1. Just One Damned Thing After Another (2 page)

From there we moved on to St Mary’s. He outlined the functions and set-up, giving the impression of a large, lively, and unconventional organisation. I found myself becoming more and more interested. There wasn’t any particular moment I could identify, but as he talked on, I began to feel I was missing something. This was a big campus. They had a security section and twenty-four-hour meals and plant and equipment and a technical department. He paused for a moment, shuffled a few papers, and asked me if I had any questions.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What’s Hawking?’

He didn’t answer for a while, then pushed himself back slightly from his desk and looked across at Mrs Partridge. She put down her scratchpad and left the room. I watched her go and then looked back at him. Something had changed.

He said, ‘How do you know about Hawking?’

‘Well,’ I said, slowly. ‘It’s not common knowledge of course, but …’ and let the sentence die away. Nine times out of ten that works, but sadly, not this time. He stared at me and the silence lengthened. ‘It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical establishment is named after the famous physicist.’

Still no response, but now I wasn’t going to say anything either. Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do. We gazed at each other for a while and it could have been interesting, but at this moment, Mrs Partridge re-entered, clutching a file, which she put in front of Dr Bairstow. He opened it and spread the papers across his desk.

‘Dr Maxwell, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but perhaps you could tell me what you do know.’

He’d called my bluff.

‘Absolutely nothing,’ I said. ‘I heard the name mentioned and wondered. I’m also curious about the large numbers of staff here. Why do you need security or technicians? And why do people need to know I haven’t had “the interview”? What’s going on here?’

‘I’m quite prepared to tell you everything you want to know, but first I must inform you that unless you sign these papers, I shall be unable to do so. Please be aware these documents are legally binding. The wording seems to be obscure legalese, but, make no mistake, if you ever divulge one word of what I am about to tell you now, then you will spend the next fifteen years, at least, in an establishment the existence of which no civil liberties organisation is even aware. Please take a minute to think very carefully before proceeding.’

Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people. ‘Do you have a pen?’

The obliging Mrs Partridge produced one and I signed and initialled an enormous number of documents. She took the pen back off me, which just about summed up our relationship.

‘And now,’ he said, ‘we will have some tea.’

By now, afternoon had become early evening. This was taking far longer than a simple researching job warranted. It was becoming apparent this was not a simple researching job. I felt a surge of anticipation. Something exciting was about to happen.

He cleared his throat. ‘Since you have not had the sense to run for the hills, you will now have the “other” tour.’

‘And this is the “other” interview?’

He smiled and stirred his tea.

‘Don’t you ever think that instead of research and archaeology and, let’s face it, guesswork, how much better it would be if we could actually return to any historical event and witness it for ourselves? To be able to say with authority, “Yes, the Princes in the Tower were alive at the end of Richard’s reign. And this I know because I saw them with my own eyes.”’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It would; although I can think of a few examples where such certainty would not be welcomed.’

He looked up sharply.

‘Such as?’

‘Well, a certain stable in Bethlehem for instance. Imagine if you pitched up with your Polaroid and the innkeeper flung open the door and said, “Come in. You’re my only guests and there’s plenty of room at the inn!” That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.’

‘An understatement. But you have nevertheless grasped the situation very clearly.’

‘So,’ I said, eyeing him closely, ‘maybe it’s good there’s no such thing as time travel.’

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘Or to qualify further, no such thing as public-access time travel.’

‘Exactly. Although the phrase “time travel” is so sci-fi. We don’t do that. Here at St Mary’s we
investigate major historical events in contemporary time
.’

Put like that, of course, it all made perfect sense.

‘So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of history lay before you like a shining ribbon, where would you go? What would you like to witness?’

‘The Trojan War,’ I said, words tumbling over each other. ‘Or the Spartans’ stand at Thermopylae. Or Henry at Agincourt. Or Stonehenge. Or the pyramids being built. Or see Persepolis before it burned. Or Hannibal getting his elephants over the Alps. Or go to Ur and find Abraham, the father of everything.’ I paused for breath. ‘I could do you a wish list.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps one day I shall ask you for one.’

He set down his cup. With hindsight, I can see how he was feeling his way through the interview, summing me up, drip-feeding information, watching my reactions. I must have done something right, because he said, ‘As a matter of interest, if you were offered the opportunity to visit one of the exciting events listed, would you take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just like that? Some people feel it incumbent to enquire about safe returns. Some people laugh. Some people express disbelief.’

‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t disbelieve. I think it’s perfectly possible. I just didn’t know it’s possible right now.’

He smiled, but said nothing, so I soldiered on. ‘What happens if you can’t get back?’

He looked at me pityingly. ‘Actually, that’s the least of the problem.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, you see, the technology has been around for some time. The biggest problem now is History itself.’

Yes, that made everything clear. But as Lisa Simpson once said, ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’ So I remained silent.

‘Think of History as a living organism, with its own defence mechanisms. History will not permit anything to change events that have already taken place. If History thinks, even for one moment, that that is about to occur, then it will, without hesitation, eliminate the threatening virus. Or historian, as we like to call them.

‘And it’s easy. How difficult is it to cause a ten-ton block of stone to fall on a potentially threatening historian observing the construction of Stonehenge? Another cup?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said, determined not to be outdone in sangfroid.

‘So,’ he said, handing me a cup. ‘Let me ask you again. Suppose you were offered the opportunity to visit sixteenth-century London to witness, say, the coronation parade of Elizabeth I – you see, it’s not all battlefields and blood – would you still want to go?’

‘Yes.’

‘You understand very clearly that this would be on an observation and documentation basis only? Interaction of any kind is not only extremely unwise, it is usually strictly forbidden.’

‘If I was to be offered any such opportunity, I would understand that very clearly.’

‘Please be honest, Dr Maxwell, is this admirable calm because deep down, very deep down, you think I’m clearly insane and this is going to be one to tell in the pub tonight?’

‘Actually, Dr Bairstow, deep down, very deep down, I’m having a shit-hot party.’

He laughed.

Waiting in Mrs Partridge’s office sat the quiet, dark man with the startling eyes I’d met on the stairs.

‘I’ll leave you with the Chief,’ Dr Bairstow said, gathering up some papers and data cubes. ‘You’re in for an interesting afternoon, Dr Maxwell. Enjoy.’

We left his office and headed down the long corridor I’d noticed before. I experienced the oddest sensation of entering into another world. The windows, set at regular intervals along one side, cast pools of sunlight along the floor and we passed from light to dark, from warm to cool, from this world into another. At the end of the corridor was a key-coded door.

We entered a large foyer area with another set of big doors opposite.

‘Blast doors,’ he said, casually.

Of course, what was I thinking? Every historical establishment needs blast doors. On my right, a flight of stairs led upwards with a large, hospital-sized lift alongside. ‘To Sick Bay,’ he said. On the left, a corridor with a few unlabelled doors disappeared into the gloom.

‘This way,’ he said. Did the man never say more than two or three words together?

The big doors opened into a huge, echoing, hangar-style space. I could see two glassed-in areas at the far end.

‘Those are offices. One for IT,’ he gestured at the left room. ‘And one for us technicians.’ He gestured right. An overhead gantry ran down one side with three or four blue jump-suited figures leaning on the rail. They appeared to be waiting for something.

‘Historians,’ he said, following my stare. ‘They wear blue. Technicians wear orange, IT is in black, and Security wears green. Number Three is due back soon. This is the welcoming committee.’

‘That’s … nice,’ I said.

He frowned. ‘It’s a dangerous and difficult job. There’s no support structure for what we do. We have to look after each other, hence the welcoming committee; to show support and to talk them down.’

‘Down from what?’

‘From whatever happened to the crew on this assignment.’

‘How do you know something happened?’

He sighed. ‘They’re historians. Something always happens.’

Ranged down each side of the hangar stood two rows of raised plinths. Huge, thick, black cables snaked around them and coiled off into dim recesses. Some plinths were empty; others had small hut-like structures squatting on them. Each was slightly different in size or shape and each one looked like a small, dingy shack, stone-built, flat-roofed with no windows; the sort of structure that could be at home anywhere from Mesopotamian Ur to a modern urban allotment. Prop a rickety, hand-made ladder against a wall and with a broken wheel by the door and a couple of chickens pecking around, they would be invisible.

‘And these are?’ I asked, gesturing.

He smiled for the first time. ‘These are our base of operations. We call them pods. When on assignment, our historians live and work in these. Numbers One and Two.’ He pointed. ‘We usually use them as simulators and for training purposes, because they’re small and basic. Pod Three is due back anytime now. Pod Five is being prepped to go out. Pod Six is out. Pod Eight is also out.’

‘Where are Pods Four and Seven?’

He said quietly, ‘Lost,’ and stood in silence. I could almost hear the dust motes dancing in the quiet shafts of sunlight.

‘When you say “lost,” do you mean you don’t know where they are, or they never came back for some reason?’

‘Either. Or both. Four went to twelfth-century Jerusalem as part of an assignment to document the Crusades. They never reported back and all subsequent rescue attempts failed. Seven jumped to early Roman Britain, St Albans, and we never found them either.’

‘But you looked?’

‘Oh yes, for weeks afterwards. We never leave our people behind. But we never found them, or their pods.’

‘How many people did you lose?’

‘In those two incidents, five historians altogether. Their names are on the Boards in the chapel.’ He saw my look of confusion. ‘They’re our Roll of Honour for those who don’t come back, or die, or both. Our attrition rate is high. Did Dr Bairstow not mention this?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He …’ I was going to ask how high, but a light began flashing over the plinth marked Three. Orange figures appeared from nowhere it seemed, lugging umbilicals, cables, flatbeds and the tools of their trade. And quietly, with no fuss, no fanfare, and certainly no signature tune from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Pod Three materialised on its plinth.

Nothing happened.

I looked up at the Chief. ‘Um …’

‘We don’t go in. They come out.’

‘Why?’

‘They need to decontaminate. You know, plague, smallpox, cholera, that sort of thing. We shouldn’t go in until they do.’

‘But what if they’re injured?’

At that moment, the door opened and a voice shouted, ‘Medic!’

Orange technicians parted like the Red Sea and two apparent medics trotted down the hangar. They disappeared into the pod.

‘What’s happening? Who’s in there?’

‘Number Three? That would be Lower and Baverstock, returning from early 20th-century China, the Boxer Rebellion. It looks as if they require medical attention, but not seriously.’

‘How do you know?’

‘When you’ve seen as many returns as we have then you get a feel for it. They’ll be fine.’

We both stood in silence watching the door until eventually two people, a man and a woman, dressed in oriental clothing, limped out. One had a dressing over one eye and the other’s arm was strapped up. They both looked up at the gantry and waved. The blue people waved and shouted insults. They and the medics headed off. Orange technicians swarmed around the pod.

‘Would you like to have a look?’

‘Yes, please.’

Close up, the pod looked even more anonymous and unimposing than it had been from the other end of the hangar.

‘Door,’ he said and a battered-looking, wooden-looking door swung soundlessly open. After the enormous hangar, the inside of the pod seemed small and constricted.

‘The head and shower room are in there,’ he said, pointing to a partitioned corner. ‘Here we have the controls.’ A console with an incomprehensible array of read-outs, flashing lights, dials, and switches sat beneath a large, wall-mounted screen. The external cameras now showed only a view of the hangar. Two scuffed and uncomfortable looking swivel seats were fixed to the floor in front of the controls.

‘The computer can be operated manually or voice activated if you want someone to talk to. There are lockers around the walls with all the equipment required for your assignment. Sleeping modules here pull out when needed. This pod can sleep up to three reasonably comfortably, four at a push.’