Hope for the Best

by Jodi Taylor

  I was desperate to learn more about this so I said contemptuously, ‘Rubbish,’ and turned away.

  ‘No, Mrs Farrell. Not rubbish. Simply good business. After the successful completion of this jump – something that I think will really put us on the map – this unit will undertake a series of sponsored jumps and investigate events on our sponsors’ behalf.’

  I felt my blood run cold. No wonder Dr Bairstow had cleared St Mary’s out of the way. This was his worst nightmare. St Mary’s had always made it perfectly clear there were certain things it would never do. Suppress its findings. Amend its records to reflect political bias or current politically correct thinking. Plunder the past for valuable artefacts. Interfere in History at the behest of vested interests.

  I worked very hard at keeping my voice calm. ‘You mean people will pay you to jump to the historical event of their choice in order for you to “verify” exactly what they tell you to verify. They’ll be buying both you and the results. And from there, of course, it’s only one step to “arranging” events so the outcome is agreeable to your sponsor. You idiot, Halcombe. Who do you think these sponsors will be? Once word gets out that . . . time travel . . . is possible, for how long do you think you’ll be allowed to keep it? No,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘You’re just the front man. They’ve shoved you here with instructions to make this jump because no one knows what will happen if you do but, believe me, if you survive, they’ll never let you keep St Mary’s. You’re just their fall guy.’

  As soon as I said the words ‘fall guy’, I had a sudden memory of a dying Lawrence Hoyle and his ‘shadowy figures’. The shadowy figures who had planted him at St Mary’s. They’d promised him the opportunity to alter History. To ensure Henry Tudor lost at Bosworth Field. That had been an obsession of his. He’d been manipulated and it had cost him his life. And very nearly mine and Markham’s as well. Were these same shadowy figures responsible for Halcombe and this current idiocy?

  My priorities had re-written themselves. This had to be stopped. And by me because I couldn’t ask anyone else to do it. I had to shut this down right now. At whatever cost. Shame about my plan to take down Clive Ronan, but someone else could pick it up. Someone would get him in the end but that was all in the future. This threat was real and immediate. Always deal with the now first.

  I had a plan and it was simple. Well, I hadn’t had time to think of anything complicated. I’d do it. Whatever it was they wanted me to do – I’d do it. I’d get the pod out of here, away from them, and then . . . Well, it wouldn’t be making the return trip. Yes, I’d lay in the coordinates and we’d jump back to wherever he wanted me to be and then one of two things would happen. If the Time Police had fixed the Time Map then our hugely illegal jump would light the place up like Guy Fawkes Night at St Mary’s. And if they hadn’t – and I had a horrible feeling they wouldn’t have because the damage had looked pretty substantial to me – then, once we’d landed, I’d simply shut down the pod and there we’d stay. I wouldn’t switch on the screen. I wouldn’t even open the door. We’d last a couple of hours – until the air ran out. We’d all die there – including, regrettably, that promising historian Maxwell – but most importantly, the pod would never come back. It would be out of Halcombe’s reach forever. It would be out of everyone’s reach until the Time Police tracked it down. But, with luck, I’d have sent a clear message. That there are some jumps you never come back from.

  One day, St Mary’s would reassert itself and the pod would be brought back. Too late for me, of course – too late for any of its occupants – but that was just my tough luck. My duty was clear. Get the pod away from Halcombe. Nothing was more important. And I had to make sure I was the one who did it. I couldn’t – wouldn’t – ask anyone else to do this.

  I also had to be careful not to give in too easily.

  ‘I’m not doing this, Halcombe. You’re insane. Are you trying to start a global war?’

  ‘I’m trying to start a global peace. Imagine if we could do away with the uncertainty. Imagine if we could actually show people the Crucifixion taking place. The benefits would be . . .’

  I cut across him. ‘And suppose we come back and say it didn’t. That everything people think they know happened never actually did. That it’s all one big fairy story. What would be the effects then?’

  ‘Well, obviously, we wouldn’t tell people that.’

  And that, folks, is the difference between time travel and investigating major historical events in contemporary time.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t care. I still won’t do it. None of us will.’

  ‘I had anticipated such an attitude. So really, it’s just a case of deciding who to use to make my point.’ He began to pace, thoroughly enjoying his big moment. ‘Let us all think carefully. Who here has the least value? Who has annoyed me the most?’ He turned to face me. ‘Who is in need of a much-deserved lesson?’

  ‘No idea,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I think you do.’

  ‘Well, yes, I do, but I thought it would be rude to point out it’s you. Not in front of your men. Although it would be good to stop you talking before everyone dies of boredom.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find the next hour boring at all, Mrs Farrell.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that. I have a really short attention span.’

  ‘Oh, I think this will focus even your wandering mind.’ He thrust his face into mine. ‘You fell off the roof, didn’t you? I’m sure you remember that?’

  My mouth went horribly dry. Yes, I did. I remembered it very clearly and I was in absolutely no hurry to repeat the experience.

  ‘I have no doubt, Mrs Farrell, that your ego would allow you happily to sacrifice everyone here but I see no reason why anyone should suffer because of you, so I will issue this instruction – just once. You will take a team consisting of Major Sullivan and two of his men and jump to these coordinates. You are at perfect liberty to refuse and I must confess I rather hope you will.’

  He turned slowly. The little man still enjoying his big moment. ‘Major, escort Mrs Farrell to the roof. Offer her one last opportunity to save herself, her friends, her unit and so on. If she won’t see reason then push her off. Then pick her up, drag her back up the stairs and push her off again.’

  He smiled. ‘Remember how much it hurt the first time? Now imagine how much it will hurt the second time. And then the third. And we’ll keep at it, Mrs Farrell, until either you do as I say, or you’re dead, or you’re just a blob of jelly on the ground, in which case we’ll simply leave you there and start on the next person. Someone will give in. They always do. And if they don’t, well, we’ll simply make arrangements to transport the pod back to our own facility, leaving you here to finally perform one useful function in your pointless life and be something’s lunch. Shall we begin?’

  Now was the perfect time to allow myself to be persuaded. I let panic into my voice. Which, trust me, wasn’t that difficult.

  ‘You can’t do this. It’s madness. For God’s sake, stop and think about what you’re doing.’

  Major Sullivan made a gesture. Two soldiers grabbed my arms. There were shouts of protest from everyone. Especially me. They started to drag me up the stairs.

  I swallowed and shouted, ‘All right. All right. I’ll do it.’

  He smirked. ‘I thought you would. Not so brave now, are you, Mrs Farrell?’

  Peterson, who, I think, knew very well what I had planned, croaked, ‘Max,’ in a shocked voice.

  I wheeled on him. ‘What choice do I have?’ And we both knew what I meant.

  ‘Very wise, Mrs Farrell.’

  I stared down at the floor presenting, or so I hoped, the picture of a defeated historian. After long moments, I became aware of the silence. Looking up, my heart sank. I hadn’t won yet.

  He was still smirking. ‘I am aware you think I’m stupid, Mrs Farrell. This
everyone but me is an idiot attitude of yours is really quite offensive, you know.’

  A cold hand of panic clutched at me. Had he guessed my intentions?

  He was continuing. ‘Major, I think you’d be wise to take a hostage with you. To ensure Mrs Farrell’s continued good behaviour. Time travel is a hazardous business and it’s very easy for something to go wrong. I’m certain the presence of . . . let’s see . . . Miss North . . . will ensure a problem-free jump. Miss North, if you would step forwards, please.’

  No. No, no, no. It was all very well for me – Peterson says I’ve had a death wish for years – and it was my plan and my decision and my responsibility and my everything else, but I couldn’t do this to North. I couldn’t take her on board knowing that in an hour or so she’d be expiring on the floor, gasping for breath, possibly pleading with me to open the door . . . to let them out, for God’s sake . . . I couldn’t do it.

  I looked up and she was looking at me. She knew. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what I was going to do. What I had to do. She knew.

  I found I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say a word. My mind played snapshots of Miss North. I remembered how good she was at briefings. Her perpetual arguments with Sykes. I remembered her beating the living daylights out of Herodotus with a wooden tray.

  I swallowed and said quietly, ‘Celia . . .’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But you must do your duty, Max. We all must.’

  Typical North. She always did her duty and she expected others to do likewise. I think it was her family motto. In Latin, of course.

  I looked at Tim, still sprawled on the floor. His face was covered in blood. He was looking at me. He knew what I was up to as well. I hoped to God it wasn’t that obvious to everyone else. I couldn’t even say goodbye to him, my dearest friend. I couldn’t give any clue at all that we wouldn’t be back in a couple of hours.

  I said, ‘That man needs medical attention.’

  ‘And he will get it,’ said Halcombe. ‘As soon as I get what I want.’

  I made one last effort. ‘The pod will be crowded with five people. I’m not sure we’ll even be able to get Miss North in. It’s not the Tardis, you know.’

  He brushed that nonsense aside and I dared not protest any longer in case I aroused his suspicions. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage it, Mrs Farrell. Shall we go?’

  So we went.

  18

  Never had the Long Corridor seemed so short. I listened to our footsteps echoing around the empty St Mary’s, walking as slowly as I could because I had some vague thought that the longer I could spin this out then the more chance there would be of either a benevolent universe intervening or the god of historians putting in a solid ten minutes’ work and getting me out of this.

  Actually, I have to say, as I approached Number Five, the damage to the pod looked slightly worse than it had back at TPHQ. As if I didn’t have enough on my mind without worrying about structural integrity as well.

  I walked around the pod, surveying the melted corner from every angle.

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ said Miss North, throwing me a lifeline. ‘You cut things a little fine there, Max. Is it safe?’

  ‘Probably not.’ I turned to Halcombe. ‘You realise this pod could disintegrate in mid-jump.’

  He appeared unconcerned. ‘I’m told they’re very robust.’

  ‘Says the man remaining safely behind.’

  I ran my hands over the rock-hard bubbles. ‘Everyone needs to be very aware there will be no bathroom facilities on this jump. I hope you all went before you set out.’

  Silence.

  ‘Well,’ I said, planting the seed. ‘If we don’t come back then you’ll know the reason why.’ I turned to Sullivan. ‘Don’t worry – they say you never know anything about it.’

  Not a flicker of expression from any of them. Bollocks.

  Halcombe smiled and patted the pod in a proprietary manner I didn’t much care for. I bet the pod wasn’t that impressed, either.

  ‘I think this is going to turn out to be an extremely profitable enterprise for everyone, don’t you? Open the door, please, Mrs Farrell.’

  There was no escape. The moment had come. I said, ‘Door.’

  The door opened.

  ‘Really?’ said Halcombe. ‘Is that all it takes?’

  ‘Yes, but it has to be said by someone really, really special.’

  ‘For the time being,’ he said smugly.

  The one thing I really regretted – apart from my long, lingering death, of course – was that I wouldn’t be here when the pod failed to return. I wouldn’t be around to see that smug look wiped off his stupid face, as days, weeks, months, possibly even years passed with no sign either of the pod or its occupants and it slowly dawned on him he’d let the opportunity of a lifetime slip through his non-leprous fingers.

  Ah well – in every life, a little rain must fall and it was my duty to provide the thunderstorm. Après moi, le déluge, so to speak. I could speak to Dr Bairstow about making that our motto. And then I remembered – no, I couldn’t.

  Entering the pod, it occurred to me I might have been a little over-optimistic about our chances of survival. We might not live long enough to die slowly of suffocation. Even setting aside the less than pristine condition of Number Five, no one had ever done this before and there was every possibility that the penalty for jumping to a Triple-S site was instant annihilation. That the pod would explode immediately on landing.

  Someone poked me in the back. I hadn’t realised I was still standing in the doorway.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I get the big chair. Pilot’s privilege. Miss North will assist me. The rest of you fit yourselves in where you can and if you can’t all get in then that’s your problem. We jump the minute I’ve done the preliminaries and laid in the coordinates whether you’re ready or not so everyone shut up and let me concentrate.’

  ‘I shall want to oversee you laying in the coordinates,’ said Sullivan, pushing North aside. ‘If you have any thoughts of taking us somewhere that isn’t 1st-century Jerusalem, forget them now. I’ve been briefed and I know exactly what to look for so don’t mess me about. Unless, of course, you want to see your colleague’s brains splashed up the walls.’

  North gave him a look that would have curdled milk. I was full of admiration. I was probably taking her to her death and she was as steady as a rock. The least I could do was the same.

  ‘I said to shut up. Historian working.’

  Sullivan seated himself alongside me. They nudged North into a corner where she waited, her face expressionless. I didn’t dare look at her. I didn’t trust myself not to say, ‘Look, this isn’t going to work. Let’s have a rethink, shall we,’ because actually, in the scheme of things – in this scheme of things – North and I weren’t important. We’re St Mary’s and we’re all of us very aware of the importance of ensuring neither our pods nor our archive fall into the wrong hands.

  My own hands shook as I began to fire up the pod. I could only hope Sullivan and his cohorts would put it down to nerves.

  He sat beside me, watching my every move. I worked my way through all the pre-flight checks. Typically, all the lights were green. I watched hopefully in case any ill-effects from our recent 16th-century jump were about to manifest themselves, but nothing. Curse these robust and well-maintained pods. There was no reason not to proceed. I propped the piece of paper up on the console in front of me and began to lay in the coordinates. Normally, not even the most irresponsible historian would lay in unverified coordinates, but since there was a very real possibility none of us would survive this jump, it hardly seemed important. I think I might have harboured a faint hope that the computer wouldn’t accept them but no such luck. The console stayed green across the board.

  He checked the readouts against my piece of paper, nodded and leaned back. ‘Do it.’

 
Normally, I would have warned people to brace themselves, especially since we were jumping into the unknown, but maybe, during possible post-jump bouncing, an opportunity would present itself. And as an old hand, North was braced anyway.

  I wiggled my bum in the seat, took a breath, and said, ‘Computer, initiate jump.’

  ‘Jump initiated.’

  No miracle intervened and, sadly, the world went white.

  19

  We landed with a minor bump that would have been one of Peterson’s finest efforts. My passengers staggered but kept their feet although that didn’t prevent a great deal of bad language and complaint.

  I was about to tell them they were lucky I wasn’t Peterson when every alarm in the pod went off. I’d been expecting something of the sort and so had North, but Sullivan and his team, already apprehensive over their first jump and in unknown and unfamiliar territory, nearly shot through the roof.

  Every light flashed red. Every alarm sounded. Worse was to come.

  My relationship with our computer has always been moderately amicable. There’s always the very slight suggestion of eye-rolling as it responds to any requests for info and a kind of I can’t believe you didn’t know that tone to its pleasant, female, albeit slightly bossy voice, that sometimes sounds uncannily like Mrs Partridge, but the whole transaction is usually carried out in an atmosphere of calm goodwill. Suddenly, however, everything was different. A male voice, rough and angry, filled the pod.

  ‘Warning. Extreme hazard. This jump is not within permitted parameters. Site of Special Significance infringement. Implement immediate evacuation. This pod will terminate in four minutes fifty-nine seconds.’

  ‘Well,’ I said to North. ‘Looking on the bright side, at least we’re not going to suffocate to death.’

  She nodded. ‘I always think it’s important to accentuate the positive, don’t you?’