Ash: The Lost History Part 151

'-AH, WITH YOU!'

'---WE HAVE KNOWN SINCE YOU CAME TO US.'.

'SPOKE TO THE MACHINA, WHEN YOU WERE IN MIDST OF US.'.

'CALLED OUT, IN THE DESERT SOUTH, ALMOST WITHIN TOUCH OF US-!'

'-ESTABLISHED THE DIRECT LINK WITH US-'

'-WITH YOU, WE DO NOT NEED THE MACHINA REI MILITARIS.'

'WE NEED ONLY THE DEATH OF HER WHO BEARS THE DUCAL BLOOD!'.

Ash yelled, "Can't you hear them?"

"Hear them?" the Faris repeated.

"The machines! The f.u.c.king machines! Can't you hear-"

'-US. WE, WHO HEARD YOU SPEAK WITH THE GOLEM-COMPUTER, WHEN YOU RODE AMONGST US, IN THE SOUTH-'

'-WHO SPOKE TO US.'

'WE DID NOT NEED YOU THEN.'.

'WE HAD OUR OTHER CHILD.'.

'BUT WE KNEW THAT, IF SHE FAILED US - WE COULD REACH YOU.'.

'-SPEAK WITH YOU-'

'COMPEL YOU, AS WE COULD HAVE COMPELLED HER-'

'AS SOON AS OUR ARMIES KILL THE d.u.c.h.eSS FLORIA, WE CAN TAKE OUR FINAL STEP.'.

Deafened, appalled, Ash began to repeat aloud the speech that thunders in her head: "'Then we will change reality, so that humankind does not exist; never has existed, after a point ten thousand years ago. There will only ever have been machine consciousness, throughout all the history that has been and all the history that is to come-'"

The Faris interrupted. "What are you talking about!"

Kneeling on threadbare blankets, in an upper room not warmed by any fire, in the exhausted early hours of the winter morning, Ash studied the face of the woman kneeling beside her. The same face, eyes, body. But not mind.

Ash stared at the Faris. "You're not hearing this."

'SHE NEEDED THE GOLEM-COMPUTER, YOUR SISTER NO LONGER HEARS OUR VOICES.'.

Dry-lipped, Ash said, "But I do."

"You do what?" the Faris demanded. A shrill note invaded her voice; as if she would wilfully not understand. She sat back on her heels, away from Ash.

Ash began to shake. Winter's cold bites deep. Violante stared at her. Adelize, as if her daughter's tone disturbed her, cautiously reached out and touched Ash's arm.

Ash ignored her.

"I still hear the Wild Machines. Without the Stone Golem," she said. Immediate realisation hit her. "G.o.dfrey. He did that for nothing. He's died for nothing. And I told him to do it."

'YOUR BIRTH: ONLY LUCK-'

'-A FLUKE; A CAST OF FORTUNE-'

'YOU CAN DO NOTHING BUT THIS, BUT IT IS ENOUGH.'.

The multiple, inhuman voices whisper in her mind: 'ASH. YOU ARE THE SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT, NOT YOUR SISTER.'.

Message: #423 (Anna Longman) Subject: Ash Date: 20/12 /00 at 05 .44 p .m.

From: [email protected] Anna- Fifty-seven hours straight. I slept twice: once for two hours and once for three. I think I shall be able to get through the last of it (if only in first draft English) in one go. Then we shall see what we have. I'll send the whole thing through when I get to the end.

My G.o.d. Poor Ash.

I woke up actually shouting aloud. DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 'Carthage must be destroyed.'

I thought it was the cold that had woken me - nights are bitter here, even with the heating - but no, it was that: words that I can't get out of my head.

I keep thinking of Vaughan Davies's metaphor, of human existence in the past picked up and shaken - as if it were all a jigsaw, falling back together again with the same pieces but in a different order. If we find 'delenda est Carthago' put by Florus into the mouth of a Roman senator; if we read in Pliny, now, that Cato '. . . c.u.m clamaret omni senatu Carthaginem delendum' ( 'that he vociferated at every [meeting of the] Senate [that] Carthage [was] to be destroyed' ) , then - where was it before?

Here, with Ash. Who no longer exists, except in what I suppose I must begin to call the First History. A first history overwritten, like a file, with a later arrangement of the data: our 'second' history.

Although fragments of the data remain in OUR history, OUR past, I have seen them fading. She has become myth, legend, fiction.

Even though, as I read, I hear her speaking to me.

Blame lack of sleep. If I'm beginning to dream in Latin, it's no great surprise. I'm eating, sleeping, and breathing the Sible Hedingham ma.n.u.script. It is - I am convinced - it IS our 'previous' history.

Tami Inos.h.i.+s.h.i.+ and James Howlett came for another question session. I doubt they got much sense out of me. From what I can tell, they are perfectly happy with the theory that there may have existed, at one time, a genetic mutation which enabled the possible states of the universe to be consciously collapsed into something less probable than an average - into a 'miracle' , in short. A non-Newtonian alteration of reality.

They don't have much trouble with the theoretical idea that one ma.s.sive change of this sort could take place, and the genetic mutation itself be one of the things that was rendered non-actual.

What Tami, in particular, kept hammering on at me about - in that unstoppable way she has - is the fact that evidence is both being eradicated (the Angelotti ma.n.u.script) and coming back (Carthage) .

I have told her my theory: that BOTH the 'Wild Machines' and Burgundy must have been wiped out. If nothing else, it is the only theory that can explain why we are not non-existent ourselves, and the world the province of silicon machine intelligences; and why we do not have, in our history, a Visigoth Empire. Why the Arab and black African cultures appear to have been 'patched in' , in place of the Visigoths, after the change.

We are used to history affecting us only in the sense that past actions affect us all. History may be reinterpreted: it does not alter. THIS history is still affecting us now. We are changing, now. I do not understand why.

Things ARE changing. That's what bothers Tami. The ROVs are 1000 metres down, clearing debris with pressurised jets. And Carthage is there. Now. Again.

That said, Tamiko has pointed out, from my last translated section of the Sible Hedingham ma.n.u.script, a further confusion -that, in the ma.n.u.script, the Stone Golem is destroyed. And yet, we have the Stone Golem. We discovered it *intact* in Carthage.

If the Sible Hedingham ms is in error on the point, that shakes my whole confidence in it! How much else could be wrong?

Can it be doc.u.ment error? Or is this a different golem - had King-Caliph Gelimer already advanced a programme to produce more; was House Leofric advanced enough to create another one - more than one? Or is there something in this h.e.l.lishly impenetrable bad mediaeval Latin that I've translated wrongly? Or, is there something in the remaining part of the Sible Hedingham ma.n.u.script that explains this?

I will sleep for four hours, then continue the translation.

- Pierce * * *

Message: #234 (Pierce Ratcliff) Subject: Ash Date: 20/12/00 at 11.22 p.m.

From: [email protected] Pierce - Send me whatever you have, I'll look at it over the Christmas break.

I'm going down to see William Davies again, later today.

He phoned to tell me he's been reading some of the Sible Hedingham ma.n.u.script aloud to his brother. He told me he did a lot after the war on the psychology of trauma; he got interested in it as part of the recovery from surgery.

He _thinks_ Vaughan is reacting to hearing it, even in the original Latin. The problem is, William only knows medical Latin; mediaeval Latin isn't like that of any other period; he doubts he's deciphering it properly - Pierce, basically he wants to know if he can have access to your English translation.

I know how you feel about confidentiality. William wouldn't breach that. Can I do this?

- Anna * * *

Message: #428 (Anna Longman) Subject: Ash Date: 21/12/00 at 12.02 p.m.

From: [email protected] Anna - Isobel's team are bringing up the Stone Golem.

I thought it would take months, but it seems it can be raised pretty d.a.m.n fast when it looks like the Tunisian government might be about to take the opportunity away from us.

The sky is full of helicopters, and the military have a patrol s.h.i.+p on station. At the land-site, a lot of the local arrangements for food and transport have dried up. Colonel HHHH arrived back there, far less jovial, and with far more men. Trucks all over the place. 'Perimeter security' , he says. They haven't had any severe security problems in the last weeks, so why now? Why all these men in uniform, who don't care WHERE they put their feet?

Isobel says Minister HHHH is becoming concerned about 'Western exploitation of local cultural resources'. Well, as a Westerner, I hardly expect to be popular in this part of the world, and I can see their point. But, Isobel signed a contract with the government when this expedition was first mooted, agreeing that no artefacts should be removed from Tunisian territory. What kind of a person do they think she is?

Cynicism might lead one to think this is all about who will gain financially, but I may be doing the Minister a disservice. Whether his concern is genuine or not - and I suspect it is perfectly genuine - what I can't see is any way of pointing out that this site's remains are not from HIS culture!

I have had to leave the translation. I have to be here when they bring up the Stone Golem.

You have my full permission to show this partial translation of the Sible Hedingham ms to William Davies. If it helps Vaughan Davies, then that would only be a small repayment for the debt of scholars.h.i.+p we owe to him.

- Pierce * * *

Message: #236 (Pierce Ratcliff) Subject: Ash Date: 21/12/00 at 01. 07 p.m.

From: [email protected] Pierce - I'm worried. When I got back from East Anglia, I found that someone had broken in and been through my personal files. And my hard disk. When I got to the office this morning - same thing. And not like a burglary. Too neat.

I think I would just have stayed puzzled if I hadn't phoned a friend of mine. Yes, I'm in a fairly obscure area of academic publis.h.i.+ng, but I do have friends in investigative journalism. He's one of them. His first reaction was, this must be some kind of 'security' thing.

I hadn't thought it through, before. The Middle East has been nothing but terrorism and war for years; if you have found something on the seabed that records say isn't there - my friend suggests there are bound to be 'spooks' . People are bound to be investigating, aren't they? Especially if the news is getting out.

Pierce, I KNOW this sounds alarmist. But it wasn't just somebody breaking in and tras.h.i.+ng my place. Depending on how you feel about being interviewed by security people, if you've been keeping copies of these messages, you might want to wipe your (or Isobel's) disk. And if you've got hardcopies, shred them.

I don't usually keep copies of my mail, I don't have the disk s.p.a.ce, but I do usually keep a paper copy in a file. Because you were so concerned about academic confidentiality, I've been even more careful; hence public-key encryption of the actual messages. In fact, I had taken the paper copies and floppy disk in a folder down to the sheltered accommodation in Colchester with me, yesterday, thinking I might need them to refresh my memory if Vaughan did finally say something - you know I'm not an academic myself. So I still have them.

I'm putting them in store, somewhere safe. If this IS something official, then they can come to me officially, with a warrant. Then it's fine. But not before.

I'm going to talk to the MD in an hour, see what his position on this is. He'd better stand by me on this one.

- Anna * * *

Message: #430 (Anna Longman) Subject: Ash Date: 22/12/00 at 09.17 a.

From: [email protected] Anna - We' re out.

Things have been so confused, I don't know if it's been on the media, given Christmas will be taking over the UK - we're supposed to be out of Tunisian territory completely now, they don't even like us hanging about in offsh.o.r.e waters.

I'm putting this out on the net to as many people as I can reach. Talk to your media contacts. Kick up a fuss. They CAN'T shut this site off from scientific excavation! They can't KIDNAP archaeological evidence! It just isn't right: we have to know.

On consideration, of course, we don't 'have' to. That is a preoccupation very much of our time. 'Nothing must stand in the way of the discovery of the truth.' In other parts of history, of course, there are other priorities: 'nothing is as important as' ideology, say, or commerce, or military force.

G.o.d d.a.m.n IT, I WANT TO KNOW. They can't do this to us!

- Pierce * * *

Message: #240 (Pierce Ratcliff) Subject: Ash Date: 22/12/00 at 10.04 a.m.

From: [email protected] Pierce - Had you got the Stone Golem up from the ruins of Carthage? Where is the messenger-golem from the land-site? Pierce, what is happening, I can't do anything if I don't know the _facts_.

- Anna * * *

Message: #431 (Anna Longman) Subject: Ash Date: 22/12/00 at 11.13 a.m.

From: Anna - Sorry, yes you need to know, too busy talking to every contact I have, if there's no other pressure we can bring to bear, at least let's have the academic community and the media on our side!

Isobel's team had barely STARTED their a.n.a.lysis of the Stone Golem. When I got there, they had it in the holding tank; there was an argument going on about some minor damage that had been done -or not done - by the divers. It can't have been much more than two hours after that when the Tunisian navy moved in and confiscated everything. Everything apart from what Isobel and her people had on their backs! They stripped the s.h.i.+p bare. They removed the holding tank, and the Stone Golem. '

I cannot BELIEVE this has happened. There was no need. I know Isobel: she will have had no INTENTION of removing any artefacts from Tunisian jurisdiction.

But there is one thing I can say without any possible contradiction - I saw it with my own eyes.

When I first reached the Stone Golem in the holding tank, I was quite literally speechless. Sound echoing off metal, light rippling off water, all the sounds of a modern s.h.i.+p at sea - and there, in the middle of it, in the tank, this great carved larger-than-human figure. With its plinth, it must weigh tons; I have every respect for the team who raised it from the seabed.

What I'd seen through the cameras didn't prepare me for seeing it in reality. As you know, I'd seen it covered in debris, with a film of silt over it from the ROVs moving around, and encrusted with undersea life. By the time I got to the s.h.i.+p, a section had been cleaned up, and Isobel herself was in the tank working on others.

The MACHINA REI MILITARIS. Sightless eyes staring. Hinged bronze joints cl.u.s.tered thickly with verdigris. This much, as you know, had been visible underwater, on camera. The whole of it wasn't clear.

Now it is.

The face, the limbs, the plinth: the SHAPE of all of them was clear on camera. But what we've been seeing has only been the surface-encrustations. With the encrustations removed, it's become possible to see the surface of the stone.

Some of it still IS stone. The team says it was all originally a silicon-based conglomerate of some kind.