Timeslip

by Bruce Stewart

  She knelt over Frank bathing his head and Simon found a brandy bottle in the wines and spirits cupboard.

  They gave him a tiny glass and he brightened up. He even reached for the bottle and took another nip.

  ‘Better,’ he sighed and settled back sleepily. Simon and Liz watched him doze away.

  ‘Liz,’ said Simon. ‘If we don’t find out about the papers ... but we can’t now with Gottfried gone ... he’s the only one who’d be able to tell us. We’ve mucked it up.’

  ‘Papers?’ Frank, suddenly waking, said brightly. ‘Papers. That’s what I’ve got to do. They’re up my jumper.’

  Liz and Simon burst out laughing.

  ‘You mean?’ Liz said.

  Frank patted his chest and a faint crinkle of paper came out from under his white vest.

  "The papers — these are really old Traynor’s papers?’ Liz stuttered, ‘Oh, Frank.’ She started to cry but Simon kicked her ankle.

  ‘Let’s get them out,’ said Simon and he reached down inside Frank’s vest. A wad of dog-eared notepaper and a few small diagrams pinned together emerged.

  ‘Are these from behind the skirting board in Commander Traynor’s office?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Frank answered. ‘He told me to bust up the machine but I knew the papers were just as important. Everyone knew about the secret cupboard in his office so I thought I’d better move them. I waited till I’d got a moment, nicked them and thought I’d put them back once the Germans pushed off.’

  ‘They’ve gone. Let’s put them back now,’ Liz said. She could hardly speak.

  * * *

  I think there’s some contact, said Jean. Yes, they’re still in that small room ... talking about the papers ... they think they’ve failed ... Liz is upset ... now Frank’s talking ... Frank’s saying he took the papers because everyone knew about the secret cupboard in your office, Mr Tray nor ... he was going to put them back once the Germans were gone ... They’re in another room now ... it’s an office ... Frank is putting some papers, they’re not very big, behind a panel in the skirting ...

  * * *

  Frank scrambled to his feet and the three moved off to the CO’s office. Frank thrust the papers behind the panel. He sat leaning against the wall rubbing his head. Liz and Simon stood looking down at him for a moment. Then Simon tugged her sleeve.

  ‘We’ve got to go, Liz.’

  ‘But he’s still ill.’

  ‘You know what happens. Commander Traynor finds him — he goes to hospital and...’

  Liz completed it ‘... and one day he’s my father.’ She crouched down by Frank.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Frank,’ she said.

  ‘Have a good trip, girlie,’ Frank said, and his head slumped down on his chest.

  * * *

  Liz and Simon reached the front door to see Gottfried and Traynor standing a few yards away. They hid in the blackout, crouching together.

  Gottfried turned and looked uphill. A lamp flickered at the edge of the rise.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for us.’

  ‘Not for me, they aren’t,’ said the Commander.

  Gottfried whipped round. Traynor’s pistol was aimed steadily at him. His own was trained on the Commander.

  ‘You fool,’ said Gottfried. ‘I came here in the cause of peace. But if this is how you want it, it’s war.’

  The two men stood tense.

  ‘Why don’t you shoot, Gottfried? Just as one civilized scientist to another?’

  But Gottfried was backing slowly uphill, Traynor intent on his departure.

  ‘Come on, Liz,’ whispered Simon. ‘Let’s slip out before he finds us.’

  They tiptoed behind the sentry post and crouched waiting till they heard the transport start up. Traynor turned and ran through the door. Liz and Simon crept silently through the grass. The hole in the wire was easy. They had to search harder for the hole in the barrier.

  ‘Let’s go together,’ said Simon.

  * * *

  At The Bull, Jean sat listening but there was no more electronic noise travelling out from the ruins. She shivered and then hugged herself for warmth ... ‘the cold,’ she said ... 'dear God, the cold..’

  20

  The cold was excruciating. It was the kind of cold neither Liz nor Simon had ever felt before; the kind that takes hold of you like iron fingers, and then squeezes and squeezes until you feel you must snap like a dry stick.

  ‘Simon, where are we?’ gasped Liz in horror. ‘What – what ...

  She couldn’t finish her sentence. Simon for his part was equally unable to reply. His astonished gaze took in only a blinding plain of whiteness, rising somewhere beyond to stark crags that gleamed silver against a sky of velvet blue. It was neither day nor night as far as one could be sure, early nor late. Somehow there even seemed to be no place, properly speaking; just that huge sea of ice, stretching on interminably, and the terrible pressure on his body that he knew soon must crush him. Beside him, Liz was gulping for air.

  ‘What’s — what’s the matter?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Can’t — can’t breathe...’

  Suddenly Liz slumped to her knees. ‘This won’t do,’ thought Simon rapidly, ‘we’ll die if we stay here. Wherever it is we’ve come to, the cold will kill us.’ He seized Liz by the arms, desperately trying to drag her to her feet and get her back to the time barrier and safety. But now the iron fingers were biting into his flesh. There was such a stricture round his chest he felt his ribs must break. Liz slipped from his grasp to the cold ground, a dead weight now. Simon strove valiantly one last time to resist the terrible pressures, but in his heart understood it was useless. His legs gave way, too, and the sparkling, deadly ice came up to meet him. Just as he fell, Simon was aware of something odd and perhaps remarkable; but could not at that moment put a name to it or even know why it should have recommended itself to his attention.

  * * *

  In the lounge of The Bull, staring out through the window towards the old Naval Station, Jean Skinner suddenly gave a convulsive shudder. Traynor was at her side in a moment.

  ‘What is it?’ His voice was quiet and reassuring.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Jean seemed confused. ‘Something — something different now. Oh, I can’t see! And...’

  Her shuddering was now a violent shaking. She clung to the window ledge as though to steady herself then wrapped anxious arms about the upper part of her body. Her teeth chattered. Skinner raced over from the fireplace.

  ‘Jean, what’s wrong? Tell me! ’

  ‘I don’t know, Frank! ’ Jean’s voice was a frightened sob all at once. ‘But the cold ... dear God, the cold...’

  ‘Get her to the fire,’ snapped Traynor.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just do it, Skinner. How the devil do I know what’s going on? She says she’s cold, take her where it’s warm.’

  He was back to the fireplace himself in a couple of strides, stoking up the loose embers to make a little blaze. Skinner got his arms around Jean, carried rather than led her to the sofa before the grate. Her shuddering was no less violent, but she seemed now to be losing consciousness into the bargain; a sigh, no more than a release of breath before sleep, escaped her as she slipped from his arms and fell back on the cushions, her eyes dropping closed. She was still. The blood had drained from her face and she was the colour of snow.

  ‘But she’s quite warm!’ cried Skinner in astonishment, having felt her head and hands.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And it’s a summer’s day.’

  ‘An English summer’s day,’ allowed Traynor reflectively, staring into the jumping flames. Then he turned to regard the silent woman sharply. ‘So what’s happened to Liz and Simon now, I wonder?’ he asked. ‘She’s sharing something with them, obviously.’

  ‘But I thought Liz and Simon were free of all that', '1 replied Skinner with a frown. ‘I thought they only had to get to the hole in the fence to be back in their own time.’<
br />
  ‘So did I, old boy, so did I.’ Traynor moved over to sit by Jean. ‘But in an area like this, it seems ... one’s always learning. Well, she said it herself,’ he added quickly as Skinner glanced mistrust at him. ‘Something different, eh? Something different...’

  * * *

  Something different. Simon was aware that he was freezing, understood perfectly that he had lost the use of his limbs and could do little to remedy his situation. But in another part of himself he remained active and alert, if a trifle detached. It was all rather like a dream where you experience things but at the same time stand off and observe them. The odd and perhaps remarkable factor came back to him. Why yes, those slabs; one seems now they are quite remarkable. Regular, symmetrical, about half a dozen of them close together out here in this winter wilderness, almost as though they had been carved from the ice — by man ... And wait a minute — now something else. Something approaching. No, somebody. Yes, this is a man, it must be: in bulky clothes like a space suit, coming up on a motorized sled. I can hear its engine ... Now he’s stopping. Now he’s getting off to inspect those slabs. What is it he’s doing? Reading something. A gauge? ... And now — hold on, now he’s seen Liz and me, I think. Yes! He’s coming over. I can’t — I can’t see his face properly ... And I feel so tired. Sleepy as anything. Yes. I’ve read that about freezing to death somewhere. In the end, you don’t suffer. You just — just drop off ... to sleep...

  * * *

  ‘Alert the infirmary,’ ordered Bukov, panting. ‘Notify Doctor Joynton.’

  ‘Of course. Doctor Bukov,’ replied a bewildered Beth. ‘But what on earth—’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t stand there asking stupid questions. There’s another one outside.’

  Beth could not clearly see the limp bundle the big Russian held in his arms. It seemed to be a young girl, but in the shy light of the entrance area it was impossible to tell. Beth turned smartly for the main body of the underground laboratory as Bukov hastily put his burden down on the integral foam bench and swung again for the pressurized door that would take him back out to the tunnel and ice field above. She heard the click of the catch as he replaced the protective headpiece of his thermal suit.

  Beth hurried along the wide central corridor. She was happy working at the laboratory. A woman in her late twenties now, she felt she had at length found her true niche after a youth of uncertainty in England. She enjoyed the sleek efficiency of the place; the softness underfoot and self-regulating air-conditioning; the lighting that attuned itself to the needs of the human eye and the myriad devices that made life a fulfilling experience rather than a drudgery. ‘Devices’, in fact, were most of the game to Beth. She was nothing if not in thrall to the Machine. Somewhere deep in her attitudes there was even a quality that could have borne the name of worship. With rather more briskness but the inner conviction of a pilgrim of old entering Canterbury, she turned into the huge computer room.

  ‘Urgent video flash for Doctor Joynton,’ she said.

  ‘Shush,’ replied Larry, the tousle-haired chief technician, ‘but put it out.’

  He grinned, indicating across the glowing area with his head. Farther over, as it were in the centre of a ring formed by a semicircle of giant computer bastions, a tall, thin man lay unconscious on a gleaming steel table. Terminals reached from his temples, thorax and wrists to the recesses of the computer, and a high-pitched humming sound, barely perceptible at first, indicated contact of a strange and novel order between man and human artefact. The thought ran across Beth’s mind, as it had done on other occasions, that this was a technological Stonehenge and Professor Devereaux, the director of the laboratory, was both priest and victim.

  ‘On brain link?’ she whispered.

  ‘Sorting out a few gremlins,’ replied Larry. Then he turned his fresh grin on her. ‘Use channel 4B, and then come and have supper with me. Honest, I never get the chance to talk to you these days. I’m off duty in ten minutes.’

  ‘Sorry, Larry, but I’m busy all evening,’ said Beth primly. There were times when Larry could quite ruin an atmosphere for her.

  * * *

  When Edith Joynton walked into the infirmary and saw Liz and Simon, she said, ‘Dearie, dearie me,’ and set to work with a will. For a mature woman of some bulk she moved with an extraordinary lightness and dexterity. When finally she had the two properly injected, under oxygen tents and being progressively restored to a normal temperature she said. ‘Dearie, dearie me,’ again, and looked suspiciously at Bukov.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked the Russian, who had stayed to get the answers to some questions.

  ‘Bukov,’ inquired Edith in a hard, flattish tone, ‘who are these kids? Why aren’t they dead?’

  ‘Dead, Doctor Joynton?’

  ‘It’s eighty below outside there, but they don’t even have frostbite. Their lungs should be iced up, but they’re breathing normally. And look at the queer way they’re dressed. I tell you, there’s something screwy going on here. Where did they come from, anyway? Was there a carrier drop scheduled for today?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Bukov with a frown. ‘But only for goods, not for persons. I was out picking up the supplies when I came across them.’

  ‘Then they’re out of the box, aren’t they?’ Edith’s eyes returned darkly to the two motionless shapes obscured behind the plastic curtains. ‘Ruddy little wonders, Bukov. Ruddy little wonders.’

  * * *

  Devereaux said, ‘Ah, Beth.’ He blinked awake, sat quickly up on the steel table. ‘What about those new arrivals?’

  ‘You — you know about them, sir?’ It was always slightly uncanny to Beth, the way he could receive new information on brain link.

  ‘Their coming was noted by the area scanners and passed on.’ Devereaux detached the terminals from his body in a matter-of-fact fashion, assisted by Larry, who had hurried over the moment he seemed to stir. ‘But the information wasn’t quite clear. They seemed to be — young people.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Director. All I know is that Doctor Bukov discovered them out there on the ice. Half dead, apparently.’

  ‘Well, well,’ replied Devereaux, more puzzled than surprised. ‘And young people.’

  He rose from the table to his full height. Though his gaunt face and angular body gave him a certain distinction and presence, Morgan Devereaux could hardly have been called an attractive man. His age remained a permanent mystery to his underlings. Yet when he smiled — which was rarely — and when the faint burr of his American speech wove fantasies of the scientific future — which was not often enough — Beth had always felt inescapably drawn to him. But there was no warmth in eye or tongue at this moment. He looked coldly to Larry.

  ‘Larry,’ said Devereaux, ‘I checked that stop-off in the laboratory water supply you reported. Late last night, and lasting three minutes. The computer abnegates all responsibility. Human error.’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ protested Larry. ‘I made all my rounds as usual at 21.00 hours, and there was no evidence of malfunction.’

  ‘Human error,’ repeated Devereaux. ‘The last enemy in a technological world. You’d better watch it, Larry.’ He started for the door. ‘You may also find you made a minimal mistake in recording your pulse reading this morning.’

  ‘No, Director.’

  ‘The computer was quite explicit about it.’ Devereaux had paused to look back with hard eyes. ‘I’ve tried to tell staff members till I’m blue these things need to be correct to the micro-decimal. It’s the only way of ensuring everybody gets his accurate dose of HA57. So just watch it, Larry. Watch it.’

  The Director went on out of the computer room and Beth followed, leaving Larry to his reflections.

  * * *

  Edith Joynton adjusted the oxygen-supply tap above Liz’s bed and was about to move away when she heard a little moan and observed a stirring beneath the tent. She quickly neutralized the apparatus and bundled back the plastic. Liz’s eyes slowly opened.
<
br />   ‘Well, what do you know about that?’ said Edith, staring at her. ‘Girlie, I say it again — you’re a ruddy little wonder.’

  Liz could only gaze into the broad, motherly face in astonishment. Then she sat bolt upright, perfectly well but in a sudden panic. Edith placed a protective arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Now take it easy,’ she urged. ‘You’re all right — though I’d be the last to know why.’

  ‘Where am I?’ asked Liz, hearing the sound of her own voice.

  ‘You’re safe, I tell you. Safe in the ice-box.’

  ‘Ice-box?’

  Edith laughed. ‘Well, that’s what they call it. Where you were heading for, anyway. The International Institute for Biological Research. Okay?’

  Now images crowded back into Liz’s head. The Naval Station — the time barrier — the strange ice field and the terrible cold. She opened her mouth to say something, but a sound came from the bed next to her. Simon was waking up too. Edith hurried over, repeated the process of switching off the oxygen and stripping back the plastic. Liz knew she must speak at once.

  ‘We’re in the ice-box, Simon,’ she announced.

  Simon blinked at her.

  ‘The ice-box,’’ Liz insisted meaningfully. ‘It’s what they call it. You remember. The International Institute — ah—’

  ‘—for Biological Research,’ completed Edith.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Simon. ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  Edith was unceremoniously examining him, twisting his head this way and that, prodding his arms and chest. ‘And no signs of ill-effects on him either,’ she muttered. ‘I call this the funniest thing I’ve struck.’ She sat down heavily at the foot of the bed, sighing. ‘So let’s have the whole story. I’m Doctor Joynton, you’re Simon and you’re?—’