Time’s Eye

Casey showed them Europe. Much of the continent was covered by dense green forest. On the more open southern regions in France, Spain, Italy there were settlements, but they were just scattered villages—perhaps not even constructed by humans, Bisesa mused, recalling that southern Europe had been in the range of the Neanderthals. There was certainly nothing human to be seen in England, which, south of the line of what would have been Hadrian’s Wall, was a slab of dense, unbroken forest. Further north the pine forest was marred by a great white scar that straddled the Scottish Highlands, a rogue section of ice cap escaped from a glaciation age.

“It is gone,” said Ruddy. Bisesa was surprised to see his eyes, behind his thick spectacles, were misting. “Perhaps it is because I was born abroad that this affects me so. But Home is gone, all of it, all that history down to the Romans and even deeper, vanished like dew.”

Captain Grove put a scarred hand on his shoulder. “Chin up, man. We’ll clear that bloody forest and build our own history if we have to, you’ll see.”

Ruddy nodded, seeming unable to speak.

Casey watched this little melodrama wide-eyed, his gum-chewing briefly suspended. Then he said, “I’ll cut to the chase. The Soyuz found only three sites, on the whole damn planet, where there’re signs of any advanced technical culture—and one of them is right here. The second—” He tapped his graffiti map, at the southern tip of the unmistakable shape of Lake Michigan.

“Chicago,” Josh breathed.

“Yeah,” Casey said. “But don’t get your hopes up. We can see dense urban settlement—a lot of smoke, as if from factories—even what look like steamboats on the lake. But they didn’t respond to the Soyuz ’s radio signals.”

“They could be from any era before the development of radio,” Abdikadir said. “Say, 1850. Even then the population was sizable.”

“Yeah,” Casey growled, pulling up images on his softscreen. “But they have problems of their own right now. They are surrounded by ice. The hinterland has gone—no farmland—and no trade, because there’s nobody to trade with.”

“And where,” Bisesa said slowly, “is the third advanced site?”

Casey pulled up an image of the Middle East. “Here. There’s a city—small, we think ancient, not like Chicago. But what’s interesting about it is that Soyuz picked up a radio signal from there—the only one on the planet, save for ours. But it wasn’t like ours. It’s powerful, but regular, just an upward chirp through the frequencies.”

“A beacon, perhaps,” Abdikadir said.

“Maybe. It’s not one of our designs.”

Bisesa peered at the softscreen. The city was set in a broad expanse of green, apparently cultivated land, laced with suspiciously straight waterways, like shining threads. “I think this is Iraq.”

“That,” said Cecil de Morgan firmly, “is Babylon.”

Ruddy gasped. “Babylon lives again! …”

“And that’s all,” Casey said. “Just us, and this beacon in Babylon.”

They fell silent. Babylon: the very name was exotic to Bisesa, and her head buzzed with speculation about how that strange beacon had got there.

Captain Grove seized the moment. The little man stepped forward, mighty mustache bristling, and he clapped his hands briskly. “Well, thank you, Mr. Othic. Here’s the way I see it. We have to concentrate on our own position, since it’s clear that nobody is about to come to our rescue, so to speak. Not only that, I think we have to find something to do— to give ourselves a goal—it’s time we stop reacting to whatever the gods throw at us, and start taking command.”

“Here, here,” Ruddy murmured.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“We must go to Chicago,” Josh said. “With so many people, so much industry, so much potential—”

“They don’t know we’re here,” Casey said bluntly. “Oh, perhaps they saw Soyuz pass overhead, but even if they did they won’t have understood.”

“And we have no way to reach them,” Captain Grove said. “We’re scarcely in a position to mount a transatlantic crossing … Perhaps in the future. But for now we must put Chicago out of our minds.”

“Babylon,” said Abdikadir. “It’s the obvious goal. And there’s that beacon: perhaps we will learn more of what has become of us.”

Grove nodded. “Besides, I like the look of all that green. Wasn’t Babylon an early center of agriculture? The Fertile Crescent and all that? Perhaps we should consider a relocation up there. A march wouldn’t be impossible.”

Abdikadir smiled. “You’re thinking of farming, Captain?”

“It’s hardly been my lifelong ambition, but needs must, Mr. Omar.”

Bisesa pointed out, “But somebody lives there already.”

Grove’s face hardened. “We’ll deal with that when we get there.” In that moment, Bisesa glimpsed something of the steel that had enabled these British to build an empire that spanned a planet.

There was no serious alternative suggestion. Babylon it would be.

***

The party began to break up into smaller groups, talking, planning. Bisesa was struck by a new sense of purpose, of direction.