“The two men I’m interested in were born somewhere in northern Italy about 1850,” I told Olivia. “They came to Rome as young men, studied engineering and electronics, and in 1893 made the basic discovery that gave the Imperium the Net drive. I’m gambling that if Baum managed to get himself born, and in the nineties was writing something pretty close to what he did in my world—and in the Zero-zero A-line too—then maybe Maxoni and Cocini existed here too. They didn’t perfect the M-C drive, obviously—or if they did, the secret died with them—but maybe they came close. Maybe they left something I can use.”
“Brion, did you not tell me that ail the worlds that lie about your Zero-zero line are desolate, blasted into ruin by these very forces? Is it safe to tamper with such fell instruments as these?”
“I’m a fair shuttle technician, Olivia. I know most of the danger points. Maxoni and Cocini didn’t realize what they were playing with. They stumbled on the field by blind luck—”
“And in a thousand million other worlds of might-have-been they failed, and brought ruin in their wake…”
“You knew all this when we left Harrow,” I said shortly. “It’s my only chance—and a damned poor chance it is, I’ll admit. But I can’t build a shuttle from scratch—there’s a specially wound coil that’s the heart of the field-generator. I’ve installed ’em, but I never tried to wind one. Maybe—if there was a Maxoni here, and a Cocini—and they made the same chance discovery—and they wrote up their notes like good little researchers—and the notes still exist—and I can find them—”
Olivia laughed—a charming, girlish laugh. “If the gods decree that all those ifs are in your favor—why then ’tis plain, they mean you to press on. I’ll risk it, Brion. The vision of the Sapphire City still beckons me.”
“It’s the Emerald City, where I come from,” I said. “But we won’t quibble over details. Let’s see if we can find those notes first. We’ll have plenty of time then to decide what to do with them.”
n hour later, at the local equivalent of a municipal record center, a tired-looking youth in a narrow-cut black suit showed me a three-foot ledger in which names were written in spidery longhand—thousands of names, followed by dates, places of birth, addresses, and other pertinent details.
“Sicuro, Signore,” he said in a tone of weary superiority, “the municipality, having nothing to hide, throws open to you its records—among the most complete archives in existence in the Empire—but as for reading them…” he smirked, tweaked his hairline mustache. “That the Signore must do for himself.”
“Just explain to me what I’m looking at,” I suggested gently. “I’m looking for a record of Giulio Maxoni, or Carlo Cocini—”
“Yes, yes, so you said. And here before you is the registration book in which the names of all new arrivals in the city were recorded at the time identity papers were issued. They came to Rome in 1870, you said—or was it 1880? You seemed uncertain. As for me…” he spread his hands. “I am even more uncertain. I have never heard of these relatives—or friends—or ancestors—or whatever they might be. In them, you, it appears, have an interest. As for me—I have none. There is the book, covering the decade in question. Look all you wish. But do not demand miracles of me! I have duties to perform!” His voice developed an irritated snap on the last words. He strutted off to sulk somewhere back in the stacks. I grunted and started looking.
Twenty minutes passed quietly. We worked our way through 1870, started on 1871. The busy archivist peered out once to see what we were doing, withdrew after a sour look. Olivia and I stood at the wooden counter, poring over the crabbed longhand, each taking one page of about two hundred names. She was a fast reader; before I had finished my page, she had turned to the next. Half a minute later she gave a sharp gasp.
“Brion! Look! Giulio Maxoni, born 1847 at Paglio; trade, artificer—”
I looked. It was the right name. I tried not to let myself get too excited—but my pulse picked up in spite of the voice of prudence whispering in my ear that there might be hundreds of Giulio Maxonis.
“Nice work, girl,” I said in a cool, controlled voice that only broke twice on the three words. “What address?”
She read it off. I jotted it down in a notebook I had thoughtfully provided for the purpose, added the other data from the ledger. We searched for another hour, but found no record of Cocini. The clerk came back and hovered, as though we’d overstayed our welcome. I closed the book and shoved it across the counter to him.
“Don’t sweat it, Jack,” I said genially. “We’re just making up a sucker list for mailings on budget funerals.”
“Mailings?” He stared at me suspiciously. “Municipal records are not intended for such uses—and in any event—these people are all long since dead!”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “A vast untapped market for our line of goods. Thanks heaps. I’ll make a note to give you special treatment when your time comes.”
We walked away in a silence you could have cut into slabs with a butter knife.
Maxoni had lived at number twelve, Via Carlotti, fourth floor, number nine. With the aid of a street map purchased from an elderly entrepreneur in a beret and a soiled goatee who offered us a discount on racy postcards, which I declined with regret, we found it—a narrow alley, choked with discarded paper cartons, vegetable rinds, overflowing garbage barrels, and shoeless urchins who dodged madly among the obstacles, cheerfully exchanging badinage which would have made Mussolini blush. Number twelve was a faded late Renaissance front of rusticated granite wedged between sagging, boarded-up warehouses no more than a hundred or so years old. Maxoni, it appeared, had started his career in the most modest quarters available. Even a century ago, this had been a slum. I pushed open the caked door, stepped into a narrow hall reeking of garlic, cheese, decay, and less pleasant things.
“It looks terrible, Brion,” Olivia said. “Perhaps we’d best make enquiries first—”
A door opened and a round, olive face set in cushions of fat looked out, and launched into a stream of rapid Italian.
“Your pardon, Madam,” I replied in the courtly accents I had learned from the Roman Ambassador to the Imperial court. “We are but foreigners, visiting the Eternal City for the first time. We seek the apartment where once our departed relative dwelt, long ago, when the gods favored him with the privilege of breathing the sweet air of sunny Italy.”
Her jaw dropped; she stared; then a grin the size of a tenlira pizza spread across her face.
“Buon giorno, Signore e Signorina!” She squeezed out into the hall, pumped our hands, yelled instructions back into her flat—from which a mouth-watering aroma of ravioli emanated—and demanded to know how she could serve the illustrious guests of fair Italy. I gave her the number of the apartment where Maxoni had lived, ninety-odd years before, and she nodded, started up the narrow stair, puffing like the steam-engine that we had ridden across Europe for two days and nights. Olivia followed and I brought up the rear; admiring the deposits of broken glass, paper, rags and assorted rubbish that packed every step and landing, with a trail winding up through the center worn by the feet of centuries of tenants. I would have given odds that the bits Maxoni might have contributed were still there, somewhere.