“Sounds good to me,” said Jack. “I for one intend to write it all down before I forget what happened. Not that there’s much chance of that,” he added quickly. “I don’t suppose it’s coincidence that we’re all Oxford men, is it?” Charles joked. “No, it’s not,” said Bert. “It isn’t a rule that the Caretakers be from Oxford, or even English; but for some reason it seems to better the odds. Both times we had a Cambridge man—John Dee, and then Lord Byron—it was an absolute disaster. I even heard rumors that Dee had something to do with Atlantis sinking, although how that might have occurred I have no clue.” “Sorry I asked,” said Charles. “Where do you want us to sign?” said John. “Do we choose a favorite map, or what?” “Do you mean to tell me that in all this time, you never took a look at the endpapers inside the cover?” Bert said with astonishment. “Blow me down and call me Shirley.” “It wasn’t a map,” said John. “Forgive me for being goal-oriented. I was under a lot of stress, you know.” Bert smiled and shook his head in mock dismay as he opened the front cover of the Geographica and turned it around for them to read. “Amazing,” said Charles. “If we hadn’t just been through what we have, I don’t quite think I’d believe this was real.” “Amen,” said Jack. John said nothing, but began tracing his finger underneath the names inscribed on the two pages; names that contained within them much of the cultural and scientific history of the entire human race. Edmund Spenser. Johannes Kepler. William Shakespeare. Chaucer was there, as were Roger Bacon, Alexandre Dumas, Cervantes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Jonathan Swift. Tycho Brahe. Jacob (but not Wilhelm) Grimm. Hans Christian Andersen, and Washington Irving. Coleridge was there, and both Shelleys: Percy Bysshe and Mary Wollstonecraft. Arthur Conan Doyle, whom they expected, and Harry Houdini, whom they did not. Goethe. Dante. Edgar Allan Poe. And on and on and on. “Poe?” Jack said in surprise. “And Mark Twain?” “Jules Verne, as well,” said Bert. “He’s the one who passed it on to me.” “Extraordinary,” said Charles. “The earliest of the Mapmakers’ names are not there, of course,” said Bert. “It was almost a thousand years after the Cartographer began to compile it that the first Caretaker took over.” “Who was that?” said John. “Geoffrey of Monmouth,” said Bert. “These aren’t copies,” said John, touching the pages with reverence. “These signatures are all originals.” “Here,” said Bert. “You can sign underneath our names.” There at the lower part of the right-hand page was the elegant script of Professor Sigurdsson’s name, followed by a signature that had been crossed out. “That’s the rebel Caretaker’s name, isn’t it?” asked Charles. “Yes,” nodded Bert. “Stellan never forgave Jamie for turning his back on us.” “What was his full name?” asked John, peering at the list. “You may have heard of him,” said Bert. “He’s just been knighted recently—Sir James Barrie.” John stood up abruptly and looked at Charles and Jack in astonishment. Jack leaned forward and furrowed his brow. “Where’s your name, Bert?” he asked. “Shouldn’t it be under the other two?” “Not under,” said Bert, “above. I was given it first, remember? I then recruited Stellan, who in turn recruited Jamie.” As one, the three men looked to the name above the professor’s—and as one, all three jaws dropped open in surprise. The signature read “Herbert George Wells.” “I never really liked Herbert,” said Bert, “and couldn’t see myself as a George either, for that matter.” “It’s an honor to…ah…,” John began, raising his hand for a shake. He looked at his proffered hand, then sheepishly withdrew it. After all they had been through together, Bert was no longer a stranger to them, but family—whatever his true name. “Hang on a minute,” said Charles. “There’s a problem with that. You see, I’ve actually met H. G. Wells, and—no offense, Bert—but he’s a lot younger than you are.” “Oh, you’ve misunderstood me,” said Bert. “I’m not that H. G. Wells. I mean, I am him, but not the him from now—I’m the him from then, in the future.” “The future?” said John. “Eight hundred thousand years,” Bert said, checking his watch, “next Thursday.” “That’s fantastic,” said John. “You are the Time Traveler you wrote about in your book.” “Guilty, I’m afraid,” said Bert. “Nemo and I built the device based on designs conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci, and my first journey ‘out’ was when I met Aven’s mother, Weena. I wrote down an account of the whole adventure and wished desperately to share it with the world at large—but I realized that it would never be taken seriously as a nonfictional, biographical accounting. So I revised it—considerably, I might add—and published it in the version you all know.” “That’s not a bad idea,” said Jack. “To disguise the true story as fiction or allegory. I might take a stab at that myself.” “It seems a shame, though,” said John, “not to be able to tell anyone what really happened. But then again,” he added, “I don’t think I could talk about what’s gone on in the Archipelago with anyone but you three. No one else would believe it.” “So, Bert, when I met him, uh, you…,” Charles began. “You met a much younger version of me,” said Bert, “and I remember the meeting well. That’s when I first pegged you as a potential Caretaker.” “You were scouting me?” said Charles. “Sure,” said Bert. “Who do you think it was who recommended you for the editorial position at the Oxford University Press?” “Were you watching me, too?” said Jack. “No,” said Bert. “You hadn’t written enough yet to draw my attention.” “Oh,” said Jack, a bit crestfallen. “Awfully glad you came along, though, Jack,” said John. “Couldn’t imagine having gotten through it all without you.” “Thanks,” said Jack. “When you came to the club,” Charles said, “you didn’t act as if you knew me.” “Because I didn’t,” said Bert. “I knew your work, and that’s it, and that’s all. There were about a dozen of you whose writing bore the marks of a potential Caretaker—imagination, innovation, conviction, and clarity—and I left it to Stellan to choose who to train further. He chose John.” “But if there were potential Caretakers available to be trained,” said Charles, “couldn’t we have been recruited sooner, after the other Caretaker left his post, so that the crisis with the Winter King could have been averted?” “Mordred’s plot was already well under way before Jamie came along,” said Bert, “or even myself and Stellan, for that matter. Nothing could have been done to prevent the events from proceeding as they did up until the point where he came out in the open. And by then it was too late.” “You don’t think James Barrie could have prevented the war if he’d stayed on with the professor?” said John. Bert shook his head and walked past them, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’ve wondered that myself,” he admitted, “but I doubt it. Jamie just wasn’t suited to it, and it all but broke Stellan’s heart when he walked away. I do know this,” he added. “Whatever the difficulty was in seeing through your obligations, I know that Stellan saw your acceptance as a redemption of sorts.”
