Time's Chariot Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Dedication

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgements

  TIME'S CHARIOT

  www.davidficklingbooks.co.

  To Kerstin, who shapes my future

  Also available by Ben Jeapes:

  THE XENOCIDE MISSION

  THE NEW WORLD ORDER

  BEN JEAPES

  TIME'S CHARIOT

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407042374

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  TIME'S CHARIOT

  A DAVID FICKLING BOOK 978 0 385 61450 4

  Published in Great Britain by David Fickling Books,

  a division of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  First published in the UK as Wingèd Chariot by Scholastic Ltd, 1999

  This edition published 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Ben Jeapes, 2000

  The right of Ben Jeapes to be identified as the author of this work

  has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 9781407042374

  Version 1.0

  Set in New Baskerville

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  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British

  Library.

  'But at my back I always hear

  Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near,

  And yonder all before us lie

  Vast deserts of eternity.'

  Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

  One

  They had drugged him and now his body twisted lazily as it tumbled through the air.

  Body. Somewhere in one corner of his drugged mind was a feeling of annoyance, because he wasn't a body yet, but that was how they had referred to him. And, looking at the ground creeping closer, he felt the description would soon be accurate, which annoyed him even more. He hadn't even been given the choice of whether or not to die.

  The wind was a booming, rushing noise in his ears. He had fallen for a long time. He had fallen off a mountain, he recalled, though he wasn't sure what a mountain was. Perhaps it was that shining blur. They may have drugged him into compliance and a fatalistic acceptance of death, he thought, but he wasn't stupid.

  Another corner of his mind wondered about the emergency agravs – necessary equipment when you lived over a mile above ground, designed for just such eventualities as this. Even now they should be picking him up and reducing his rate of descent so that he would land as smoothly as a feather. Somehow he had got past their reach.

  He frowned because something wasn't making sense. This was the Home Time and murder was meant to be a thing of the past, and yet he was reasonably certain that murder was what had just happened to him.

  And then the ground, once so far away and approaching slowly, was suddenly coming quickly up towards him, and there was no time for terror before all his worries abruptly ceased.

  Two

  Isfahan, 1029

  Help! Help me!'

  The Correspondent paused and cocked his head, still fingering the halter of the camel tied up beside the road. He had stopped to inspect the animal because a camel saddled for a rider, but riderless, aroused his curiosity. He was in the middle of what was still called Persia and it was shortly after his arrival at 08:00, local time on 13 May in the year the faithful called 407, the Christians called 1029 and his masters called 1564 pre-Home Time. He was on the road between Qom and Isfahan and so far, apart from the camel, he had seen no sign of anyone else around him.

  'Help!' The voice was more desperate and, turning up his hearing, the Correspondent could hear the sounds of conflict, heavy breathing, metal on metal. The noise came from the other side of a small hill beside the road through the desert, and he set off over it at a slow jog.

  There was a fight going on round the other side of the hill, three against one, and the one was tiring. The Correspondent had no idea of the rights and wrongs of the situation and no especial desire to intervene, so instead he began to record the scene, sucking the information in through his eyes and storing it in the special areas at the back of his brain.

  In his final despair, the one man below raised his eyes and saw the Correspondent at the top of the rise. 'In the name of the Prophet, help me!' he cried. Still the Correspondent might have stayed put if one of the three others hadn't turned round and spotted him. Immediately he charged with an angry bellow, scimitar raised.

  The Correspondent stood where he was and watched the man approach. Something inside him assessed a threat to personal safety and he shifted to defence mode, without showing any external change. The attacker's yell peaked as he drew close and brought the blade down.

  With one hand the Correspondent swatted the blade aside. The other he jabbed deep into the man's throat. The man staggered backwards and fell, eyes bulging, choking on his crushed larynx.

  The two remaining attackers stood over their now motionless victim. They ran at him as one, and again the Correspondent let them get close. Then his foot came up at the end of a straight leg, catching the first under the ribs and crushing his heart. The second man got the Correspondent's rigid fingers in his solar plexus and his spinal cord was severed by a chop to the back of his neck.

  The Correspondent looked down at the three bodies, stored the scene in his memory and then went down to see if the one they had been attacking was still alive.

  He was – a young man only just out of adolescence, with a scraggly beard. He had propped himself up on one arm and he gazed at the Correspondent with awe.

  'You just stood there!' he said. 'I have never seen someone dispatch three bandits so quickly. You have my eternal gratitude.'

  The bandits h
ad actually posed little threat. The Correspondent still didn't know much, but he knew that. Provided he avoided immediate trauma and kept himself in more or less one piece, his body could overcome virtually any threat to it from war or disease, and regenerate itself indefinitely. He was packed full of added organic components and he possessed skills and senses that evolution had never given Homo sapiens and never would. He could even remould his features if desired, given a day or so to himself. At the moment, he appeared like any other man of the region in his mid thirties.

  The young man in the sand would not have understood, so the Correspondent just asked: 'Who were they?'

  'Infidel worthless bandits,' the young man said casually. He looked up at his helper. 'And who are you, friend?'

  Who was he? A good question. Your memory will be affected by the transference. They had told him that, though he couldn't remember who they were and he still had no specific memory of the Home Time. He did know that he had a function: to observe, to comment, to survive. He was Correspondent RC/1029 – any further identity that he took would be up to him.

  'My name is of no importance and I am going to Isfahan,' the Correspondent said – slightly to his surprise, because until that moment he had had no idea which direction on the road he was taking. Meanwhile, he guessed what might be worrying his new friend. 'I am no bandit. If I were, you would be dead by now.'

  'A worthy point. I am Ali Salim Said and I have the misfortune to be scouting for my father's caravan, which will pass this way shortly.'

  'Scouting?'

  'For bandits,' Ali said with feeling. He began, very gingerly, to climb to his feet.

  'Then I would say you are good at your job,' said the Correspondent, holding out his hand. Ali burst out laughing as he took it and pulled himself up.

  'I am good at finding them but not at detecting. One of them lay by the road, as if already waylaid, and two waited behind a rock.'

  'Is that your camel, then, back by the road?'

  'It is.' Ali had finally found his feet, only to fall over and clutch at the Correspondent.

  'Then I had better help you back there,' the Correspondent said.

  An hour later the caravan finally passed by and the Correspondent was taken in, helped by a glowing introduction from Ali and the mute testimony of the three graves which the Correspondent had been digging. And that was how the Correspondent came to enter Isfahan.

  Isfahan hustled and bustled with the activity and purpose of a major metropolis. The city was a place where trade routes converged and it thrived in its business of producing cotton, silk and wool, with hundreds of individual shops turning out carpets and metal goods. The wind shifted and the Correspondent quickly deduced the location of the animal market.

  'Is this place not magnificent?' said Ali. He and the Correspondent strolled side by side through the bazaar, as best as two men could stroll in a place packed with such a number of people and animals.

  The Correspondent made a non-committal noise. To his surprise an item of knowledge about Isfahan dropped into place in his mind. Isfahan was already doomed, but it would soon recover from the fate that awaited it. In 1051 it would be conquered by the Seljuk Turks and as compensation it would become the capital of their empire. But by 1051, the Correspondent would be long gone. After 1037 he would have no further reason for staying here.

  1037: another rationed scrap of memory. As a Correspondent he knew he was a free agent, but apparently not that free. He hadn't been dropped in eleventh century Persia on a whim. Thirty seconds ago he had been a casual wanderer but now he knew he was here to meet someone, and that this particular someone would die in 1037. The man was known to have spent the last fourteen years of his life as scientific adviser and physician to the ruler of Isfahan, so that gave the Correspondent somewhere to start his search.

  'Are you well?' Ali was looking at him with anxiety. The Correspondent realized his expression must have been blank, his thoughts miles away.

  'Yes, I'm well,' he said. 'And yes, Ali, this is a marvellous city indeed. Do you know where the palace might be?'

  Ali gave him a strange look but, yes, he did know where the palace was and he was happy to act as a guide. It was an impressive structure and the two men stood a safe distance off to observe it.

  'Do you have business in there?' Ali asked.

  'I've come to meet a man.'

  'Then ask to be announced to him.'

  'He's never heard of me,' said the Correspondent, 'but I know how to get his attention. I need parchment, and charcoal, and ink – black, red and blue.'

  Later he lay on his bed in his room, hired with money he had taken from the dead bandits when Ali wasn't looking, and composed his report. His eyes stared blankly towards the ceiling, and though it was dark he could easily see the plaster above him. He had turned all his senses to maximum while he prepared his report; should anyone come by, they would find him apparently in a coma, and he had no intention of letting that happen.

  First he put in the straightforward sensory data of the day. The air, unpolluted but also hot and dusty. The terrain, tough and unyielding, only just begrudging a living to the locals. The precise temperature, the shade of blue of the sky, the texture of the rock and the sand.

  Other things – things that made him feel good. The friendship of the caravan, and of Ali. The gratitude of Ali's father. The vitality of Isfahan outside his window; a city of only a few thousand but still more alive, more animated than the Home Time with all its billions ever could be. The taste of the food, the smell of the people and animals.

  (And how did he know what the Home Time was like when he had such a poor memory of it? He just . . . did.)

  When the report was finished, he breathed a sigh. His first! Now it just needed filing. The moon was up, so . . .

  He thought, and a tone that only he could hear sounded in his head.

  'RC/1029, stand by,' said a voice. Then, 'RC/1029, transmit.' He thought again and in a couple of seconds it was over.

  'Report received, RC/1029,' said the voice.

  His first report was filed. A big moment! He got out of bed and strolled over to the window to look at the moon. Somewhere up there was the station, awaiting retrieval by those who had put it there, centuries from now. It was comforting to consider. He had no doubt that sooner or later in his career he would feel very lonely and it would be good to know that up there was something else from the future. A link to the Home Time. As long as the moon was up, he would be able to make contact with it. That was another item in the innate knowledge he had brought back with him.

  He had a thousand years to go before he could return to the Home Time. In a thousand years time, in the twenty-first century, the world would be sufficiently advanced technologically that the Home Time could send the recall equipment back without it appearing anachronistic. A thousand years until Recall Day. No doubt he had had his reasons for volunteering for this assignment, but thinking about it now, it did seem rather a long time.

  But he was at the start of his career; he was alive and well and surrounded by thousands upon thousands of facts and minutiae waiting to be noted and reported on. And tomorrow he would start by seeking out the man in the palace whose philosophies would help carve out the path of western science, centuries hence, and who would one day be known in the West as the third Aristotle – but that of course lay in the future, and the Correspondent had better reason than most to know that there was a great deal of future ahead.

  'Are you looking for someone, my son?'

  Ali Salim Said started when his father spoke. He had been searching around the caravan fruitlessly and his expression had grown more and more baffled.

  'I'm looking for Salim, Father,' he said. His new friend yesterday had eventually yielded a name, but only after his father had asked for it three times. 'He has vanished.'

  'Isfahan is a large place,' his father said with a shrug.

  'He is not in his room, which he hired,' Ali said. That point still smarted wit
h him. To have the hospitality of the caravan, yet to turn it down like that . . . And then to vanish . . .

  'My son.' Ali's father put a friendly hand on his shoulder. 'Your friend Salim was . . . strange. Did you not notice?'

  'He saved me from three bandits! I told you that!'

  'Indeed you did. You also told me he saved you when you called to him in the name of the Prophet, blessings be upon his name, but first he stood by and watched. Now, do you recall how I had to try and get his name out of him? Indeed, do you know a single thing about the man other than what he has grudgingly told you? For saving your life he has my eternal thanks, but when you have my years and my experience, you too will notice these things in strangers. They are not always what they seem. Did Abraham not entertain three angels without realising it?'

  'You think he was an angel?' Ali wasn't sure whether to scoff at the idea, or be awed.

  'I think he was a man whose life's path only briefly crossed yours, my son. If he wants you to find him again, he will let you do so. If not, accept it as the will of Allah. I only ask that you be prepared for the possibility that you will not see your new friend again.'

  The Correspondent sat on a cushion and sipped his coffee in the calm of the palace while his host paced round and round him, feasting his eyes on the document with which the Correspondent had gained entry. They were completely alone.

  'Fascinating. Truly fascinating.' Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina was 49 years old but looked older – he had never seen eye to eye with more orthodox Muslims on the subjects of drink and sex. The Correspondent had found the way to his heart, and if there had been any doubt as to its location, Abu Ali was holding a map. 'I have always known the blood circulates within the body, because it will flow from a wound in the head just as easily as from a wound at the feet, but to see this . . . where did you get it?'

  'It is common knowledge where I come from,' said the Correspondent. 'The complete circulatory system of the human being.'