Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus Read online

  "So they turned to the empty Atlantic? Unlikely," said Kemal.

  "I agree," said Hunahpu. "Left to themselves, I think they would never have turned eastward, or not for centuries. But they weren't left to themselves. The Europeans came to them."

  "Then we're right back where we started," said Kemal. "The superior European civilization discovers the backward Indies and ..."

  "Not so backward now," said Diko.

  "Bronze blades against muskets?" scoffed Kemal.

  "Muskets weren't decisive," said Hunahpu. "Everyone knows that. The Europeans simply couldn't come in large enough numbers for their superior weapons to overcome the numerical advantage of the Indies. Besides, there's something else to consider. The Europeans wouldn't have come straight to the heart of the Caribbean this time. The later discovery would almost certainly have come from the Portuguese. Several Portuguese ships landed on or sighted the coast of Brazil quite independently of Columbus as early as the late 1490s. But the land they saw was dry and barren, and it didn't lead to India the way the coast of Africa would. So their exploration, instead of having the urgency that Columbus brought to it, would have been occasional and desultory. It would have taken years before Portuguese ships would have entered the Caribbean. By then, the Tlaxcalan empire would already be well established there. Now, instead of Europeans finding the sweet-natured Taino, they would meet the fierce and hungry Tlaxcalans, who would be getting frustrated by the fact that they weren't able to expand easily beyond their current borders around the Caribbean basin. What do the Tlaxcalans see? To them, the Europeans aren't gods from the east. To them, the Europeans are new victims that Camaxtli has brought to them, showing them how to get back on the path to productive warfare. And those big European boats and muskets aren't just strange miracles. The Tlaxcalans -- or their Tarascan or Zapotecan allies -- would immediately start taking them apart. Probably they'd sacrifice enough of the sailors to persuade the ship's carpenter and the ship's smith to make a deal, and unlike the Mexica, the Tlaxcalans would keep them alive and learn from them. How long would it take them to have muskets of their own? Big-bottomed ships? And in the meantime, the Europeans are hearing nothing at all about the Tlaxcalan empire, because any ships that reach Caribbean waters are being captured and their crews never get home."

  "So the Tlaxcalans aren't independently developing technology anymore," said Tagiri.

  "That's right. All they needed was to be advanced enough to understand the European technology when they encountered it, and to have an attitude that would allow them to exploit it. And that's what the Interveners understood. They had to get Europeans to discover the new world before the Tlaxcalans came to power, back with the relatively incompetent, decadent Mexica."

  "That does work," said Kemal thoughtfully. "It does allow for a believable scenario. The Tlaxcalans build European-style ships and make European-style muskets, and then come to the shores of Europe fully prepared for a war whose purpose is to enlarge the empire and at the same time bring sacrifices to the temples of Camaxtli. I suppose the same pattern would apply in Europe, too. Any nation that resisted them would be slaughtered, while those that allied themselves to the Tlaxcalans would only have to endure a tolerable level of human sacrifice. I don't think it would be difficult to imagine Europe fragmenting over this. I don't think the Tlaxcalans would lack for allies. Particularly if Europe had been weakened by a long and bloody crusade."

  To Hunahpu, this sounded like victory. Kemal himself had completed the scenario for him.

  "But it doesn't work anyway," said Kemal.

  "Why not?" asked Diko.

  "Smallpox," said Kemal. "Bubonic plague. The common cold. That was the great killer of the Indies. For every Indie who died of overwork in slavery or from Spanish muskets and swords, a hundred died of disease. Those plagues would still have come."

  "Oh, yes," said Hunahpu. "That was one of the biggest problems, and there's no way to find evidence for what I'm about to say. But we do know the way diseases work in human populations. The Europeans carried these diseases because they were such a large population with lots of travel and trade and warfare -- lots of contact between nations -- so that as far as disease organisms were concerned, Europe was one vast caldron in which they could cook, just like China and India, which also had indigenous diseases. In a large population like that, successful diseases are the ones that evolve so they kill slowly and are not always fatal. That gives them time to spread, and leaves enough of the human population behind that it can recover and bring up a new, non-immune generation within a few years. These diseases eventually evolve into childhood epidemics, cycling around the large overall population pool, striking here and then there and then over there and finally here again. When Columbus came, there was no region of the Americas that had such a large population pool. Travel was too slow and the barriers were too great. There were a few indigenous diseases -- syphilis comes to mind -- but that one was exceptionally slow to kill in the American context. Fast-moving plagues were impossible because they would spend themselves in one locality and run out of human hosts before they could get carried to a new locality. But that changes with the Tlaxcalan empire."

  "Zapotecan boats," said Diko.

  "That's right. This empire is linked by ships carrying cargos and passengers all around the Caribbean basin. Now plagues can travel swiftly enough to spread and become indigenous."

  "That still doesn't mean that a new plague won't be devastating," said Kemal. "It just means that smallpox would travel faster and strike the whole empire almost at the same time."

  "Yes, " said Hunahpu. "Just as bubonic plague devastated Europe in the fourteenth century. But there's a difference now. The plague will reach the Tlaxcala empire from those earlier accidental Portuguese visitors, before the Europeans come in force. It sweeps through the empire with exactly as much devastation as it had in Europe. Smallpox, measles -- they have their terrible effect. But not one nation in Europe fell because of these plagues. No empire collapsed, any more than Rome collapsed because of the plagues in their time. In fact the plague has the effect of giving them more favorable population densities. With fewer mouths to feed, the Tlaxcalans can now produce a food surplus. And what if they interpret these plagues as a sign that Camaxtli wants them to go and win more captives for sacrifice? That might be the final spur to make them sail east. And now when they come, smallpox and measles and the common cold are already indigenous to the Tlaxcalans. They touch on European shores already immune to European diseases. But the Europeans have not been exposed to syphilis at all. And when syphilis first reached Europe in our history it struck viciously, killing quickly. It only gradually settled down to be the slow killer it had been among the Indies. And who knows what other diseases might have developed among the Tlaxcalans as their empire grew? This time I think the plagues would have worked the other way, against the Europeans and in favor of the Indies."

  "Possible," said Kemal. "But it depends on so many suppositions."

  "Any scenario we think of will depend on suppositions," said Tagiri. "But this one has one unique virtue."

  "And what is that?" asked Kemal.

  "This one would have created a future terrible enough for the Interveners to think it worthwhile to go back and erase their own time in order to eliminate the source of the disaster. Think of what it would have meant to human history, if the powerful, technology-wielding civilization that swept to dominance over the whole world was one that believed in human sacrifice. If Mesoamerican cults of torture and slaughter had come to India and China and Africa and Persia armed with rifles and linked by railroads."

  "And tied together with a single, unified, powerful, and efficient bureacracy, the way the Romans were," added Diko. "The internal dissensions of Europe went a long way toward making their overlordship weaker and more tolerable."

  Tagiri went on. "It's not hard to imagine that the Interveners, looking back, saw the Tlaxcalan conquest of Europe as the worst, most terrible disaster in the
history of humanity. And then they saw Columbus's drive and ambition and personal charisma as the tool they could use to put a stop to it."

  "What does this mean, then?" said Hassan. "Do we abandon our entire project, because stopping Columbus would be worse than what he and those who came after him actually caused in our history?"

  "Worse?" asked Tagiri. "Who is to say which is worse? What do you say, Kemal?"

  Kemal looked triumphant. "I say that if Hunahpu is right, which we can't prove, though he makes a good case, we learn only one thing: Meddling with the past is useless because, as the Interveners proved, the mess you make is little better than the mess you avoid."

  "Not so," said Hunahpu.

  Everyone turned to look at him, and he realized that, caught up in the discussion, he had forgotten whom he was dealing with -- that he was contradicting Kemal, and in front of Tagiri and Hassan, no less. He glanced over at Diko, and saw that, far from looking worried, she simply gazed at him with interest, waiting to hear what he would say. And he realized that this was how all of them were looking at him, except Kemal, and his scowl was probably not personal -- it seemed to be his permanent expression. For the first time Hunahpu realized that he was being treated as an equal here, and they were not offended or contemptuous at his daring to speak. His voice was as good as anyone else's. The sheer marvel of it was almost enough to silence him.

  "Well?" asked Kemal.

  "I think what we learn from this," said Hunahpu, "is not that you can't intervene effectively in the past. After all, the Interveners did prevent exactly what they set out to prevent. I've seen a lot more of Mesoamerican culture than any of you, and even though it's my own culture, my own people, anyway, I can promise you that a world ruled by the Tlaxcalans or the Mexica -- or even the Maya, for that matter -- would never have given rise to the democratic and tolerant and scientific values that eventually emerged from European culture, despite all its bloody-handed arrogance toward other people."

  "You can't say that," said Kemal. "The Europeans sponsored slave trade, and then gradually repudiated it -- who's to say that the Tlaxcalans wouldn't have repudiated human sacrifice? The Europeans conquered in the name of kings and queens, and by five centuries later they had stripped those monarchs, where they survived at all, of every shred of power they once had wielded. The Tlaxcalans would have evolved as well."

  "But outside the Americas, wherever the Europeans conquered, native culture survived," said Hunahpu. "Altered, yes, but still recognizably itself. I think the Tlaxcalan conquest would have been more like the Roman conquest, leaving behind little trace of the ancient Gallic or Iberian cultures."

  "This is all irrelevant," said Tagiri. "We aren't choosing between the Interveners' history and our own. Whatever else we do, we can't restore their history and we wouldn't want to. Whichever one was worse, ours or theirs, both were certainly terrible."

  "And both," said Hassan, "led to some version of Pastwatch, some future in which they were aware of their past and able to judge it."

  "Yes," agreed Kemal, rather nastily, "they both led to a time when meddlers with too much leisure on their hands decided to go back and reform the past to coincide with the values of the present. The dead are dead; let's study them and learn from them."

  "And help them if we can," said Tagiri, her voice thick with passion. "Kemal, all we learn from the Interveners is that what they did was not enough, not that it shouldn't have been attempted at all."

  "Not enough!"

  "They were thinking only of the history they wanted to avoid, not of the history they would create. We must do better."

  "How can we?" asked Diko. "As soon as we act, as soon as we change something, we run the risk of removing ourselves from history. So we can make only one change, as they did."

  "They could make only one change," said Tagiri, "because they sent a message. But what if we send a messenger?"

  "Send a person?"

  "We have found, by careful examination, what the technology of the Interveners was. They didn't just send a message from their own time, because as soon as they started sending it, they would have destroyed themselves and the very instrument that was sending the message. Instead they sent an object back in time. A holographic projector, with their entire message contained within it. They knew exactly where to place it and when to trigger it. We've found the machine. It worked perfectly, and then it released powerful acids that destroyed the circuitry and, after about an hour, when no one was nearby, it released a burst of heat that melted itself into a lump of slag and then it exploded, scattering tiny molten fragments across several acres."

  "You didn't tell us this," said Kemal.

  "The team that is working on building a time machine has been aware of this for some time," said Tagiri. "They'll be publishing soon. What matters is this: They didn't just send a message, they sent an object. That was enough to change history, but not enough to shape it intelligently. We need to send back a messenger who can respond to circumstances, who can not only make one change but keep on introducing more changes. That way we can do more than simply avoid one dreadful path -- we can deliberately, carefully create a new path that will make the rest of history infmitely better. Think of us as physicians to the past. It isn't enough just to give the patient one injection, one pill. We must keep the patient under our care for an extended period, adapting our treatment to the course of the disease."

  "You mean send someone into the past," said Kemal.

  "One person, or several people," said Tagiri. "One person might get sick or have an accident or be killed. Sending several people would build some redundancy into our effort."

  "Then I must be one of the ones you send," said Kemal.

  "What!" cried Hassan. "You! The one who believes we should make no intervention at all!"

  "I never said that, " said Kemal. "I only said that it was stupid to intervene when you had no way of controlling the consequences. If you are sending a team back into the past, I want to be one of them. So I can make sure it goes properly. So I can make sure it's worth doing."

  "I think you have an inflated idea of your own powers of judgment," said Hassan crossly.

  "Absolutely," said Kemal. "But I'll do it, all the same."

  "If anyone goes at all," said Tagiri. "We need to go over Hunahpu's scenario and gather far more evidence. Then, whatever picture we emerge with, we must also plan what our changes will be. In the meantime we have scientists working on our machinebut working with confidence, because we've seen that a physical object can be pushed backward through time. When all these projects are complete -- when we have the power to travel back in time, when we know exactly what it is we're trying to accomplish, and when we know exactly how we intend to accomplish it -- then we'll make our report public and the decision whether to do it will be up to them. To everyone."

  * * *

  Columbus came home after dark in the chilly night, weary to the bone -- not from the walk home, for it wasn't that far, but rather from the endless questions and answers and arguments. There were times when he longed to simply say, "Father Talavera, I've told you everything I can think of. I have no more answers. Make your report." But as the Franciscans of La Rabida had warned him, that would mean the end of his chances. Talavera's report would be devastating and thorough, and there would be no crack left through which he could escape with ships and crew and supplies for a voyage.

  There were even times when Columbus wanted to seize the patient, methodical, brilliant priest and say, "Don't you know that I see exactly how impossible it looks to you? But God himself told me that I must sail west to reach the great kingdoms of the east! So my reasoning must be true, not because I have evidence, but because I have the word of God!"

  Of course he never succumbed to that temptation. While Columbus hoped that if he were ever charged with heresy, God might intervene and stop the priests from having him burned, he did not want to put God to the test on this. After all, God had told him to tell no one, and so he c
ould hardly expect miraculous intervention if his own impatience put him in danger of the fire.

  So it was that the days and the weeks and the months stretched on behind him, and it seemed that the path ahead would have at least as many days and weeks and months -- why not years? -- before at last Talavera said, "Columbus seems to know more than he's telling, but we must make our report and have done with it." How many years? It made Columbus tired just to think of it. Will I be like Moses? Will I win consent to launch the fleet when I'm already so old that I will only be able to stand on the coast and watch them sail away? Will I never enter the promised land myself?

  No sooner had he laid his hand upon the door than it was flung open and Beatrice greeted him with an embrace only slightly encumbered by her thick belly. "Are you mad?" asked Columbus. "It could have been anybody, and you opened the door without so much as asking who it was."

  "But it was you, wasn't it?" she said, kissing him.

  He reached behind him, shut the door, and then managed to extricate himself from her embrace long enough to bar it. "You're doing no good for your own reputation, letting the whole street see that you wait for me in my rooms and greet me with kisses."

  "You think the whole street doesn't already know? You think even the two-year-olds don't already know that Beatrice has Cristobal's baby in her womb?"

  "Then let me marry you, Beatrice," he said.