Up The Line

“It’s his hobby,” I said.

“Watch what happens now,” said Metaxas.

Sauerabend and Pulcheria rose and walked toward the gate in the wall. We faded back into the shadows to remain unobserved. Most of our paradoxical duplicates had disappeared, evidently shunting to other positions along the line to monitor the events. We watched as the fat man and the lovely little girl strolled through the gate, into the country-side just beyond the city boundary.

I started to follow.

“Wait,” said Sam. “See who’s coming now? That’s Pulcheria’s older brother Andronicus.”

A young man, perhaps eighteen, was approaching. He halted and stared in broad disbelief at the giggling due

“Where’s Pulcheria?” he roared. “Where is she?”

The due

Young Botaniates, desperate, rushed about the deserted sunbaked street, yelling for his maiden sister. Then he hurried through the gate.

“We follow him,” Metaxas said. Several other groups of us were already outside the gate, I discovered when we got there. Andronicus Botaniates ran hither and thither. I heard the sound of girlish laughter coming from, seemingly, the wall itself.

Andronicus heard it too. There was a breach in the wall, a shallow cavelike opening at ground level, perhaps five meters deep. He ran toward it. We ran toward it too, jostling with a mob that consisted entirely of our duplicated selves. There must have been fifteen of us — five of each.

Andronicus entered the breach in the wall and let out a terrible howl. A moment later I peered in.

Pulcheria, naked, her tunic down near her ankles, stood in the classic position of modesty, with one hand flung across her budding breasts and the other spread over her loins. Next to her was Sauerabend, with his clothes open. He had his tool out and ready for business. I suppose he had been in the process of maneuvering Pulcheria into a suitable position when the interruption came.

“Outrage!” cried Andronicus. “Foulness! Seduction of a virgin maiden! I call you all to witness! Look at this, this monstrosity, this criminal deed!”

And he caught Sauerabend by one hand and his sister by the other, and tugged them both out into the open.

“Bear witness!” he bellowed. We got out of the way before Sauerabend could recognize us, although I think he was too terrified to see anyone. Pitiful Pulcheria, trying to hide all of herself at once, was huddled into a ball at her brother’s feet; but he kept pulling her up, exposing her, crying, “Look at the little whore! Look at her! Look, look, look!”

And a considerable crowd came to look.

We moved to one side. I felt like throwing up. That vile molester of children, that Humbert of stockbrokers — exposing his swollen red thing to Pulcheria, involving her in this scandal—

Now Andronicus had drawn his sword and was trying to kill either Sauerabend or Pulcheria or both. But the onlookers prevented him, bearing him to the ground and taking away his weapon. Pulcheria, in frantic dismay at having her nakedness exposed to such a multitude, grabbed a dagger from someone else and attempted to kill herself, but was stopped in time; finally an old man threw his cloak about her. All was confusion.

Metaxas said calmly, “We followed the rest of the sequence from here before you arrived, then doubled back to wait for you. Here’s what happened: The girl was engaged to Leo Ducas, but of course it was impossible for him to marry her after half of Byzantium had seen her naked like this. Besides, she was considered tainted, even though Sauerabend didn’t actually have time to get into her. The marriage was called off. Her family, blaming her for letting Sauerabend charm her into taking off her clothes, disowned her. Meanwhile, Sauerabend was given the choice of marrying the girl he dishonored, or suffering the usual penalty.”

“Which was?”

“Castration,” said Metaxas. “And so, as Heracles Photis, Sauerabend married her, changing the pattern of history at least to the extent of depriving you of your proper ancestral line. Which we’re now going to correct.”

“Not me,” said Jud B. “I’ve seen all I can stand. I’m going back to 1204. I’m due there at half past three in the morning to tell this guy to come back here and watch things.”

“But—” I said.

“Never mind figuring out the paradoxes,” Sam said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Relieve me at quarter to four,” said Jud B, and shunted.

Metaxas and Sam and I coordinated our timers. “We go up the line,” said Metaxas, “by exactly one hour. To finish the comedy.” We shunted.

60.

And with great precision and no little relief, we finished the comedy.

In this fashion:

We shunted to noon, exactly, on that hot summer day of the year 1100, and took up positions along the wall of Constantinople. And waited, trying hard to ignore the other versions of ourselves who passed briefly through our time level on snooping missions of their own.

The pretty little girl and the watchful due

My heart ached with love for young Pulcheria, and I ached in other places as well, out of lust for the Pulcheria who would be, the Pulcheria whom I had known.

The pretty little girl and the unsuspecting due

Conrad Sauerabend/Heracles Photis appeared. Discordant sounds in the orchestra; twirling of mustaches; hisses. He studied the girl and the woman. He patted his bulging belly. He drew forth a snubby little floater and checked its snout. Leering enthusiastically, he came forward, pla

Metaxas nodded to Sam.

Sam nodded to me.

We approached Sauerabend on a slanting path of approach.

“Now!” said Metaxas, and we went into action.

Huge black Sam lunged forward and clasped his right forearm across Sauerabend’s throat. Metaxas seized Sauerabend’s left wrist and bent his entire arm backward, far from the controls of the timer that could whiz him from our grasp. Simultaneously, I caught Sauerabend’s right arm, jerking it up and back and forcing him to drop the floater. This entire maneuver occupied perhaps an eighth of a second and resulted in the effective immobilization of Sauerabend. The due

Sam now reached under Sauerabend’s clothing and deprived him of his gimmicked timer.

Then we released him. Sauerabend, who undoubtedly thought that he had been set upon by bandits, saw me and grunted a couple of shocked monosyllables.

I said, “You thought you were pretty clever, didn’t you?”

He grunted some more.

I said, “Gimmicking your timer, slipping away, thinking you could set up in business for yourself as a smuggler. Eh? You didn’t believe we’d catch you?”

I didn’t tell him of the weeks of hard work that we had put in. I didn’t tell him of the timecrimes we ourselves had committed for the sake of detecting him — the paradoxes we had left strewn all up and down the line, the needless duplications of ourselves. I didn’t tell him that we had just pinched six years of his life as a Byzantine tavernkeeper into a pocket universe that, so far as he was concerned, had no existence whatever. Nor did I tell him of the chain of events that had made him the husband of Pulcheria Botaniates in that pinched-off universe, depriving me of my proper ancestry. All of those things had now unhappened. There now would be no tavernkeeper named Heracles Photis selling meat and drink to the Byzantines of the years 1100-1105.

Metaxas produced a spare timer, ungimmicked, that he had carried for the purpose.