And Now For Something Completely Different

by Jodi Taylor

  ‘Er ... no, ma’am. I’m not pregnant.’

  Things hung in the balance for a moment and then settled down again. Looking around her as if noticing for the first time, Commander Hay demanded to know the whereabouts of her senior officers.

  Captain Farenden was tactful. ‘I believe, ma’am, their duties this morning have caused them to ...’

  ‘To be five hundred years and a thousand miles away.’ He smiled reluctantly. ‘Something like that, ma’am.’

  ‘So they sent you.’

  ‘I would have come anyway.’

  There was just enough steel in his voice to make his point.

  ‘Sorry, Charlie. I really don’t pay you enough for this, do I?’

  ‘Not nearly enough, ma’am. A point I intend to bring up at length during my personal appraisal next month.’

  ‘Good of you to warn me.’

  ‘I wanted to give you plenty of time to marshal your arguments against paying me a wage commensurate with my skills and experience. Are you feeling more yourself now?’

  Silence fell. Outside, a commercial dirigible began the slow climb to the Calais air corridor. It is entirely possible that both Commander Hay and Captain Farenden wished they were aboard.

  She picked up her paper knife again. ‘Could someone please jump back to St Mary’s, present my compliments to Director Pinkerton and request a few minutes of her time, if she would be so good.’

  ‘I’ll see to it at once, ma’am.’

  He limped from the room.

  Some time later, Captain Farenden ushered in a stocky, square woman who wore her sandy hair in a long, thick pigtail over her shoulder and on whose jaw you could, if you so wished, crack walnuts.

  ‘Director Pinkerton is here, ma’am.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Director Pinkerton. Stay please, Charlie.’

  Captain Farenden limped to a chair in a discreet corner and settled down to enjoy himself.

  Director Pinkerton opened the batting. ‘Good afternoon, Commander. May I enquire why I’ve been dragged away from my duties?’

  ‘Dragged? I thought I phrased my request more politely than that?’

  ‘Request? Two of your officers appeared at my elbow and gave me to understand my presence was required at Time Police Headquarters immediately. Failure to comply was, apparently, not an option. Believe me, the word request was not mentioned in any way.’

  ‘My apologies.’

  ‘Happily accepted.’ She got up to go. ‘I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Just one moment, if you please, Director Pinkerton. There are one or two small matters I wanted to discuss with you.’

  Director Pinkerton frowned. ‘I’ve usually found a well-aimed memo to be slightly more effective than kidnapping.’

  ‘Not in this case, I’m afraid. It has come to my attention, Director, that under your auspices, an illicit jump has taken place.’

  ‘I assume you’re talking about our jump to Mars. Yes, indeed. I led a team to the planet Mars. I gather you’re not happy about it and are casting around for someone to blame so please be very clear about this. I put together and commanded the mission. I led the team. Everyone present was acting on my instructions.’

  Commander Hay said bitterly, ‘I am quite astonished to hear that Doctors Peterson and Maxwell are capable of acting on anyone’s instructions.’

  ‘I can’t think why you find them so difficult. They didn’t give me any trouble. In fact, they seemed very keen to be involved.’

  Commander Hay flicked through her datastack. ‘I have conducted a thorough search, Director, and nowhere can I find any request for permission ...’

  ‘You won’t. I didn’t request anything. I just did it.’

  ‘Without consultation?’

  ‘I’m Director of St Mary’s. I don’t need permission to make a jump.’

  ‘You jumped to Mars.’

  The words reverberated around her office like four hundred and thirty-nine empty cans rolling down a cobbled street. In an echo chamber. At the dead of night. In a Noise Abatement Zone.

  Director Pinkerton shrugged. ‘ I fail to see what that has to do with the Time Police. Under the terms of the treaty negotiated after the Battle of St Mary’s, we are free to pursue our own areas of research.’

  ‘Historical research. You are free to pursue your own areas of historical research.’

  ‘Well, it is historical research to us. The Mars landings took place before I was even born.’

  ‘ But not to Maxwell and Peterson. In this instance they were contemporaries.’

  ‘Well, yes, but we thought it would be a nice treat for them.’

  ‘A nice treat! Why couldn’t they have watched it on TV like the rest of the world?’

  ‘Well, they could, of course, but it was such a special moment, we thought they would enjoy a ringside seat.’

  ‘You jumped to bloody Mars. Are you completely unaware of the implications?’

  ‘No, of course not. They are rather exciting, aren’t they?’

  Commander Hay breathed rather heavily. ‘ Perhaps you would care to enumerate them.’

  ‘Commander, if we make my technology available, the struggle to get into space is over. The costly struggle. Costly in terms of lives, time and money. No two-year round trip to Mars with all the logistical and psychological problems that entails. No waiting for launch windows or Hohmann transfer orbits. No more struggling with EM drive – which is never going to work despite everything they throw at it. All we have to do is get the coordinates right and hey presto! Don’t you see what this means?’ she said, sitting up in sudden excitement. ‘We can go anywhere we like. It’s just a question of building the appropriate vehicle and doing the maths. It’s another giant leap for mankind.’

  ‘Exactly. Have you given any consideration to the consequences? Forget the time factor. If you make this available to just anyone, then walls, gaols, borders, any distances – great or small – will mean nothing. Never mind Mars – an assassin has only to jump into someone’s bedroom, shoot at will, or plant a bomb, or kidnap a world leader, and then jump away again. The implications are enormous.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I just told you that.’

  ‘You are an historical research organisation. You have exceeded your remit.’

  ‘And you are exceeding yours. You’re the Time Police. You said yourself to forget the time factor. That this had nothing to do with time. Therefore, it has nothing to do with you.’

  They glared at each other.

  ‘I could have you removed, Director.’

  She waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s already been trie – Clive Ronan, Alexander Knox, Colonel Albay. Every time the Time Police try to interfere with St Mary’s, it always ends the same way. Surely you’ve realised by now that we’re not so easily intimidated.’

  ‘You broke your own rules. You interfered.’

  Again, the room went very quiet. Captain Farenden, very carefully not minuting this meeting, looked out of the window again. A teenage jetpacker whizzed past, almost certainly exceeding the speed limit, closely followed by a speed drone, flashing its blue light.

  Director Pinkerton sighed. ‘ Well, yes and no. We did, but only a very little bit – and then only with the greatest reluctance. If there had been a fatality on the very first Mars mission then the whole thing would have been shut down there and then, and there might never have been any further missions to Mars – not manned missions, anyway – and we both know that didn’t happen, so really you could say it was our duty to interfere.’

  ‘Do I detect an echo of Dr Maxwell in your response? That sounds very much like her reasoning to me.’

  ‘We might have a similar point of view. We do work for the same organisation after all.’

  ‘Whose prime directive is never to interfere.’

  ‘And my argument is that we didn’t. Not really. There is no record of any fatalities on the first Mars landing. We simply took steps to keep it that way.’ She let the silence hang.
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br />   ‘Very well, Director, I take your point. Perhaps, then, you can describe what actually transpired and then I can decide what action to take.’

  ‘I’ll certainly tell you what happened if you’re interested, but as to what action to take, I can tell you now it will be none. St Mary’s is not within your remit. We did nothing to affect the timeline, therefore there is no case to answer. Doctors Maxwell and Peterson are still my guests and, if you like, I can produce Deputy Director Peterson. I’m sure he’ll be happy to support my argument.’

  ‘I don’t think any useful purpose can be served by interrupting Dr Peterson’s day.’

  ‘Dr Maxwell, perhaps.’

  ‘Not under any circumstances.’

  ‘Well, what can you do, then? Besides, you’re shouting at the wrong people. The real villain of the piece was the solar flare and that was just a random act of nature.’

  If Commander Hay thought the phrase random act of nature was also a more than accurate description of St Mary’s she was polite enough to keep that to herself. ‘Just tell me what happened, Director Pinkerton, if you would be so good.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, making herself comfortable. ‘It was Christmas Eve at our end. We have a kind of tradition of doing something daft on that day and we wanted to do something special so we thought we’d go to Mars. I remembered a promise I’d made to Maxwell a while back, so we jumped back to Dr Bairstow’s St Mary’s ...’

  ‘On the way to Mars.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. We called in on our way to Mars to see if Dr Bairstow would give his permission for us to borrow some of his staff. As a courtesy. You can’t just swan in and walk off with other people’s people, you know,’ she said, and paused to let that sink in. ‘We’re not Clive Ronan. Have you caught him yet by the way?’

  ‘Perhaps we could confine ourselves to the discussion in hand?’

  ‘So that would be a no – you haven’t.’

  There might have been just the slightest suggestion of gritted teeth. ‘If you could continue, Director.’

  ‘Well, they made us very welcome. Initially, I think they thought we’d come to witness events with them. You know, watch it on live TV and join in the festivities. We were even offered appropriate costumes. I have to say I have always rather fancied myself as Deja Thoris.’

  There was a short silence and then Commander Hay twisted in her seat to look at her adjutant, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Princess of Mars, ma’am.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Indeed, ma’am.’

  ‘You don’t know the story, Commander?’ said Director Pinkerton.

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘Well, John Carter arrives on Mars – or Barsoom – and ...’

  ‘Not that story!’

  Mindful of his professional future, Captain Farenden focused all his thoughts on next weeks’ watch roster.

  ‘Well, once we told them we were aiming to witness the Mars landing on Mars itself, there was no holding them. They were really excited. As Maxwell said, it wasn’t often you got to see History being made in your own time. They normally had to push off to another century if they wanted to see something interesting. So I said did she want to come with us, and she said oh God yes.’

  ‘Of course she did. Didn’t anyone enquire as to the safety of ... no, I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking.’

  Director Pinkerton, whose method of dealing with sarcasm was to ignore it, forged on. ‘I explained it was in the nature of a reward for their services in the past. Our past. Although their past as well because they’ve already done it although in their time it hasn’t happened yet.’

  It occurred to Commander Hay that a name was missing. ‘What of Major Guthrie?’

  ‘Declined the invitation.’

  ‘Do we know why?’

  ‘Well, I know why, yes.’

  Commander Hay’s eyes narrowed. ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing sinister. He was spending the day elsewhere.’ She paused, possibly awaiting a demand for more details. It did not come. Captain Farenden suspected Commander Hay suspected Director Pinkerton of deliberately dragging multiple red herrings across the meandering path of her explanation.

  ‘And this – this plan – this was what you were working on when Clive Ronan attacked your unit?’

  ‘It wasn’t my unit at the time, if you remember, Commander. It was Director Knox’s unit. I believe he was a Time Police-approved appointment, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Not by me,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Nor me. In fact, other than Clive Ronan, I can’t think of anyone who’s done more damage to St Mary’s than Alexander Knox. Can you, Commander? Think of anyone who’s done more damage to St Mary’s than Alexander Knox, I mean?’ She beamed across the desk.

  Wisely, Commander Hay made no reply and the Director continued.

  ‘Well, they were enthusiastically gearing themselves up for Mars Landing Day – as they were calling it. There were flags, banners and bunting hanging from every window. They’d made the most enormous papier-mâché model of the planet Mars which was hanging from the roof of the Great Hall. It was really rather well done. And very accurate. Their R&D section had knocked it up, apparently. They’d marked up Gale Crater and then divided the surface into numbered squares. Apparently, a prize would be awarded to the person who came closest to predicting the exact landing site.’

  She paused, but comment there was none.

  ‘All the tables were laid out and the entire menu was Mars themed, obviously. Mr Swanson had raided the poisons cabinet and he and Professor Rapson had concocted Mars Punch – a vast cauldron of murky red fluid, trailing ribbons of sinister smoke. To represent Olympus Mons, they said and two glasses of that could get you to Mars under your own steam, apparently. There were Red Rock Cakes and Little Green Gingerbread Men. They’d made vast amounts of honeycomb and giant pieces of it were scattered everywhere.’

  Commander Hay appeared baffled. ‘Why?’

  ‘To represent the surface of Mars, of course. And there were plates of multi-coloured onion rings.’

  ‘Again. Why?’

  ‘Saturn. You know. The rings of Saturn. And Flying Saucer Beefburgers. And Mars bar eating competitions. Everyone had been practising for weeks. They were all in costume, obviously. Well, you know what they’re like – they’ll jump into weird clothes at the drop of a hat. Any number of people were dressed the way St Mary’s thought astronauts should look. Wildly inaccurate, obviously. I mean, I’m sure they’re well up to speed on all things medieval but I wouldn’t have cared to risk my life in one of those spacesuits.’

  She paused, obviously contemplating life – or, more probably, death – in a St Mary’s spacesuit, caught Commander Hay’s eye and continued. ‘Someone had a fishbowl on his head – much to the distress of his chicken. There was some speculation as to how they were going to get it off again. Lump hammers seemed to be the preferred way forward. Anyway, almost everyone was encased in aluminium foil. Except for those dressed as Martians, in which case there were far more tentacles and eyes and slime than any director should reasonably have to contend with.’ She smiled. ‘I must say they’d really put a tremendous amount of effort and enthusiasm into things. They must have been preparing for weeks.’

  ‘It does sound rather jolly,’ said Captain Farenden, possibly slightly more wistfully than he had intended.

  ‘And that was only what we encountered on our way to Dr Bairstow’s office. Fortunately, we were just in time for the Build Your Own Spaceship competition in Hawking. Sadly, we never got to see the homemade fireworks scheduled for the evening party. Though, on reflection, that might have been a good thing. Anyway, they said if I wasn’t in any rush, would I like to help judge the spaceship competition and, of course, I was delighted. The first entry was from the Security Section and was actually on fire at the time. Whether inadvertently or not we never found out, but I was particularly interested in the way they’d managed to achieve ...’

  Ca
ptain Farenden coughed in a meaningful manner.

  ‘Well, never mind. I don’t expect you’re very interested in that, although it was a particularly ingenious method of ...’

  Commander Hay made a truly heroic effort to smile pleasantly. ‘I believe you were providing details of your recent jump to Mars, Director.’

  ‘Captain Farenden, who wanted very badly to hear details of their recent jump to Mars, nodded encouragement. ‘May I ask, Director, how did you overcome the problems of cosmic radiation? Solar winds and so on?’

  ‘Piss.’

  Commander Hay stared. ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Sorry – urine. Radiation can’t pass through water so each biosuit had a lining of water. Provided by the wearer and constantly replenished. We’d lagged the pod in a similar fashion but because of the quantities required, that had to be more of a joint effort.’

  ‘With ... urine? You encased your pod in urine?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. Everyone wanted to be involved so there was no shortage of contributions. We did consider excrement – I’m sure you’re aware it’s seventy-five percent water – but you know what historians are like. It would have taken months to gather enough ... material ... for our purpose.’

  ‘You were wearing spacesuits?’ said Captain Farenden in a possibly doomed attempt to move the story on.

  ‘Biosuits. Orange. In honour of the Technical Section. And to blend in with the red surface, just in case we had to go outside. You have to have protection on Mars, otherwise your body fluids would boil away. R&D designed them and our Wardrobe Department knocked them up. They’re actually rather brilliant – there’s an exoskeleton built in into the suit using shape memory alloy which replaces muscle movements and supports the body so there’s less energy used and we don’t get so tired.’

  ‘And you all had these ... biosuits?’

  ‘Of course. For if we had to open the door and go outside for some reason.’

  ‘You didn’t have an airlock?’

  ‘Yes, but only a very rudimentary affair. Obviously, safety was our first priority so everyone wore their biosuits and carried their own supply of oxygen.’