“Two horns on Viking helmets has only ever been in fashion for opera, cartoons and costume parties. The Vikings haven’t invaded Britain yet!”
“But,” said Cressida, waggling her eyebrows in a manner that humans probably found humorous. It made Boswell want to swipe her in the face. “Imagine if the Viking horde rolls into the harbour, and all of Great Britain is already wearing these helmets. Two horns and all.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to make this hop at all if that was a possibility,” Boswell replied.
“Ugh, you’re such a Time apologist, Boz. Stop sucking up to her. She’s done us no favours.”
“Speaking of which,” Boswell said. “We have duties to complete, Church.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “Activate your opal.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “I’ve already activated my opal. Why would I not have activated my opal? Have you not activated your opal?”
The tiny, essential beacon hung from Boswell’s collar, as was standard for cat travellers. It drew attention in earlier time periods where the idea of putting a collar on a cat was unheard of (speaking of starting fashions! There was one Ancient Egyptian statue that Boswell swore was inspired by his own natty ensemble) but their union stood by the cat travellers when they refused en masse to agree to implants.
A cat reserved the right to leave a party at any time, without leaving a forwarding address.
“Activating my opal,” said Cressida, tapping that awkward spot behind her shoulder where her opal implant was embedded. Her skin glowed briefly. “Writing a postcard,” she added, unstrapping the small pack she carried on her hip, disguised in this instance as some sort of generic sackcloth satchel.
The ‘postcard’ was a digital pad that worked as a tablet, connected back to twenty-fourth century Chronos College. Boswell thought it was a fascinating, devious and horrifically not-thought-through piece of tech. That, of course, was true of most inventions by humans that did not involve chairs or food.
It looked like a vintage postcard from the early twentieth century — image on one side, sometimes of the location they were visiting; blank back for travellers to scribble on with an over-designed stylus that could take on the appearance of a variety of period-appropriate writing implements.
The postcard was soft, the pad’s digital parts woven of natural fibres, which meant it could also be used as an emergency field dressing. There was a rumour that if you found the right setting, it might inflate to create the world’s most comfortable camping pillow, but no traveller had ever proved it despite a great deal of experimentation.
The postcard always looked like a literal postcard, which meant that its useful camouflage waned the further back in time you went.1
It didn’t matter what you wrote. There was little anyone needed to convey in the first 5 minutes of a journey other than ‘arrived safe’ or ‘instant catastrophe, bring us home right the fuck now,’ and the latter could be activated by the Urgent Return setting on the opal beacon.
Today’s postcard wasn’t even trying to look like the right time and place; it displayed a giant pineapple, which was certainly not authentic to sixth century Britain, let alone this particular patch of mud.
Cressida did what all travellers did upon a safe landing: she wrote the words
Wish You Were Here.
in her familiar, looping script, and then shoved the pineapple postcard back into her satchel so that any witnesses would not see a small rectangle of illustrated ‘card’ glow brightly before delivering its message.2
“Right,” she said when she was done. “Eight minutes. Let’s have a poke around.”
“I really don’t see the point of these short hops,” complained Boswell.
“Literally the goal of today’s mission is to practice short hops,” said Cressida. “You’re just mad because you missed out on Versailles.”
“Aren’t you? I just know Monterey and Lovelace are going to fuck something up, and the entire reign of the Sun King will be an Event before I get to see it.”
“Louis Fourteen ruled for seventy-two years, they’re not going to turn all of that into an Event with one visit. Just probably the most interesting years with like, the ballet and the poisons and the burnings.”
“Harrumph,” said Boswell. “It will be the Tudors all over again, mark my words.”
“You haven’t noticed yet,” said Cressida in a sing-song voice.
“Noticed what?”
“Where we are.”
Boswell turned his head this way and that, his nose twitching. The air might be less polluted than in most places they visited, but the mud wasn’t filling him with inspiration. In his immediate vicinity, he could see sloping hills, green grass, a mass of dark forest, and precisely nothing else. “I think I can safely say we are in the middle of nowhere.”
“For now,” Cressida teased, pulling out her chronocorder, disguised to look like a small wooden loom. Boswell did not remark on how pointless the device was. Their opals already recorded everything they heard and saw, footage to be uploaded later to the Media Archives databank. He had lost that argument many missions ago. “You’ll figure it out,” she added in a sing-song voice. “Let’s see how many hops it takes you.”
Nowhere, The Kingdom of the East Angles, 612 CE
“Exactly the same middle of nowhere,” pronounced Boswell, forty-five minutes and one century later.
“I see a sheep, that’s different,” said Cressida, rummaging in her pack to pull out another postcard to write on.
Wish you were here.
“Is that a sheep, or a particularly grubby hedge?” he remarked.
“Bit of both, I reckon.”
Kechwic, The Kingdom of the East Angles, 712 CE
“There’s a settlement now!” exclaimed Cressida, pulling out the next postcard for the journey. This one displayed the image of a purple sunflower. Supply weren’t even trying for authenticity anymore. That’s what came of wearing helmets with two horns. Colleagues stopped taking you seriously.
Wish you were here.
“That means actual people might see your hat,” said Boswell, awash with second-hand embarrassment.
