Time's Chariot

after this?’

‘It’ll be fun to guess, won’t it?’ said Sarai. Neither of them yet knew why Scott had had them whisked away from the plantation, but it was enough of an adventure for them not to worry. And the sponsorship of a patrician didn’t come your way every day.

‘S’pose we’d better get started, then. Crate one, item one…’

It took the rest of the day.

When the last crate was resealed, they looked at each other.

‘It’s what we’d expect,’ said Sarai. ‘I mean, it’s our job.’

‘Yeah, but why bring ‘em here?’ Jontan shrugged and opened a symb link. ‘Mr Scott, please.’

Scott’s eidolon appeared in front of them. ‘Yes?’ he said abruptly.

‘Journeymen Baiget and Killin, sir…’ Jontan said.

‘I can see that. Report?’

‘Um, everything present and correct, sir.’

‘Good, good. Got it loaded yet?’

‘Loaded, sir?’

Scott’s impatience was almost tangible. ‘Have you put the equipment in the cham— the, uh, dome yet?’

‘Um, no sir…’

‘Then do it! I’ll see you tomorrow. Out.’ The eidolon vanished again.

‘So then what does he expect us to do?’ said Sarai.

You have to ask? Jontan thought. ‘Ah… um,’ he said. Sarai looked at him thoughtfully. Was she maybe thinking… ? he wondered.

As it turned out, no, she wasn’t. ‘He said we wouldn’t be doing anything for Union Day,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh?’

She smiled. ‘He said there’s a foodfac.’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘Think it could produce a sort of mini-feast? Booze, too?’

Jontan’s eyes widened. ‘Um, yeah.’

‘So we have our own party a day early.’

His heart pounded. ‘Great! That’d be great. Oh. No music.’

‘We symb the music. Take me to the ball, Mr Baiget? When we’re done loading.’

He grinned. ‘I’d be honoured, Ms Killin.’

Jontan and Sarai woke up the next morning to the same symbed time signal. Jontan stirred and rolled over in his cot and looked at Sarai, in her own cot across the room by the other wall. Bleary eyes, tousled hair: she had never looked more beautiful. He could feast his eyes on her forever.

So, part of him chided, you were alone in a room all night with the girl of your dreams and what did you do? What happened? You slept. Oh, won’t the lads back home be proud of you…

We didn’t just sleep, he answered himself, just a touch defensive. They had… well, danced. It had been quite a satisfactory two-person Union Day party, complete with low lights, slow music and cheek-to-cheek dancing towards the end… after which Sarai had pointedly kissed him on the cheek and retired to her own cot.

And they had talked. They had a lot to talk about. The advantage of being madly in love with her was that they had so much of their shared childhood to talk about. The disadvantage… was that they had so much of their shared childhood to talk about.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She smiled sleepily. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Time to get up.’

‘Yep.’

While Sarai was washing, Jontan wandered idly into the main chamber and ordered up a breakfast sandwich from the foodfac. He munched slowly as he walked into the large dome that dominated the place, and looked around him. Apart from the lights that were set in a circle around its highest point, flush with the metal, it was featureless. Standing inside it, he could see it was actually a complete sphere — the floor was a metal mesh that cut the globe in half. It seemed there was a faint vibration, a hum, at the back of his mind, only noticeable when he thought about it. The crates were stacked inside, put there by himself and Sarai the previous day.

‘Any guesses?’ Sarai stood in the wide doorway.

‘None,’ he said. ‘Is it some kind of vault?’

‘I remembered something,’ she said. ‘Look.’

Jontan symbed with her and an image came to mind of hundreds of shiny metal balls in racked layers, one above the other, stretching into the distance. Then he noticed people moving among them and realized the balls were spheres like this. The place where this was happening must have been huge.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘The transference hall at the College. I saw a picture of it once.’

‘Then this…’ Jontan did a double take and looked around, as though expecting the sphere to have changed somehow. If this was like the spheres in the picture then it could only be one thing. ‘But if all the transference chambers are in that room…’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Sarai shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a mock-up or something. We could ask the Register.’

‘What’s the Register?’

Sarai looked askance at him. ‘It’s the intelligence in charge of the College, Jontan. It handles all the transferences and everything and nothing works without it.’

‘Oh.’ Jontan wasn’t really listening. It had dawned on him that Sarai was standing closer to him than at any time since last night and his mind was racing with possible ways of rekindling that romantic mood.

‘Impressive, Ms Killin. Tell me more about the Register.’ They both jumped. Phenuel Scott stood in the entrance to the sphere, arms folded.

‘Oh, um…’ Jontan was pleased to see that Sarai’s assurance fled just as fast as his own in Scott’s presence. ‘It’s, um, like I said to Journeyman Baiget, sir. The Register handles all the details of time travel, and…’

‘Who created it?’

‘Oh, Jean Morbern, sir…’

‘And no one can travel through time without it?’

‘No, sir.’ Sarai was beginning to look confident again. ‘The banks were very clear on that, sir. No one can travel without the Register knowing. It makes sure no timestreams cross and no one meets themselves and—’

‘So how did Morbern manage it, before he created the Register?’ Scott said. Sarai went quiet, with the stricken look of an advocate who has suddenly found a gaping hole in her own case.

‘I, um, don’t know, sir,’ she whispered.

‘Nor does anyone, Ms Killin. Morbern was a genius who worked by luck and intuition and serendipity; the Home Time was an accident and Morbern destroyed all his records. Come out here, you two.’

Two more men were waiting out in the cavern. One was Asian and old — almost old enough for emigration, Jontan thought — and was dressed in casual slacks. The younger man was dressed in the yellow and red that Jontan knew was the uniform of College staff. The College man spoke first.

‘Everything’s ready. The charges are set so you’ll be untraceable.’ He handed Scott a green crystal. ‘Here’s the lingo. These two…’ He looked at the journeymen.

‘These two won’t need it,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll do the talking.’

‘They’ll need this, though,’ the man said. He took a medfac from his pocket and entered commands into it. After a moment it beeped to show it had synthesized the correct drug. ‘Your shots. Hold still a moment.’ He walked around them all and pressed the medfac to each neck. Jontan heard it hiss and felt a slight tingle which meant he had just been injected with something, but he had no idea what. He felt slightly annoyed that someone would pump something into him and take his consent for granted, but — as he reminded himself yet again — he was a journeyman, Mr Scott was a patrician.

The younger stranger was speaking again. ‘On arrival, just ask for Ms Holliss. She’s in charge there and she’s expecting you.’