objections, which she could not entirely answer. Neither did she back down from her assertions. In the end we made a bargain. In exchange for my help, she would provide me with undeniable proof that her claims were genuine.”
Thomas Young glanced at Kit, and his voice softened with awe. “I thought it all a splendid lark. I never dreamed what she said might have even the slightest smidgen of veracity in it. Just think-the ability to travel at will through time and space.” His gaze lost focus for a moment as he contemplated anew the enormity of the implications of the new reality that had broken in upon him. “You must excuse me,” he said. “I still find it all but impossible to credit.”
“So do I,” Kit assured him, “and I’ve made the leap a few times.”
“You must teach me this skill at the earliest opportunity. I do insist upon it.”
“Well, why not?” said Kit. “But getting back to Wilhelmina and the bargain you made with her, why did you go along with it if you believed it was some sort of mental illness?”
“Because, my dear fellow, Miss Wilhelmina made me give her my word as a gentleman that, providing her assertions proved true, I would help you.” He chuckled to himself. “She can be a most persuasive and determined young lady.”
“The proof-the coin, the clipping, and the pages from the book-that convinced you,” observed Kit.
“Not forgetting the postage stamp,” added Thomas. “Yes, I am convinced. You see, King George sits on the throne of England at the moment. Princess Victoria is a mere child, and not even in the direct line of succession. Yet, apparently, she is to become queen with her image on every coin. Extraordinary!
“But the book is the thing that removes all doubt. That book has been in my mind for quite some time. As president of the Royal Society, I’ve been collecting my papers and organising them, of course, for the last several years. But I have not submitted them to be published as they are nowhere near ready yet, and more remains to be done.”
They reached the end of the path, turned around, and started back the other way. The afternoon had dwindled, and the heat of the day was fading somewhat. As they walked together, Kit felt he had found a true friend, a person of integrity, one whom he could trust. He was still uncertain about how much to reveal about the problem of Burleigh and his thugs, but that was more out of a genuine concern than any wish to obfuscate or deceive. Having just secured a new and trustworthy ally, he did not want to risk scaring him away.
So they strolled in companionable silence, watching the shadows lengthen on the path as evening hastened on.
Thomas, pensive and brooding over the earthshaking revelations of the day, at last confessed, “Just when I begin to imagine I have achieved some pinnacle of understanding, reached the summit of the highest climb… I scramble the last few feet to the top only to see that I have merely gained a foothold on a narrow plateau and that entire new mountain ranges rise before me, serried ranks of peaks, each one higher than the last.” He laughed softly to himself. “I feel that way now.”
Kit nodded in commiseration. “I feel that way all the time.”
“Time… strange stuff,” mused Thomas. “Time is the central mystery of our existence. It confines and defines us in many ways. We are obedient to its inexorable mechanism throughout our lives, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Why does it flow in only one direction? What is it made of? How is it regulated? Is it everywhere the same for everyone? Or might its substance or speed be altered by mechanisms as yet undiscovered?”
“I think Albert Einstein had something to say about it,” put in Kit.
“Who? I do not believe I know the gentleman.”
“No,” said Kit. “I don’t suppose you would. But he caused quite a stir in my world.”
“Tell me about your world. What is it like-is it very different, the future?”
“Well, where to begin?” wondered Kit. “I guess things are-”
Young stopped on the path. “No! Wait. Do not say another word.”
“No?”
“Whatever you tell me could have unforeseen implications. There could be disastrous repercussions.” He pulled on the corner of his moustache. “I must think about this. I must consider it most carefully.”
“Okay,” agreed Kit. “You know best.”
“Where were we?”
“You were talking about the mystery of time.”
“Indeed. Sometimes I think that if we could only gain a knowledge of the working of time at its most fundamental level, we might at last begin to understand something of the mind and purposes of God.”
“I’m not so sure,” Kit replied. “It seems pretty random to me-but I’m no expert.”
Thomas regarded his companion for a moment, then turned his gaze up into the clear blue sky. “Do you know why I am here in Luxor?”
“To dig up history, study the past-that sort of thing?”
“Partly,” said Thomas. “But only in that all this digging and study serves a far greater ambition.”
“Which is?”
“To unravel the mystery of tombs.”
“The pharaohs’ tombs?”
“ All tombs.” At Kit’s quizzical expression, he said, “Since the human creature became a conscious being, we have made tombs and graves for our dead. Is this not so?”
“I suppose.”
“It is a fact. From one end of the world to the other, and in every successive age from the dawn of human consciousness until now, and from the simplest societies to the most sophisticated, we have made graves and tombs for our dead. Have you ever stopped to consider why?” Thomas peered at him expectantly. “Why engage in such an expensive and ultimately pointless activity, if death is the final, irrefutable answer to all of life’s questions?”
“Maybe,” Kit ventured, thinking of how he rued leaving Cosimo and Sir Henry unburied and unmourned, “we don’t do it for them, but we do it for ourselves.”
Thomas commended this response. “Very good! Yet, if we do it for ourselves alone, what do we hope to gain by such taxing endeavour? For, if annihilation is all there is at the end of life, then tombs ultimately make no sense whatsoever.”
“True,” Kit allowed.
“True- unless,” countered Thomas quickly, “there is something more than mere physical existence, something that lies beyond the grave, something even our most primitive ancestors knew that we moderns seem to have forgotten.”
“What did our ancestors know?”
“That is the riddle of the tombs,” declared Thomas. “And that is what I am trying to discover.”
Kit considered this for a moment. “After all your work, you must have some theories.”
“Oh, I do,” Thomas assured him with a laugh. “In my avocation as a scientist, there is no shortage of theories. Indeed, it is the one commodity we have in admirable abundance.”
“So, what’s your theory about the tomb-building?”
“It is all of a piece with the very plain and simple fact that we are immortal.”
“I don’t feel very immortal,” admitted Kit, a little unsettled by the turn the conversation had taken.
“But you are-and so am I!” Thomas declared. “All human beings, by virtue of having been born into this world, are immortal beings-not our material bodies; those are sadly quite fragile, inasmuch as they are bound by the laws of matter and time. The spirit, however, is indestructible. It obeys different laws.”
Dr. Young turned on the path and started back to the restaurant. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.
“Not as such.”
“Then you will be my guest.” He glanced at Kit. “Unless you have any objection?”
“None whatsoever,” Kit replied. “Thanks.” He looked at the hotel facade rising above the palms. “You have rooms here?”
“My dear friend,” chided Thomas lightly. “I am but a simple London doctor. I cannot afford to stay in such luxurious accommodation. Besides, it is not convivial to my work. Instead, I have a dahabiya.”
“I’m sorry?”
