by Jodi Taylor
‘We know that now is a vulnerable time for St Mary’s. Expenditure is massive, there’s no financial return and losses are high.’
‘They want us closed down?’
‘No, we think they want us – diverted. Or subverted is a better word. St Mary’s must continue now so that it exists in the future. There must be at least one pod for them to steal. So our problem is on two fronts. We don’t want to be closed down by the current authorities and these guys are whizzing up and down the timeline causing havoc. It’s dangerous but profitable so they don’t care. The future St Mary’s is weak and vulnerable, so it made sense to send Edward and me back to fight the good fight here, before they become too powerful.’
I considered this for a while. The kettle boiled and he made some tea. When he sat down, I said, ‘You and the Boss – are here to strengthen St Mary’s?’
‘That’s partly the reason, yes.’
‘But it was the Boss who founded St Mary’s.’
‘Yes, he brought a pod back with him, pretended to ‘discover’ time travel and used it as the foundation for all the others.’
‘So the Boss brings a pod from the future to now. And that pod is the template for all future pods?’
He knew where I was going with this and smiled.
‘So who actually discovers or invents time travel? Who builds the first pod?’
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘You do not want to go there. Trust me, that way madness lays.’ I could believe it.
‘Ok, back to you. You came back with the Boss to sort things out?’
‘No, there are two separate missions here. Edward and I jumped separately. He went back ten years further than me to found St Mary’s and get things going. I only arrived about six years ago.’
I thought of me and Kal. ‘What’s it like to see your friend suddenly ten years older than you?’
‘It was nearly an emotional moment, but we took it like men.’
‘So, St Mary’s is up and running. The Boss has done the grunt work and then you turn up.’
‘Drink your tea. Yes. I’m here to safeguard St Mary’s. Guide us through various technological breakthroughs. And to keep an eye on you.’
‘Am I strategically important?’
‘Actually yes, very important, but also I just like looking at you.’
I ignored this for the time being. ‘So you know the future.’
‘No, absolutely not. We need to be very clear about this. I was recruited and trained by the future St Mary’s. I have a detailed knowledge of you and St Mary’s up until the day I arrived here. After that – nothing, for obvious reasons.’
‘Bloody hell.’
He was sympathetic. ‘I know. It’s a lot to take in. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to talk to you these last two years, but you’re always either drunk, injured, stressed, or not actually in this time at all. It’s not been easy.’
‘So, do you have any instructions for me? Do I have to do anything?’
‘Just stay safe. I know, what am I thinking? But seriously, Max, watch yourself. Just be aware, will you?’
I nodded and sat back to think about all this. I looked at him. He was different. I was different. I’d walked into this room one person and I’d walk out another.
‘How far in the future is this?’
‘I can’t tell you, Max. Please don’t ask.’
‘But surely, one day your assignment will be finished. You’ll be recalled. Your pod is here. One day, you’ll leave.’ I tried to keep my voice level.
‘My pod is here to give me flexibility to track down these people. There are no plans to recall us. Edward and I are here for the duration.’
I thought about how he’d left everything behind to do this. I wondered if he had leapt at the chance to escape his past. I think I would have. No, I already had.
The radiator ticked in the quiet room. I wondered what would happen next. Things had changed. I was stone-cold sober for a start. He looked tired. I looked at the clock. It was so late it was early. And not that early either. The night had nearly gone. He got up and went to the window again. What now? Again, he came and sat down and took my hand. Amongst this torrent of revelation I had forgotten …
‘I wondered if I might talk to you for a moment.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, wondering what we’d been doing up till now.
‘The thing is … the thing is … I wanted to tell you I like you.’
I felt oddly disappointed. ‘I like you too, Chief. We work well together.’
‘That’s not what I meant. What I wanted to say is that … is that I have feelings for you.’
My heart kicked up a gear. ‘What sort of feelings?’
‘Respect, admiration.’ A long pause. ‘Love.’
My little heart was going like a hammer. He mistook my silence.
‘I’m sorry; this must be a bit of a shock for you. I’ve tried very hard to … not to … I have to ask and I know you’ll be honest with me. Is there any chance you could ever … I mean, could you see yourself …?’
‘Yes.’
He stared very hard at his hand, the one with the scar, which still held mine painfully tightly. I don’t think he realised how strong he was.
‘Oh, OK. In that case, I’ll leave you. I’m sorry to have … Of course, this won’t affect …’ and he trailed off again. The guy had real articulacy issues. He wasn’t that good at listening, either. He got up, crossed the room and quietly let himself out. I sat, stunned and exhausted and happy and elated. And slightly exasperated. There was a knock at the door. I got up and opened it.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said yes.’
He smiled, hugely. ‘Yes, you did, didn’t you?’ He bent his head and kissed me again, very gently. ‘After this mission …’
And before I could even get myself together and reply, he was gone.
I went to bed and for the first time in months, my thoughts were not Cretaceous-based.
Chapter Eight
Seven days later, we were as ready as we would ever be, with both pods fully loaded. Sussman was taking Three and I had Eight. We had decided to work from Three and sleep and eat in Eight, or maybe the other way around. We’d see when we arrived. As far as possible we were programmed to aim for higher ground. We didn’t want to land in three feet of water. ‘It’s not an exact science,’ said Farrell, looking, for him, worried. ‘Keep your fingers crossed.’ He looked tired and worn, just like everyone who had anything to do with this assignment. And we hadn’t actually started yet.
Sussman appeared. ‘All set?’
‘Yes, let’s crank them up and get going.’ We looked up. Kal and Peterson waved. Dr Bairstow stood quietly with Professor Rapson and many others. The gantry was packed.
‘Let’s go.’
We entered our separate pods. My second solo jump. What a long time ago the other one seemed. I stowed my bag carefully in the locker. I’d left the Horse behind, but I’d hidden my precious photo in my pack. I certainly wasn’t going to put it out for Sussman to mock, but just knowing I had it with me was a comfort. As if I’d brought him along.
Farrell stood in the doorway, scratchpad in hand, but it wasn’t needed. We’d been over everything twice already. We looked at each other. It was time. He said, ‘Try and stay safe, Max. I have plans for your return.’
My heart did a little twist. I nodded. ‘You take care, too.’
He smiled, stepped back and the door shut. I opened the com.
‘Counting down.’
The computer said, ‘Jump initiated,’ and the world went white.
And green. Everything was green. Green was everywhere. I was so entranced I forgot to give my usual thanks to the local gods that I hadn’t materialised inside a mountain or at the bottom of a sea, or in this case a swamp. I craned my head to see out of the screen. Nothing but green.
‘Davey! Are you there?’
‘I’m behind you. I can see you, about one hun
dred yards away. Bloody hell, it’s bright!’
‘Activate your monitors. Let’s have a good look before we go outside.’
He started the read-outs. ‘Temperatures are high, but not bad. Humidity is off the charts. Hope you’ve got your rot-proof knickers on. Oxygen levels are acceptable if we don’t run about too much. No proximity alerts.’
I checked my own readings. ‘I concur. I’m coming over.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
I slipped on vest and helmet and activated the mike. ‘Com test.’
‘Loud and clear.’
Hefting a blaster from the locker, I clamped a Taser to the sticky patch on one thigh and hooked an industrial strength pepper spray to my belt. Closing my eyes I sprayed myself liberally with Professor Rapson’s Special Spray. Theoretically I now smelled vegetable rather than animal. In reality I smelled like a giant rotting cabbage. Checking the proximities one last time, I stood by the door, took a couple of deep breaths, jumped up and down, shrugged my shoulders twice and said, ‘Door.’
Bloody hell, it was hot; like opening an oven door.
And wet. I felt the sweat break out all over my body. Experience told me the inside of both pods would be unspeakable within a week.
And noisy; mostly chirping insects, but distant bellows and grunts hinted at larger stuff.
And green, with thick, lush growth everywhere. All the colours blazed bright and fresh and new as if the world hadn’t yet had time to wear them out.
And smelly; even the smell was green. Wet earth, wet foliage, wet shit; like the strongest farmyard smells ever, sized up a hundred times.
And eggs; faintly, I could smell bad eggs. I knew what that would be and sure enough, on the horizon, I could see smudgy shapes with suspicious clouds above them. Volcanoes and all the fun things they bring to the party; eruptions, molten lava, earthquakes and pyroclastic flows. Yay! But all with luck a nice safe distance away. I turned around, looked up and nearly had a heart attack. All right, we weren’t at the bottom of the sea, which was good, but we did appear to have landed on the lower slopes of Krakatoa’s great grandmother. The smoking summit looked a long way off, but it wasn’t really where we wanted to be in terms of Health and Safety. Still, Health and Safety is something that happens to other people and there was no time to stand and stare. Move!
‘To your right and downhill,’ said Sussman in my ear. Turning my head, I could see him, correctly dressed for once, standing in his own doorway.
‘On my way.’
The ground seemed firm enough. I set off downhill. After twenty paces I turned and looked back at my own pod so I could find it again, nestling just below the treeline on a small plateau. To my left, a thick wood sloped upwards. To my right, the slope continued down to a wide, flat, treeless area which served as a coastal plain for either a large lake or possibly a small inland sea.
I remembered to drop to one knee and not let go of the blaster, but that’s about as far as Guthrie’s careful training got me. Oh, and I remembered to shut my mouth. Otherwise, I just stared like a trainee. It was shameful. Good job there were no senior staff around to see it. A movement beside me made me jump a mile, but it was only Sussman.
‘Got fed up with waiting,’ he said crossly. ‘Fuck me!’
Now I knew why I did this job.
Below us, a small herd of what I recognised as Maiasaurae, the Good Mothers, plodded across the plain. They herded tightly together, nervously protecting their young from predators. I looked round to see if any Troodons were trailing the herd. They would be around somewhere. The procession continued out of view.
‘Ankylosaurus,’ whispered Sussman, pointing to his left and proving he hadn’t been wasting his time these last months. ‘The last armour-plated dinosaur. Just look at him.’ Hard not to – he was as big as a bloody tank.
‘Come on,’ I said, getting up. ‘Time for this later. Let’s do a recce.’ Even then, it took a few minutes to drag ourselves away. We were the first humans, the only humans, ever to see all this, but we had to have to sharpen up or we wouldn’t last ten minutes. Anything could have crept up behind us while we gawped like tourists.
‘Watch your step here,’ he warned, as we made our way to Three. ‘It’s a bit dodgy underfoot.’
It was a bit loose, but so long as we took things slowly and didn’t try it in the dark, we should be OK.
We grinned at each other in excitement. ‘Let’s do this thing!’
We were on Day 74 of a near-perfect mission.
The day everything blew up in my face.
We were so tired even I was sleeping like the dead. Sussman had been as good as his word about the housekeeping – well, most of it anyway and each morning woke me with a cup of tea.
I don’t know why, maybe some deep-seated instinct kicked in, I don’t know, but I opened my eyes that morning to find Sussman kneeling over me with an erection the size of a telegraph pole and a not very nice expression on his face.
Instinct kicked in. Literally. I brought my knees up, slammed both feet into his chest and straightened my legs.
What the fuck did he think he was playing at? Now I remembered Kal’s warnings over the years. Now I realised I was sixty-seven million years from home with someone I couldn’t trust at all. Not a good feeling. I grabbed my pepper spray and made it personal.
He fled around the pod, sneezing, crying, coughing and trying to grab his clothing. I wedged myself into a corner to protect my back and stopped. The aircon had packed up or maybe it was me, but the sweat poured off me, running down into my eyes. I shouted at him, shaking with rage and adrenalin, unsure what to do next.
It’s always been a question of trust. You take two people of the opposite sex and throw them together in a small pod thousands or millions or hundreds of years from anywhere and trust to luck. And, as far as I knew, it had never been a problem. Kal and Peterson, Lower and Baverstock, all my predecessors, I’d never heard even a rumour of any problems. I mean, obviously you do see each other naked from time to time, but it’s not an issue. It’s brisk and business-like and let’s get on with it because it’s our job. Of course, most of the unit was at it like rabbits anyway; but not me and not with my partner. And then the built-in female guilt kicked in. Had I somehow given him the impression …? Was it all my own fault?
No, it wasn’t. I refused to go down that road. I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and said, ‘Get out.’
He started to stammer something.
I said, ‘No, don’t even bother. Get out. Get back to Number Three and stay there until I call you.’
‘But …’
I pulled down a blaster from the locker. I’d meant just to cover him as he made his way back, but he misinterpreted the gesture, shouted, ‘Door!’ and was gone. I stood in the doorway and watched him run. He lost his footing on the narrow bit, but picked himself up and got to Three intact. Back in Eight, I closed the door, put the blaster away, sat down heavily and considered my options.
I could send him home. This would mean finishing the assignment alone which would be hard work, but it could be done. No, the Boss would have me recalled. This was no place for a solo mission.
I could take us both back, maybe returning with Kal or Peterson. But we wouldn’t have records for 90 consecutive days. We’d have to start again, maybe. But we don’t come cheap and Thirsk wouldn’t pay for the extra time. They’d want reasons and it would make us look so bloody unprofessional. Not only would they want a permanent presence at St Mary’s, but they might even want to accompany us on future jumps.
Or I could continue and complete the assignment. No matter how little sharing any sort of time and space with that bastard appealed to me, this had to be my favourite option. I could banish him to Three and we could just meet outside during daylight hours. Our relationship would be on a purely professional basis. It would be awkward and embarrassing, but that was his problem. My problem would be deciding what course of action to take back at St Mary’s. He was my partn
er; we’d been together nearly four years. And I had no proof. And nothing had actually happened. It would be my word against his. The age-old female dilemma. I sighed. I’d think about that later.
Of course, I could just shoot him.
I showered the sweat off, dressed and tidied the pod. Keep the hands busy while the brain ticks over. I was laying out stuff for the day’s programme, when my com crackled. ‘Max? Are you there? Can I speak to you?’
If he thought he could smarm his way out of this one, he was mistaken. Having no idea what I would say to him, I said crisply, ‘I’m busy at the moment. Remain where you are. I’ll speak to you later.’ It only occurred to me afterwards that he might jump to the conclusion I was logging the incident.
I looked at that day’s programme. Nothing unusual, collect the meteorological disks and enter the info, ditto for the geological records and insert new disks for the star map. We were scheduled to explore and map the northern end of the valley. Priority work. We’d spent so much time filming dinosaurs for the holo we’d got behind on other things. Time to catch up. Maybe I could work him to death and that would solve all my problems.
I knew, deep down, I’d decided to continue the mission. Returning to St Mary’s with Sussman’s tail between his legs was not an option. But I could take reasonable precautions and at the same time send out an unmistakable message.
I said, ‘Computer, restrict access to this pod. Access Maxwell only. Authorisation: Maxwell five zero alpha nine eight zero four bravo. Confirm.’
‘Restrict access to this pod. Maxwell only. Confirmed.’
I opened my com. ‘Report to me, please. At once.’
I watched him scurry up the path. That narrow bit was really beginning to look a bit dodgy. I made a note to look for a new route. He was correctly dressed in woodland camouflage, swollen-eyed and pale, his hair still wet. Arriving at the pod, he said, ‘Door,’ and nothing happened. He waited a few seconds then repeated himself more loudly. The door stayed shut. He got the message. Raising his arm, he knocked quietly. I let him in.
I didn’t ask him to sit down, nor did I sit myself. The dinosaur-strength pepper spray stood ostentatiously to hand. I opened my mouth to speak but he held up his hand.