A Heist in Goa

The recordkeeper Dismas found himself in the old city of Goa, over three thousand years into the past. His mission? To recover the incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier.

Author’s note: This is my latest story taking place in what I call, “The Holy League Universe.” As a bit of fun fact, I initially intended to write this story for the Lunar Awards but I had my hands full at the time. Well, now it’s here - better late than never. Whether or not it would have won if I had submitted it, I’ll let the readers be the judge of that.

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Dismas took a deep breath of relief. The time gate had worked as intended. This was the old city of Goa in what was now the Industan Region. Of course, now was a sketchy term given that the recordkeeper had just traveled back over three thousand years to the past.

At the moment, Dismas found himself around the beginning of the 22^nd century. He knew the Age of Terra was soon to give way to the Age of Exploration. But his focus was on Earth rather than space.

Having somehow avoided Goa’s ever-increasing collection of skyscrapers, the Basilica of Bom Jesus stood majestically in front of Dismas. It was not a particularly large cathedral, especially for the recordkeeper who had seen his fair share of majestic church buildings. However, it was no less beautiful.

Photo by Bikashrd from Wikipedia

Bricks of red and brown made up the Basilica. At the ground floor were the doors flanked by arches and columns. On the story above the doors were rectangular windows surrounded by baroque-style columns. One story immediately above were circular windows. At the center of the topmost level was an ornate carving; in the middle of it was a logo. Dismas recognized it as that symbol of the Society of Jesus, a religious order that played a major role in the pre-Dark Age Church.

Dismas knew that this description did not do the minor basilica justice. However, it was the best way to describe the ancient church building as he had witnessed it.

In any case, he wasn’t here for sightseeing.

Upon reaching the basilica’s yards, Dismas quickly hid in the bushes. It was still daytime, and he did not want to be seen by anyone. After all, the human subspecies known as the recordkeepers had not yet existed, being a product of the Dark Age Civilization that would come into being over a millennium later. The diminutive green ball-like creature with noodle arms would have caused an uproar amongst the locals. Dismas wouldn’t be surprised if the people would think that he was a demon.

Thankfully, he was able to hide himself without incident. Like all recordkeepers, Dismas was able to go on without food longer than the average human because of his partly ethereal body. This recordkeeper metabolism allowed Dismas to stay in the bush for hours until nighttime with no trouble.

That being said, Dismas was getting hungry. And he had seen the food that some of the travelers had with them. He had considered taking them for himself. However, the recordkeeper was not here to steal food.

Dismas was here for something much more valuable, the incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier.

***

It was finally nighttime. Though there were still lights owing to the buildings, Dismas felt comfortable getting out of the bush that had kept him hidden from people. It was time for him to get to work.

The recordkeeper knew that he did not have much time. Having studied the time period where he was now, Dismas knew that Goa was about to be invaded by a foreign army. In just a few hours, the currently neutral India was about to be dragged into the Great War when the Triple Alliance decided to invade the country by sea.

Goa was to be the beachhead for the allied powers in their invasion of India as a whole. But the war itself was of no interest to the recordkeeper. He was more concerned about what had happened during the Battle of Goa. It was a bloody battle; unfortunately, the fighting bled over to the Churches and Convents of Goa. Much of the buildings in the complex were heavily damaged, others were outright destroyed. Such was war.

As for the Basilica of Bom Jesus itself, the interior of the building was mostly unscathed even if the outside was heavily damaged. However, the incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier went missing.

While the original Society of Jesus had ceased to exist long ago in Dismas’ time, the “New Jesuits” had revived the order after the Three Days of Darkness that ended the Dark Age of Technology which allowed for continuity between the old and the new. Furthermore, the New Jesuits had played a major role in the conversion of the recordkeepers.

For the history-obsessed recordkeepers, the life of St. Francis Xavier became the stuff of legends. At times, it became hard to distinguish between fact and fiction.

It was upon this background that the disappearance of the great saint’s body was greatly talked about. Tales of his incorrupt body remained, though it was impossible to verify given the lack of evidence. But impossible turned out to be too strong of a word since the Order of the Recordkeepers, being able to time travel with the use of their time gate, decided to recover the sainted missionary’s body before it went missing.

This was where Dismas came in. The green-colored recordkeeper was a veteran of the order’s ‘artifact recovery’ operations. He himself had been responsible for the recovery of the Shroud of Turini. And now, he had been chosen to recover the body of St. Francis Xavier.

Dismas was confident of the operation’s success. With the use of the ‘time transporter’ device that he had been given, all he had to do was reach the saint’s tomb undetected and plant the device. Then, the body inside would have been transferred three millennia into the future.

The recordkeeper was more concerned about what originally happened to the body. Who was responsible for its disappearance? Dismas was eager to find out.

***

As expected, getting to the remains of St. Francis was an easy task. Because of the recordkeeper’s ethereal body, none of the priests nor the security personnel in the basilica noticed his presence at all. All Dismas had to do was to sneak through a corridor when when no human was around, and none was the wiser.

Before long, Dismas found himself in front of the silver casket that contained the incorrupt body. It was about an hour past midnight, the recordkeeper had ascertained beforehand that no one else was nearby.

Looking into the glass of the casket, Dismas gasped as he saw the body, visible from the outside. The body of the great missionary appeared dry, but intact. It looked as if the body had continued to age for centuries. This seemed to confirm the incorruptibility of the body, given that it should be nothing but bones by now.

The coffin was locked up tight, but nothing that 6^th millennium technology couldn’t break through. With the use of his handheld laser cutter, he was able to break the locks.

Dismas then opened the coffin in anticipation. But he was soon disappointed when he learned that the body was not completely intact; but this was not surprising, Dismas had heard stories about how one of the saint’s arms had been broken off and taken somewhere else. Nevertheless, a quick scan with his handheld communications device allowed him to confirm that the body had greatly resisted decomposition despite its lack of preservatives.

The legends were right after all. However, Dismas was disappointed that some thief had prevented the recordkeeper from getting the whole body; in addition to the lost arm, he was missing a few toes.

Dismas then took out his handheld device and took a picture with its camera function. He would need this later on.

The recordkeeper would have set up his time transporter around the body. But Dismas delayed. He was curious about how the great saint had disappeared in the first place. And so, he waited.

***

About an hour had passed but nothing happened. Nobody came in, no thief trying to steal away the body. Dismas knew that he had waited long enough. It would not be long before the allied invasion of Goa began. The recordkeeper speculated that the body would most likely have disappeared during the battle. Perhaps someone trying to protect it from the damages of war. Or, God forbid, the body became yet another casualty of war.

Whatever the case, Dismas had accepted that he would never know. With that, the recordkeeper began setting up the poles for the time transporter device. He put each of the poles around different parts of the coffin, there were eight pieces each. With the poles set up, Dismas took out a small rectangular device that had a big red button and numerous smaller ones in other colors.

The recordkeeper clicked the red button. Then, a blue glow enveloped the body of St. Francis Xavier. The glow remained for a few seconds before it disappeared. Then, the body the great saint was in the coffin no more.

Dismas smiled. But there was one more thing to do. The recordkeeper took out what looked to be a small block and put in on the now empty casket. With a press of another button, a hologram of the body appeared inside.

Now, the recordkeeper knew that his job was finished. He then closed the coffin. With the hologram, it would be sometime before anyone realized that the body had gone missing. The invasion would have caused chaos which would prevent most people from taking a closer look at the recordkeeper’s mirage.

With that, Dismas was ready to go home.

***

Dismas took a deep breath of relief. The time gate had worked as intended. While the recordkeepers were expert time travelers, the flow of the time-stream was not something that could be easily predicted. The fact that time travel was possible to begin with was something that was mind boggling to the recordkeeper.

“God is the master of time and space. Therefore, time travel should only be used in a way that cooperated with His Providence rather than against it.”

Dismas remembered those words. They came from his master, the one who taught him the ins and outs of time travel. It was one of the first things he learned about the nature of time travel. There was no way to change the past. After all, the past had already happened as decreed by God through history. To change the past would be to change what God had decreed, in essence making a liar out of God. That would be blasphemous, and absolutely impossible.

And yet, time travel was possible. But how could this be given the potential of time travel to change history? The only resolution to this paradox was the idea that time travel was merely another part of God’s plan throughout history.

Dismas paused. He realized the implication of his train of thought. This meant that his actions in Goa were as much as a part of history as the battle that would happen soon after. He also realized who had stolen the body of St. Francis Xavier.

It was none other than himself.

This also explained the disappearance of many a relics throughout history from the Shroud of Turini to the True Cross. They had disappeared because the Order of Recordkeepers had stolen them.

No, not stolen – recovered to prevent its theft. But its theft actually happened because they were ‘recovered’ by the recordkeepers. But the recordkeepers would not have recovered it if it hadn’t been stolen. But it was stolen by being recovered, and…

Dismas shook his body around violently. Unlike most recordkeepers, he was not a deep thinker. He considered himself more of a man of action. Someone smarter than him could figure out this particular temporal paradox.

As for Dismas himself, the recordkeeper was now home, back in the Great Pyramid of Mesr in the 54^th century. He was ready to report the success of his mission to the Council of Ten, men who ruled the recordkeepers. They would have gotten the body by now and were most likely discussing its display.

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