Time’s Eye

She struggled to explain her impressions. “I think in some sense we’re contained in the Eye.” She retreated to the safety of physics. “Think of it this way. The fundamental units of our reality—”

“The tiny strings,” Josh said.

“That’s right. They aren’t really like strings on a violin. There are different ways they can be wrapped around their underlying stratum, their sounding board. Imagine loops of string floating free on the board’s surface, and others wrapped right around the board. If you change the dimensions of the stratum—if you make it thicker—the winding energy of the wrapped strings will increase, but the vibrational energy of the loops will decrease. And that will have an effect in the observable universe. If you keep that up long enough, the two dimensions, long and short, exchange places … They have an inverse relationship …”

Josh shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

“I think she’s telling us,” Abdikadir said, “that in this model of physics, very large distances and very small are somehow equivalent .”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s it. The cosmos and the sub-atom—one is just an inverse of the other, if you look at them the right way.”

“And the Eye—”

“The Eye contains an image of me,” she said, “just as my retina has on it a projected image of you, Josh. But I think in the case of the Eye the reality of the image of me, and of the world, is more than a mere projection.”

Abdikadir frowned. “Then the distorted images in the Eye are not just a shadow of our reality. And by manipulating these images the Eye is somehow able to control what goes on in the outside world. Perhaps that is how it managed to induce the Discontinuity. Is that what you think?”

“Like voodoo dolls,” Josh said, enraptured by the notion. “The Eye contains a voodoo world … But Abdikadir isn’t quite right—is he, Bisesa? The Eye doesn’t do anything. You have said that the Eye, marvelous as it is, is only a tool. And that you have sensed—presences—beyond the Eye, which control it. So the Eye is not some demonic controlling entity. It is merely a—a—”

“A control panel,” she whispered. “I always knew you were smart, Josh.”

“Ah,” said Abdikadir slowly. “I start to understand. You believe that you have some access to this control panel. That you can influence the Eye. And that is what scares you.”

She couldn’t meet his bright eyes.

Josh said, bewildered, “But if you can influence the Eye—what have you asked it to do?”

She hid her face. “To let me go home,” she whispered. “And I think—”

“What?”

“I think it might.”

The others fell silent, shocked. But she had said it, at last, and she knew now that as soon as this jaunt was over she must confront the Eye once more, challenge it again—or die trying.

***

Some days short of Alexandria, the fleet put to shore. This, Alexander’s surveyors assured him, was the site of Paraetonium, a city he had once visited, although there was no trace of it now. Eumenes met them here. He said he wished to accompany his King as he retraced the most significant pilgrimage of his life.

Alexander sent out scouts to round up camels, which were laden with water for five days’ journey. A small party of no more than a dozen, including Alexander, Eumenes, Josh and Bisesa, with a few close bodyguards, quickly formed up. The Macedonians wrapped themselves up in long Bedouin-style winding cloths: they had been here before, and knew what to expect. The moderns followed their lead.

They set off south, inland from the sea. The journey would last several days. Tracing the border of Egypt and Libya, they followed a chain of eroded hills. As her stiffness wore off, and her muscles and lungs began to respond to the exercise, Bisesa found herself losing her thoughts in the simple physical repetition of the walk. More therapy, she thought dryly. Overnight they slept in tents and their Bedouin wraps. But on the second day they were hit by a sandstorm, a hot blizzard of coarse grit. After that they ventured through a ravine oddly carpeted by seashells, and through landscapes of wind-sculpted rock, and across a grueling gravel plateau.

At last they reached a small oasis. There were palm trees and even some birds, quail and falcon, preserved in a desolate landscape of salt flats. The place was dominated by a gaunt, ruined citadel, and small shrines stood coyly half-hidden by vegetation among the springs. There were no people here, no sign of habitation, nothing but picturesque ruin.

Alexander stepped forward, shadowed by his guards. He walked past the eroded foundations of vanished buildings, and reached a set of steps that led up to what had once been a temple. Alexander was visibly shaking as he climbed these worn steps. He reached a bare, dusty platform, and knelt down, his head bowed.