Corrupting Dr. Nice by John Kessel Read Free Book Online Page A

had given him. He was even having a road built from the time travelers' compound to the new palace they had built for him.
    Jerusalem's upper market bustled. Those who had not already bought lambs for sacrifice or food for the sabbath meal were busy making last-minute purchases. The smell of roast lamb and fried eggplant wafted from the booths of vendors. A couple of disreputable looking men stood in the shade of a wooden awning, whispering political conversations under the cover of whining liturgical music from a hammerbox. A troop of Roman mercenaries wearing leather skirts, plumed helmets and carrying assault rifles hustled down the street toward the Antonia. A colorful bird sat forlornly in an animal dealer's wooden cage, eyed by a cat from the alley.
    A Pharisee wearing phylacteries wrapped around his arm and forehead stopped in the street, praying aloud, his voice challenging the roar of the air conditioning compressor that disfigured the wall of the shop next door. He draped his robes carefully, bowed so deeply that every vertebra in his back might be separated. Simon stopped, bowed his own head, as did some of the workers in the street and people in the shops. Not as many paid respect to the holy man's ritual as might have even a year before. Simon himself did not respect the Pharisaic ritual as much as he once had: on the one hand, his master had questioned the sincerity of those who prayed ostentatiously in the street, on the other, such displays of piety did little to move Israel toward freedom. Behind him, below the Hasmonean colonnade, he heard a couple of kids continuing to hawk bootlegged vids.
    It was ten minutes before the Pharisee rose and moved on. Simon brushed off his tunic, adjusted his girdle and headed for the hotel. He passed the grand entrance between the Hippicus and Mariamme Towers and entered through the loading docks at the south end of the enclosure around Herod's Palace. At the security booth guarding the dock he stopped and showed his credentials. On the platform a purchaser in the uncouth clothes the future people fancied haggled with a dealer in exotic animals who held two surly camels by a short halter. The guard, a thick, humorous man named Hans Bauer, smirked. “Late again, Simon. Callahan will be pleased.”
    Simon entered the hotel. The staff entrance was on the basement level. The guts of Herod’s palace had been ripped out and replaced by an extensive substructure containing a warehouse for trade goods to be shipped back and forth in time, a large industrial time travel stage, the hotel laundry, a kennel for livestock and trade animals, kitchens, security offices and the power plant. Simon headed through the main corridor to the transshipment warehouse, entered and hurried down the aisle between stacks of loot waiting to be shipped forward in time--amphorae of the finest Greek wine, crates of scrolls from the Alexandrian library, perfumed oils in alabaster jars from the East, bas-reliefs from Babylon, figs from Galilee, statuary from Egypt. And other heaps of goods meant for the locals. Weapons for the Roman collaborators. Televisions. Chocolate bars. Crates of gin. Simon thought about the destruction represented by those rows of pallets. His world was being drugged like a whore, bled like a sacrificial lamb.
    He reached the glassed in office in the corner of the warehouse. Two men sat there, amid bills of lading, drinking coffee and munching dried apricots. On the window wall music pix played.
    "You're late," said Patrick Callahan, the operations manager. "Haven't you learned to read a clock yet?"
    Simon bowed his head. "I am sorry," he said.
    "Sorry is the word for you, that's right. I can't get a decent shift's work out of any of you towelheads."
    "Cut him some slack, Pat. The guy's out of his depth."
    "Simon? No, Simon here's deep. Used to be an apostle, didn't you boy?"
    "I believe you are mistaken, sir. Are we shipping the rest of that wine tonight?"
    "Listen to this guy,