Tennis: It’s Not Just for Civilians

Major Oliver Hope-Stanwell, Royal Corps of Engineers, stands in the airship’s map room telling the alphabet under his breath to keep calm. Maps hang on three walls of the narrow room, revealing Europe, the Mediterranean, and Northern Africa. The narrow table in the center of the room is empty, but he major is not sanguine about the chances that it will stay so. When the two airmen escort the sloppy professor into the room, they exchange looks with the major. While they do not see eye to eye on many things in their service to Queen Victoria, disdain for the professor is universal among the branches of the service. Together they watch him lay a heavy valise on the table, flick the latches and reverently open it to reveal a three-dimensional reproduction of the contours of an Egyptian city—the mix of French and British architecture and native dwellings and caravanserai gave it away. Major Hope-Stanwell sighted, louder than he meant to.

Professor Brown glared at him. “Major—Stanley, isn’t it? Pray, do not mock what you do not understand.”

Brown: 1; Hope-Stanwell: 0.

Brown continued, “Yes, we are returning. Yes, again! But this time, this time, I expect we shall be triumphant! My Sustairi device is ready. The improvements I have made to it based on the information from our last voyage will allow us to extract depth and density information from the new site. We are close, Major, you may rely upon it!”

Hope-Stanwell grit his teeth. “Yes, sir,” he said carefully, “though I recall you have said something similar these last four times.”

“This time will be different. I have seen proof! I tell you, there is an illegal dig and we are closing in on its location. And, if I need to remind you, Her Majesty has made clear the depth of her gratitude to those who enable its discovery. Not just me and my device, sir, but all those who smooth the way for the discovery of the century!”

“The Rosetta Stone—”

“A pocket dictionary compared to the British Library in its entirety! But I say too much. We are wasting good time. Where is your commanding officer?”

The airman with the graying muttonchops growled, “Ante Meridian says there’s more important things to be doing until we reach the Eye-talian Puddle.”

The professor looked blank.

Hope-Stanwell translated. “The captain will be otherwise engaged until we begin to cross the Mediterranean.”

“Why doesn’t he simply say that?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.”

Brown: 1; Hope-Stanwell: 1.

“Very well.” Professor Brown pulled a battered notepad and a stub of pencil out of his tweed jacket pocket. He scribbled some numbers and handed the sheet to the airman. “There, Wickett, is it?”

“Wykeham, sir.”

“Yes, yes. Get that to your navigator. That is our destination.”

Brown: 2; Hope-Stanwell: 1.

The older airman peered at it. The younger airman peered at it over his shoulder and then shrugged.

Hope-Stanwell stepped forward. “May I, Wykeham?”

“Sir!”

He took the paper, glanced at the semi-legible numbers and sighed. “Tell, me, Professor,” he said. “When you were a lad, what did you first want to be? Before you decided on becoming—an antiquitarian, is it?”

“Archaeologist!”

“Yes, yes. Did you ever consider going into medicine?”

“Why yes, I—”

“I thought so. Your pencil, please?”

Brown: 2; Hope-Stanwell: 2.

Hope-Stanwell carefully rewrote the first numbers, then paused. “So tell me, Professor, if Egypt is your métier, as I have heard, why are you apparently sending us to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Are we now to reset our sights on Atlantis?”

Brown snatched the paper back. “That is very clearly 31.2 north, 29.9 east!”

“Ah. Alexandria, then. Not Atlantis. Why didn’t you simply say that?”

Brown: 2; Hope-Stanwell: 3.

 “The commander’s passion for precision is well known.”

“Ah, the captain, of course, who does like precision. You are correct about that. Well, then, since you clearly haven’t yet had a moment to tidy up enough to be allowed on the captain’s bridge, I will just take this there myself.”

The professor glared. The airmen saluted the major with extra crispness.

Brown:2; Hope-Stanwell: 4. Game.

Preparation for Takeoff

Fog. Quonset huts. To the west, formless darkness. To the east, a glimmer of light on the horizon makes the fog glow slightly.

A man in a khaki uniform shivers in the cold. He marches back and forth to stay warm. As the sun rises, he can see more and more details. The metal panels of the Quonsets. The branches of the trees behind them. And in the other direction, the growing light begins to limn a shape like a small moon, thought narrowing at the ends. At first, its underbelly is obscured, but gradually the soldier begins to distinguish the dark shape of the gondola from the dark shape of the airship above it.

A puttering sound draws his attention away and he turns to see a motorcar pullint onto the airstrip. He lets out a small exasperated sigh, then arranges his face into a mild, noncommittal smile.

Well, he thinks. The Professor. Here goes nothing.

Sanctum

-->

An Oxbridge don’s chambers. Wooden paneling on the walls. Old leather books and papers everywhere—on the desk, on the chair, piled on the floor. Through the window, the last golden light of day limns an old Roman short sword that is keeping the chaos at bay, doing service as a paper weight on the desk.

Controlling hordes of Visigoths was probably easier.

The door opens and a grey-haired gentleman in the black robe of an academic strides in and adds his pile of books to the desk. He strips the robe off and tosses it on top, revealing a tired tweed jacket and green bowtie, which he yanks untied.

He opens the desk drawer and takes out a crystal decanter and a low glass, which he fills halfway with amber liquid. He takes a stiff drink, closes his eyes and shudders.

From a chair in the dark corner, a man sits forward, causing the academic to spill whiskey on his hand.

“For heaven’s sake, Chutney! I have asked you repeatedly not to do that!”

A thin young man in spectacles and a khaki suit, inappropriate for the weather, blinks slowly. “So sorry,” he says, unapologetically. “I have a piece from our man in Alexandria. Do you have the time to authenticate it for me? Usual fee, of course.”

The older man looks around blankly. “Other room,” he grunts.

The inner sanctum is a different world, a spare, Spartan workroom, three of its walls lined by shelves. On one wall, ancient leather books. On the next, shards of pottery, ancient daggers, coins, jewelry, all from empires long since dead and gone. On the last wall, carefully partitioned into cubby holes, scroll after scroll after scroll. In the center of the room a work table, completely bare and clean. The don gestures to the younger man. “Let’s see, then.”

The scroll rolls open across the table, revealing Greek letters in row after row. The young man steps back and watches the older man examine the text meticulously with a magnifying glass, touch the parchment, sniff it, grunt again.

“Hieratic script from the early Ptolemaic dynasty, yes. However, there is no way this could possibly be over  two thousand years old. Two or three hundred perhaps. A slightly old, brilliantly executed copy.”

“I assure you, it is authentic. The dig site was completely sealed against moisture—“

“Young man, when you say something is authentic, it is an assertion, a claim. When I say something is authentic, it means that I can give a detailed provenance, following ownership from hand to hand across millennia. That I cannot do here. Whatever your ‘man in Alexandria’ has found, it is not a historical goldmine, as you promised in your telegram, but rather a genius fraud perpetrated a mere few centuries ago. Practically worthless.”

The young man frowns, “I will take it to London!”

“Yes, yes. Do that. They will say the same.”

The don watches genially as the angry young man rerolls the scroll and delicately wraps it in the oiled leather case, gives him a grudging nod and marches out.

The don retrieves his whiskey, shifts the papers off his desk chair and sits inhaling the fumes from his glass.

So it was true. What in God’s name was he to do now?

Once Upon a Midnight Cold

Darkness.

Black-hooded men stand in a circle, their arms in the voluminous sleeves of their robes, shivering slightly. In the moonlight, one can just make out the angled roof of a marble sepulcher looming behind them.

A low-voiced chanting begins, the rumble of syllables that might or might not be words of a human language. One hooded figure steps into the center of the circle, lifting a gleaming chalice and turning slowly so that all of the eyes can see. Another hooded figure steps forward with a ewer and slowly pours clear liquid into the chalice, which billows with fog.

The chanting grows louder and faster, the language changes. Words can be heard:

"Imbibo quod prodeo!"

"Imbibo quod prodeo!"

"Imbibo!"

"Prodeo!"

A third figure steps forward, bows, and takes the cup, drinking quickly as the fog wreathes his head.

Thunder! Lightning!

He disappears. The cup drops to the ground, spilling a trickle of cloudy green liquid into the trampled grass.