«Even facing the fact of death,» said Neville, «startled by the fact of human death, I still was fascinated by the cube lying there beside the body. It is strange how one reacts to shock. I suppose that often we may fasten our attention on some trivial matter, not entirely disassociated from the shock, but not entirely a part of it, either, in an unconscious effort to lessen the impact that might be too great if allowed to come in all at once. By accepting the shock gradually, it becomes acceptable. I don’t know, I’m not enough of a psychologist to know, no psychologist at all, of course. But there was the cube and there was Stefan, and as I looked at the cube it seemed to me, rather illogically, that the cube was more important than Stefan. Which, I suppose, is understandable, for Stefan, all these years, had been an object rather than a person, someone that we waved to as we drove past but almost never spoke to, a man one never really met face to face.
«This may all seem strange to you, Andy, and I am a bit surprised myself, for until this moment I have not really considered how I felt when I found the body, never sorted out my reactions. So, to get on with it, I picked up the cube, which I am aware I should not have done, and holding it in my hand and turning it to try to determine what it was, I saw a glint of color from inside it, so I lifted it closer to look at it and saw what you saw just now. And having seen it, there was no question in my mind at all of dropping it back where I found it. I’ve never been more shaken in my life. I stood there, with the cold sweat breaking out on me, shaking like a leaf …»
«But, Neville, why?» I asked. «I’ll admit it is a clever thing, a beautiful piece of work, but …»
«You mean you didn’t recognize it?»
«You mean the picture in the cube? Why should I?»
«Because it is a photograph of the Battle of Marathon.»
I gasped. «A photograph? Marathon! How can you know? You are going dotty, Neville.»
«I know because I know the Plain of Marathon,» he said. «I spent three weeks there two years ago—remember? Camping on the field. Tramping up and down the battlefield. Trying to get the feel of it. And I did get the feel of it. I walked the line of battle. I traced the Persians’ flight. I lived that goddamn battle, Andy. There were times, standing in the silence, I could hear the shouting.»
«But you said a photograph. That thing’s not any photograph. There’s not a camera made …»
«I know, but look at this.» He handed back the cube. «Have another look,» he said.
I had another look. «There’s something wrong,» I said. «There isn’t any water, and there was before. There was a lake off in the distance.»
«Not a lake,» said Neville. «The Bay of Marathon. Now you are seeing hills, or perhaps a distant marsh. And there is still a battle.»
«A hill,» I said. «Not too big a hill. What the hell is going on?»
«Turn it. Look through another face.»
I turned it. «A marsh this time. Way off. And a sort of swale. A dry creek bed.»
«The Charadra,» said Neville. «A stream. Really two streams. In September, when the battle was fought, the streams no longer ran. The beds were dry. You’re looking along the route the Persians fled. Look to your right. Some pine trees.»
«They look like pines.»
«The Schoenia. Pines growing on a sandy beach between the marsh and the sea. The Persian boats are pulled up on that beach, but you can’t see them.»
I put the cube back on the table. «What kind of gag is this?» I asked, half angrily. «What are you trying to prove?»
He almost pleaded with me. «I told you, Andy. I’m not trying to prove anything at all. That cube is a photograph of Marathon, of the battle that was fought almost twenty-five centuries ago. I don’t know who photographed it or how it was photographed, but I am certain that is what it is. It’s no snap judgment on my part. I know. I have examined it more closely than you have. After you left for the Trading Post I decided that instead of driving my car, I’d walk down to the bridge. It’s only half a mile or so. It was a fine morning and I felt like a walk. So when I found Stefan I had to come back here to get the car, and I must confess I did not drive to the Trading Post immediately. I know I should have, but I was so excited about the cube—I was fairly sure what it was, but not absolutely certain, the way I am now—and a half hour one way or the other meant nothing whatsoever to Stefan any more. So I took the time to have a good look at the cube and I used a glass on it. Here,» he said, digging around in his pocket, taking out a reading glass. «Here, use this. The picture doesn’t break up with magnification. Those are no toy figures in there, no fabrications, no clever make-believes. They are flesh-and-blood men. Look at the expressions on their faces. Note that details become clearer.»
He was right. Under the glass, the details were sharper, the faces became more human. The beards were not pasted-on beards, not painted-on beards; they were really beards. One Greek hoplite, his mouth open in a shout, had a missing front tooth, and little beads of blood had oozed out of a minor bruise across one cheek.
«Somewhere,» said Neville, «there is a projector, or whatever it is called. You drop the cube into it and the scene is reproduced. You are standing in the middle of the battle, in a frozen thousandth-second of the battle …»
«But there is no such thing,» I said.
«Neither is there a camera that would take a photograph of this sort. It’s not only a three-dimensional photograph but an all-angles photograph. Look through one face of it and you see the bay, look through another and you see the marsh. Rotate it through three hundred and sixty degrees and you see the battle all around you. You see it all as it was happening in that thousandth of a second.»
I put the cube and the reading glass back on the table. «Now, listen,» I said. «You say this had fallen out of Stefan’s pocket. Tell me this—how did Stefan get it?»
«Andy, I don’t know. First we’d have to know who Stefan was. Tell me what you know about Stefan. Tell me what you know about the other people who come to the Lodge.»
«I don’t know a thing about Stefan or the others,» I said. «Nor do you. Nor does anyone else.»
«Remember,» Neville reminded me, «how when the sheriff looked for identification on Stefan’s body, he found nothing. No billfold. No scrap of paper. Nothing. How could a man get by without a social security card? Even if he had no other identification …»
«He might not have wanted to be identified,» I said. «He carried nothing so that if something happened to him, there’d be no way for anyone to know who he was.»
«The same thought crossed my mind,» said Neville. «And the Lodge. It was as clean of paper as Stefan’s body.»
I had been standing all this time, but now I sat down at the table. «Maybe it’s time,» I said, «that we start saying out loud some of the things we have been thinking. If that cube is what you say it is, it means that someone with greater technical skills than we have has traveled in time to take the photograph. It couldn’t be an artifact. Back when Marathon was fought no one had ever dreamed of the possibility of even a simple photograph. No one from the present time could take the kind of photograph there is in the cube. So we’ve got two factors—time travel and time travel done by someone from the future, where an advanced technology might make that photograph possible.»
Neville nodded. «That has to be the answer, Andy. But you’ll not find a responsible physicist who’ll concede even the faintest hope that time travel is possible. And if it should be, some time in the future, why should the travelers be here? There’s nothing here that could possibly attract them.»