Jerry Davis - Elko the Potter

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Elko the Potter

Franz Kafka looked at his small, elite group of 22nd century

students and tapped on the large text display with his pointing

stick. "The decisive moment in human development is a continuous

one," he said, reading his own words. "For this reason the

revolutionary movements which declare everything before them to be

null and void are right, for nothing has yet happened."

The students fidgeted. One, a young man with so many freckles

it looked painful, raised his hand. Kafka nodded, and the youth

spoke up. "Sir Oscar Wilde said, 'History is merely gossip.'"

Kafka took a step toward the student, pointing the stick

right at him. "Precisely!" he said, his voice betraying only a

echo of his former accent. "That is precisely my point!"

A half mile away, Professor Raymond Burns was looking

directly into history.

He was searching for carts.

They came from here, he was sure of it. Raymond had tracked

the carts all up and down the region and they always came from

here. After all, it made sense; the area between the rivers was

famous as being the cradle of civilization. The muddy waters and

the fertile desert land just begged to be mixed, and the local

villages listened. Irrigation was developed, and with it came more

food than the farmers could possibly use. This led to the gift of

idle time. Time to ponder, time to experiment. Villages became

cities, and cities became city-states.

There came kings and gods and law.

The image that was broadcast directly to Raymond's optic

nerves caused a stinging pain. There was a specially developed

endorphin to counter this side effect, but it wore off quickly.

The pain distracted Raymond, but he was perpetually putting off

another dose for just one more minute...

He worked the controls, slowing the temporal scan. It was

right about here. Going forward through time, slowing the rate,

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slowing so that he could see the passage of humanity through the

stinging hell of the retinal linkage. There were no carts at all,

and then suddenly they were everywhere! It was like there had been

an explosion of carts.

He reversed the scan, going backwards through time. Below his

disembodied eyes the city deteriorated into a village of mud huts,

and the bronze plow devolved to copper and then to a curved stick.

The men and women carried their harvest in by hand in large

baskets. There was not a wheel in sight. Wearily, Raymond flipped

the controls forward again. This was taking forever.

For seven long years Raymond had been waiting for this

chance, and now he had only three days to accomplish it. Two of

those three days were already gone, and this last one was rapidly

coming to a close. Behind Raymond there was a long line of others

who waited for their turn at the temporal viewer, each with their

own pet projects. If Raymond didn't make his discovery within the

next few hours, it would probably never happen.

Through the haze of pain he watched it happen again. An

explosion of carts. He reversed the controls again and watched,

scanning slower than ever, trying to trace the progress. It had to

have begun here. Somewhere.

And then --- suddenly! --- he spotted it. He stopped the

temporal scan, freezing the image. Raymond was so elated he

giggled like a madman. "That's it! That's it that's it!" he yelled

out loud. They were beautiful --- the most beautiful thing he'd

ever seen. Four round bricks drying in the hot summer sunlight.

Four bricks that would forever change the history of mankind.

Elko, a Sumerian potter living on the banks of the Euphrates,

had this reoccurring feeling that he was being watched. It would

come and go, and sometimes he forgot about it altogether, but then

sometimes he could be all alone and it was like someone was above

him looking down. He attributed it as the attention of the gods.

His own father thought him a fool, so maybe the gods did too, and

Elko was providing them with amusement.

Elko, son a farmer, heir to a long line of the most

successful farmers anyone had ever known, had turned down the

family trade to play with mud. That's how Unko, his father, would

put it. Playing with mud. Unko saw water as the power, water

flowing through their hand-dug ditches, irrigating the fields. Man

controlling the power of water from the great Euphrates.

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Elko firmly believed it was not the water, it was the dirt.

The water merely followed where the dirt directed it. Hand-built

levees, hand dug ditches --- it was the dirt.

Control the dirt. Mold the soil into shapes from the mind's

imagination. Anything was possible!

His father couldn't argue that his son wasn't making a good

living --- he was. Elko worked as a potter, trading his bowls and

vessels for food and clothing, and he lived in a large home made

from sun-hardened bricks he made himself. He had a good woman and

they were soon expecting a child. Everyone outside his immediate

family held him in high regard as a man of ideas.

"Look at you! You call this work? You could be out growing

food, building aqueducts! Instead you sit in this fancy hut of

yours and play with mud. It's like you never grew up."

"Father, what would you store your grain in if you didn't

have my vessels? They'd still be in a heap under a blanket, being

eaten by birds, rats, and bugs."

"Making pots is a woman's job."

It was useless. No matter what he did, Elko couldn't convince

his father that what he was doing was useful. Despite his success,

this bothered him, and sometimes he lie awake at night trying to

think of a way to change his father's mind.

It came to him on one of those days when he felt he was being

watched, while he was busy filling an order of 24 vessels for

Yurdmal the Trader. Elko had fashioned a round table that he could

spin by kicking at thick pegs radiating from the base. The whole

table was very heavy but well balanced in a depression in the

floor --- once he got it going, it would continue spinning for

quite a while. It wasn't his idea, but it was one he'd improved

upon. The spinning table allowed him to make the smoothest and

most uniform vessels in the region, and quickly too. He made them

by the dozens and sold them cheap.

Being in a hurry that day, Elko kicked the table too hard. It

lost its balance, and he was just able to leap back as it tipped

over and went rolling around the room. It reminded Elko of

something he'd seen as a child --- some faint, dream image

reaching out from years past. He watched the table rolling until

it stopped, then took a breath and went to it. The gods, he was

sure, were laughing at him. But after a few minutes of grunting

Elko had the table into position and went right back to work. His

mind, however, was far from what he was doing.

That night, from the finest of his brick-making clay, Elko

made four large round bricks with holes in the exact center. After

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a week of drying in the sunlight they were rock hard, and he

mounted them onto two poles. Across the poles he put a big, strong

basket, fastening it tight. When he was done he tested it out, and

it worked just like he thought it would. So, gathering his nerve,

he rolled his invention out to his father in the fields. "I made

this for you," he said. "This should make it easier to carry in

your harvest."

Unko walked around the unlikely contraption, staring. He

tried pushing and pulling it back and forth. "Son," he told Elko,

"this is very clever." A crowd gathered around, and they tested it

by filling it with a large load of grain. With it, one man could

carry in more than ten men could carry without it. Everyone agreed

that this was indeed very clever, and within a month the whole

valley was swarming with copies.

Elko's father still grumbled about his son's choice of

profession, but now there was a touch of admiration in his voice.

This was enough for Elko. His life seemed complete.

The report was titled: Elko Potter, Inventor of the Wheel.

Professor Raymond Burns submitted it to Technica along with a copy

of the recordings from the temporal viewer. It chronologged his

search for the first wheeled cart, tracing it back to one Sumerian

potter, then detailed the potter's life from birth to death.

Raymond had been waiting for the call. He'd been sitting in

his condo all morning wearing a suit and a tie, ready for the

occasion. He couldn't see anything other than complete acceptance,

as his thousand-to-one shot project had been a total success.

Raymond found Elko at the very last moment. He had to quick-talk

his way into another several hours with the temporal viewer so

that he could lock it on Elko and scan the man's entire existence.

The call came, and Raymond answered it with a quick, nervous

jab at the button. It was Barbara Lemmas, a professor of the

Seventh Level, one of Technica's local bigwigs. "Raymond, we've

reviewed your project," she said.

"Yes."

"This appears to be a major find. We have to talk about your

follow-up research."

"Yes."

"Meet us at Fine Hall, third floor."

"I'm on my way."

Lemmas nodded once and broke the connection. Fine Hall!

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Raymond thought. Third floor! It was the domain of the gods.

Technica was to science what the Catholic Church was to

religion. There were branches of it everywhere, influencing

everything, owning vast fortunes in knowledge and patent rights.

And here, in the Livermore Valley of California, was Technica's

"Vatican," The Institute of Human Endeavor. Here and only here

could one find humanity's only time machines --- three of them, to

be exact --- and the only Great Hall of Learning.

The board of directors, all professors of the sixth level and

above, sat at a large horseshoe-shaped table around the single

stool and podium where Raymond sat and fidgeted. The chairman

himself, the "Pope" of Technica, was out of the solar system on a

project of his own.

"We congratulate you on your success," Lemmus was saying.

"Your method was precise and your supporting evidence very

convincing. Elko Potter does indeed seem to be the inventor of the

wheel. Your detail of his life is, also, very thorough."

"Thank you, Professor," Raymond said. He allowed himself a

modest bow.

"The circumstances of his death also lend itself to our

advantage. Suicide in the Euphrates."

"It appeared to be suicide, yes. We won't know for sure until

we ask him."

The professors around him nodded, except for Steve Gibson. He

was a large-chested man with long flowing white hair and big blue

eyes. "I suggest we make that an imperative. Burns should split

his next phase into two; one being a covert contact to ask the

subject exactly that: Did he really invent the wheel? It is

possible that he only recreated it. Perhaps he saw such a thing

earlier in his life. If so, then go on with the next phase."

A few of the members of the board nodded at this, but Lemmas

--- who was acting director in the Chairperson's absence --- shook

her head. "We've all reviewed Professor Burns's data. There is no

evidence of the wheel in any temporal scans earlier than Elko

Potter's first cart."

"I suggest that his time scans may not have caught earlier

incarnations," Gibson said.

"We are all aware that Professor Burns's project may cut into

your own research time with the temporal devices, Professor

Gibson. I suggest that you let him get on with his project as

quickly as possible so that it minimizes delay with yours."

Gibson rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"Now, if there are no further objections, then I would say

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Professor Burns has the green light for the second phase of his

project." Lemmas stared at Gibson, waiting for him to object.

Gibson heaved a loud, disgusted sigh and crossed his arms

defensively across his chest, but said nothing. Lemmas turned to

Raymond. "Once you submit a detail of your plans," she said, "you

shall have what assistance you need and free use of Temporal

Transfer Chamber number three."

Raymond exited from the meeting gleefully, carefully avoiding

Steve Gibson's smoldering stare.

Forty-two years was a long time to be alive. His face lined,

his hands hard and stiff with arthritis, Elko the potter could no

longer work. His wife was long dead, and his sons had already

taken over his trade. He was nothing but a burden on them, now,

and so one night with the moon full in the sky --- and having the

distinct feeling that he was being watched --- Elko scraped up

with dignity he still had and took a walk along one of his late

father's canals to the river. There on the shore, he removed his

shirt, headpiece, skirt, and sandals, and waded out into the

churning muddy water. "I give myself to the gods of Earth and

Water," he said, "in thanks for the gift of my life."

The current grew strong and swept him off his feet. He

treaded water as he was carried along past the city and out beyond

the farmlands. To either side of him were great expanses of

moonlit desert, calm and peaceful. Elko felt relaxed, and floated

easily. He wasn't in a rush to get it over with. He was reliving

memories of his wife and his children.

A ring of lights glared down at him, and there was a harsh

sloshing sound as a lot of water tried to climb up the side of a

silver wall. It only reached so far, then came surging down in a

wave that came back at Elko. He bobbed with it as it passed him,

then amazingly the wave hit another silver wall on the other side

and came back again. There was a round silver wall completely

surrounding him. The ring of lights from above seemed to be

mounted on a ceiling. He was in a room!

The water drained quickly and left him splayed in dismay on a

cold metal floor. He took a breath and sat up, wincing with the

pain and stiffness. Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet and

shuffled back and forth, looking at the metal and wondering how

he'd arrived here. "Hello?" he said. His voice echoed with a

ringing quality. There was no response, so he stood and patiently

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Jerry Davis - Elko the Potter

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