3. A Second Chance (3 page)

Help came from an unexpected source.

I didn’t notice, to begin with, but our progress became easier. People stepped aside to let us pass and then closed again behind us. I thought I was imagining it to begin with, but, no, the noise behind us increased as the crowds hampered our pursuers.

I knew there was no love between town and gown. In 1630 the colleges had refused to give aid to victims of the plague, even going so far as to lock their doors against the sick. Maybe relations between them were still a bit iffy.

For whatever reason, we were drawing away from them and slowed down. What a pleasant change to have someone on our side for once. I began to regret my possibly too-hasty opinion of beautiful Cambridge and its lovely inhabitants.

I could still hear uproar behind us. A familiar sound. People shouted at us, at the pursuing students, at the barking dogs. The pursuing students and the dogs barked back. You never heard such a racket.

Definitely time to go.

I picked up my skirts and ran again. Beside me, Professor Penrose ran quite nimbly for someone his age. I fumbled inside my cloak for my pepper spray, just in case.

A group of scruffy young men lounging outside The Black Bear, alerted by the shouts behind us, turned and, seeing us running, spread out across the road to prevent our escape.

Avoiding this bunch of alcohol-soaked ne’er-do-wells – or students, as they’re generically known – we turned right. Bloody students. Why were they always hanging around pubs when they should be at their studies? I never did that. We swerved down an alleyway, fortunately going in the right direction. Because I knew where we were. We were behind Holy Trinity church, somewhere in the maze between Sidney Street and Trinity Street and luckily hurtling the right way. A hand grabbed my cloak. I turned, closed my eyes, and squirted. He fell back with a cry, both hands to his face. The shouting intensified.

At the bottom of the alleyway, we should go right. I could see a corner of the pod, just to the left of an archway.

Someone seized me again. The professor spun around and delivered a left hook that sent him reeling. My assailant fell sideways onto three stacked boxes of fruit. They and he fell across the alleyway.

‘College boxing champion in my day,’ panted the professor.

The alleyway was full of people, all shouting at us. But our way ahead was clear. I pulled over two barrels, fortunately empty, and sent them rolling down the alley.

‘Go, Professor, go.’

He didn’t argue, he knew he was the slower. I could catch him up later. The alleyway was lined with all sorts of useful detritus. Broken chairs, crates, piles of rubbish, the odd dead dog … I threw everything I could in my wake. Anything to slow them down. I’m not a bad sprinter and all I had to do was stay ahead of them.

A huge, red-faced man wearing a stained leather apron stepped out ahead of me, his mighty arms outspread. He should be so lucky. I gave him a quick squirt and he bellowed with pain and, as he covered his face, I managed to squeeze between him and the wall.

Eddie stood by the pod at the end of the alley. Bless him, he’d armed himself with a stick and, from the look on his face, was prepared to use it. Ignoring Major Guthrie’s careful training, I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. Not a good idea. I could hear the Major’s voice now. ‘Never mind what’s going on behind you. You’ll find out soon enough if you stop to look.’

There weren’t as many of them as I had thought from the noise. But they were close. I couldn’t afford to be caught. Without me the professor wouldn’t be able to get into the pod. And in the seventeenth century the penalty for theft was hanging. In my case, they’d probably chuck in a few charges of witchcraft as well. I really should get an office job.

Something whizzed past my ear. Great! Now they were throwing stones.

No, they weren’t. Professor Penrose was throwing stones. And old vegetables, bits of wood, pots, anything he could lay his hands on. He’d probably bowled for his college as well. The threatening shouts behind me became warning shouts.

Ignoring everything going on around me, I ducked my head and raced for the pod.

And then, just as I thought we were safe, two more men appeared from behind the pod and seized the professor’s arms. He struggled. They weren’t gentle and I feared for his ancient bones.

Time to bring out the big guns.

I reached behind me for the stun gun under my cloak. We’re really not supposed to do this. I zapped one man and he fell backwards, twitching.

I tossed the pepper spray to the professor, shouting, ‘Point it away from you, Eddie,’ because he was a physicist and you never know.

Hands seized me. I twisted away and zapped blindly. I heard another cry and clatter as someone else crashed to the ground in a convulsing heap. It was only a matter of time now – yes, here we go – ‘Witch! Witch!’

You couldn’t blame them, I suppose. From their point of view, I stretched out an arm and a man fell to the ground. Predictable, but given that this was supposed to be a world-famous seat of learning in the Age of Reason, I was a little disappointed. On the other hand, I’m a Thirsk graduate myself, and nothing other universities do surprises me very much.

We were within about ten feet of the pod. So near and yet so far. Some citizens had drawn back, leaving four or five of their braver brethren to tackle the woman and the old man.

If I’d had Peterson, or Clerk, or Van Owen, or any of them, it would have been a piece of cake. This sort of thing happened so often it was practically the standard end to most of our assignments.

I heard the professor shout, heard another shriek as someone got a face full – with luck not the professor himself – jabbed an elbow into someone’s midriff, swung a fist, and caught something hard. And, once again, I’d forgotten to untuck my thumb, and, once again, it hurt.

It really wasn’t one of those nice, clean, carefully choreographed Hollywood fights where the stunningly beautiful heroine – that would be me – tastefully attired in skin-tight black leather and impractical heels, destroys an entire platoon of heavily armed opponents without even breaking a fingernail.

I slipped and slithered in whatever the good folk of Cambridge had been happily tossing into their streets that morning, aimed punches that missed, got tangled up in my own cloak, was nearly sprayed by an excited Professor Penrose, zapped another one, and worried I would run out of charge.

Then, suddenly, I was free. Two men lay on the ground. One still stood but had his hands to his face, moaning. Two men still had hold of the professor and as I looked, the nearer one let go and reached for me. I zapped him and twisted past. At the same time, Eddie let loose with the spray. All the other citizens had fallen well back by now, but I could hear distant shouting and running footsteps.

I shouted, ‘Door!’ and seized Eddie, who squirted again, following through with the classic knee to the groin. I made a note never,
ever
to mess with a septuagenarian theoretical physicist.

I whirled him into the pod before he could victoriously trample on his fallen foe. Someone caught my cloak again and tried to drag me back out. I lashed backwards with my foot and caught him, painfully, I hoped, on the shin. But we couldn’t get the door closed and in a few seconds there would be others and once they were inside the pod, we were finished. I reached up to my hair and pulled out a wickedly sharpened hairpin. Always my weapon of choice. I jabbed viciously – once, twice, and someone cursed.

The professor knotted his hands in my assailant’s hair and tried to pull him off me. We all staggered backwards and fell heavily across the console.

Which was not good.

Lights flashed. Alarms sounded.

The computer said, ‘Emergency extraction requested.’

I shrieked, ‘No. Abort. Abort.’

I yanked the man off the professor and shoved him towards the door, all the time screaming, ‘Abort. Computer, abort extraction,’ and completely forgetting the authorisation code.

The door was open. We can’t jump with the door open. We shouldn’t be able to jump with the door open. And we certainly didn’t want emergency extraction. We were about to be ripped out of Cambridge at nose-bleeding speed …

I heaved the man out of the door – although actually, I don’t think he could get out fast enough. None of his friends had followed him in and here he was, alone in this talking box … he took to his heels.

I slapped the manual switch. The door closed cutting off the noise of the angry citizenry of Cambridge baying for our blood, albeit from a safe distance.

‘Professor, hold on tight! Brace for impact!’

Too late.

The world went black.

Chapter Three

I rolled over. Every bone in my body hurt. I’d done this before and it still wasn’t any fun. That’s why emergency extraction is for emergencies only.

I remembered I had a passenger.

‘Professor Penrose?’

He stirred.

‘Lie still, Professor. Don’t try to get up just yet. They’ll open the door in a minute and we’ll get you up to Sick Bay.’

I was wasting my breath.

‘My goodness me,’ he said, delightedly. ‘That was exciting. Can we do it again?’

‘Are you injured at all, Professor?’

‘I don’t believe so. A little winded, of course. It’s been a long time since I had to exert myself to that extent.’

He seemed in remarkably good nick for an elderly academic who had been pursued through the muddy streets of Cambridge by a baying mob before being hurled through time and space like something in a welly whanging contest. I scanned him anxiously. I didn’t want him having a heart attack.

I helped him sit and, suddenly wondering what was taking Chief Farrell so long to get to us, turned to look at the screen.

Never have the words
now we’re in trouble
been so appropriate.

‘Oh dear,’ said the professor. ‘This doesn’t look good.’

He was right. The view from the screen definitely didn’t look good at all.

That wasn’t what he was talking about. He held up his hand, which was red with blood.

And the day just got worse.

‘It’s OK, Professor, I’m trained for this. Can you lie back down on the floor for me? Does anything hurt? Is there any pain?’

‘No. Although now you mention it, I do feel a little giddy. It must be the excitement.’

It was probably blood loss. Somehow, he’d been stabbed. High up on his left shoulder. He hadn’t noticed in the excitement and I hadn’t noticed because of his dark clothing. He wasn’t gushing, but he had a narrow, deep wound from which blood oozed unspectacularly but steadily. I bound him up, elevated his feet, and, at his request, made him some tea.

‘It’s like donating blood, Max. They always give you a cup of tea.’

I sat beside him on the floor. ‘I have to hand it to you, Eddie. You’re bleeding all over the floor and clutching your tea like a pro. We’ll definitely have to make you an honorary member of St Mary’s.’

He chuckled.

‘I’m just going to leave you for a moment and sort out a few things with the controls.’

A splendidly ambiguous sentence that could mean absolutely anything. I really didn’t like the look of this. We might have been better off in Cambridge.

The screen showed nothing. And I really mean nothing. Not black, not white, not electronic snow. The screen showed nothing. I checked the controls. There was no fault with the equipment inside or the cameras outside. The screen showed nothing because there was nothing to show.

I looked at the chronometer. Baffled. It read zero. I watched for a few seconds, but the read-out was unchanging. I flicked it on and off, but the result was the same. According to the chronometer, no time was passing. The read-out said zero and zero it remained.

I checked the outside sensor readings for atmosphere, temperature, all the usual stuff.

Nothing.

Again, all the instruments were working perfectly. There was simply nothing for them to read. There was nothing out there. Nothing at all. We were surrounded by nothing.

‘What is it, Max? What’s wrong?’

I couldn’t explain because I didn’t know. My instinct was to say something comforting, but that wasn’t fair on him. He was an intelligent man – a leader in his field. And a good man to have around in a scrap as well.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Eddie. Computer – verify date and location.’

The reply was usually instantaneous, but now there was a very definite time lag of some four or five seconds.

‘Unverifiable.’

‘Computer, please confirm date and location of previous jump.’

‘Cambridge, 1668.’

‘Computer, confirm date and location of current jump.’

‘Unable to comply.’

‘Computer, why?

‘Specify.’

Bloody thing.

‘Computer, why can you not identify our current location?’

‘Current location unidentifiable.’

‘Why?’

‘Rephrase.’

I gritted my teeth.

‘Why is the current location unidentifiable?’

‘There is no current location.’

‘Why is the current date unidentifiable?’

‘There is no current date.’

‘Computer, what is outside?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Define nothing.’

Now there was a very long pause.

‘The absence of anything.’

‘Is that what is outside? The absence of anything? Confirm.’

An even longer pause.

‘Confirmed.’

Right. We were out of here. This was definitely not a place to be.

‘No cause for alarm, Eddie,’ I said, resetting the coordinates for St Mary’s as fast as I could go. We’ll soon have you home. You’ll get the traditional bollocking from Dr Foster for having got yourself stabbed and then you really will be one of us.’

I threw the final switch. ‘Off we go. Computer, initiate jump.’

Nothing happened.

‘Computer, initiate jump.’

Nothing happened.

Oh … shit.

‘I think,’ said Eddie, struggling to sit up, ‘that I should have a look.’

No, he shouldn’t. He should remain on the floor, conserving his strength. On second thoughts, what for? A longer and more lingering death? And I was clueless. I had no idea what had happened. Or where we were. The giant brain of Professor Penrose might just have some answers.

I helped him up and got him into a chair. We studied the read-outs, which didn’t take long. Everything was either blank or read zero.

He said, quietly, ‘Give me a minute, Max, will you?’ and sat thoughtfully sipping his tea.

I stowed the pepper spray and stun gun. The cause of all the trouble, my little round mirror, lay on the floor. One or both of us had obviously trodden on it, because it was cracked.

Seven years bad luck.

I should live so long.

‘The mirror crack’d from side to side;

“The curse is come upon me,” cried

The Lady of Shalott,’
intoned Professor Penrose, which I could well have done without.

I sat down again and stared at the console. Nothing had changed.

I’m not religious. On assignments I tend to place my faith in any local gods hanging around, Osiris, Odin, Athena, Marduk, whoever, because there’s no point in tempting fate. At any other time I just tend to drop everything in the lap of a vaguely believed-in god of historians, with instructions to sort everything out as soon as possible, so I don’t know what made me think of that bit in the Bible:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

From the King James version, obviously. Only Christians could replace the majesty and awe of the King James Bible with something as dreary and uninspiring as a directive from the English Egg Marketing Board and then wonder why no one takes them seriously any more.

I pulled myself together. I could hear the usual background electronic hum of the pod, but otherwise everything was horribly silent.

Eddie stirred. ‘Well, let’s put together what we know, shall we? We don’t know where we are because, according to out instruments, we’re not anywhere. We’re nowhere. We don’t know when and, according to our instruments, no time is passing outside. We don’t know what’s out there because, again, according to our instruments, there’s nothing out there. This is fascinating, Max. Absolutely fascinating.’

He was as bad as us historians. Faced with impending catastrophe, an historian will always pause in the headlong dash to safety and think –
Oh, that’s interesting. The Spartans didn’t always tie up their hair, after all.
Sometimes, of course, that’s the last thing they do think. Professor Penrose was obviously made of The Right Stuff. Historian stuff.

‘In what way, Professor?’

‘Well, look at us. We’re inside this little box – pod, rather, and we’re all right. We can move and speak, so obviously time is passing for us. In here, everything is as it should be. It’s out there that’s the problem.’

We had problems in here too, actually. For a start, Eddie was turning very pale. He waved me away. ‘No, no. I’m fine. Just thinking,’ and stared thoughtfully at the screen.

And secondly, not immediately, but soon, it would start to get very stuffy inside the pod. We don’t carry oxygen. Why would we? We’re supposed to be able to open the bloody door and step outside.

I sat quietly because Eddie was thinking. And because sitting quietly conserves oxygen. Of which we would soon have very little.

Just for something to do, I reset the co-ordinates. Again, the jump failed.

‘I don’t understand this, Professor. Everything is working. It’s just – not working.’

He put his hands over mine.

‘I’ve had an idea. Let’s not try to get back to St Mary’s. Let’s go back to Cambridge. We’ll be quite safe there, so long as we don’t open the door. Let’s keep it simple, Max. Just throw it into reverse gear and go back to Cambridge.’

‘Excellent idea, Professor.’

And it was.

It just didn’t work. Once again, the jump failed.

He sat back, suddenly looking his age. I found him a blanket. He declined another cup of tea. His pulse was very erratic. I feared for him again.

‘How about …’ I said, a little reluctant to expose my ignorance to such a giant intellect. ‘How about, Professor … we just switch everything off and then back on again. Always works for me when my data-table’s got itself into a tangle.’

He brightened. ‘Excellent idea, Max. We’ll make a physicist of you yet.’

‘Before you get too excited, Eddie – there’s a possibility that not only will it not work but we won’t be able to power up again and then we’ll be even worse off than we are now.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said, confidently.

I crossed to the trip switch, looked back at him, and said, ‘Ready?’

He nodded eagerly.

I tripped the switch and we were plunged into the darkest dark I’ve ever known. After a few seconds, the battery-operated emergency light came on over the door.

‘Count to twenty-nine,’ said Eddie, in the dim glow, ‘then throw the switch on again.’

‘Why twenty-nine?’

‘My favourite number.’

So, feeling rather foolish, I counted steadily to twenty-nine, took a deep breath, and threw the switch.

A click, a rising hum, and with a couple of electronic beeps, the console lit up again.

And nothing had changed.

We were still trapped in the middle of nowhere, with a dwindling supply of oxygen and everything was working but not working.

I returned to the console, sat down, and had a bit of a think. I was in charge of this assignment and it was balls to the wall time.

‘Well, now,’ I said, quietly. ‘We have choices.’

‘We do indeed,’ he said, heavily. ‘Shall we discuss them?’

‘I don’t know where we are, but I don’t think we’re going to get out of this.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Don’t I what?’

‘Know where we are.’

‘Of course not. According to our instruments, we’re not anywhere.’

‘No,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘We’re not, are we? Sorry. Continue.’

‘We can end this sooner or we can end this later. Your thoughts, please.’

‘Well, in my case, it doesn’t make much difference. I’m beginning to feel very cold and weak. I suspect I’ll lose consciousness soon and I’ll never wake up. It’s you who has the decision to make, Max. Do you want to spin it out for hours and die, frost-covered and gasping for your last breath, or go on your own terms and in your own time?’

‘I don’t want to spin this out, Eddie.’

‘No.’

‘But then again, I don’t want to die, either. I have a future waiting for me. I won’t give up yet.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. I rather had the impression you were … undecided about one or two things.’

Once again, he saw more than was comfortable. ‘Now,’ he said decisively. ‘I’m going to have a bit of a think. Give me a poke in five minutes in case I’ve dropped off.’

I took the time to have a bit of a think myself. I thought about Leon Farrell. Then Troy. Then I thought about how pleased I was to have done that in the right order for once. I reviewed my life and then went back and replayed some edited highlights. There were a lot more of those than I once thought there would be.

Professor Penrose stirred. ‘I have an idea. It’s a very bad one.’

‘They’re often the best sort, Eddie. Tell me.’

‘We open the door.’

What? Was he out of his mind? Had blood loss affected his brain? I stared at him. ‘The benefits being …?’

‘Out there is nothing. In here is something. Matter exists. Time is passing. We open the door. Something collides with nothing. That collision may – may – kick-start the jump. It’s not a solution, Max. We almost certainly won’t survive. All I’m offering is uncertain death rather than certain death.’

I considered.

‘It’ll be a hell of bang.’

‘It certainly will.’

‘I’d have to override the safety protocols.’

‘Can you?

‘I think so.’

‘We’ll only need a tiny, minute fraction of a second. Just enough for an infinitesimal amount of something to … escape. No more. Can your computer handle something that small?’

‘No idea. Doesn’t matter really, does it?’

‘No, not really.’

I considered how to phrase this.

‘Computer, on my mark, disengage safety protocols. Point zero zero zero one of one second later, re-instate protocols, close the door, and make the pre-set jump to St Mary’s. Authorisation Maxwell, five zero alpha nine eight zero four bravo.’ I crossed my fingers. ‘Confirm.’

‘Confirmed.’

‘Well, there you are, Eddie. It says it will. Whether it can, of course … Will we survive this?’

‘If it helps, Max, if it doesn’t work, it will all be over very quickly.’

‘Understood.’

We were silent.

‘Max, I’m sorry to have got you into this.’

‘Eddie, the fault is mine. I should have looked after you better.’