Special Collection

Fist hit metal breastplate making a hollow sound then flew up in something
that looked uncomfortably like a Nazi salute. "Hail Imperator." Late afternoon
sun slanted in through the Great Library's windows disclosing dancing golden
dust motes in the space between an armor-clad woman and a bookish man hunched
over a scroll-covered table.

"Shhhhh." The man looked up. "Nell, we're not pretending to be Romans and they
didn't let women be Legionnaires."

"You're right." She flashed a lopsided grin at him. "I'm an Amazon warrior."

"Wouldn't that entail cutting off your right breast?"

The grin became a wince. "Ouch. Never mind. I guess I'll stick with
impersonating a hoplite bodyguard and acting really, really butch."

"Just don't forget that when anyone's watching." Sid Feynmann smiled. The
Eastern Mediterranean was much nicer than Greenland or even Ann Arbor for that
matter. He found his current role better suited to his nature than his last
mission for the Temporal Committee. The slave girl at the Inn who attended him
had large soft eyes that seemed to express interest. He looked back, but could
not touch-lest he disturb the timeline. Ptolemaic Alexandria was as
patriarchal as any not-Dead White Male could make it, forcing Nell to pretend
to be a Macedonian mercenary hired to guard a visiting Greek scholar. While
Sid enjoyed the baths each afternoon, Nell guarded his clothes in the hot,
humid disrobing room. The unfairness of it all proved strangely satisfying to
Sid who pointed out how lucky he was that she had modern deodorants.

In three weeks they established a pattern: appear at the Great Library at
first light, copy texts until Sid enjoyed the baths, return to the library and
work until sunset. Sid pretended to copy texts by hand whenever anyone was
around. When they weren't the multi-spectral scanner built into Sid's bulky
gold ring cast a violet beam. It blinked off when Nell's hidden motion
detectors gave warning.

Outside Nell spoke again. "I know the routine around here well enough that we
could risk an after-hours penetration. The Head Librarian, Nestor, lives on
the premises and retires early each night and if he gets up, we'll know."

Sid was always surprised at how quickly it got dark at this latitude. Smoke
from cooking fires competed with less than savory odors in the evening air.
Nell walked slightly in front of Sid through the darkened alleys of Alexandria
scanning for threats. Personal security at this point in space-time was a
matter of hiring enough muscle to intimidate the criminal element. Armed
conflict was to be avoided and Sid hoped Nell's armor and sword created the
impression of being a hard target.

They rounded a corner to hear the scuff of sandals against cobblestones. It
was too dark to see much. Sid wished for his night-vision glasses. Nell
stopped abruptly and pulled her sword.

Three big men stood in the alley before them. Sid pretended to cower behind
Nell using the opportunity to pull his neural stunner from his bag.

"We'll take your purse, scholar. Tell your guard to put down his weapon." The
leader's words were thick with a Scythian accent. A narrow shaft of moonlight
struck the steel of his sword. Giving the robbers his purse would only make a
minor distortion in the timeline until the thieves found the 23rd century
gadgets disguised as jewelry.

"Never!" Nell shouted, trying to make her voice sound gruff. It would have
been more effective had her voice not broken. She jumped at the leader and
slapped his sword with hers. He parried and she fended off his counter thrust.
Sid's stunner dropped him with neither flash or sound. He fell like a
marionette whose strings were cut. Unlike standard issue stunners, Sid's also
shot paintballs. Adding insult to injury, two red paintballs struck him in the
chest, splattering fake blood all over. Nell turned to face the other two
attackers who fled in terror.

Sid scanned the street. They were alone. "How is he?"

"Alive, but messy. He's going to be confused when he wakes up wondering whose
blood this is." Nell was breathing heavy. Sid helped her drag the thief into
the shadows at the side of the alley where they covered him with trash that
had baked in the sun. He hoped waking up with a splitting headache, covered
with blood, and stinking of garbage, would ruin the thief's day.

The fight, brief as it had been, could have easily been disastrous. Operations
in a city dictated paranoia. Too many people, too many opportunities to alter
the timeline. Sid almost aborted the mission there. Just a squeeze of his
right earlobe would activate the temporal translator strapped to his chest
taking him back to the Temporal Mechanics Lab in the basement of Gates hall in
Ann Arbor.

"Let's put motion detectors in the dark alleys between the library and the
inn."

Nell grimaced. "I should have thought of that."

"Freudian slip. You probably wanted a sword fight."

"Not me. Mom's the Ninja of the family. She single-handedly took out a gang of
bandits on a dig in Kazakhstan. You should have seen Dad's face. But this
attack tells me something important."

"What's that?"

"The longer we stay here, the more people notice us. I'm telling you. We
should go in at night and scan everything we can."

Sid shook his head. "It won't help us with cataloging. There are no Dewey
Decimal numbers printed on the scrolls. If we sneak in at night, we could
waste time scanning Aristotle's _Metaphysics_, Euclid's _Elements_ or
something else we already have. Half the time, we don't even know what to ask
Nestor for."

Nestor of Rhodes, the Head Librarian, was the smartest man Sid had ever met.
His memory was incredible. Sid would ask about a text and then Nestor would
quote from it at length from memory. Nell countered that everyone memorized
everything.

They had supper with him on the first week of the mission. Sid had never eaten
from golden plates before. Nestor's wine was excellent and he laid on a
banquet, all the while apologizing for the absence of this delicacy or that.
He loved eating as much as learning and he consummated both relationships with
gusto. Living and working in the Great Library left little opportunity for
exercise making Nestor the fattest man in Alexandria.

Nell ate off wooden plates with the slaves that night and griped about it for
the next three days-when she wasn't telling the bawdy jokes she heard.

They arrived at the Inn and ate supper in the common room. The blood
splattered on Nell and Sid elicited momentary notice, but little more than
raised eyebrows. The others understood the risks of the night and quietly
upgraded their assessment of Sid's bodyguard.

"Why don't we bring in a team and scan everything?" Nell asked.

Sid shook his head. "You're talking about hundreds of thousands of scrolls."

"A huge team. We could flood the building with Anesthagas. Set up infrared
floodlights. Bring in thirty technicians with night-vision glasses. Use ten
scanners and make an assembly line process out of it."

Sid shook his head. "It makes sense. But that still leaves us with the
indexing problem. We can only bulk scan scrolls in the main stacks. There are
nooks and crannies, archive rooms we know nothing about. We'd miss them."

"But that's another reason to sneak in after hours. We could..." Nell stopped,
pulled her sword a foot from its sheath and growled. A brownish red streak
across her cheek made her look particularly intimidating.

"Humblest apologies for the interruption," a small man with dark hair in tight
curls stood with his head bowed and a skullcap clutched in his hands. "I was
overcome with curiosity just now." His Greek was thickly accented.

Sid switched from English to Greek. "Apologies accepted." The man looked
harmless enough. "Join my table and maybe I can satisfy your curiosity. I am
Phemius Theronides a scholar and this is my travelling companion, Lysimachus.
Best swordsman in Alexandria right now I might guess." Sid chuckled.

"I am Solomon Bar David, also a scholar."

That explained the accent. "Didn't your namesake write, 'Much study is a
weariness of the flesh.'"

Solomon seemed surprised at first and then laughed, "It seems neither of us
paid his words enough heed. I am flattered that you have studied my people's
literature. Pray, tell me what was that language you were speaking just now
with your companion?"

Alexandria was a polyglot city where the languages of the empire orbited the
trade language of Koine Greek. Conversation with Nell had proceeded in Modern
English with complete assurance that nobody would understand a word of it
until sometime around Shakespeare. "Lysimachus, my companion, and I learned
this language from barbarians who lived beyond the Gates of Hercules."

"A marvel. I thought myself widely traveled, but I've never ventured beyond
Tarshish."

"There's not much civilization until you get to Ann Arbor," Nell muttered into
her wine. Sid flashed her a dirty look.

"Ann Arbor? What is that?" Solomon asked.

"My friend is jesting with you about a myth like unto Atlantis."

"Ah, Atlantis. I've read Plato's description of the place. Nestor has told me
Solon's scroll is fantastic. I'll have to see if it makes any mention of Ann
Arbor."

"If you read of the Spartans defeating them, it's a lie."

"Nell, shut up," Sid said in English. Switching back to Greek, he continued,
"I'm afraid my friend's sense of humor is an acquired taste. You'll have to
excuse her-I mean him."

Solomon nodded gravely. "Lysimachus, there is a scroll in the Great Library I
think you would enjoy. I shall ask Nestor for you."

"What is it?" Nell asked.

"A scroll of witticisms."

Sid inwardly flinched at the prospect of Nell fortified with additional
comedic material from some ancient joke book. "You are most kind to my
companion, scholar Solomon."

"I fear I don't know how to express a similar kindness to you, scholar
Phemius. What sort of text would best suit your needs."

"If I had a true index of the Great Library, I'd know how to answer."

"I must disappoint you, scholar Phemius. The _Catalogues_ of Callimachus is
sadly outdated and the peripatetics' lists are not to be trusted. What you
seek is only in Nestor' head and that I cannot give you." With that Solomon
rose and left.

Sid leaned toward Nell and whispered. "I can't believe what you said to him."

"Hey, maybe in a few thousand years Michigan State will beat the Wolverines,
but don't count on it."

"For crying out loud, Nell. What if he wrote down that he'd heard a traveler
speak of a legendary land beyond Atlantis called Ann Arbor where the Spartans
never won? What would that do to the timeline? He's a scholar and those are
just the things he might write down."

"So, if Solomon Bar David writes down something like that, someone else might
confuse him with the other Solomon son of David and my joke might make it into
the Bible? Cool."

Sid scowled. "I don't think so."

"Anyway, I thought of another reason why we want to sneak into the library at
night. I was hoping Solomon would leave so I could tell you." Nell leaned
forward. Her eyes shined bright with intent. "The special collections rooms.
We can't get into them. The court chronicles, all the juicy gossip that might
embarrass the powers that be, are kept there. We sneak in, just you and me,
scan just those scrolls and get out. What do you say?"

Sid nodded slowly. "All right, but first I want you to double up the motion
detectors in the hall outside it. Work out all the details and present them to
me in the morning." Sid grabbed a bottle of wine and trundled off to his bed.

***

A week later Nell stood fidgeting at Sid's side. He slowly finished copying
the scroll in front of him in the fading light. Nell wanted to leave
immediately. Sid knew and made her wait. Just as he finished copying a page,
the motion detector went off, declaring someone's arrival.

It was Solomon. "I missed you at the baths this afternoon. Here is the scroll.
Nestor found it for me." He handed it to Nell. "I hope you'll enjoy it."

Nell accepted the scroll. Before she could say anything, Solomon excused
himself and hurried out. She jammed the scroll into her belt and growled,
"Let's get out of here before something else happens."

Sid gathered his things and followed Nell out. The stone walls of the
surrounding buildings flared with the day's heat. Nell keyed a transmitter
opening a cache hidden beneath the alley's cobblestones. The stealth suits
with antigrav belts hidden therein were hot to the touch.

"I've got to put on this skintight bodysuit? Whose idea was this?" Sarcasm
dripped from Nell's voice as she struggled into the hot, sticky apparel.

"Yours." Sid brought extra talc from his bath that afternoon that eased his
way into his suit.

"Don't remind me."

"At least it accents your girlish figure."

"It's a stealth suit. Once I turn it on you're not supposed to see me." Nell
paused. "What this outfit needs is a cape." Then she activated her antigrav
belt and soared up and out of sight.

Sid tossed his clothes into the cache and kicked Nell's armor on top before
sealing the hatch. Then he launched himself into the airspace of Alexandria.
The rush of cooler air felt heavenly. The moon shone full and cast bluish
silver over the city. Warm yellow squares marked the windows of occupied
houses. The Library was surprisingly dark by contrast.

Sid landed beside Nell who stood straddling the roof's ridge arms akimbo. The
stealth suit diffused her outline and seemed to suck light into it.

"Someday, I want to buzz Victorian London at night, just to feel the rush of
darting through the alleys.

"You'd do it just to look in the windows."

"That, too. Come on."

Nell padded down to the roof's edge, planted a climbing cable, and lowered
herself to a second story window she'd contrived to leave unlatched earlier in
the afternoon. She slipped in. Sid followed.

Double-checking the motion detectors, they advanced into the darkness through
the main hall. The bejeweled mummy of Alexander The Great silently gazed down
in apparent disapproval. The special collections room lay at the end of a long
corridor. Quickly Nell crossed the distance with Sid behind her. She tried the
door and, surprised to find it unlocked, nodded to Sid and slipped inside.

Shelves filled with scrolls lined the walls. At the center of the room sat a
table and chair. A candle guttered at the table's center. A scroll lay beside
it beyond the reach of the candle's flame. On the chair Nestor sat slumped
forward and unconscious.

Nell stopped abruptly and looked at Sid.

Something, inspiration, foolishness, stupidity, grabbed Sid and pushed him
forward. He leapt across the space separating them from Nestor. Feeling for a
pulse, he found none. "Nell, he's still warm. He'll die if we don't give him
CPR."

"No. We're not here in history. Anything we do, especially resuscitating
Nestor, will disturb the timeline."

"I won't let him die, Nell." With that, Sid gathered Nestor' bulky frame in
his arms and squeezed his right earlobe.

"Don't!" Nell screamed, as the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation washed over
Sid and Nestor.

***

Later, Nell walked into Sid's office. He had his feet up on his desk looking
too smug to endure. She flounced into the visitor's chair. "You lucky skunk."

"Hey, believe it or not, I thought it through first. If Nestor dies, someone
replaces him. If he simply disappears, the same someone replaces him anyhow.
Only difference is we've got him. The Committee said it was a cowboy stunt
that they would expect from you. Then they agreed that it all worked out for
the best."

"I'll say it has. Nestor has been talking nonstop telling us from memory where
every scroll is kept, and what's on each."

"The guy has an incredible memory," Sid shook his head in admiration.

"No computers. And paper was too expensive for writing reminders to oneself.
Everything was memorized. He's got a well trained memory." Nell cocked her
head to the side. "So, you think the Committee will approve a massive scanning
effort now that Nestor can point us to the good stuff?"

Sid nodded and added, "But you better enjoy Nestor's full attention while you
can."

"Why?"

"After he gets the cloned heart transplant he'll rediscover how much he likes
food. I've promised to introduce him to chocolate. You should have seen his
face when I described it to him. And then there's another, uh, distraction you
should plan on after another bit of corrective surgery."

"Distraction? Surgery?"

"Someone made Nestor a eunuch. I think he'll rediscover girls. You should have
seen his face when I described *that*. He'll probably hit on you."

Nell rolled her eyes.

A malicious smile crept onto Sid's face. "One more thing, Nell."

"What's that?"

"This came for you." Sid held aloft an official looking envelope. "It's from
the Egyptian government." He handed it over. "Remember that joke book Solomon
gave you?"

"Yeah, I was so rushed cleaning up the mess you left that I forgot to return
it. What is this?"

"It's an overdue fine."
**************************************************
Also read the prequel: "Rescue in Greenland"