all of success.

And in the meantime, there was no need to worry about the Queen's last remark. She was a Christian woman and a clever queen. She would not jeopardize her place in eternity or on the throne for the sake of some brief yearning for this white-haired Genovese; nor did Columbus seem such a fool as to seek that dangerous avenue of preferment. Yet Santangel wondered if, in the back of Columbus's mind, there might not be some small hope of winning more than the mere approval of the Queen.

Well, what would it matter? It would come to nothing. If Santangel was any judge of men, he was certain that Cardinal Mendoza had left the court tonight determined to see to it that Columbus's examination would be hellish. The poor man's arguments would end up in shreds; after the scholars were through with him he would no doubt slink away from Cordoba in shame.

Too bad, thought Santangel. He made such an excellent start.

And then he thought: I want him to succeed. I want him to have his ships and make his voyage. What has he done to me? Why should I care? Columbus has seduced me as surely as he seduced the Queen.

He shuddered at his own fragility. He had thought he was a stronger man than that.

***

It was obvious to Hunahpu from the beginning that Kemal was annoyed at having to waste time listening to this unknown child from Mexico. He was cold and impatient. But Tagiri and Hassan were pleasant enough, and when Hunahpu looked to Diko he could see that she was perfectly at ease, and her smile was warm and encouraging. Perhaps Kemal was always like this. Well, no matter, thought Hunahpu. What mattered was the truth, and Hunahpu had that, or at least more of it than anyone else had put together yet about these matters.

It took an hour to get through all that he had shown to Diko in half that time, mostly because Kemal kept interrupting at first, challenging Hunahpu's statements. But as time went on, as it became clear that all of Kemal's challenges were easily dealt with using evidence that Hunahpu had already intended to include a bit later in his presentation, the hostility began to slacken, and he was allowed to proceed with fewer questions.

Now he had reached the end of the things that Diko had seen, and as if to signal that fact, she pulled her chair closer to the TruSite viewing area. The others who had watched yesterday also grew more attentive. "I have shown you that the Tarascans had the technology to establish a more dominant empire than the Mexica, and the Tlaxcalans were reaching for that technology. Their struggle for survival had made them more willing to embrace novelty -- which we saw a bit later, of course, when they made alliance with Cortes. But this wasn't all. The Zapotecs of the northern coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were also developing a new technology."

The TruSite II at once began displaying shipbuilders at work. Hunahpu showed them the standard ocean-going kanoa of the Tainos and Caribs of the islands to the east, then the differences in the new ships that the Zapotecs were building. "Rudders," he said, and they could see that the tiller was indeed being transformed into the more efficient steering device. "And now," he said, "look how they're making the ships larger."

Sure enough, the Zapotecs were reaching for a greater carrying capacity than would ever be possible in a dugout canoe made from a single tree. At first it consisted of wide decks straddling the sides of the canoe and reaching beyond, but this became unwieldy, making the boat too likely to tip. A better solution was to shape a second tree into a vertical extension of the sides of the canoe, lashed to the hull by the use of holes bored into the sides. To make it watertight they smeared the surfaces with sap before they put them together, making a glue-like bond when it was lashed tight.

"Clever," said Kemal.

"It doubles the carrying capacity of the ships. But it slows them down, too -- they tend to wallow in the water. What matters, though, is that they've learned to join wood and make it watertight. Single-tree construction is over. It's just a matter of time before the original one-tree canoe becomes the keel, and planks are used to make a much wider, shallower hull."

"A matter of time," said Kemal. "But you don't actually see any being made."

"What they lack is adequate tools," said Hunahpu. "When Tlaxcala takes over the Aztec empire, the bronze of the Tarascans will come to the Zapotecs, and they'll be able to make boards more efficiently and with more reliably smooth surfaces. The point is that when they make any innovation, it spreads quickly. And the Zapotecs are also under pressure from the Aztecs. They have to find sources of supply because the Mexican armies have forced them from their fields. In this swampy land, farming is always precarious. So look where they're sailing."

He showed them the clumsy, wallowing Zapotec ships carrying large cargos from Veracruz and the Yucatan. "Slow as these ships are, they carry enough cargo on each trip to make the voyages profitable. They're far enough up the coast of Veracruz now to be in contact with the Tlaxcalans; and the Tarascans. And here." Again the view changed. "This is the island of Hispaniola. And look who's coming to visit."

Three Zapotecan ships slipped up to the shore.

"Unfortunately," said Hunahpu, "Columbus was already there."

"But if he hadn't been there," said Diko, "it could have extended the reach of a Tlaxcalan empire out to the islands."

"Exactly," said Hunahpu.

"There was already extensive contact between Mesoamerica and the Caribbean islands," said Kemal.

"Of course," said Hunahpu. "The Taino culture was actually an overlay by earlier raiders from the Yucatan. They brought the ball court with them, for instance, and established themselves as the ruling class. But they adopted the Arawak language and soon forgot their origins, and they certainly did not establish regular trade routes. Why should they? The boats didn't carry enough to make trade profitable. Only raiding was worth the effort, and the Caribs were the raiders, not the Taino, and since they came out of the southeastern Caribbean, Mesoamerica was even further out of reach. The Taino knew about Mesoamerica as a fabled land of gold and wealth and mighty gods -- that's what they meant when they kept telling Columbus that the land of gold was to the west -- but they had no regular contact. These Zapotecan ships would have changed all that. Especially as the ships got bigger and better. It would have been the beginning of a sailing tradition that would have led to ships that could cross the Atlantic.

"Very speculative," said Kemal.

"Forgive me," said Diko, "but isn't that what your entire project is? Speculation?"

Kemal glowered at her.

"What matters," said Hunahpu, anxious not to antagonize Kemal, "is not the details. What matters is that the Zapotecs were innovating, they reached the islands with ships that could carry larger cargos, and they were also a familiar sight to the Tlaxcalans along the coast of Veracruz. It's unthinkable that the Tlaxcalans would not have seized upon this new technology just as they reached for the bronze-working of the Tarascans. It was an age of invention and innovation in Mesoamerica, and the only barrier was the ultraconservative Mexica leadership. That was doomed -- everyone knows it -- and it seems obvious to me from this evidence that the Tlaxcalans would have become the successor empire, and as the Persians far outstripped the empire of the Chaldeans, so also the innovative, politically sophisticated Tlaxcalan empire would have outreached the empire of the Mexica."

"You've made that case very well," said Kemal.

Hunahpu almost allowed himself a sigh of relief.

"But you have claimed much more than that, haven't you? And for those claims you have no evidence."

"Columbus's discovery erased all the other evidence," said Hunahpu. "But then, the Intervention also erased Columbus's crusade to the east. I think we're on equal ground here."

"Equally shaky," said Kemal.

"Kemal is heading the speculative aspects of our research," said Tagiri, "precisely because he is profoundly skeptical about it. He doesn't believe an accurate reconstruction is possible."

That thought had never occurred to Hunahpu -- that Kemal was predisposed to reject all speculations. He had assumed that his only task was to bring Kemal to consider another possible scenario, not that he had to persuade him that it was possible to construct a scenario at all.

Diko seemed to sense his consternation. "Hunahpu," she said, "let's leave aside the issue of what can and can't be proved. You must have developed the rest of the story in your mind. Let's regard it as likely that Tlaxcala has conquered and unified the whole of the old Mexica empire, and that now it's running smoothly with Zapotecan ships trading far and wide and Tarascan bronzeworkers making weapons and tools for them. What then?"

Her guidance helped him recover his confidence. Trying to convince the great Kemal against his will was too much to contemplate; talking about ideas he could do. "First, you have to remember," said Hunahpu, "that there was one problem of the Mexica that the Tlaxcalans had not overcome. As with the Mexica, the Tlaxcalan practice of wholesale sacrifice to their bloodthirsty god would have drained away the manpower they needed to feed their population."

"So? How do you resolve it?" asked Kemal. "You wouldn't have come here if you didn't have an answer."

"I have a possibility, anyway. There's nothing in the evidence, because Tlaxcala hadn't had to govern a real empire yet. But they couldn't have succeeded if they made the same mistake the Mexica made, slaughtering the able-bodied men of their subject populations. So here's how I think they would have solved it. There is a hint of a doctrine among the priestly class that their warrior god Camaxtli becomes especially thirsty for blood after he has exerted himself to give Tlaxcala a victory. The existence of this idea makes it possible for the Tlaxcalans to evolve the practice of only offering huge mass sacrifices after a military victory, because that's the only time that Camaxtli is especially in need of blood. So if a city or nation or tribe willingly allies itself with Tlaxcala, submits to their overlordship, and allows the Tlaxcalan bureaucracy to administer their affairs, then instead of being sacrificed, their men are left to work the fields. Perhaps, if they prove to be trustworthy, they can even join the Tlaxcalan army, or fight alongside it. The mass sacrifices are only performed using captives from armies that resist. Aside from that, peacetime sacrifices in the Tlaxcalan empire would stay at a tolerable level -- the way they were before the Mexica arose to form the Aztec empire in the first place."

"It gives the surrounding nations a reward for surrendering," said Hassan. "And a reason not to rebel."

"Just the way so much of the Roman Empire didn't have to be conquered," said Hunahpu. "The Romans seemed so irresistible that kings of neighboring countries would make the Roman senate the heir to their thrones, so that they could live as sovereigns until they died, and then their kingdoms would pass peacefully into the Roman system. It's the cheapest way to build an empire, and the best, since there's no war damage to the newly acquired lands."

"So," said Kemal. "If their god isn't bloodthirsty except after victory, they become peaceful and their god goes to sleep."

"Well, that would be nice," said Hunahpu, "but part of their theology was that besides needing sacrifices after victory, Camaxtli liked the blood. Camaxtli liked war. So they could put off the huge sacrifices until they won a victory, but they would still keep looking for more fights that might lead to such a victory. Besides, the Tlaxcalans had the same social-mobility system as the Mexica in their pre-Moctezuma days. The only way to rise within their society was either to make a lot of money or to prevail in battle. And making money was only possible for those who controlled trade. So there would have been constant pressure to start new wars with ever-more-remote neighbors. I think it wouldn't have taken the bronze-wielding Tlaxcalans long to reach the natural boundaries of their new seafaring empire: The Caribbean islands to the east, the mountains of Colombia to the south, and the deserts to the north. Conquests beyond those boundaries would not have been cost-effective, either because there were no large concentrated populations to exploit economically or to offer as sacrifices, or because the resistance would have been too strong as they came in contact with the Incas."

"So they turned to the empty Atlantic? Unlikely," said Kemal.

"I agree," said Hunahpu. "Left to themselves, I think they would never have turned eastward, or not for centuries. But they weren't left to themselves. The Europeans came to them."

"Then we're right back where we started," said Kemal. "The superior European civilization discovers the backward Indies and ..."

"Not so backward now," said Diko.

"Bronze blades against muskets?" scoffed Kemal.

"Muskets weren't decisive," said Hunahpu. "Everyone knows that. The Europeans simply couldn't come in large enough numbers for their superior weapons to overcome the numerical advantage of the Indies. Besides, there's something else to consider. The Europeans wouldn't have come straight to the heart of the Caribbean this time. The later discovery would almost certainly have come from the Portuguese. Several Portuguese ships landed on or sighted the coast of Brazil quite independently of Columbus as early as the late 1490s. But the land they saw was dry and barren, and it didn't lead to India the way the coast of Africa would. So their exploration, instead of having the urgency that Columbus brought to it, would have been occasional and desultory. It would have taken years before Portuguese ships would have entered the Caribbean. By then, the Tlaxcalan empire would already be well established there. Now, instead of Europeans finding the sweet-natured Taino, they would meet the fierce and hungry Tlaxcalans, who would be getting frustrated by the fact that they weren't able to expand easily beyond their current borders around the Caribbean basin. What do the Tlaxcalans see? To them, the Europeans aren't gods from the east. To them, the Europeans are new victims that Camaxtli has brought to them, showing them how to get back on the path to productive warfare. And those big European boats and muskets aren't just strange miracles. The Tlaxcalans -- or their Tarascan or Zapotecan allies -- would immediately start taking them apart. Probably they'd sacrifice enough of the sailors to persuade the ship's carpenter and the ship's smith to make a deal, and unlike the Mexica, the Tlaxcalans would keep them alive and learn from them. How long would it take them to have muskets of their own? Big-bottomed ships? And in the meantime, the Europeans are hearing nothing at all about the Tlaxcalan empire, because any ships that reach Caribbean waters are being captured and their crews never get home."

"So the Tlaxcalans aren't independently developing technology anymore," said Tagiri.

"That's right. All they needed was to be advanced enough to understand the European technology when they encountered it, and to have an attitude that would allow them to exploit it. And that's what the Interveners understood. They had to get Europeans to discover the new world before the Tlaxcalans came to power, back with the relatively incompetent, decadent Mexica."

"That does work," said Kemal thoughtfully. "It does allow for a believable scenario. The Tlaxcalans build European-style ships and make European-style muskets, and then come to the shores of Europe fully prepared for a war whose purpose is to enlarge the empire and at the same time bring sacrifices to the temples of Camaxtli. I suppose the same pattern would apply in Europe, too. Any nation that resisted them would be slaughtered, while those that allied themselves to the Tlaxcalans would only have to endure a tolerable level of human sacrifice. I don't think it would be difficult to imagine Europe fragmenting over this. I don't think the Tlaxcalans would lack for allies. Particularly if Europe had been weakened by a long and bloody crusade."

To Hunahpu, this sounded like victory. Kemal himself had completed the scenario for him.

"But it doesn't work anyway," said Kemal.

"Why not?" asked Diko.

"Smallpox," said Kemal. "Bubonic plague. The common cold. That was the great killer of the Indies. For every Indie who died of overwork in slavery or from Spanish muskets and swords, a hundred died of disease. Those plagues would still have come."

"Oh, yes," said Hunahpu. "That was one of the biggest problems, and there's no way to find evidence for what I'm about to say. But we do know the way diseases work in human populations. The Europeans carried these diseases because they were such a large population with lots of travel and trade and warfare -- lots of contact between nations -- so that as far as disease organisms were concerned, Europe was one vast caldron in which they could cook, just like China and India, which also had indigenous diseases. In a large population like that, successful diseases are the ones that evolve so they kill slowly and are not always fatal. That gives them time to spread, and leaves enough of the human population behind that it can recover and bring up a new, non-immune generation within a few years. These diseases eventually evolve into childhood epidemics, cycling around the large overall population pool, striking here and then there and then over there and finally here again. When Columbus came, there was no region of the Americas that had such a large population pool. Travel was too slow and the barriers were too great. There were a few indigenous diseases -- syphilis comes to mind -- but that one was exceptionally slow to kill in the American context. Fast-moving plagues were impossible because they would spend themselves in one locality and run out of human hosts before they could get carried to a new locality. But that changes with the Tlaxcalan empire."

"Zapotecan boats," said Diko.

"That's right. This empire is linked by ships carrying cargos and passengers all around the Caribbean basin. Now plagues can travel swiftly enough to spread and become indigenous."

"That still doesn't mean that a new plague won't be devastating," said Kemal. "It just means that smallpox would travel faster and strike the whole empire almost at the same time."

"Yes, " said Hunahpu. "Just as bubonic plague devastated Europe in the fourteenth century. But there's a difference now. The plague will reach the Tlaxcala empire from those earlier accidental Portuguese visitors, before the Europeans come in force. It sweeps through the empire with exactly as much devastation as it had in Europe. Smallpox, measles -- they have their terrible effect. But not one nation in Europe fell because of these plagues. No empire collapsed, any more than Rome collapsed because of the plagues in their time. In fact the plague has the effect of giving them more favorable population densities. With fewer mouths to feed, the Tlaxcalans can now produce a food surplus. And what if they interpret these plagues as a sign that Camaxtli wants them to go and win more captives for sacrifice? That might be the final spur to make them sail east. And now when they come, smallpox and measles and the common cold are already indigenous to the Tlaxcalans. They touch on European shores already immune to European diseases. But the Europeans have not been exposed to syphilis at all. And when syphilis first reached Europe in our history it struck viciously, killing quickly. It only gradually settled down to be the slow killer it had been among the Indies. And who knows what other diseases might have developed among the Tlaxcalans as their empire grew? This time I think the plagues would have worked the other way, against the Europeans and in favor of the Indies."

"Possible," said Kemal. "But it depends on so many suppositions."

"Any scenario we think of will depend on suppositions," said Tagiri. "But this one has one unique virtue."

"And what is that?" asked Kemal.

"This one would have created a future terrible enough for the Interveners to think it worthwhile to go back and erase their own time in order to eliminate the source of the disaster. Think of what it would have meant to human history, if the powerful, technology-wielding civilization that swept to dominance over the whole world was one that believed in human sacrifice. If Mesoamerican cults of torture and slaughter had come to India and China and Africa and Persia armed with rifles and linked by railroads."

"And tied together with a single, unified, powerful, and efficient bureacracy, the way the Romans were," added Diko. "The internal dissensions of Europe went a long way toward making their overlordship weaker and more tolerable."

Tagiri went on. "It's not hard to imagine that the Interveners, looking back, saw the Tlaxcalan conquest of Europe as the worst, most terrible disaster in the history of humanity. And then they saw Columbus's drive and ambition and personal charisma as the tool they could use to put a stop to it."

"What does this mean, then?" said Hassan. "Do we abandon our entire project, because stopping Columbus would be worse than what he and those who came after him actually caused in our history?"

"Worse?" asked Tagiri. "Who is to say which is worse? What do you say, Kemal?"

Kemal looked triumphant. "I say that if Hunahpu is right, which we can't prove, though he makes a good case, we learn only one thing: Meddling with the past is useless because, as the Interveners proved, the mess you make is little better than the mess you avoid."

"Not so," said Hunahpu.

Everyone turned to look at him, and he realized that, caught up in the discussion, he had forgotten whom he was dealing with -- that he was contradicting Kemal, and in front of Tagiri and Hassan, no less. He glanced over at Diko, and saw that, far from looking worried, she simply gazed at him with interest, waiting to hear what he would say. And he realized that this was how all of them were looking at him, except Kemal, and his scowl was probably not personal -- it seemed to be his permanent expression. For the first time Hunahpu realized that he was being treated as an equal here, and they were not offended or contemptuous at his daring to speak. His voice was as good as anyone else's. The sheer marvel of it was almost enough to silence him.

"Well?" asked Kemal.

"I think what we learn from this," said Hunahpu, "is not that you can't intervene effectively in the past. After all, the Interveners did prevent exactly what they set out to prevent. I've seen a lot more of Mesoamerican culture than any of you, and even though it's my own culture, my own people, anyway, I can promise you that a world ruled by the Tlaxcalans or the Mexica -- or even the Maya, for that matter -- would never have given rise to the democratic and tolerant and scientific values that eventually emerged from European culture, despite all its bloody-handed arrogance toward other people."

"You can't say that," said Kemal. "The Europeans sponsored slave trade, and then gradually repudiated it -- who's to say that the Tlaxcalans wouldn't have repudiated human sacrifice? The Europeans conquered in the name of kings and queens, and by five centuries later they had stripped those monarchs, where they survived at all, of every shred of power they once had wielded. The Tlaxcalans would have evolved as well."

"But outside the Americas, wherever the Europeans conquered, native culture survived," said Hunahpu. "Altered, yes, but still recognizably itself. I think the Tlaxcalan conquest would have been more like the Roman conquest, leaving behind little trace of the ancient Gallic or Iberian cultures."

"This is all irrelevant," said Tagiri. "We aren't choosing between the Interveners' history and our own. Whatever else we do, we can't restore their history and we wouldn't want to. Whichever one was worse, ours or theirs, both were certainly terrible."

"And both," said Hassan, "led to some version of Pastwatch, some future in which they were aware of their past and able to judge it."

"Yes," agreed Kemal, rather nastily, "they both led to a time when meddlers with too much leisure on their hands decided to go back and reform the past to coincide with the values of the present. The dead are dead; let's study them and learn from them."

"And help them if we can," said Tagiri, her voice thick with passion. "Kemal, all we learn from the Interveners is that what they did was not enough, not that it shouldn't have been attempted at all."

"Not enough!"

"They were thinking only of the history they wanted to avoid, not of the history they would create. We must do better."

"How can we?" asked Diko. "As soon as we act, as soon as we change something, we run the risk of removing ourselves from history. So we can make only one change, as they did."

"They could make only one change," said Tagiri, "because they sent a message. But what if we send a messenger?"

"Send a person?"

"We have found, by careful examination, what the technology of the Interveners was. They didn't just send a message from their own time, because as soon as they started sending it, they would have destroyed themselves and the very instrument that was sending the message. Instead they sent an object back in time. A holographic projector, with their entire message contained within it. They knew exactly where to place it and when to trigger it. We've found the machine. It worked perfectly, and then it released powerful acids that destroyed the circuitry and, after about an hour, when no one was nearby, it released a burst of heat that melted itself into a lump of slag and then it exploded, scattering tiny molten fragments across several acres."

"You didn't tell us this," said Kemal.

"The team that is working on building a time machine has been aware of this for some time," said Tagiri. "They'll be publishing soon. What matters is this: They didn't just send a message, they sent an object. That was enough to change history, but not enough to shape it intelligently. We need to send back a messenger who can respond to circumstances, who can not only make one change but keep on introducing more changes. That way we can do more than simply avoid one dreadful path -- we can deliberately, carefully create a new path that will make the rest of history infmitely better. Think of us as physicians to the past. It isn't enough just to give the patient one injection, one pill. We must keep the patient under our care for an extended period, adapting our treatment to the course of the disease."

"You mean send someone into the past," said Kemal.

"One person, or several people," said Tagiri. "One person might get sick or have an accident or be killed. Sending several people would build some redundancy into our effort."

"Then I must be one of the ones you send," said Kemal.

"What!" cried Hassan. "You! The one who believes we should make no intervention at all!"

"I never said that, " said Kemal. "I only said that it was stupid to intervene when you had no way of controlling the consequences. If you are sending a team back into the past, I want to be one of them. So I can make sure it goes properly. So I can make sure it's worth doing."

"I think you have an inflated idea of your own powers of judgment," said Hassan crossly.

"Absolutely," said Kemal. "But I'll do it, all the same."

"If anyone goes at all," said Tagiri. "We need to go over Hunahpu's scenario and gather far more evidence. Then, whatever picture we emerge with, we must also plan what our changes will be. In the meantime we have scientists working on our machinebut working with confidence, because we've seen that a physical object can be pushed backward through time. When all these projects are complete -- when we have the power to travel back in time, when we know exactly what it is we're trying to accomplish, and when we know exactly how we intend to accomplish it -- then we'll make our report public and the decision whether to do it will be up to them. To everyone."

***

Columbus came home after dark in the chilly night, weary to the bone -- not from the walk home, for it wasn't that far, but rather from the endless questions and answers and arguments. There were times when he longed to simply say, "Father Talavera, I've told you everything I can think of. I have no more answers. Make your report." But as the Franciscans of La Rabida had warned him, that would mean the end of his chances. Talavera's report would be devastating and thorough, and there would be no crack left through which he could escape with ships and crew and supplies for a voyage.

There were even times when Columbus wanted to seize the patient, methodical, brilliant priest and say, "Don't you know that I see exactly how impossible it looks to you? But God himself told me that I must sail west to reach the great kingdoms of the east! So my reasoning must be true, not because I have evidence, but because I have the word of God!"

Of course he never succumbed to that temptation. While Columbus hoped that if he were ever charged with heresy, God might intervene and stop the priests from having him burned, he did not want to put God to the test on this. After all, God had told him to tell no one, and so he could hardly expect miraculous intervention if his own impatience put him in danger of the fire.

So it was that the days and the weeks and the months stretched on behind him, and it seemed that the path ahead would have at least as many days and weeks and months -- why not years? -- before at last Talavera said, "Columbus seems to know more than he's telling, but we must make our report and have done with it." How many years? It made Columbus tired just to think of it. Will I be like Moses? Will I win consent to launch the fleet when I'm already so old that I will only be able to stand on the coast and watch them sail away? Will I never enter the promised land myself?

No sooner had he laid his hand upon the door than it was flung open and Beatrice greeted him with an embrace only slightly encumbered by her thick belly. "Are you mad?" asked Columbus. "It could have been anybody, and you opened the door without so much as asking who it was."

"But it was you, wasn't it?" she said, kissing him.

He reached behind him, shut the door, and then managed to extricate himself from her embrace long enough to bar it. "You're doing no good for your own reputation, letting the whole street see that you wait for me in my rooms and greet me with kisses."

"You think the whole street doesn't already know? You think even the two-year-olds don't already know that Beatrice has Cristobal's baby in her womb?"

"Then let me marry you, Beatrice," he said.

"You say that, Cristobal, only because you know that I'll say no."

He protested, but in his heart he knew that she was right. He had promised Felipa that Diego would be his only heir, and so he could hardly marry Beatrice and make her child legitimate. Beyond that, though, was the reasoning that she always used, and it was correct.

She recited it even now. "You can't be burdened with a wife and child when the court moves to Salamanca in the spring. Besides which, right now you come before the court as a gentleman who consorted with nobility and royalty in Portugal. You are the widower of a woman of high birth. But marry me, and what are you? The husband of the cousin of Genovese merchants. That does not make you a gentleman. I think the Marquise de Moya wouldn't be as taken with you then, either."

Ah, yes, his other "affair of the heart," Isabella's good friend the Marquise. In vain had he explained to Beatrice that Isabella was so pious that she would not tolerate any hint that Columbus had dallied with her friend. Beatrice was convinced that Columbus slept with her regularly; she pretended elaborately that she didn't mind. "The Marquise de Moya is a friend and a help to me, because she has the ear of the Queen and because she believes in my cause," said Columbus. "But the only thing that I find beautiful about her is her name."

"De Moya?" teased Beatrice.

"Her Christian name," said Columbus. "Beatrice, just like you. When I hear that name spoken, it fills me with love, but only for you. He rested his hand on her belly. "I'm sorry to have burdened you like this."

"Your child is no burden to me, Cristobal."

"I can never make him legitimate. If I win titles and fortune, they'll belong to Felipa's son Diego."

"He will have the blood of Columbus in him, and he will have my love and the love you gave me as his heritage."

"Beatrice," said Columbus, "what if I fail? What if there is no voyage, and therefore no fortune and no titles? What is your baby then? The bastard son of a Genovese adventurer who tried to involve the crowned heads of Europe in a mad scheme to sail into the unknown quarters of the sea."

"But you won't fail," she said, comfortably nestling closer to him. "God is with you."

Is he? thought Columbus. Or when I succumbed to your passion and joined you on your bed, did that sin -- which I haven't the strength even now to forsake -- deprive me of God's favor? Should I repudiate you now and repent of loving you, in order to win his favor back? Or should I forsake my oath to Felipa and follow the dangerous course of marrying you?

"God is with you," she said again. "God gave me to you. Marriage you must forsake for the sake of your great mission, but surely God does not mean you to be a priest, celibate and unloved."

She had always talked this way, even at the start, so that at first he had wondered if God had given him at last someone to whom he could talk about his vision on the beach near Lagos. But no, she knew nothing of that. And yet her faith in the divine origin of his mission was strong, and sustained him when he was at his most discouraged.

"You must eat," she said. "You have to keep up your strength for your jousting with the priests."

She was right, and he was hungry. But first he kissed her, because he knew that she needed to believe that she mattered more to him than anything, more than food, more than his cause. And as they kissed he thought, If only I had been this careful of Felipa. If only I had spent the little time it would have taken to reassure her, she might not have despaired and died so young, or if she died anyway, her life would have been happier until that day. It would have been so easy, but I didn't know.

Is that what Beatrice is? My chance to amend my mistakes with Felipa? Or simply a way to make new ones?

Never mind. If God wanted to punish Columbus for his illegitimate coupling with Beatrice, then so be it. But if God still wanted him to pursue his mission to the west, despite his sins and his weaknesses, then Columbus would keep trying with all his strength to accomplish it. His sins were no worse than King Solomon's, and a far sight gentler than King David's, and God gave greatness to both of them.

Dinner was delicious, and then they played together on the bed, and then he slept. It was the only happiness in these dark cold days, and whether God approved or not, he was glad of it.

***

Tagiri brought Hunahpu into the Columbus project, putting him and Diko jointly in charge of developing a plan of action for intervention in the past. For an hour or two, Hunahpu felt vindicated; he longed to go back to his old position just long enough to say good-bye, seeing the envy on the faces of those who had despised his private project -- a project that now would form the basis of the great Kemal's own work. But the glow of triumph soon passed, and then came dread: He would have to work among people who were used to a very high level of thought, of analysis. He would have to supervise people -- he who had always been impossible to supervise. How could he possibly measure up? They would all find him lacking, those above him and those below.

Diko was the one who brought him through these first days, being careful not to take over, but instead making sure that all decisions were jointly reached; that anytime he needed her advice even to know what the choices were, she prompted him only privately, where no one could see, so that the others wouldn't come to think of her as the "real" head of the intervention team. And soon enough Hunahpu began to feel more confident, and then the two of them really did lead together, often arguing over various points but never making a decision until both agreed. No one but Hunahpu and Diko themselves could have been surprised when, after several months together, each came to realize that their professional interdependence had turned to something much more intense and much more personal.

It was maddening to Hunahpu, that he worked with Diko every day, that every day he grew more sure that she loved him as much as he loved her, and yet she refused any hint, any proposal, any outright plea that they extend their friendship beyond the corridors of Pastwatch and into one of the grass huts of Juba.

"Why not?" he said. "Why not?"

"I'm tired," she said. "We have too much to do."

Normally he let this sort of answer stop him, but not today, not this time. "Everything is running smoothly in our project," he said. "We work together perfectly, and the team we've assembled is reliable and efficient. We go home every night at a reasonable hour. There is time, if only you took it, for us to -- to eat a meal together. To sit and talk as a man and a woman."

"There is no time for that," she said.

"Why?" he demanded. "We're close to ready, our project is. Kemal is still puttering along with his report on probable futures, and the machine is nowhere near done. We have plenty of time."

The distress on her face usually would be enough to silence him, but not now. "This doesn't have to make you unhappy," he said. "Your mother and father work together just as we do, and yet they married and had a child."

"Yes," she said. "But we will not."

"Why not! What is it, that I'm so much smaller than you? I can't help the fact that Maya people are shorter than a Turko-Dongotona."

"You are so stupid, Hunahpu," she said. "Father is shorter than Mother, too. What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

"Such an idiot that you're in love with me just as I'm in love with you, only for some insane reason you refuse to admit it, you refuse even to take a chance on us being happy together."

To his surprise, tears came to her eyes. "I don't want to talk about this," she said.

"But I do," he said.

"You think you love me," she said.

"I know I love you."

"And you think I love you," she said.

"I hope for that."

"And maybe you're right," she said. "But there's something that both of us love more.

"What?"

"This," she said, indicating the room around them, filled with TruSite IIs and Tempoviews and computers and desks and chairs.

"People in Pastwatch love and live as human beings," he answered.

"Not Pastwatch, Hunahpu, our project. The Columbus project. We're going to succeed. We're going to assemble our team of three who will go back in time. And when they succeed, all of this will cease to be. Why should we marry and bring a child into the world in order to cause it to disappear in only a few more years?"

"We don't know that," said Hunahpu. "The mathematicians are still divided. Maybe all we create by intervening in the past is a fork in time, so that both futures continue to exist."

"You know that that is the least likely alternative. You know that the machine is being built according to the theory of metatime. Anything sent back in time is lifted out of the causal flow. It can no longer be affected by anything that happens to the timestream that originally brought it into existence, and when it enters the timestream at a different point, it becomes an uncaused causer. When we change the past, this present will disappear."

"Both theories can explain the way the machine works," said Hunahpu, "so don't try to use your superior education in mathematics and time theory against me."

"It doesn't matter anyway," said Diko. "Because even if our time continues to exist, I won't be in it."

There it was -- the unspoken assumption that she would be one of the three who went back in time.

"That's ludicrous," he said. "A tall black woman, going to live among the Taino?"

"A tall black woman with a detailed knowledge of events that still lie in the future for the people of the surrounding tribes," she said. "I think I'll do well enough."

"Your parents will never let you go."

"My parents will do whatever it takes for this mission to succeed," she answered. "I'm already far more qualified than anyone else. I'm in perfect health. I've been studying the languages I'll need for that aspect of the project -- Spanish, Genovese, Latin, two Arawak dialects, one Carib dialect, and the Ciboney language that is still used in Putukam's village because they think it's so holy. Who else can match that? And I know the plan, inside and out, and all the thinking that went into it. Who can do better than I to adapt the plan if things don't go as expected? So I will go, Hunahpu. Mother and Father will fight it for a while, and then they'll realize that I am the best hope of success, and they'll send me."

He said nothing. He knew that it was true.

She laughed at him. "You hypocrite," she said. "You've been doing just what I've been doing -- you've designed the Mesoamerican part of the plan so that only you can possibly do it."

That too was true. "I'm as natural a choice as you are -- more natural, because I'm a Maya."

"A Maya who's more than a foot taller than the Mayas and Zapotecs of the period," she retorted.

"I speak two Mayan dialects, plus Nahuatl, Zapotec, Spanish, Portuguese, and both of the Tarascan dialects that matter. And all your arguments apply to me as well. Plus I know all the technologies we're going to try to introduce and the detailed personal histories of all the people we have to deal with. There is no choice but me."

"I know it," said Diko. "I knew it before you did. You don't have to persuade me."

"Oh," he said.

"You are a hypocrite," she said, and there was some emotion behind it. "You were all set to go yourself, and yet you expected me to stay behind. You had some foolish notion that we would marry and have a baby, and then I would stay behind on the off chance that there would be a future here while you went back and fulfilled your destiny."

"No," he said. "I never really thought of marriage."

"Then what, Hunahpu? Sneaking off to some sordid little rendezvous? I'm not your Beatrice, Hunahpu. I have work of my own to do. And unlike the Europeans and, apparently, the Indies, I know that to mate with someone without marriage is a repudiation of the community, a refusal to take one's proper role within the society. I won't mate like an animal, Hunahpu. When I marry it will be as a human being. And it will not be in this timestream. If I marry at all, it will be in the past, because that's the only place where I have a future."

He listened, leaden at heart. "The chance of our both living long enough to meet there is small, Diko."

"And that, my friend, is why I refuse all your invitations to extend our friendship beyond these walls. There's no future for us."

"Is the future, is the past, all that matters to you? Don't you have just a little bit of room for the present?"

Again the tears flowed down her cheeks. "No," she said.

He reached up and cleared her cheeks with his thumbs, then streaked his own cheeks with her tears. "I will love no one but you," he said.

"So you say now," she said. "But I release you from that promise and I forgive you already for the fact that you will love someone, and you will marry, and if we ever meet there, we will be friends and be glad to see each other and we will not regret for one moment that we did not act foolishly now."

"We will regret it, Diko. At least I will. I regret it now, and I will regret it then, and always. Because no one that we meet in the past will understand what and who we really are, not the way we understand each other now. No one in the past will have shared our goals or worked as hard to help us achieve them as we've done for each other. No one will know you and love you as I do. And even if you're right, and there's no future for us, I for one would rather face whatever future I do have with the memory of knowing that we had each other for a while."

"Then you are a romantic fool, just as Mother always said!"

"She said that?"

"Mother is never wrong," said Diko. "She also said that I would never have a better friend than you."

"She was right, then."

"Be my true friend, Hunahpu," said Diko. "Never speak of this to me again. Work with me, and when the time comes to go into the past, go with me. Let our marriage be the work we do together, and let our children be the future that we build. Let me come to whatever husband I do have without the memories of another husband or another lover to encumber me. Let me face my future with confidence in your friendship instead of guilt, whether it comes from denying you or accepting you. Will you do that for me?"

No, shouted Hunahpu silently. Because that isn't necessary, we don't have to do that, we can be happy now and still be happy in the future and you're wrong, completely wrong about this.

Except that if she believed that marriage or an affair would make her unhappy then it would make her unhappy, and so she was right -- for herself -- and loving him would be a bad thing -- for her. So ... did he love her or merely want to own her? Was it her happiness he cared about or satisfaction of his own needs?

"Yes," said Hunahpu. "I'll do that for you."

It was then, and only then, that she kissed him, leaned down to him and kissed him on the lips, not briefly but not with passion either. With love, simple love, a single kiss, and then she left, and left him desolate.


Chapter 8 -- Dark Futures

Father Talavera had listened to all the eloquent, methodical, sometimes impassioned arguments, but he had known from the start that he had to make the final decision about Col¢n by himself. How many years had they listened to Col¢n -- and harangued him, too -- so that all were weary of the same conversations endlessly repeated? For so many years, since the Queen first asked him to lead the examination of Col¢n's claims, nothing had changed. Maldonado still seemed to regard Col¢n's very existence as an affront, while Deza seemed almost infatuated with the Genovese. The others still lined up behind one or the other, or, like Talavera himself, remained neutral. Or rather, they seemed neutral. They merely wavered like grass, dancing in whatever wind was blowing. How many times had each one come to him privately and spent long minutes -- sometimes hours -- explaining their views, which always amounted to the same thing: They agreed with everybody.

I alone am truly neutral, thought Talavera. I alone am swayed by no argument whatsoever. I alone can listen to Maldonado bring forth sentences from ancient, long-forgotten writings in languages so obscure that quite possibly no one ever spoke them except the original writer himself -- I alone can listen to him and hear only the voice of a man who is determined not to allow the slightest new idea to disrupt his own perfect understanding of the world. I alone can listen to Deza eloquizing about Col¢n's brilliance in finding truths so long overlooked by scholars and hear only the voice of a man who yearned to be a knight-errant from the romances, championing a cause which is noble only because he champions it.

I alone am neutral, thought Talavera, because I alone understand the utter stupidity of the entire conversation. Which of these ancients they all quote with such certainty was lifted by the hand of God to see the Earth from an appropriate vantage point? Which of them was given calipers by the hand of God to make an accurate measurement of the diameter of the Earth? No one knew anything. The only serious attempt at measurement, more than a thousand years before, could have been disastrously flawed by the tiniest inconsistency in the original observations. All the argument in the world could not change the fact that if you build the foundation of your logic upon guesswork, then your conclusions will be guesswork also.

Of course Talavera could never say this to anyone else. He had not risen to his position of trust by freely expressing his skepticism about the wisdom of the ancients. On the contrary: All who knew him were sure that he was utterly orthodox. He had labored hard to make sure they had that opinion of him. And in a sense they were right. He simply defined orthodoxy quite differently from them.

Talavera did not put his faith in Aristotle or Ptolemy. He already knew what the examination of Col¢n was demonstrating in such agonizing detail: that for every ancient authority there was a contradictory authority just as ancient and (he suspected) just as ignorant. Let the other scholars claim that God had whispered to Plato as he wrote the Symposium; Talavera knew better. Aristotle was clever but his wise sayings were no likelier to be true than the opinions of other clever men.

Talavera put his faith in only one person: Jesus Christ. His were the only words that Talavera cared about, Christ's cause the only cause that stirred his soul. Every other cause, every other idea, every other plan or party or faction or individual, was to be judged in light of how it would either help or hinder the cause of Christ. Talavera had realized early in his rise within the Church that the monarchs of Castile and Aragon were good for the cause of Christ, and so he enlisted himself in their camp. They found him to be a valuable servant because he was deft at marshaling the resources of the Church in their support.

His technique was simple: See what the monarchs want and need in order to further their effort to make of Spain a Christian kingdom, driving the unbeliever from any power or influence, and then interpret all the pertinent texts to show how scripture, Church tradition, and all the ancient writers were united in supporting the course that the monarchs had already determined to pursue. The funny thing -- or, when he was in another mood, the sad thing -- was that no one ever caught on to his method. When he invariably brought in scholarship that would support the cause of Christ and the monarchs of Spain, everyone assumed that this meant that the course the monarchs were pursuing was the right one, not that Talavera had been clever about manipulating the texts. It was as if they did not realize the texts could be manipulated.

And yet they all manipulated and interpreted and transformed the ancient writings. Certainly Maldonado did it to defend his own elaborate preconceptions, and Deza just as much to attack them. But none of them seemed to know that this was what they were doing. They thought they were discovering truth.

How many times Talavera had wished to speak to them with utter scorn. Here is the only truth that matters, he wanted to say: Spain is at war, purifying Iberia as a Christian land. The King has conducted this war deftly and patiently, and he will win, driving the last Moors from Iberia. The Queen is now setting into motion what England wisely did years ago: the expulsion of the Jews from her kingdom. (Not that the Jews were dangerous by intent -- Talavera had no sympathy with Torquemada's fanatical belief in the evil plots of the Jews. No, the Jews had to be expelled because as long as the weaker Christians could look around them and see unbelievers prospering, see them marrying and having children and living normal and decent lives, they would not be firm in their faith that only in Christ is there happiness. The Jews had to go, just as the Moors had to go.)

And what had Col¢n to do with this? Sailing west. So what? Even if he was right, what would it accomplish? Convert the heathen in a far-off land when Spain itself was not yet unified in its Christianity? That would be marvelous and well worth the effort -- as long as it didn't interfere in any way with the war against the Moors. So, while the others argued about the size of the Earth and the passability of the Ocean Sea, Talavera was always weighing far more important matters. What would the news of this expedition do to the prestige of the Crown? What would it cost and how would the diversion of such funds affect the war? Would supporting Col¢n cause Aragon and Castile to draw closer together or farther apart? What do the King and Queen actually want to do? If Col¢n were sent away, where would he go next and what would he do?

Until today, the answers had all been clear enough. The King did not intend to spend one peso on anything but the war against the Moors, while the Queen very much wanted to support Col¢n's expedition. That meant that any decision at all would be divisive. In the delicate balance between King and Queen, between Aragon and Castile, any decision on Col¢n's expedition would cause one of them to think that power had drifted dangerously in the other direction, and suspicion and envy would increase.

Therefore, regardless of all the arguments, Talavera was determined that no verdict would be reached until the situation changed. It was easy enough at first, but as the years passed and it became clear that Col¢n had nothing new to offer, it became harder and harder to keep the issue alive. Fortunately, Col¢n was the only other person involved in the process who seemed to understand it. Or if he didn't understand it, at least he cooperated with Talavera to this degree: He kept hinting that he knew more than he was telling. Veiled references to information he learned while in Lisbon or Madeira, mentions of proofs that had not yet been brought forward, this was what allowed Talavera to keep the examination open.

When Maldonado (and Deza, for opposite reasons) wanted him to force Col¢n to lay these great secrets on the table, to settle things once and for all, Talavera always agreed that it would be a great help if Col¢n would do so, but one must understand that anything Col¢n learned in Portugal must have been learned under sacred oath. If it was just a matter of fear of Portuguese reprisals, then no doubt Col¢n would tell, for he was a brave man and not afraid of anything King John might do. But if it was a matter of honor, then how could they insist that he break his oath and tell? That would be the same as asking Col¢n to damn himself to hell for all eternity, just to satisfy their curiosity. Therefore they must listen carefully to all that Col¢n said, hoping that, clever scholars that they were, they could determine just what it was he could not tell them openly.

And, by the grace of God, Col¢n himself played along. Surely the others had all taken him aside, at one time or another, trying to pry from him the secrets that he would not tell. And in all these long years, Col¢n had never given a hint of what his secret information was. Just as important, he had also never given a hint that there was no secret information.

For a long time Talavera had not studied the arguments -- he had grasped those at the start and nothing important had been added in years. No, what Talavera studied was Col¢n himself. At first he had assumed that Col¢n was just another courtier on the make, but that impression was quickly dispelled. Col¢n was absolutely, fanatically determined to sail west, and could not be distracted by any other sort of preferment. Gradually, though, Talavera had come to see that this voyage west was not an end in itself. Col¢n had dreams. Not of personal wealth or fame, but rather dreams of power. Col¢n wanted to accomplish something, and this westward voyage was the foundation of it. And what was it that Col¢n wanted to do? Talavera had puzzled about this for months, for years.

Today, at last, the answer had come. Departing from his usual scholarly bludgeoning, Maldonado had remarked, rather testily, that it was selfish of Col¢n to try to distract the monarchs from their war with the Moors, and Col¢n had suddenly erupted in anger. "A war with the Moors? For what, to drive them from Granada, from a small corner of this dry peninsula? With the wealth of the East we could drive the Turk from Constantinople, and from there it is only a short step to Armageddon and the liberation of the Holy Land! And you tell me that I must not do this, because it might interfere with the war against Granada? You might as well tell a matador that he cannot kill the bull because it might interfere with the effort to stomp on a mouse!"

At once Col¢n had regretted his remarks, and was quick to reassure everyone that he had nothing but the greatest enthusiasm for the great war against Granada. "Forgive me for letting my passion rule my mouth," said Col¢n. "Never for a moment have I wished for anything but the victory of the Christian armies over the infidel in Granada."

Talavera had immediately forgiven him and forbidden anyone to repeat Col¢n's remarks. "We know that what you said was in zeal for the cause of Christ, wishing that we could accomplish even more than victory against Granada, not less."

Col¢n himself seemed relieved indeed to hear Talavera's words. It could have been the death of his petition right on the spot, if his remarks had been taken as disloyalty -- and the personal consequences could have been severe as well. The others had also nodded wisely. They had no wish to denounce Col¢n. For one thing, it would hardly redound to their credit if it had taken them this many years to discover that Col¢n was a traitor!

What Col¢n did not know, what none of them knew, was how deeply his words had touched Talavera's soul. A Crusade to liberate Constantinople! To break the power of the Turk! To plunge a knife into the heart of Islam! In a few sentences Col¢n had forced Talavera to view his life's work in a new light. All these years that Talavera had devoted himself to the cause of Spain for Christ's sake, and now he realized that next to Col¢n his own faith was childish. Col¢n is right: If we serve Christ, why are we chasing mice when the great bull of Satan struts through the greatest Christian city?

For the first time in years, Talavera realized that serving the King and Queen might not be identical to serving the cause of Christ. He realized that for the first time in his life he was in the presence of someone whose devotion to Christ might well be the match of his own. Such was my pride, thought Talavera, that it took me this many years to see it.

And in those years, what have I done? I have kept Col¢n trapped here, leading him on, keeping the question open year after year, all because making any kind of decision might weaken the relationship between Aragon and Castile. Yet what if it is Col¢n, and not Ferdinand and Isabella, who understands what will best serve the cause of Christ? How does the purification of Spain compare to the liberation of all the ancient Christian lands? And with the power of Islam broken, what then would stop Christianity from spreading forth to fill the world?

If only Col¢n had come to us with a plan for Crusade instead of this strange voyage to the west. The man was eloquent, forceful, and there was something about him that made you want to be on his side. Talavera imagined him going from king to king, from court to court. He might well have been able to convince the monarchs of Europe to unite in common cause against the Turk.

Instead, Col¢n seemed sure that the only way to bring about such a Crusade was to establish a direct, quick connection with the great kingdoms of the East. Well, what if he was right? What if God had put this vision in his mind? Certainly it was nothing an intelligent man would have thought of on his own -- the most rational plan was to sail around Africa as the Portuguese were doing. But wasn't that, too, a species of madness? Weren't there ancient writers who had assumed that Africa extended all the way to the south pole, so there was no way to sail around it? Yet the Portuguese had persisted, finding again and again that no matter how far south they sailed, Africa was always there, extending even farther than they had imagined. Yet last year Dias at last returned with the good news -- they had rounded a cape and found that the coast ran to the east, not to the south; and then, after hundreds of miles, it definitely ran to the northeast and then the north. They had rounded Africa. And now the irrational persistence of the Portuguese was widely known to be rational after all.

Couldn't Col¢n's irrational plans turn out the same way? Only instead of a years-long voyage, his route to the Orient would bring wealth much faster. And his plan, instead of enriching a tiny useless country like Portugal, would lead eventually to the Church of Christ filling the entire world!

So now, instead of thinking how to drag out the examination of Col¢n, waiting for the desires of the monarchs to resolve themselves, Talavera sat in his austere chamber trying to think how to force the issue. One thing he certainly could not do was suddenly, after all these years and with no significant new arguments, announce that the committee was deciding in favor of Col¢n. Maldonado and his supporters would protest directly to the King's men, and a power struggle would ensue. The Queen would almost certainly lose such an open struggle, since her support from the lords of her realm depended in large part on the fact that she was known to "think like a man." Disagreeing openly with the King would give the lie to that idea. Thus open support for Col¢n would lead to division and probably would not lead to a voyage.

No, Talavera thought, the one thing I cannot do is support Col¢n. So what can I do?

I can set him free. I can end the process and let him go on to another king, to another court. Talavera well knew that Col¢n's friends had made discreet inquiries in the courts of France and England. Now that the Portuguese had achieved their quest for an African route to the East, they might be able to afford a small exploratory expedition toward the west. Certainly the Portuguese advantage in trading with the Orient will be envied by other kings. Col¢n might well succeed somewhere. So whatever else happens, I must end his examination immediately.

But could there not also be a way to end the examination and yet turn things to the advantage of Col¢n's supporters?

With a half-formed plan in mind, Talavera sent to the Queen a note bearing his request for a secret audience with her on the matter of Col¢n.

***

Tagiri did not understand her own reaction to the news of success from the scientists working on time travel. She should be happy. She should be rejoicing to know that her great work could, physically, be accomplished. Yet ever since the meeting with the team of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers working on the time travel project, she had been upset, angry, frightened. The opposite of how she had expected she would feel.

Yes, they said, we can send a living person into the past. But if we do so there is no chance, no chance whatsoever, that our present world will survive in any form. To send someone into the past to change it is the end of ourselves.

They were so patient, trying to explain temporal physics to historians. "If our time is destroyed," Hassan asked, "then won't that also destroy the very people that we send back? If none of us are ever born, then the people we send won't have been born either, and therefore they could never have been sent. "

No, explained the physicists, you're confusing causality with time. Time itself, as a phenomenon, is utterly linear and unidirectional. Each moment happens only once, and passes into the next moment. Our memories grasp this one-way flow of time, and in our minds we link it with causality. We know that if A causes B, then A must come before B. But there is nothing in the physics of time that requires this. Think of what your predecessors did. The machine they sent back in time was the product of a long causal network. Those causes were all real, and the machine actually existed. Sending it back in time did not undo any of the events that led to the creation of that machine. But in the moment that the machine caused Columbus to see his vision on that beach in Portugal, it began to transform the causal network so that it no longer led to the same place. All of those causes and effects really happened -- the ones leading to the creation of the machine, and the ones following from the machine's introduction into the fifteenth century.

"But then you're saying that their future still exists," Hunahpu protested.

That depends on how you define existence, they explained. As a part of the causal network leading to the present moment, yes, they continue to exist in the sense that any part of their causal network that led to the existence of their machine in our time is still having effects in the present world. But anything peripheral or irrelevant to that is now utterly without effect in our timestream. And anything in their history that the introduction of that machine in our history caused not to happen is utterly and irrevocably lost. We can't go back into our past and view it because it didn't happen.

"But it did happen, because their machine exists."

No, they said again. Causality can be recursive, but time cannot. Anything that the introduction of their machine caused not to happen, did not in fact happen in time. There is no moment of time in which those events exist. Therefore they cannot be seen or visited because the temporal loci which they occupied are now occupied by different moments. Two contradictory sets of events cannot occupy the same moment: You are only confused because you cannot separate causality from time. And that's perfectly natural, because time is rational. Causality is irrational. We've been playing speculative games with the mathematics of time for centuries, but we would never have seen this distinction between time and causality ourselves if we hadn't had to account for the machine from the future.

"So what you're saying," Diko offered, "is that the other history still exists, but we just can't see it with our machines."

That's not what we're saying, they replied with infinite patience. Anything that was not causally connected to the creation of that machine cannot be said to have ever existed at all. And anything that did lead to the creation of that machine and its introduction into our time exists only in the sense that unreal numbers exist.

"But they did exist," Tagiri said, more passionately than she had expected. "They did."

"They did not," said old Manjam, who had let his younger colleagues speak for him till now. "We mathematicians are quite comfortable with this -- we have never dwelt in the realm of reality. But of course your mind rebels against it because your mind exists in time. What you must understand is that causality is not real. It does not exist in time. Moment A does not really cause Moment B in reality. Moment A exists, and then Moment B exists, and between them are Moments A.a through A.z, and between A.a and A.b there are A.aa through A.az. None of these moments actually touches any other moment. That is what reality is -- an infinite array of discreet moments unconnected with any other moment because each moment in time has no linear dimension. When the machine was introduced into our history, from that point forward a new infinite set of moments completely replaced the old infinite set of moments. There were no spare leftover moment-locations for the old moments to hang around in. And because there was no time for them, they didn't happen. But causality is unaffected by this. It isn't geometric. It has a completely different mathematics, one which does not fit well with concepts like space and time and certainly doesn't fit within anything that you could call 'real.' There is no space or time in which those events happened."

"What does that mean?" said Hassan. "That if we send somebody back in time, they will suddenly cease to remember anything about the time they came from, because that time no longer exists?"

"The person that you send back," said Manjam, "is a discrete event. He will have a brain, and that brain will contain memories that, when he accesses them, will give him certain information. This information will cause him to think he remembers a whole reality, a world and a history. But all that exists in reality is him and his brain. The causal network will only include those causal connections which led to the creation of his physical body, including his brain state, but any part of that causal network which is not part of the new reality cannot be said to exist in any way."

Tagiri was shaken. "I don't care that I don't understand the science of it," she said. "I only know that I hate it."

"It's always frightening to deal with something that is counterintuitive," said Maniam.

"Not at all," said Tagiri, trembling. "I didn't say I was frightened. I'm not. I'm angry and ... frustrated. Horrified."

"Horrified about the mathematics of time?"

"Horrified at what we are doing, at what the Interveners actually did. I suppose that I always felt that in some sense they went on. That they sent their machine and then went on with their lives, comforted in their miserable situation by knowing that they had done something to help their ancestors."

"But that was never possible," said Manjam.

"I know it," said Tagiri. "And so when I really thought about it, I imagined them sending the machine and in that moment they sort of -- disappeared. A clean painless death for everyone. But at least they had lived, up to that moment."

"Well," said Maniam, "how is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than a clean, painless death?"

"You see," said Tagiri, "it's not. Not any worse. And not any better, either, for the people themselves."

"What people?" said Marjam, shrugging.

"Us. Manjam. We are talking about doing this to ourselves."

"If you do this, then there will have been no such people as ourselves. The only aspect of our causal network that will have any future or past are those that are connected to the creation of the physical bodies and mental states of the persons you send into the past."

"This is all so silly," said Diko. "Who cares about what's real and what isn't real? Isn't this what we wanted all along? To make it so that the terrible events of our history never happened in the first place? And as for our own history, the parts that will be lost, who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like 'unreal'? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two, as well."

Everyone laughed, but not Tagiri. They did not see the past as she saw it. Or rather, they didn't feel the past. They didn't understand that to her, looking through the Tempoview and the TruSite II, the past was alive and real. Just because the people were dead did not mean that they were not still part of the present, because she could go back and recover them. See them, hear them. Know them, at least as well as any human being ever knows any other. Even before the TruSite and the Tempoview, though, the dead still lived in memory, some kind of memory. But not if they changed the past. It was one thing to ask humankind of today to choose to give up their future in the hope of creating a new reality. That would be hard enough. But to also reach back and kill the dead, to uncreate them as well -- and they had no vote. They could not be asked.

We must not do this, she thought. This is wrong. This win be a worse crime than the ones we are trying to prevent.

She got up and left the meeting. Diko and Hassan tried to leave with her, but she brushed them off. "I need to be alone," she said, and so they stayed behind, returning to a meeting that she knew would be in shambles. For a moment she felt remorse at having greeted the physicists' triumphant moment with such a negative response, but as she walked the streets of Juba that remorse faded, replaced by one far deeper.

The children playing naked in the dirt and weeds. The men and women going about their business. She spoke to them all in her heart, saying, How would you like to die? And not only you, but your children and their children? And not only them, but your parents, too? Let's go back into the graves, open them up, and kill them all. Every good and evil thing they did, all their joy, all their suffering, all their choices -- let's kill them all, erase them, undo them. Reaching back and back and back, until we finally come to the golden moment that we have chosen, declaring it worthy to continue to exist, but with a new future tied to the end of it. And why must all of you and yours be killed? Because in our judgment they didn't make a good enough world. Their mistakes along the way were so unforgivable that they erase the value of any good that also happened. All must be obliterated.

How dare I? How dare we? Even if we got the unanimous consent of all the people of our own time, how will we poll the dead?

She picked her way down the bluffs to the riverside. In the waning afternoon, the heat of the day was finally beginning to break. In the distance, hippos were bathing or feeding or sleeping. Birds were calling, getting ready for their frenzied feeding on the insects of the dusk. What goes through your minds, Birds, Hippopotamuses, Insects of the late afternoon? Do you like being alive? Do you fear death? You kill to live; you die so others can live; it's the path ordained for you by evolution, by life itself. But if you had the power, wouldn't you save yourselves?

She was still there by the river when the darkness came, when the stars came out. For a moment, gazing at the ancient light of the stars, she thought: Why should I worry about uncreating so much of human history? Why should I care that it will be worse than forgotten, that it will be unknown? Why should that seem to be a crime, when all of human history is an eyeblink compared to the billions of years the stars have shone? We will all be forgotten in the last exhalation of our history; what does it matter, then, if some are forgotten sooner than others, or if some are caused to have never existed at all?

Oh, this is such a wise perspective, to compare human lives to the lives of stars. The only problem is that it cuts both ways. If in the long run it doesn't matter that we wipe out billions of lives in order to save our ancestors, then in the long ran saving our ancestors doesn't matter, either, so why bother changing the past at all?

The only perspective that matters is the human one, Tagiri knew. We are the only ones who care; we are the actors and the audience as well, all of us. And the critics. We are also the critics.

The light of an electric torch bobbed into view as she heard someone approaching through the grass.

"That torch will only attract animals that we don't want," she said.

"Come home," said Diko It isn't safe out here, and Father's worried."

"Why should he be worried? My life doesn't exist. I never lived."

"You're alive now, and so am I, and so are the crocodiles."

"If individual lives don't matter," said Tagiri, "then why bother going back to make them better? And if they do matter, then how dare we snuff some out in favor of others?"

"Individual lives matter," said Diko. "But life also matters. Life as a whole. That's what you've forgotten today. That's what Manjam and the other scientists also forgot. They talk of all these moments, separate, never touching, and say that they are the only reality. Just as the only reality of human life is individuals, isolated individuals who never really know each other, never really touch at any point. No matter how close you are, you're always separate."

Tagiri shook her head. "This has nothing to do with what is bothering me."

"It has everything to do with it," said Diko. "Because you know that this is a lie. You know that the mathematicians are wrong about the moments, too. They do touch. Even if we can't really touch causality, the connections between moments, that doesn't mean they aren't real. And just because whenever you look closely at the human race, at a community, at a family, all you can ever find are separate individuals, that doesn't mean that the family is not also real. After all, when you look closely enough at a molecule, all you can see are atoms. There is no physical connection between them. And yet the molecule is still real because of the way the atoms affect each other."

"You're as bad as they are," said Tagiri, "answering anguish with analogies."

"Analogies are all I have," said Diko. "Truth is all I have, and truth is never a comfort. But understanding truth, that is what you taught me to do. So here is the truth. What human life is, what it's for, what we do, is create communities. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, or somewhere between. You taught me this, didn't you? And there are communities of communities, groups of group's, and--"

"And what makes them good or bad?" demanded Tagiri. "The quality of the individual lives. The ones we're going to snuff out."

"No," said Diko. "What we're going to do is go back and revise the ultimate community of communities, the human race as a whole, history as a whole here on this planet. We're going to create a new version of it, one that will give the new individuals who live within it a far, far better chance of happiness, of having a good life, than the old version. That's real, and that's good, Mother. It's worth doing. It is."

"I've never known any groups," said Tagiri. "Just people. Just individual people. Why should I make those people pay so this imaginary thing called 'human history' can be better? Better for whom?"

"But Mother, individual people always sacrifice for the sake of the community. When it matters enough, people sometimes even die, willingly, for the good of the community that they feel themselves to be a part of. As well as a thousand sacrifices short of death. And why? Why do we give up our individual desires, leave them unfulfilled, or work hard at tasks we hate or fear because others need us to do them? Why did you go through such pain to bear me and Acho? Why did you give up all the time it took to take care of us?"

Tagiri looked at her daughter. "I don't know, but as I listen to you, I begin to think that perhaps it was worth it. Because you know things that I don't know. I wanted to create someone different from myself, better than myself, and willingly gave up part of my life to do it. And here you are. And you're saying that that's what the people of our time will be to the people of the new history we create. That we will sacrifice to create their history, as parents sacrifice to create healthy, happy children."

"Yes, Mother," said Diko. "Manjam is wrong. The people who sent that vision to Columbus did exist. They were the parents of our age; we are their children. And now we will be the parents to another age."

"Which just goes to show," said Tagiri, "that one can always find language to make the most terrible things sound noble and beautiful, so you can live with doing them."

Diko looked at Tagiri in silence for a long moment. Then she threw the electric torch to the ground at her mother's feet and walked away into the night.

***

Isabella found herself dreading the meeting with Talavera. It would be about Cristobal Col¢n, of course. It must mean that he had reached a conclusion. "It's foolish of me, don't you think?" Isabella said to Lady Felicia. "Yet I am as worried about his verdict as if I myself were on trial."

Lady Felicia murmured something noncommittal.

"Perhaps I am on trial."

"What court on Earth can try a queen, Your Majesty?" asked Lady Felicia.

"That is my point," said Isabella. "I felt, when Cristobal spoke that first day in court, so many years ago, that the Holy Mother was offering me something very sweet and fine, a fruit from her own garden, a berry from her own vine."

"He is a fascinating man, Your Majesty."

"Not him, though I do think him a sweet and fervent fellow." One thing Isabella would never do was leave the impression with anyone that she looked on any man but her husband with anything approaching desire. "No, I mean that the Queen of Heaven was giving me the chance to open a vast door that had long been closed." She sighed. "But the power even of queens is not infinite. I had no ships to spare, and the cost of saying yes on the spot would have been too great. Now Talavera has decided, and I fear that he is about to close a door whose key will only be given me that one time. Now it will pass into another hand, and I will regret it forever."

"Heaven cannot condemn Your Majesty for failing to do what was not within your power to do," said Lady Felicia.

"I'm not worried at this moment about the condemnation of heaven. That's between me and my confessors."

"Oh, Your Majesty, I was not saying that you face any kind of condemnation from--"

"No no, Lady Felicia, don't worry, I didn't take your remark as anything but the kindest reassurance."

Felicia, still flustered, got up to answer the soft knock on the door. It was Father Talavera.

"Would you wait by the door, Lady Felicia?" asked Isabella.

Talavera bowed over her hand. "Your Majesty, I am about to ask Father Maldonado to write the verdict."

The worst possible outcome. She heard the door of heaven clang shut against her. "Why today of all days?" she asked him. "You've taken all these years over this Col¢n fellow, and today it's suddenly an emergency that must be decided at once?"

"I think it is," he said.

"And why is that?"

"Because victory in Granada is near."

"Oh, has God spoken to you about this?"

"You feel it too. Not God, of course, but His Majesty the King. There is new energy in him. He is making the final push, and he knows that it will succeed. This next summer. By the end of 1491, all of Spain will be free of the Moor."

"And this means that you must press the issue of Col¢n's voyage now?"

"It means," said Talavera, "that one who wishes to do something so audacious must sometimes proceed very warily. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if our verdict were positive. Go ahead, Your Majesty, we say. This voyage is worthy of success. What then? At once Maldonado and his friends will seek His Majesty's ear, criticizing this voyage. And they will speak to many others, so that the voyage will soon be known as a folly. In particular, Isabella's folly."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I say only what will surely be said by those with malicious hearts. Now imagine if this verdict is reached when the war is over, and His Majesty can devote his fall attention to the matter. The issue of this voyage could easily become quite a stumbling block in the relations between the two kingdoms."

"I see that in your view, supporting Col¢n will be disastrous," she said.

"Now imagine, Your Majesty, that the verdict is negative. In fact, that Maldonado himself writes it. From that point on, Maldonado has nothing to gossip about. There will be no whispers."

"There will also be no voyage."

"Won't there?" asked Talavera. "I imagine a day when a queen might say to her husband, 'Father Talavera came to me, and we agreed that Father Maldonado should write the verdict.'"

"But I don't agree."

"I imagine this queen saying to her husband, 'We agreed that Maldonado should write the verdict because we know that the war with Granada is the most vital concern of our kingdom. We want nothing to distract you or anyone else from this holy Crusade against the Moor. Most certainly we don't want to give King John of Portugal reason to think we are planning any kind of voyage through waters he thinks of as his own. We need his unflagging friendship during this final struggle with Granada. So even though in my heart I want nothing more than to take the chance and send this Col¢n west, to carry the cross to the great kingdoms of the East, I have set aside this dream.'"

"What an eloquent queen you have imagined," said Isabella.

"All controversy dies. The king sees the queen as a statesman of great wisdom. He also sees the sacrifice she has made for their kingdoms and the cause of Christ. Now imagine that time passes. The war is won. In the glow of victory, the queen comes to the king and says, 'Now let's see if this Col¢n still wants to sail west.'"

"And he will say, 'I thought that business was finished. I thought Talavera's examiners put a Stop to all that nonsense.'"

"Oh, does he say that?" asked Talavera. "Fortunately, the queen is quite deft, and she says, 'Oh, but you know that Talavera and I agreed to have Maldonado write that verdict. For the good of the war effort. The matter was never really settled. Many of the examiners thought Col¢n's project was a worthy one with a decent chance of success. Who can know, anyway? We'll find out by sending this Col¢n. If he comes back successful, we'll know he was right and we'll send great expeditions at once to follow through. If he comes back empty-handed, then we'll put him in prison for defrauding the Crown. And if he never comes back, we'll waste no more effort on such projects.'"

"The queen you imagine is so dry," said Isabella. "She talks like a cleric."

"It's a shortcoming of mine," said Talavera. "I haven't heard enough great ladies in private conversation with their husbands."

"I think this queen should say to her husband, 'If he sails and never returns, then we have lost a handful of caravels. Pirates take more than that every year. But if he sails and succeeds, then with three caravels we will have accomplished more than Portugal has achieved in a century of expensive, dangerous voyages along the African coast.'"

"Oh, you're right, that's much better. This king that you're imagining, he has a keen sense of competition."

"Portugal is a thorn in his side," said Isabella.

"So you agree with me that Maldonado should write the verdict?"

"You're forgetting one thing," said Isabella.

"And that is?"

"Col¢n. When the verdict comes, he will leave us and head for France or England. Or Portugal."

"There are two reasons why he will not, Your Majesty."

"And those are?"

"First, Portugal has Dias and the African route to the Indies, while I happen to know that Col¢n's first approaches to Paris and London, through intermediaries, did not meet with any encouragement."

"He has already turned to other kings?"

"After the first four years," said Talavera dryly, "his patience began to flag a little."

"And the second reason that Col¢n will not leave Spain between the verdict and the end of the war with Granada?"

"He will be informed of the verdict of the examiners in a letter. And that letter, while it will contain no promises, will nevertheless give him leave to understand that when the war ends, the matter can be reopened."

"The verdict closes the door, but the letter opens the window?"

"Just a little. But if I know Col¢n at all, that slight crack in the window will be enough. He is a man of great hopes and great tenacity."

"Do I take it, Father Talavera, that your own personal verdict is in favor of the voyage?"

"Not at all," said Talavera. "If I had to guess which view of the world is the more correct, I think I would favor Ptolemy and Maldonado. But I would be guessing, because no one knows and no one can know with the information we now have."

"Then why did you come here today with all these -- suggestions?"

"I think of them as imaginings, Your Majesty. I would not presume to suggest anything." He smiled. "While the others have been trying to determine what is correct, I have been thinking more along the lines of what is good and right. I have been thinking of St. Peter stepping from the boat and walking on the water."

"Until he doubted."

"And then he was lifted up by the hand of the Savior."

Tears came to Isabella's eyes. "Do you think Col¢n may be filled with the Spirit of God?"

"The Maid of Orleans was either a saint or a madwoman."

"Or a witch. They burned her as a witch."

"My point exactly. Who could know, for certain, whether God was in her? And yet by putting their trust in her as God's servant, the soldiers of France drove the English from held after field. What if she had been mad? What then? They would have lost one more battle. What difference would that have made? They had already lost so many."

"So if Col¢n is a madman, we will only lose a few caravels, a little money, a wasted voyage."

"Besides, if I know His Majesty at all, I suspect he'll find a way to get the boats for very little money."

"They say that if you pinch the coins with his face on them, they screech."

Talavera's eyes went wide. "Someone told Your Majesty that little jest?"

She lowered her voice. They were already talking so low that Lady Felicia could not possibly hear them; still, he leaned toward the Queen so he could hear her faint whisper. "Father Talavera, just between you and me, when that little jest was first told, I was present. In fact, when that little jest was first told, I was speaking."

"I will treat that," said Father Talavera, "with all the secrecy of a confession."

"You are such a good priest, Father Talavera. Bring me Father Maldonado's verdict. Tell him not to make it too cruel."

"Your Majesty, I will tell him to be kind. But Father Maldonado's kindness can leave scars."

***

Diko came home to find Father and Mother both still awake, dressed, sitting up in the front room, as if they were waiting to go somewhere. Which turned out to be the case. "Manjam has asked to see us."

"At this hour?" asked Diko. "Go then."

"Us," said Father, "including you."

They met in one of the smaller rooms at Pastwatch, but one designed for the optimum viewing of the holographic display of the TruSite II. It did not occur to Diko, however, that Manjam chose the room for anything but privacy. What would he need with the TruSite II? He was not of Pastwatch. He was a noted mathematician, but that was supposed to mean he had no use for the real world. His tool was a computer for number manipulation. And, of course, his own mind. After Hassan, Tagiri, and Diko arrived, Manjam had them wait just a moment more for Hunahpu and Kemal. Then they all sat.

"I must begin with an apology," said Manjam. "I realize in retrospect that my explanation of temporal effects was inept in the extreme."

"On the contrary," said Tagiri, "it couldn't have been clearer."

"I don't apologize for a lack of clarity. I apologize for a lack of empathy. It isn't one of the things mathematicians get much practice at. I actually thought that telling you that our own time would cease to be real would be a comfort to you. It would be to me, you see. But then, I don't spend my life looking at history. I didn't understand the great ... compassion that fills your lives here. Tagiri, you especially. I know now what I should have said.

"That the end will be painless. There will be no cataclysm. There will be no sense of loss. There will be no regret. Instead, there will be a new Earth. A new future. And in this new future, because of the wise plans that Diko and Hunahpu have devised, there will be far more chance of happiness and fulfilment than in our own time. There will still be unhappiness, but it will not be so pervasive. That's what I should have said. That you will indeed succeed in erasing much misery, while you will create no new sources of misery."

"Yes," said Tagiri, "you should have said that."

"I'm not used to speaking in terms of misery and happiness. There is no mathematics of misery, you see. It doesn't come up in my professional life. And yet I do care about it." Manjam sighed. "More than you know."

Something that he said struck a wrong note in Diko's mind. She blurted out the question as soon as she realized what it was. "Hunahpu and I have not finalized any plans."

"Haven't you?" said Manjam. He reached out his hands to the TruSite II, and to Diko's astonishment he manipulated the controls like an expert. In fact, he almost immediately called up a control screen that Diko had never seen before, and entered a double password. Moments later the holographic display came alive.

In the display, to Diko's astonishment, she saw herself and Hunahpu.

"It isn't enough to stop Cristoforo, " Diko was saying in the display. "We have to help him and his crew on Hispaniola to develop a new culture in combination with the Taino. A new Christianity that adapts to the Indies the way that it adapted to the Greeks in the second century. But that also isn't enough."

"I hoped you would see it that way," said Hunahpu in the display. "Because I intend to go to Mexico."

"What do you mean, Mexico?"

"That wasn't your plan?"

"I was going to say that we need to develop technology rapidly, to the point where the new hybrid culture can be a match for Europe."

"Yes, that's what I thought you were going to say. But of course that can't be done on the island of Haiti. Oh, the Spaniards will try, but the Tainos are simply not ready to receive that level of technology. It will remain Spanish, and that means a permanent class division between the white keepers of the machines and the brown laboring class. Not healthy."

Manjam paused the display. The images of Diko and Hunahpu froze.

Diko looked around at the others and saw that the fear and anger in their eyes was a match for what she felt.

"Those machines," said Hassan, "they aren't supposed to be able to see anything more recent than a hundred years ago."

"Normally they can't," said Marjam.

"Why does a mathematician know how to use the TruSite?" asked Hunahpu. "Pastwatch already duplicated all the lost private notes of the great mathematicians of history."

"This is an unspeakable violation of privacy," said Kemal icily.