Taurus — until they had finally found the quiet and secluded site near the hamlet of Soonhope in the upper Tweed Valley. The local community had been grateful for the sudden injection of cash that the endowment had provided and the creation of a new school on a rundown site. After a while, an increasing number of local pupils began to attend, assisted by generous subsidies. Pupil numbers had been kept low, ostensibly to preserve academic standards, but in reality, to free up faculty time for more important matters.
As Pendelshape talked, Jack saw the expression on Angus’s face gradually change. His mouth was morphing into that warped, toothy grin that meant only one thing. Trouble. Sure enough, as Pendelshape paused for breath, Angus seized his chance.
“So, sir… er, it all sounds great, but are you going to show us how it really works?”
To Jack’s utter amazement Pendelshape replied, “Yes, Angus, in fact I am.”
Jack nearly fell off his chair. Pendelshape looked at his watch nervously. “We’ve spent far too much time talking already. The truth is that unforeseen circumstances have arisen. This is why I have brought you here. I will explain why in a minute. I and, er, well, we have a kind of… mission to complete. But first, I would like you both to understand how it all works…” he smiled, “you know, just in case…”
A crack in the floor stretched from one side of the library to the other. A green glass barrier rose up from it, extending to the ceiling. They stood in front of it.
“This is the blast screen. Press this…” Pendelshape clicked the device in his hand, “and down it comes.” Jack and Angus jumped back as, with alarming speed, the blast screen descended into the narrow aperture in the floor and the whole Taurus structure was revealed to them in its full glory.
“Awesome,” Angus whispered reverentially.
“Be careful. You don’t want to be standing over that blast screen when it goes up again. It could give you a nasty bruise in your nether regions.”
Pendelshape moved over to one of the control panels and began typing at a keyboard. Soon they heard a slight rising hum. Pendelshape explained the basics of how the machine was operated. It was surprisingly simple. He showed them how you synchronised the time phone with the Taurus console by placing it in a special recessed pod. He showed them how you entered the Taurus through the surrounding girders from the gantry, and how you then positioned yourself on the steel platform by placing your feet between the etchings drawn into the metal. He reminded them of the limitations of the Taurus and its umbilical linkage to the time phone.
“As you said Angus, its a bit like a mobile phone — you can only use the time phone when you have a signal. Remember that bar?” he indicated the little greyed-out display on the time phone. “When it’s yellow — you’re good to go — you can communicate, we know where you are and the Taurus can send you back and forth through time. When there’s no signal, you’re stuck — although the phone’s energy source will continue to tell you where and when you are.”
“And if you lose the phone?” Angus asked.
Pendelshape looked back at Angus with steel in his eyes, “Lose that time phone, Mr Jud, and you’re not only
Jack was engrossed. “Can you go anywhere?”
“There are constraints. The variability of the time signals through the space-time continuum is a major one. It’s like shifting sands. Periods of time open up and then close. It’s not as if all periods of time and all locations are accessible all the time. Then there’s ‘deep time’.”
“Deep time?”
“A specific constraint that exists along the lines I just mentioned. It seems that the Taurus is only effective at transportation from when you depart to more than about thirty years or so in the past. We call it ‘deep time’. Anything sooner is a sort of no-go zone. This also means you can’t travel back from the past to just before you left.” Pendelshape’s brow furrowed, “And there’s one more thing. We call it the ‘Armageddon Scenario’.” Pendelshape said the words quickly — as if he was hoping the boys might not even notice he had said them.
“Well that sounds pretty harmless,” Angus said.
Jack frowned, “What is it?”
Pendelshape shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “Another part of time theory. It postulates that if you revisit the same point of spacetime more than once, you dramatically increase the risk of a continuum meltdown. At worst, the possible destruction of the universe — but in reality, probably not as bad at that — probably only the destruction of some bit of it.”
“Oh — that’s OK then. Presumably it’s the bit we’re in?” Angus said.
“Yes. Think of a bit of tissue paper. It’s like putting holes in it with your finger. These are like visits to the past using Taurus to particular points in time. The tissue will hold together for a while but too many holes and the whole lot will disintegrate. So best not to risk repeat trips in and around the same point. The precise parameters of this constraint are not known — and of course have not been tested.”
Suddenly the pitch of the humming from the control room rose an octave. A number of lights around the console flashed on.
Pendelshape smiled in satisfaction. “We’re in business! Right, gentlemen, before we go any further, I have to explain to you what we must do next and why we have decided to show you all this. It’s not a step we have taken lightly. You’re going to have to trust me one more time. I assure you, it is in all of our interests.”
The boys glanced at each other nervously.
Pendelshape marched over to the table and was joined by Angus, who wandered backwards slowly, still staring up, mesmerised by the Taurus and its surrounding apparatus of cables and pipes. Jack waited by the quietly humming machine, still trying to absorb everything that Pendelshape had said.
“Jack, please, if you would come back over here, quickly…” Pendelshape gestured impatiently for him to move away from the structure. He took a deep breath, “The Taurus is already set so that we can travel back in time to somewhere I know and where we will be safe, before being picked up. The truth is…”
But he did not finish his sentence.
Armed Responce
The heavy door at the far end of the control room swung open and through it marched Tony and Gordon. Over their usual uniforms, each was wearing an army flak jacket. From his position next to the Taurus, Jack could just make out some small silver lettering on each of the jackets. The lettering read: VIGIL Response.
Behind Tony and Gordon were two other men — Mr Belstaff and Mr Johnstone — the games teachers. They wore the same get-up as the two janitors and moved with the same imposing power. But what alarmed Jack most was that, quite extraordinarily, all the men were… armed. If he had been an expert on military matters, he might have recognised the weapons that they carried to be Corner Shot APRs — one of the most advanced automatic weapons in the world. With their laser sights, video screens and swivelling gun-mounts, the machine pistols also had a special feature — they could shoot round corners. What on earth they were doing in the hands of the school janitors and the games teachers, Jack had no idea.
The four men were followed by a tall slim figure with a bald head, poorly disguised with thinning wisps of silver hair. With his trademark black gown flowing from a pair of hunched shoulders he looked a bit like a carrion crow. Jack recognised him immediately. It was the school’s head: the Rector.
He advanced towards Pendelshape and Angus, his face purple with rage.
Pendelshape jumped to his feet. He looked terrified, “John… I’m sorry… I…”
But the Rector shouted back, “Silence!”
Pendelshape sank to his knees; he seemed to be… begging.
“Please! I didn’t mean…”
The Rector loomed over Pendelshape, “You idiot! I always had a sneaking suspicion about you. Didn’t you think we’d find out?”
Pendelshape really was begging now, “Please, please. John… I didn’t…”
“I should have guessed you might betray us. You and the Benefactor. A bad combination of hopeless romantic and dangerous lunatic…”
