"Doesn't look like it."

The Kaku Theory suggested that the arrow of time had a lot of momentum moving into the future. To disrupt its trajectory would take a vast amount of energy. Even if a change were made, Kaku had postulated that a divergent history could change enough that time travel wasn't discovered; thereby canceling out the change that sp.a.w.ned that timeline in the first place. It was the old science fiction trope of the grandfather paradox all dressed up with a bunch of string theory and arcane math into a suggestion that no one needed to worry about a bug being killed or anything else weird happening on timetrips.

"We're getting changes in the timetraps. They're slowly building up." Jacobsen sighed again. "We need you to fix things."

"You have other Stopwatches who speak Aramaic, Greek, and Latin."

"But n.o.body like you." Jacobsen punched the tablet's screen and an accounting sheet appeared. "I pay your bills, so I know what you buy, what you study. You've steeped yourself in this stuff, all this biblical history. You know what's going on then, and not just because you've been there. You're the only one who can fix it."

"You have the wrong man." Perry handed Jacobsen his tablet, his hands shaking. "I can't go back there."

"Perry, you're the only only man. Truly." man. Truly."

"I can't be."

Jacobsen's face drained of color. "We've tried sending others back. They can't make it. Closest we've gotten is 67 A.D. Damascus. Because you were in Jerusalem, because you've seen what happens, the events are a reality for you. You have access to a little bubble of time that is fast collapsing, or so our advance research department thinks."

Perry shook his head. "It's against all the rules for me to go back. If I see my future self, I'll know I live, and that will change history. I'll make things worse."

Jacobsen snorted. "Do you honestly think that you then then would recognize you would recognize you now now? The weight you've lost? The beard?"

The haunted look around my eyes?

Perry sat very still, the copter's vibrations the only cause of his movement. That trip to Jerusalem hadn't been his last scouting run, but almost. Prior to it, he'd been the guy who liked to go where the action was. Thermopylae, Tutenborg Forest, Gettysburg, Hue, Stalingrad, and the Horns of Hattin-if there was a war going on, he jumped to the head of the line. It wasn't that he'd taken great delight in war, but he just understood it as a living creature, watching armies crawl over landscapes, devouring each other. It was a whole different level of seeing things, with technology over the years just making the battlefields bigger and the wounds more hideous.

Perry's childhood hadn't involved a lot of church-going or religious instruction. His basic indifference to religion made him a natural for the Easter Run. He accepted the job, more interested in seeing how the Romans worked in the Middle East than anything else. It was just another run.

But after what he saw, it just wasn't something that could confine itself to a report.

Perry glanced down at his hands. "Father, take this cup away from me."

"Pardon?"

"The Gospel of Mark, chapter fourteen, verse thirty-six." Perry shook his head. "I can't do this."

"If you don't, none of us will exist."

"No more lepers."

Jacobsen nodded. "I swear to G.o.d."

"Playing the blasphemy card right now, not a good choice."

"You'll have everything you need." The gray pallor of Jacobsen's face began to warm. "Just ask."

"What I need is for you to be quiet." Perry brought his hands together. "And I need a chance to pray."

Perry timed-in outside Jerusalem and immediately went to his knees. Timeshares was pretty good of dropping people in on schedule, but actual physical locations were dodgy. He'd been aiming for olive groves outside of Jerusalem. They dropped him north of the Damascus gate, on Golgatha.

He knelt there, burying his face against his knees. His stomach twisted in on itself. The scents, the dust, animal dung, hints of smoke, and the stench of human habitation. Even the stink of death because, in the Roman fashion, a couple of bandits had been crucified nearby and left to rot.

On the road to Damascus, so all can see Roman justice.

They had dropped him where it had ended. He squeezed his eyes shut against tears and against remembering. His fists tightened. Two days hence, a man would hang on a cross until he died and, by that act, he would shape the history of mankind.

And I have to make sure it happens.

He struggled to his feet, wrapping his linen sheet around himself more tightly. Timeshare's experts had suggested he travel back as a centurion. It would allow him to be armed. The implication that he might have to kill a senator's dangerously psychotic son was not lost upon him. Dicey prospect, but Jacobsen signed off on it.

Then he probably sold options to short his own stock in case I do.

Perry staggered his way down the hill, growing stronger with each step. He remembered clearly where he'd been on his previous journey, and there would be no crossing of paths. Jacobsen had been right, however. The old Perry wouldn't have recognized the new Perry. Moreover, had he seen him, the old Perry would have viewed him with contempt. The way he walked, the look in his eyes. It wasn't what Perry ever would have imagined for himself.

The previous Perry likely could have guessed there were four gospels. The new Perry had committed them to memory, and had learned to read them in the original and all translations. He'd started that study as a way to deny what he had seen. He wanted to find room to doubt. He'd grasped at the fact that there were no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life. Josephus was writing at least forty years after the Crucifixion. The Gospels were written yet later, and no eyewitness accounts of Jesus' ministry had been discovered. Some scholars went so far as to suggest that Jesus was a fiction picked up by Paul and transformed into something that took on a grand life of its own.

The Roman soldiers at the gate didn't give him a pa.s.sing glance. He joined the stream of straggling pilgrims come to Jerusalem for Pa.s.sover. They had no clue as to how close they were to history being made, their empire being swept away-and had he tried to warn them, they'd have considered him utterly mad.

They would ignore me as did Jacobsen.

The scent of unwashed human flesh, open sewers, and the occasional rotting dog would have overwhelmed most people from Perry's time. Tourists always had a clean, Hollywood impression-more sound lot than sandlot. On the couple of tours where he'd acted as a guide, his charges constantly made asides about the horrible scars left behind by diseases that had died out in their time, or the way that in-time people were so small and stiff and prematurely old looking.

As Perry moved through the narrow, twisting streets, he listened for any gossip. He heard nothing about the Nazarean, so he finally asked and was directed south. Everyone remembered the rabbi's triumphant entry into Jerusalem earlier in the week, so pointing out the home where he shared supper with his disciples was simple.

Perry arrived after the sun had set. Part of him wanted to go closer to the building, to listen to Jesus explain what the disciples were to do to celebrate his memory. He would have been interested to see how many of them were confused, and if any shivered with the ominous portent of his instructions. He longed to see Mary Magdelene, to see if she was treated as friend or wife, and to watch her tenderness in caring for Jesus.

He could not, however, do that. It was unlikely that Kevin Smelton would interrupt the Last Supper, but he still had to keep a watch out for him. In fact, Perry was pretty certain where and when Kevin would strike. Biblical accounts of Jesus' death were fairly exact on details save where he spent the night after being hauled away from the Garden of Gethsemane and questioned. That was the only slip s.p.a.ce in the accounts, and Perry had come prepared to stop the young man.

Perry caught no sign of movement save for the occasional silhouette that dimmed the limning light around the shutters. The night began to cool off, but Perry didn't notice. His mountain retreat had prepared him for worse, and he wondered if he had known this day would come. Had he really expected Jacobsen to black out special high-demand blocks of time when so many people would have paid fabulous sums of money to visit them?

I should have known better. I did.

Movement from the house caught his eye. A red-haired man emerged and scurried off. Judas Judas. Perry had always figured that if someone was going to interfere with the pa.s.sion of Christ, they'd come and stop Judas, but this was where the Kaku Theory about self-correction worked little micromiracles. The religious politics in Jerusalem demanded Jesus be broken and exiled or killed because he was challenging the power structure. It was like the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald had been the one to kill him that day in Dallas, but if he hadn't, the Cubans or Russians, the Mafia, Ku Klux Klan, or an a.s.sortment of other psychotics would have done the job. It wasn't a matter of if if but a matter of but a matter of when when.

At least for JFK it was fast.

More movement from the house and Perry readied himself. Jesus emerged along with the rest of the apostles. He wore his hair long and unbound, much as was seen in many portraits. His beard, however, had grown in quite full and had not been neatly trimmed. He wasn't a terribly tall man, but that should have been no surprise. None of them were. Had Perry not stooped his shoulders and lowered his head entering the city, he'd have towered over the Romans and they would have thought him a German barbarian.

As Jesus led the others through the city, Perry followed, initially keeping to the shadows. More people came out to follow Jesus as well. Some, children who just liked a parade, soon dropped off. Many young people like the disciples, men and women both, drifted in their wake. They held back, not sure if they were interfering or if they were welcome. While Jesus made no sign to encourage them, neither he nor the apostles made any attempt to chase them off.

So Perry joined the modest crowd. Their presence gave him rea.s.surance. They allowed him access, to get close, which he wanted to do. It was critical to his plan, of course, and he told himself that was why it was so important.

And yet he couldn't deny there was another reason.

On his previous trip he had seen Jesus twice. Once from afar, as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a mule, being feted by adoring crowds. Perry had hung back with the lepers, but hadn't been terribly interested in Jesus per se. What had fascinated him was that the same crowd which welcomed Jesus as a savior would, in a week's time, call for the release of a thief and rebel instead of this man they claimed to love. It was just one more instance of the savagery he'd seen in countless battles and, in this case, ironic as the Prince of Peace would be led to the slaughter.

Then, later, he watched the procession to Golgatha. Jesus, his back bloodied, the crown of thorns causing rivulets of blood to course down his face, being forced to drag his cross along. The final humiliation that, like being forced to dig your own grave, being reduced from a human to the output of your muscles and bones. Being made into an animal, and less, because of the parts of you that were no longer required were the parts that defined you as human.

It was that idea that had gotten to Perry. It had taken time to sink in, but the truth of Jesus' sacrifice had eluded believers and scholars alike. They viewed his physical death as the grand sacrifice, but it wasn't. That was an afterthought. The man's ident.i.ty, his essence, his being, being, had been stripped away. Jesus' teachings and philosophy, his kindness, forgiveness, and compa.s.sion had defined him. And yet with every step from the Garden of Gethsemane to the place of skulls, it had been stripped from him. had been stripped away. Jesus' teachings and philosophy, his kindness, forgiveness, and compa.s.sion had defined him. And yet with every step from the Garden of Gethsemane to the place of skulls, it had been stripped from him.

And yet his mission was so important he allowed it. His love for others was so great he gave up everything. What had been nailed to the cross was just a piece of meat that roused itself once, that wondered why it was all alone, and then it surrendered. No tears. No self-pity. No regrets. Just surrender. What had been nailed to the cross was just a piece of meat that roused itself once, that wondered why it was all alone, and then it surrendered. No tears. No self-pity. No regrets. Just surrender.

That had gotten under Perry's skin as nothing else ever had. He'd seen enough on his other trips, he'd had his own military training before Timeshares, so he'd rea.s.sured himself time and again that he could do what he saw others do. Had the Spartan's needed man 301, he could have done it. He could have slaughtered Romans with the best of the Germans, or fought to the death in the arenas of Rome. The prospect of having to do that didn't confound or amaze him.

But to die to make a point?

To die in the hope that people would take his message seriously enough to change their culture, that made no sense. That was betting everything on the longest odds ever. Countless had been the cults that had made a similar bet and had vanished into history.

But Jesus had done it because he believed.

And Perry had never before believed in anything that much in his life.

But he found himself believing, so he did his best to destroy that belief. But all the studies couldn't kill it. He couldn't intellectualize and compartmentalize that which he had seen in dying Jesus' eyes. It changed him, destroyed him. The power of it drove him out of the life he knew and into one of peace.

Or one that should have been peaceful.

Hiking along toward the back of the pack, Perry wanted, badly, to get close to Jesus. Not to say anything, but just to look in his eyes again and let him know that he would succeed. Maybe, just maybe, that might ease the pain. It might give him just a bit more strength.

It might change history yet again.

Perry followed as they made their way to the Mount of Olives and into the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus took his leave with Peter, James, and John. He wanted to go after them, in part to learn which of the gospels had the truth of the incident. Did an angel appear to strengthen him, as in Luke, or was he already resolute and needed no supernatural reinforcement? Did his disciples fall asleep, again as in Luke, or did they remain vigilant?

His hands closed into fists again as a cool breeze rustled tree branches. Men like Senator Smelton would stand up and proclaim the Bible to be the literal word of G.o.d, yet little contradictions in the texts were things they swept away without a concern. Those contradictions were little "tests of faith," just like fossils and evolution. But would Jesus put those tests of faith in the Bible? That didn't seem to be in keeping with his nature or philosophy.

Perry smiled to himself. It's a pa.s.sage in Mark that has me here, but I didn't make it into Luke or Matthew. It's a pa.s.sage in Mark that has me here, but I didn't make it into Luke or Matthew. That concerned him slightly, but since Mark had been a source for the other two accounts, not terribly much. That he wasn't in John either bothered him not at all. It had been written for a Roman audience, so his part would have been considered irrelevant. That concerned him slightly, but since Mark had been a source for the other two accounts, not terribly much. That he wasn't in John either bothered him not at all. It had been written for a Roman audience, so his part would have been considered irrelevant.

A murmuring arose among the disciples and followers as they heard voices of men approaching. Jesus, looking haggard, his hair stringy and robe soaked with sweat, appeared with the other three. Judas, torch in hand, led the group who had come for Jesus. As the followers shrank back, Judas approached and gave Jesus a welcoming kiss.

Jesus pushed him aside, not roughly, but as if parting a curtain. He looked at the priests and temple attendants. "Who is it you seek?"

One slender hatchet-faced man with acne scars high on his cheeks, drew himself up. "Jesus of Nazareth."

"I am he." Jesus took a step forward. "You should not trouble these others."

A servant darted forward to grab Jesus by the wrist and tug him roughly toward them. Peter drew a sharp little fish-gutting knife and slashed at the man's face. He took off half his ear. The man retreated screaming and tension spiked.

Jesus gave Peter a reproving stare, then bent and picked up the portion of ear. He reached out and pressed it to the man's head and held it there for several heartbeats. Jesus' hand came away b.l.o.o.d.y, but the ear remained whole.

Perry's jaw hung open. Perry couldn't see any swelling or redness or any other sign that it had ever been cut. He had agreed with scholars who dismissed the miracle stories as storytelling techniques needed to fix Jesus in the pantheon of heroes of that age. Virgin births were commonly ascribed to great men. Multiple accounts existed of magicians repeating Jesus' miracles, Simon Magus the best known among them. The miracles were the equivalent of Parson Weems' fantasy of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. They were meant to ill.u.s.trate a point, not to be taken literally.

And yet he'd just seen Jesus reattach a severed ear. It wasn't possible, and Perry wasn't alone in believing that. Those who had come to arrest Jesus nervously fingered their swords and staves. The disciples and followers dropped to their knees, not in submission to the captors, but in reverence for what the other side considered blasphemous sorcery.

Jesus opened his arms. "When I was in the temple, you did not come against me. Now you are here. This is your part to play. You are part of the darkness. Do what you must."

The priest nodded and two of his men started forward. Peter likewise headed for them, so Perry played the part ordained for him in the Gospel of Mark. He stood up and screamed as if terrified. He ran toward the priest and his men. Two of them grabbed him. Perry twisted from their grasp, shrieking as loudly as he could. The men tore away his linen cloth, and Perry dashed into the shadows.

His performance had the expected effect. Giving in to their own panic, Jesus' followers scattered. The priest's men gave chase until called back, then they bound Jesus and led him off to the palace of the high priest.

Perry had run, but not far. He'd headed back toward Jerusalem, but crouched down beside the road, half hidden in the ditch beside it. He waited and watched, then as the priest and his entourage came down the road, he crawled from the ditch, crying and begging for mercy.

One of the men grabbed him by his hair and hauled him up, then slapped him. "You said the meek would be blessed. What of the craven?"

Jesus glanced back. "More courage lurks in quiet than ever lived in boastfulness. He is not your concern."

The priest held up a hand. "Are you one of his followers?"

Perry nodded.

"Bring him. A witness who is not paid would be useful."

Perry's captor spun him to the earth at the rear of the procession, and then kicked him so he'd march along. Perry scrambled to his feet and sidled along, ever watchful. He expected nothing on the way to the palace, but after Jesus' questioning, and before he was taken to Pi-late, Kevin Smelton had to strike. It was the only real opportunity not already proscribed by the gospel accounts of Jesus' last night.

As they returned, the denial of Jesus had begun in earnest. The same faces that had smiled as Jesus walked toward the garden now turned away from him. Dogs shrank back into alleys to growl. Wicked children ran up and smacked his legs with sticks. Mothers called their children to come away as if Jesus was a leper; and in any real political sense, that was exactly what he had become.

The high priest's palace would have seemed humble measured against other buildings that bore that description, but in Jerusalem it was a grand building, a strong one, hinting at authority without challenging it. Caiaphas, as much a politician as he was a religious leader, had the sense not to invite the Romans to imagine he was a rebel. The palace's appointments remained modest, as did the high priest's robe.

Perry crouched at the back of the main hall, hidden in the shadows of a pillar, as the high priest and his counselors questioned Jesus. He couldn't hear what was being said, but hardly needed to. Caiaphas became increasingly angry. The crowd around Jesus gesticulated wildly, stamped their feet, and screamed at him. And yet, in the midst of that storm, Jesus remained serene, his answers delivered in a voice so quiet, the violence around him had to ebb so he could be heard. Then it kicked up again, growing in intensity until Caiaphas tore his own robe from throat to navel and backhanded Jesus.

The others joined in, more primates than men, yelling, hitting, spitting and cuffing. Jesus made no pretense at protecting himself, though some of the blows spun him around. He careened about within the circle, until one heavy clout dropped him to his knees and blood dripped from a split lip.

The sight of blood dripping seemed to shock Caiaphas. With a hand he summoned those who had brought Jesus from the garden. They led him off, and Perry with him, down a narrow stairway to the building's subterranean chambers. A wooden door swung open on squeaky hinges, then rough hands propelled Perry into a dark pit strewn with sour straw. Moonlight poured in through a narrow window high in the outside wall, transfiguring Jesus' face as he lay there dazed.

Perry rose and moved to check him, but a shadow rose in the cell's far corner. A filthy, naked youth launched himself at the fallen man, a rock clutched in a raised hand. Kevin Smelton, his eyes wide, his teeth bared, roared inhumanly. "Jesus!"

Without thinking, Perry tackled Kevin, smashing him into the cell's uneven stone wall. Kevin hit hard and wetly. The boy gurgled, the stone hitting the ground only seconds before he did. His body shuddered and his breath came in ragged, rasping gulps.

Perry rolled him onto his back. "d.a.m.n it!" The young man had a dent in his head over his temple. One pupil looked normal, the other was dilated so almost no color was left. Depressed skull fracture. Depressed skull fracture. "No, this isn't what was supposed to happen." "No, this isn't what was supposed to happen."

"It often is, alas, when fragile bone strikes rock." Jesus came up on a knee and pressed a hand to Kevin's wound. The boy convulsed, and then his breath came evenly and quietly.

Smiling, Jesus sat down, crossing his legs. "He'll be good as new, unless . . . was there something wrong with him before?"

Perry blinked. "You're speaking English."

"I should hope so. I majored in dead languages at university. I may be a bit rusty, however. Been speaking Aramaic for the past three years." Jesus lifted one of Kevin's eyelids, and then brushed a hand over his damp forehead. He rubbed his thumb over his forefingers, smearing blood mixed with sweat. "Let's see, residual traces of antipsychotic drugs. Schizophrenia?"

Perry nodded. "That's what I was told."

"Excellent. Have that fixed up in a jiffy." Jesus placed both hands on Kevin's head, bowed his own, and then smiled. "He'll be right as rain. A little DNA splicing, some code rewritten, and he'll be just fine. All this will be a bad dream."

"You majored in dead languages? At university?"

"That's right." Jesus frowned for a moment. "How do you like working for Timeshares?"

"What?"

"Oh, dear boy, you are confused, aren't you?" Jesus hugged his knees to his chest. "I work for Meantime. We acquired Timeshares in a hostile takeover about, well, doesn't really matter how long after you worked for them. The stories that came down through the files were very impressive. We still follow some of the procedures, like not allowing tourists at some of these critical junctures in time."