Time's Chariot

apprehending people in forests, Rico thought, as he summoned the energy for one final sprint, with Alan still at his side. There was the problem of getting through the branches.

Up ahead, maybe fifty yards off, he could see Bera. The Specific had stopped running and was looking back at them, waving, urging them on. So, that must be the recall point. Bera finally twigged that the people he was meant to be rescuing weren’t doing very well and he took a step towards them.

The voice was at it again. ‘I said, stay where you are. You can’t get away and you’re only making things worse. You— look out, you idiot !’

And then there was a crash, and a screech of metal tearing into metal, and the frantic whip whip whip of spinning metal suddenly liberated from its mounting and slicing through the air…

… And a bright orange whoomph as a fuel tank exploded, and the two helicopters that had collided tumbled down into the trees. The blast knocked Rico to the ground and he instinctively curled into a tight ball as bits of red hot wreckage and razor sharp, twisted steel hurtled through the air in all directions.

He picked himself up gingerly. Ahead, the forest was ablaze, an inferno that he could never get through. The flames lay between him and the recall point.

‘Close one,’ he commented, looking over at Alan. ‘That was…’

He stopped. Alan was lying still. Rico reached over and prodded the man’s shoulder. Still nothing.

With his heart in his mouth, Rico turned Alan over. The correspondent’s chest was one large hole, gouged out by a piece of wreckage. Alan’s eyes were open and blank.

Rico’s world went cold and empty.

‘Oh no,’ he breathed. ‘Oh, no. Please. No.’ He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms round them, and he sat and looked at Alan.

‘Rico?’ A gentle hand on his shoulder. He took it and squeezed it, without looking up.

A thousand years, almost. War, plague, famine and Europe’s Middle Ages — this man had come through them all. Convicted by the Home Time for who knew what misdemeanour, sent back to serve his sentence, innocently trusting his far-future masters, used and abused by them right from the start…

And it ended in a forest, with a lump of helicopter wreckage in his chest.

‘Rico, I’m sorry,’ Su said. He gave the hand another squeeze, then darted a venomous glare at Asaldra. The other Home Timer was picking himself up from the forest floor, brushing himself down, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from the body. He had the sense to keep quiet.

Voices were shouting through the trees. Rico didn’t move.

‘I don’t know what you did in the Home Time,’ he said, his voice shuddering in his throat, ‘but you didn’t deserve this.’

‘Rico, we’ve missed the recall,’ Su said.

‘Uh-huh.’ Rico reached out for Alan’s left wrist, lifted it up, glanced at the watch there. It was just past midnight. He angled the display so that Su could see it.

‘Ah, well,’ he said.

‘Oh, God,’ she said.

A light pierced the dark and picked him out.

‘Don’t move!’ shouted a voice.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Rico said calmly. Guards pounded through the bushes, wincing at the heat of the still blazing fire. They surrounded the Home Timers, guns raised, and Su and Rico just looked at them. Asaldra put his hands up and Rico at last felt the familiar feel of a recall field enveloping him.

‘Hello, boys,’ he said, and all three Home Timers vanished.

It was just after midnight on Saturday 21st May, 2022.

Recall Day.

TWENTY-FIVE

Rico came abruptly out of the post-transference daze when someone tripped over him. He was sitting on the floor of the transference chamber, still in the hugged-up position in which he had left the twenty-first century. It was darker for him than it usually was in a chamber because he was surrounded by people who were standing. The man who had almost fallen over him found his balance again and stumbled back into the man behind him, who stepped to one side and bumped into the woman next to him, who…

‘Hey, hey, careful! I’m down here!’

The person next to him reached down and helped him up. Rico realized it was Su. He pulled himself to his feet, fighting the mass of people around him. The chamber was packed: men and women of all colours, shapes and sizes. There was little talking, not even murmuring. These were correspondents, conditioned to keep themselves to themselves, and not even the fulfilled promise of Recall Day was going to break them out of their usual reserve.

Asaldra was there too and his face was split by an enormous smile.

‘Recall Day!’ He seemed genuinely happy. ‘Well, well. I’m sorry this spoils all those plans you had for me, Op Garron.’

‘What do you mean? We’re back in the College,’ Rico said.

The old smugness was back. ‘Recall Day is twenty-seven years after our own time. Assuming they haven’t abolished the statute of limitations, anything I ever did wrong is long forgiven.’

‘Rico,’ Su whispered, and that brought Rico’s mind neatly back to a far more important point than the possibility that Asaldra was going to get away with everything. Her face was ashen. Su had left a husband and child back in the old Home Time. Tong would now be almost due for retirement, her kid would be an adult, and to them, Su’s non-return twenty-seven years ago would have been as good as bereavement.

Rico wormed one arm round her in the press of people and held her tight. ‘Oh, Su, I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. She rested her head on his shoulder and trembled.

The doors to the chamber swung open and a voice spoke. It was friendly and resonant with welcome and love.

‘Correspondents, welcome back to the Home Time! Please follow the red lights.’ A stream of lights appeared in the air above them, flowing from the centre of the chamber and out of the doors. The correspondents waited a moment longer, then obediently began to shuffle forward.

One of them stumbled and caught herself; then another, and another. Rico glanced down. Oh, yes.

‘Make way, people,’ he called out, jabbing a finger down at the floor. ‘Dead person.’

A few curious glances down at Alan’s body, but not many.

‘Yes, that’s right, keep going,’ Rico said. ‘Follow the light. Just keep moving…’

Five minutes later the chamber was empty except for Rico, Su, Asaldra and the body. Rico looked down at Alan.

You’re back where you wanted to be, he thought. At least one of us made it.

‘Can I have your designations?’ said a bright voice. A man and a woman in College yellow stood in the entrance, wreathed in amiable smiles.

‘Sorry?’ said Rico.

‘Your designation?’ the woman repeated. ‘Is your conditioning at fault, maybe? You didn’t follow the lights, you see…’

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said the man, following Rico’s gaze down to the body. ‘We’ll get a clean-up squad to take care of him.’

Rico bristled. ‘He will be buried with full College honours,’ he snapped. The two stewards took a step back, presumably not expecting that sort of tone from a returning correspondent, let alone a correspondent who knew what the College was. ‘He will not be cleaned up. Got that?’

‘I, um…’

‘Please excuse my colleague, he’s prone to overexcitement.’ Asaldra stepped forward. ‘My name is Hossein Asaldra; these two individuals and I were accidentally caught up by the general recall. Do you have any instructions