Ruthven is not in 1964
Ruthven landed in mud.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Sure, it was a while since he had made a time hop, but there weren’t supposed to be flames…
He and Boswell had been standing calmly on one of the platforms, ready to hop through. Oxford and Nero were stationed at the middle hoop, with Monterey and Lovelace on the far right.
Had they already hopped when it all went wrong? He remembered cries of warning, and he tried to turn back, but there was a steady paw on the back of his ankle, pushing him through…
And then he was here. In the mud. Without Professor Boswell in sight. He was alone.
Slowly, Ruthven picked himself up, peering around hopefully for feline paw prints in the mud. There was a routine for these things, even if everything went to shit. Even if you had hopped from a slightly illicit operation in a rose garden, and not the usual wide open courtyard of Chronos College.
Even if, for the second time in his history as a traveller, he had lost his cat.
(Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.)
First, you activate your opal.
Ruthven’s opal had never been removed. We might need you in the field again, one day, Melusine of Admin suggested at the time.
Still aching from the loss of Aesop, Ruthven had nodded and agreed that maybe, someday, he would return. He was pretty sure they both knew he never would.
But there it was, still implanted in the back of his neck, ready for action. Activating his opal took a second, and Ruthven heard a small confirmation beep. As it should be.
Second, you write your postcard.
Ruthven rummaged in the satchel that Quant had pushed into his arms before he approached the time hoop. Standard travelling satchel. His hand closed over the soft, spongy mass of the postcard — it felt like the opposite of paper, its digital surface too busy looking like a postcard to bother with a realistic texture.
As he pulled out the postcard, Ruthven glanced around. He knew what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to write Wish You Were Here and get on with things. Khan had told him to behave like this was a normal hop.
Nothing about this felt normal.
Had Boswell gone on ahead deliberately? Or had they been separated in the time stream? Was Boswell like Cressida, doomed to be trapped in 1964 until a team came to rescue him?
(Would Oxford be seven years older when they saw each other again?)
Ruthven sighed, his stylus hovering near the postcard while he thought about it. There was a hill nearby. If he climbed to the crest he would at least be able to see if Fenthorp Manor was within walking distance. He could write his postcard once he knew where he was.
He took a deep breath, reminded himself that being a valiant adventurer had been his No. 2 ambition as a small child, and set off up the hill.1
Five minutes later, he wrote his postcard. It went a bit like this:
Oh shit, oh shit, this is not 1964, that’s a fucking medieval village, oh fuck, I think I just saw a Viking, oh god, I’m lost, Boswell’s off fuck knows where, oh shit fuck what do I do now???
1 Ruthven’s No. 1 ambition as a small child, as previously discussed, was to rescue and restore all the missing episodes of Cramberleigh. His No. 3 ambition was to become a professional cricketer, though in his teens he revised this to ‘make out with a professional cricketer.’
Nineteen
Monterey is somewhere after 1788
Monterey was good at his job.
Monterey was a lot of things: melodramatic, stylish as hell, obstinate and utterly charming1.
Most of all, he was good at his job. Even he knew that he would be insufferable without that particular mitigating quality.
If Monterey had any qualms about the supreme success he had made of being a time traveller, they were confined to the tiny voice in the back of his head.
Luckily, he was excellent at not listening to tiny voices.
Mostly, he listened to Lovelace. His partner was one of the smartest, most capable individuals he had ever met. She was his favourite, and his best. He wouldn’t be who he was without her.
(She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be. But he had seen the hoops fall, had seen Lovelace leap out of the way of one only to fall under another…)
Lovelace was going to be fine. He had to believe that.
But Lovelace was not here.
More to the point, Monterey did not know where ‘here’ was. So far his only clues were that it was dark, and he had landed on something soft. In the dark. When he reached out, he could feel wood panelling. Was he on a ship?
“No, it’s not a bloody ship,” said the body lying beneath him.
“Hello,” Monterey said, making a few experimental prods. “Who’s this? Did I save your life?”
“Get off me, you arse,” said a voice that, disappointingly, turned out to be Oxford. “I saved yours, actually.”
“Sounds fake.” Monterey climbed off his well-built fellow traveller and got to his feet. “Thanks for breaking my fall. What’s the situation?”
