The Basingstoke Chronicles (5 page)

"Amen!" chimed Ethel, sparking her own mocking tone as she lit the second burner
beneath a pan of something spicy. "But we're not going to get very far with that attitude now, are
we?"

Dumitrescu wasted no time. "That's my point exactly. We can talk till death comes
knocking, and still we will have found no ingress [into] the enigma of time travel. This time
machine, Henry, wields a power with which humanity has no right to interfere."

"He's right, Henry," agreed Sam. "You've said it yourself, time is an inextricable part of
the universe in motion--a stabilizer. Therefore, meddling with time is meddling with the very
thing that's holding everything together. We'd be wise not to upset that kind of logic. After all, as
Georghe says, we haven't the slightest idea of how it works."

Rodrigo disapproved. "So what? I don't have a damn clue how my car engine works, but
I drive it through a busy town every day, trusting everyone's life, including my own, to whoever
built the thing."

"Yes, but from past experience you know the car to be safe enough to permit that risk,"
Dumitrescu argued.

"And the same goes for this time machine," replied the Cuban. "Think on it. I count at
least two journeys made already. Starting from when it was built--let's say the very distant
future--it had to have traveled back through time to seven thousand BCE, where the new occupant must
have used it to escape a fiery end, hurling himself forward through time to 1979. Two
journeys--one back and one forward. I'd say that makes for a pretty successful test of time travel."

Rodrigo was a man after my own heart. The tiniest hint that he might survive a foray into
the unknown was all the permission he needed to pack his rucksack and begin the trek. Though
he was only a few years younger than I, he was far more confident, and seemed to regard
boldness as a matter of duty. To me, it was always more of a challenge.

"That's the most reckless statement I've ever--" Sam said.

"Sshh!" Ethel motioned towards something outside? "Can anyone else hear that?"

The deluge had ceased, leaving us in complete silence below deck. We heard it straight
away, the soft whirr of a vessel on the starboard side. To our surprise, it seemed to be
approaching.

Sam and Rodrigo leapt up immediately and rushed to the deck. The rest of us followed. I
was more curious than alarmed; after what I had just experienced, I could afford to take a few
things in my stride.

A warm gust dispelled the lingering chill as the five of us stood, bunched, to observe the
vessel. A dense fog bank rolled in from the north, concealing the strange boat completely. Would
she steer close enough for us to identify her at all? A hundred yards apart is a thousand leagues
astray in the grip of an impenetrable sea mist.

"Best not take any chances," said Sam to Rodrigo.

"
Sí
," replied the Cuban, making immediately for his cabin, from where
he delivered a double blast of the yacht's horn. There was no reply. Again, he made our presence
known. No reply. On the first boom of the third call, however, a slightly higher-pitched echo
overlapped, prompting us to listen more carefully. After a few seconds, a loud reply volleyed
through the fog.

"Well, at least she knows where we are," Sam explained.

No sooner had he finished when Dumitrescu pointed through the mist.

"Yes!" he said, guiding our eyes to a trail of light which seeped through the edge of the
bank. "There she is!"

Sam Croft, ever wont to take the initiative, cupped his hands over his mouth to deliver a
second course of maritime etiquette. "
Ahoy!
"

A deep, accented voice responded in kind from across the gulf. I winced as I recognized
the awful timbre, and the man to match. It was none other than my Highland colleague,
MacDuff.

"Oh, boy," Ethel mumbled, "we've got some explaining to do."

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"He's been sniffing around for the past five days or so, diving at a none-too-discreet
distance, though we haven't seen him for a while. No doubt he heard about your disappearance.
Who knows, perhaps he's just been waiting for us to leave. But something tells me he won't
swallow your resurrection without a dose of skepticism. What shall we say?"

"Whatever it is, there's no accounting for me being here, at the very place where I
vanished. Not after eight days."

The yacht drew nearer and I could think of no viable story. Dumitrescu then stepped in.
"Let me handle this."

As the Scotsman maneuvered his vessel alongside ours, Dumitrescu leapt across with
great agility.

The Romanian spent a good ten minutes aboard with MacDuff, and though out of earshot
I felt I could translate every tick and turn of their interactions, so much importance had I attached
to the Scotsman's presence.

Had I left the time machine for him to find? Had I interfered with its camouflage
somehow, rendering it more visible?

Might his party have the same urge I had had--to wander down for a closer inspection of
the sea bed?

Could I risk
him
discovering it? I thought not. But what could any of us do if he
stayed in the vicinity, or even chose to dive there and then?

Whatever Dumitrescu told him, I could not afford to leave the time machine unguarded.
Not for another moment.

Suddenly, the hairs on my neck bristled with excitement. I gasped and, studying my
friends in turn, tried to figure which of them might participate, that night, in an impromptu
getaway... Through time...

Dumitrescu, ever the diplomat, neither smiled nor frowned as he jumped back aboard. I
was surprised to see MacDuff wave to us as he disengaged; to my knowledge, the gesture was a
new one in his repertoire. Despite waving back, I was unmoved.

"You see, even a snake can be charmed," whispered Sam.

"But the venom can't," replied Ethel.

"I don't like it," I said. "He suspects something."

Dumitrescu nodded. "I told him how you had drifted too far after being injured, and were
lucky to happen upon a fishing boat that second day, and how they barely managed to revive you.
Then, just as you said, he enquired as to why you would be out here again, at this same
spot."

"You're a born liar, sir," quipped Rodrigo.

"Why, thank you, Senor Quintas. I then explained how Henry had wanted to join us for
the final leg of the expedition, stubborn as he is."

"Did he believe you?" I asked.

"I couldn't be certain, but he is diving tomorrow morning, whether we like it or not."

"In that case..." I waited until the faces of my four friends turned to me with quizzical
expressions. "...tonight it is, then."

Rodrigo shook my hand enthusiastically, while the others, after silent deliberation, gave
merely noncommittal nods.

"You don't share my urgency?" I asked.

"Not at all," replied Sam. "But we know how much this means to you. You've always
said you want to experience something unequivocal. Well, we're not about to stand in your way
now.
That would be rather unsporting of us, old boy."

Ethel put her arms round her husband then said to me, "Go get 'em, tiger."

* * * *

The fidgety slumber of the ocean tossed moonlight fragments over the entire midnight
expanse. Three black shapes shrank as they drifted away from us, toward the submerged
machine. Sublimely camouflaged, they were my friends and guarantors: Dumitrescu, Rodrigo
and Sam.

Ethel opened my water-tight plastic carrier and dropped something inside. It was
wrapped in a small towel.

"You'll thank me for this, I promise," she said, pulling the cord tight and handing me the
now heavier bag.

I strained to find the right words. "You're sure you don't want to come?" was the best I
could muster.

She kissed me on each cheek, before ruffling my hair. "I'm sure. Don't worry, you'll find
what you're looking for someday, Lord Basingstoke."

I climbed down the steel ladder at the boat's stern, blew her a final kiss goodbye and
slipped into the cool ocean. I glimpsed Ethel, barely distinguishable from the enveloping night, as
I took my last unfiltered breath of 1979. Was that what she saw me as--a lonely figure, without
any real definition?

Perhaps she understood what I did not.

The four of us were careful not to switch on our torches until we were well underwater.
Stealth was our ally. I led the descent, closely followed by Rodrigo, who readied a fistful of flares
at my signal. The topography had etched itself onto my memory. We were very close to our
destination. Indeed, the first flare vanished for a moment and then spun into a new trajectory as it
fell.

Bullseye!

Rodrigo needed no further instruction. Ensuring each of his flares fell at a comfortable
distance from the anomaly, he soon arranged a perimeter of light around the site of sand and flat
rock.

As much as I love diving, it can be an immensely frustrating experience. I wanted to talk
my friends through each step of my discovery, but I could not say a word. They were
mesmerized--who wouldn't be--but I would have given anything to hear what they were
thinking.

One by one, they traced the streamlined exterior, negotiated their way through the legs of
the craft and followed my lead into its belly. Gone was the turquoise pigment which had lit my
earlier meddling. In its place, a faint amber skirt enwrapped the lower half of the chamber.

It is hard to imagine how we must have looked, huddled together in the time machine,
pouring over the indecipherable panel of functions by torchlight. We hardly moved for
twenty-five minutes. None of us dared risk breathing the unknown pocket of atmosphere; all of us were
transfixed by this otherworldly creation in its tactile glory. Yet, what chance had we to adjust,
literally standing in the future, by way of the past?

Sam switched off his torch and bade us do the same. The flares had long since expired.
We were in utter darkness. A power cut at home can't compare, as the sensation is usually
grounded by a familiarity with one's surroundings. Here not even the air could be trusted.

It quickly became clear what Sam had done. Glancing down to the panel, I noticed a
faint aqua-blue glow highlighting two of the symbols. One was the function I had already
activated; the other, located on the far left, depicted a pyramid of interlocking circles. It was as
cryptic as the others, but telling all the same.

If a symbol is highlighted upon touch, then the second symbol must also have been
activated recently.

Dumitrescu was right. From whenever the mystery passenger had traveled, his journey
had to have been measured by this function.

An incremental scale? I recalled Sam's hypothesis. Obviously not decimal, each symbol
bore no resemblance to any other. Perhaps they were more akin to Roman numerology, in which
not all increments are derived from a set pool of digits. I'd seen insanely elaborate combinations
before; perhaps we were dealing with the same fundamental principles.

Despite what some would say, I do have quite a logical mind at my disposal, which, on
occasion, I can put to good use.

Common logic would prescribe the shortest route from A to B to be the most efficient
methodology. Could this panel denote the simplest way of categorizing time
travel
, as
opposed to just time? Don't forget, jumping through time is breaking all the rules as we know
them.

Rodrigo flicked on his torch and, pointing to his wrist watch, signaled we couldn't afford
to dally any longer. The silent tour was over. As I shook hands with Sam and Dumitrescu,
excitement surged through me.

One after the other, they vanished beneath the hull. I saw the faintest outline of their
torch beams on the chamber wall outside. Had they stopped to observe? The remainder of the
interior was black. Whatever the material, it did not reflect, even dimly, the light from our own
torches. Rodrigo and I looked at one other, crossing beams to see what each might say with his
body language. To my surprise and in contrast to how I felt, he appeared cool and collected--a
responsible mind-frame through which to embark.

He motioned toward the panel, inviting me to take the initiative. In the darkness, he must
have misjudged his distance from the display, and struck it with his hand. I pulled him away
immediately. But it was too late. The vibration began. We flashed our torch lights feverishly
about the chamber. After a few seconds it was hard to distinguish them from the turquoise
flickers whose frequency soon accelerated exponentially. The vibration, too, sped up beneath our
feet. It quickly became so fast as to be smooth in a kind of oscillatory dissolve. I felt a wonderful
pins-and-needles sensation seep across my shins.

A dark blue replaced the alternating turquoise and black. We were obviously tearing
through time at a tremendous clip, but how far and in which direction? Inspecting the panel, I
found that Rodrigo had activated the symbol farthest left. More specifically, its function
beneath.

Christ! The largest possible step backwards.

I shuddered. About to reverse the command by touching the upper function, I suddenly
recoiled. It was a good thing I did, too. For as we had not reached our new destination, any fresh
calculation would have been from our
current
position in time. It would therefore not
have returned us to 1979 at all. Instead, it may have lost us to some incalculable future date. The
folly might easily have ruined our chances of ever seeing home again.

Every breath we inhaled was akin to real time slipping away. I began to doubt if the
thing would ever choose to stop. Finally it did, and by the same shift in vibration, only in reverse,
we eased to a graceful rest.

All right, where the hell are we?
I thought, as I replied to Rodrigo's thumbs up
in kind.

Everything appeared exactly as it had at our time of departure, and for a second I thought
we hadn't moved at all.