“So what are we to do?” Oxford demanded. “About these Anachronauts. Our duty.”
“We’re going to avoid them, Oxford,” Cressida said, the smile wiping off her face. “Like sensible people. You can write as many reports for your mothers as you want, once we’re safely out of here.”
“Actually,” said another voice, breaking into their conversation. “It’s a little late for that.”
They all looked up to see the pantry door wide, and two Anachronauts standing there.
Monterey recognised them. Zephyr Kincaid — a tall, gracefully androgynous human with long, braided silver hair. Abydos — a black cat with shining golden eyes and a single tuft of white fur over one eyebrow. They had once both been trainees at Chronos College, before being lured over to Aleister College by generous scholarship and funding grants.3
Monterey had kissed Zephyr at a party once. Their parents were friends, just like Oxford’s, they’d known each other since they were kids. He hadn’t seen Zeph in years. The Kincaid family didn’t like to advertise that one of the scions of a Founding Family had run off with the Anachronauts.
Today, Zephyr was dressed in some kind of toga over deep silk sleeves. Abydos sat on their left shoulder, poised to attack.
“This is awkward,” Monterey drawled. “Looks like you don’t have to worry about arresting anyone, Oxford.”
“If anyone’s under arrest,” said Zephyr calmly. “It’s you clowns. Consider yourself under the protection of the Liberated Anachronance.” Their eyes flicked to Cressida, and they frowned. “What are you doing here, Church?”
“Getting arrested, apparently,” she said brightly. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
1 Monterey had once spent an enlightening weekend in a country home rented by Lord Byron, which featured six completely different sets of staircases, so that entire categories of servants could avoid not only the gentry, but each other.
2 Thus far, no one had asked the burning question that Monterey was most interested in, namely: where were the servants and indeed all the other people who should be swanning around a fancy old manor in 1899? Monterey wasn’t willing to ask the question himself because he had a horrible feeling Cressida would tell him, and he’d already taken on a great deal of upsetting information today.
3 The downfall of Aleister College, which went from being a respectable time travel facility to a centre for illicit Anachronaut activity in less than a year, was largely put down to over-funding, an issue that universities are rarely equipped to handle.
Twenty-Eight
Cleopatra Calling
“Time aisles,” Ruthven repeated, absorbing the new vocabulary. Familiar vocabulary, for anyone who had watched Season 11 of Cramberleigh. “Why do they call them time aisles?”
“Why hoops?” Viking Cressida replied. “Why hops? I’m not in charge of naming things, Rupert. I’m sure there’s a committee for that. Someone came up with ‘Anachronauts,’ after all. That has three hour group decision written all over it.”
You never actually saw the time aisles referenced in Season 11 of Cramberleigh: it was deemed too expensive to build an extra set. Ruthven had always wondered what they would look like, especially considering the wildly contradictory descriptions in the novelisations.
This particular time aisle started out as a wooden passage with a visible thatched roof, like the rest of the buildings in the Viking town they came from. As they walked along its endless length, the colour bled out of the walls. Everything became white and shiny.
It was futuristic in an old-fashioned way, like other TV shows from the twentieth century, where they expected a certain bland whiteness and platinum gleam in future architecture; before the trend for badly-lit grunge kicked in.
“I know you know that my name is Ruthven,” he said.
“Sorry,” said Cressida. She did look slightly sorry. “I’ve been alone a long time. No one to calibrate my sense of humour against, except imaginary Boswell. That cat is even grumpier than the real one.”
“Sounds fake,” said Ruthven, refusing to admit that he had an imaginary Aesop in his head most of the time.
Cressida’s burst of laughter made the null corridor feel like a friendly place, for about five seconds.
The time aisle began to narrow ahead of them. Ruthven remembered all over again to be worried.
“Where are we going?” he asked Cressida.
“48 BCE.”
“Now I know you’re bullshitting. 48 BCE is an Event.”
She rolled her eyes at him, and walked faster. “You remember that 912 is also an Event, right?”
Ruthven scrambled after her. “But 48 BCE is… double an Event, if that even is a thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“Monterey and Lovelace triggered an Event trying to save the Library of Alexandria too many times, and then the Anachronauts triggered a massive event covering Cleopatra’s lifetime…”
“Time aisles, Rumpole,” said Cressida impatiently. “They connect Events. We’re in Event Space. The problem is not that those years are inaccessible. Ask me how much I wish that was the problem.”
Ruthven knew when a person was hinting he should ask a different question. “What is the problem, exactly?”
The corridor tapered into an alarmingly narrow point. Cressida shoved at the point with her hands, cracking open a door that hadn’t been there a minute ago. It opened out, scraping and juddering along a stone floor.
Scent wafted through the doorway: incense and oils, dried roses and salt. Smellwise, it was a distinct improvement on 912. They must be about to step into a century where baths were in fashion.
“Two problems,” said Cressida, shoving the door open further. “The first is that the Anachronauts flit back and forth between Basic Time and Event Space… but I don’t know how they do it. I’ve been stuck in here since I got lost.”
Ruthven had follow up questions, particularly about who decided on the phrase ‘Basic Time.’ He shelved them for now. “What’s the other problem?”
Cressida waved a dramatic if tired arm. “You saw 912. College policy has always been so smug about how Time regulates herself. She doesn’t allow paradoxes. Within Event Space? Time is all about paradoxes. It’s a paradoxapaloosa.”
“So the skateboards and the Pokemon cards…”
