*
Later that evening, I watched the sun slide gently into the sea under a mauve sky. ‘Where are we?’ I asked Vart. I had rested, bathed, changed into clean US Navy fatigues and was now sitting on a balcony overlooking a gently simmering volcano. Jack no longer looked or smelled like a compost heap. Though he still had a fox's tail in his hair.
‘We’re on the island of Maui, in the fabulous state of Hawaii. This is Mount Haleakala. It’s a fairly well behaved volcano. The observatory was built back in the twentieth century. For years it was Hawaii University’s astrological research observatory, but now it’s ESTA’s main TEP. Geneva is the HQ, where the suits sit, but the actual work is done at the TEPs, especially here at TEP-One.’
Jack stirred on his sun-lounger. ‘OK Vart, so somehow you're now a big shot physicist. I'm having trouble getting my head round that, but worse is all these initials. Didn’t you learn any words at Berkley and Cambridge, or just initials?’
Vart smiled and shrugged. ‘ESTA, that’s Earth Time Space Administration,’ he explained. ‘It’s like NASA but for time travel. As for the rest, believe me, it's easier if you just accept it. All I can tell you is this; I've been alive for about twenty four years now, over a period of 6500 years. You've been alive sixteen years over the same period, and when we met we were the same age – got it?'
Jack shook his head bemused. ‘Never mind. What's a TEP.'
‘That’s T.E.P., it means Temporal Event Portal. There are five TEPs. Two more are being built, a massive one in China, another in India. The others are at CERN in Switzerland, ANU in Canberra, AWE at Aldermaston, and a New Zealand led international project at the South Pole.’
‘C’mon, it’s time,’ I told them, showing my watch.
Vart jumped to his feet immediately. ‘Thanks, Tori. C’mon Jack, do like the lady says. It’s time for Rommy's PMS.'
'Look, stop it with the alphabet for cripes sake,' Jack groaned. 'Speak proper words or belt up.'
'Pre-Mission Strategy meeting,' Vart explained. 'We have to work out how to deal with MCF and your little friend Sindra.’
Jack groaned and rolled sluggishly onto his feet. He took my hand briefly as we followed Vart along corridors and through an administration block to the main dome floor. We found Doctor Becks and several technicians gathered at a machine resembling a small, silver coloured refrigerator. His fingers toyed with a remote control as he nodded a welcome. A dim ray of light fizzed up from the little fridge thing and formed itself into a bright cylindrical screen about the size of a dust bin. Rommy clicked the remote, bringing a spectacular moving image of a surfer riding a tube wave to the screen. The group fell silent. I noticed as I moved to find a place at the machine that the image on its screen appeared perfect from every direction.
‘Tori, you don’t have to do this,’ Jack whispered, squeezing my arm.
‘Yes you do, Tori,’ Vart interrupted. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I know how you feel about her, but Tori hit MCF harder than any of us. Single handed and almost without resources she got inside. They didn’t see her coming until she was halfway in.’
He turned to me, his freckled face and sparkly green eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘If you’d had decent equipment and some back up, you would have made it all the way. I don’t know if you realise, Tori, just how close you came to putting that megalomaniac out of business.’
Rommy handed Vart the remote control. He clicked to a video image of the Box Tunnel. Trains were running in and out giving me a twinge of homesickness. ‘It’ll just be the three of us. Tori, Jack and me,’ he told the group. Tori knows most about MCF’s underground facility, and she’s been in the big house too. She will guide us in.’
It was strange to hear myself spoken about like this. The technicians and scientists gathered around, looked at me and smiled respectfully. Vart turned to me suddenly. ‘I need to see your plan in half an hour, Tori. Jack and me will provide technical support and muscle. We must all memorise Time Wand serial number BES06-1041. Recovering that is more important than anything else - even capturing the old man. Of course it would be good to get both, and Sindra too.’ He handed the remote control back to Rommy who clicked a spreadsheet up onto the screen.
‘My team has worked out the necessary algorithm for decommissioning MCF. We’ve run the model but only for a very short time. Normally we’d test something like this for thousands of real time hours.’ He paused and looked solemnly around the group. ‘Now, I have to say this to you - I don’t want to – but I must.’ His gaze dropped to the ground and he shuffled awkwardly. ‘I’ve worked with some of you for a very long time. I consider you all special and my good friends. But because of what Tori told us, we know that any one of us could be working for MCF. We might not even know it. None of us knows who they have already kidnapped and returned. It could be me, or any of you. Only by running the computer model for many hours more could we begin to detect the sort of anomalies MCF might have bugged our systems with. Ladies and gentlemen, we are truly flying blind.’ Grim faced he looked around the sombre group. ‘All we can do is pray that we really are the person we think we are and not some misguided version of ourselves created by MCF.’
I felt a cold shudder and watched as people shuffled, nervously glancing at each other. Jack squeezed my hand, shooting me a reassuring grin.
Rommy went on, trying to sound bullish. ‘We’ve cleared coordinates for the Time Wand’s destruction. We have the algorithms for a window of time at the place it must be done. We will keep testing these algorithms right up to the very last minute. Once you have the Time Wand, if the final coordinates have changed we will tell you the latest ones. If we can get it right we will avoid any destructive time ripples.’ He flicked the remote control again triggering a succession of images of the MCF grounds and house, most of which I recognised.
‘We’ve studied the dependencies as thoroughly as possible in the limited time allowed us. I’m afraid it won’t be a one hundred percent certainty. Some things may not work out as we expect. At best there is a 90.68% probability that our proposed recovery strategy is sound, but as I said, we are flying blind. We must all face the probability that there are factors we’re unaware of. Frankly, with the limited amount of computer modelling we’ve been able to do - this is all extremely risky.’
Vart stepped forward again. ‘Doctor Anwar is on his way from Pakistan in a military skimmer. He and his team have already triple checked Rommy’s algorithm. He will be responsible to Rommy for all software and programming. If last minute recodes are needed, he’ll be here on the spot to do it.
‘Is that wise?’ I blurted out, immediately regretting my bluntness. I felt all eyes swing on to me, burning accusingly. Doctor Anwar was respected like a god. He had invented time travel. These people hung on his every word.
‘Tori is right to mention it,’ said Rommy Becks. ‘One can understand her concern, especially coming from outside this place and time.’ He tugged at his collar and adjusted the drape of his garish shirt, looking at each of his colleagues around him. ‘He was in MCF’s power for several months, and of course, it is possible he was manipulated during that time. When he returned, he subjected himself to full scrutiny including deep psychoanalysis. The security services were entirely satisfied with his responses. Speaking for myself, I was fully reassured by my own discussions with him. We covered it fully – everything. He himself has raised the possibility that MCF could have used some sort of mind control or manipulation on him. He has even strongly resisted involvement in this project. He said I should disqualify him as a precaution.’
Rommy sighed and clicked the remote control to bring up a photograph of the Doctor receiving the Nobel Prize for services to science. ‘Speaking as the director of TEP One, I put the protection of Sacred Time itself and the defence and this facility above everything, even my own life. It is my opinion that I would be grievously in error if I did not seek Doctor Anwar’s help and advice at this critical moment. Excluding him would be to waste the fine
st mind on the planet. It’s unthinkable.’
‘I agree,’ said Vart. ‘I feel much safer knowing he’s on the team.’
Frankly, I wasn’t so sure. He had seemed all too eager to please Sindra when I’d seen him down in MCF’s laboratory. And I couldn’t overlook the fact that she had allowed him access to Time Wands. He could have escaped back to Haleakala at anytime. But looking around at the faces of my new colleagues, I could see every one of them was more than eager to accept Rommy’s assessment. Convincing them that their hero was a spy, with no more evidence than my gut feelings, would be impossible.
‘What’s a skimmer?’ asked Jack, breaking the tension.
‘Oh, it’s an aircraft that bounces off the ionosphere. It can do Islamabad to here in about an hour,’ Rommy explained.
Vart clicked up an image of MCF’s country house. ‘OK, so the laboratory and all their research has to be unravelled from our own,’ he confirmed. ‘Rommy has assembled a team of technicians and scientists from around the globe. They are all ready to go as soon as we give the word.’ He turned to Jack and me. ‘What we have to do is get in there, grab the old mark one Time Wand, check the number, and then give the go ahead for the clean up boys.’
‘And that’s it?’ queried Jack.
‘Not quite,’ said Vart. ‘We have to go back to my time first. Back to the river bend people and Stonehenge. The predicted coordinates for place and time are right there and then. We have to be there to send the old Time Wand to its destruction from exactly where Serren raised his totem.’
I felt Jack shudder beside me and turned to him. He looked shocked and sickly. I wanted to comfort him. He just shrugged and gave me a sort of sheepish look.
‘It’ll be good to see old friends again,’ he groaned wryly.
………