“I’m fine, I’m awake,” said Ruthven, his long legs keeping up with Cressida easily. “I want to hear more about this ‘we’re all Anachronauts’ theory.”
“Okay,” said Cressida, still on the march. “We’ve always been told that the Anachronauts are anarchists. History saboteurs. But why would Time allow that unless she approved, somehow, of what they were doing? They have to be a feature, not a bug. Or they’d never have got this far.”
“You sound like you admire them,” said Boswell with disapproval.
“They are really well organised,” said Cressida, not denying it. “Constantly recruiting. They’ve set up this whole network of time aisles within Event space, which is revolutionary when you think about it… and they’re obsessed with historical parties, big dinners and elaborate cosplay. Who does that sound like?”
“Chronos College,” Ruthven said heavily. “It sounds a lot like us. But… I mean, they were academics to start with, so…”
“They never stopped,” insisted Cressida. “Aleister College never went rogue, they went undercover. The time aisle network and the behaviour of the Anachronauts is a separate research project, that’s all. They’ve walled off whole years, whole decades, and they’re messing them up, cramming rotary phones into Ancient Egypt and so on, do you really think they’re not taking notes?”
Another headache stabbed through Boswell. Cressida’s theory sounded correct. It sounded… like something he already knew.
“You’ll want to forget this, too,” said Nero. “It makes things easier.”
“So you say,” said Aesop. “I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. I didn’t know I’d lose so much.”
“Why?” Ruthven blurted. “Why all the secrecy? They can’t exactly publish their research…”
“Neither can we,” hissed Cressida, screeching to a stop just short of a particularly sharp-cornered turn in the time aisle. “Thanks to the Global Official Secrets Act, no one in the real world knows about us or the Anachronauts. Turn up at Cambridge or Harvard with your Masters of Time Travel thesis and your talking cat, and they’d laugh you off campus. Chronos College, Banksia College, Aleister College. We’ve always been a closed system. We have the same Founders. What exactly makes us different to them?”
“The difference,” said Ruthven after a while, sounding brittle. “Is that they seem to know what the hell is going on. And no one ever bothered to tell us.”
Or, thought Boswell. They made the knowledge go away. And then his head hurt too much for him to think much of anything else…
They stepped out of a cupboard to a landing above a staircase in a house that made Ruthven gasp in happy surprise.
“This is Fenthorp,” the human said in a reverential tone, as they walked across polished floorboards that hurt Boswell’s paws, into a room with bright green striped wallpaper, a wide window seat overlooking the gardens, and a bronze pineapple-shaped chandelier hanging from the ceiling. “We’re inside the house. This is the freaking pineapple parlour. Lady Cradoc’s Season 6 bedchamber is next door. Look at that chandelier! I think this is the same actual couch.” He sat on it, and a small puff of dust burst forth from the green velvet cushions.
Boswell had no particular interest in that Cramberleigh show that the rest of the travellers got so het up about.2 Cressida had loved it; he preferred to nap. However, now that he leaped up to the comfortable window seat, he did recognise the view from this house — the same rolling hills in the distance as that particular corner of 912 that he had long considered his personal nemesis. The forest and the Viking village were long gone, but he knew exactly where he was.
The headache had gone, but the sense of unease brought on by the flood of lost memories remained. Boswell was going to have to tell them the truth.
“Don’t get too excited,” said Cressida. “This is 2034, and that couch should never have been allowed to live this long. Cramberleigh filming is deep in the rear view mirror. No celeb-spotting for you today.”
“Oh,” said Ruthven, a little disappointed.
“I like this spot,” Cressida added. “I come here for a kip sometimes. No one visits the upper floors much.”
“Nice,” said Ruthven, lifting his feet on to the couch and leaning back on a large cushion. He had been operating for too many hours without any rest. Boswell felt ashamed for not taking better care of him. Humans were so delicate.
“Did you say you come here often?” Boswell remarked.
“Oh, yes,” said Cressida.
“This specific year?”
“This specific afternoon.” She still stood at the window. “Right now, eight hopeful amateur bakers and four cranky celebrity chefs are being filmed in the historic kitchens downstairs, trying to prove they can bake a cake using a sixteenth century roasting jack.3 Meanwhile, in that giant tent outside, the entire production crew are gathered to decide whether or not they tell the contestants that a rather significant political event has occurred since they went into filming lockdown.”
“What political event?” murmured Ruthven, yawning on the couch.
“It’s September 19th, 2038,” said Cressida.
“Oh, the war.”
Boswell had no idea to which war they were referring. He wasn’t a history professor.
“You got it. They eventually inform the contestants, who lose their minds, and after a small cake riot everyone ends up fleeing the estate, leaving it utterly uninhabited for three glorious days.”
“And you’ve been here before,” Boswell said slowly. He knew he was repeating himself, but Cressida either didn’t see what he was getting at, or she was being deliberately evasive.
“Eleven or twelve times. There’s usually someone else popping in, on those other days — sooner or later every Anachronaut comes up with the same bright idea. But this afternoon is golden. No one ever interrupts.”
“I would have thought if you’re constantly coming in and out of this room,” said Boswell in an acid voice. “Sooner later you would interrupt yourself.”
“Crossover, you mean?” Cressida said, waving a hand airily. “Not in Event Space. It doesn’t work that way.”
“How does it work, then? Is it a different 2038 each time?”
“You’re thinking about it too literally.”
“How else am I supposed to think about it? You’re defying all the rules of…” he stopped.
Cressida turned with her back to the window. She was silhouetted by the pale afternoon sun, but he could see the soft smile on her face. “There are no rules to time travel, Boz. Remember? She sorts herself out.”
He sputtered quietly to himself. Certainly there were no rules, but that didn’t mean there were not… principles. Predictable, meaningful principles. Otherwise, what had he been doing all these years, lecturing students on Time Mechanics? It had to mean something.
