2. Wondering what the world can be.
“What?” Tom said. “That’s not possible, no one’s discovered how to travel in time or if it’s even possible.”
“Not in our time,” Ruth said. “But just think about it. I saw
someone who looked like you, but not quite. Now I think about it, I
know what it was that was different. He was older- his hair was
greying, he was bearded and looked- well, older. Everything about the
design of this place and the way it works- teapots, G&S tunes- makes
it feel like something that was designed for us- or by one of us.”
“Well, that’s true,” Adam said.
“Just suppose,” Ruth said, “In the future- ten, twenty years time-
you, Tom, work out how to time travel, or at least you have access to a
time machine. You bring it back in time to now, and leave these clues
for us- your past self and your friends- to find it, while someone else
travels back in another machine to pick you up.”
The others were silent. “It’s not impossible, I suppose,” Tom said.
“I mean, twenty years ago it would have been impossible to predict some
of the things science has managed to do. It would be fast progress,
but with better communication and more people and investment I suppose
there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen. And I suppose it could
explain why the future me wouldn’t hang around- it’s not usually a good
idea to meet yourself.”
“But that’s in science fiction,” Adam said. “It couldn’t really happen, could it?”
“We don’t know,” said Ruth. “It couldn’t now. Who can say what’s going to happen in the future?”
“But time travel...it’s a bit far fetched.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Patrick said. He pointed at the
screen, where a message now read: “Please enter desired place of
arrival.” Ruth typed ‘Savoy Theatre, London, England.’ She looked up
at the others.
“What do you think?” she said. “If it works- just think! The D’Oyle
Carte Company at the height of their success, Sullivan himself
conducting, Gilbert fidgeting nervously, waiting to see what the public
will think of his latest creation? I’m not normally a risk taker, but
this time I want to try!” She looked at Tom, usually the most cautious
of the group. “Besides, I don’t think your future self would have left
us anything dangerous. I mean, he’d be destroying himself, wouldn’t
he?”
Tom looked round at the others. “Ok,” he said finally. “But let’s work out how we get back first.”
“Good plan,” Adam said. He looked at the Quick Start book. “Here, this looks like it, the ‘quick return code.’”
“‘The quick return code returns you to the time and place you left
without needing to enter temporal or spatial co-ordinates,’” Tom read.
“‘After entering your passtune simply enter the quick return code
(given below) and press return. The TTC will return to it’s current
‘home’ place and the time at which it last left that location (if a
‘home’ location is not set, the TTC will return to the place and time
last visited.’”
“So we just need to set here and now as home, and we’ll return here,” Adam said.
The booklet’s instructions were quite clear, a couple of buttons were
pushed and the option to ‘Set current place and time as home?’ was
confirmed. The quick return code turned out to be just the scale of C
played on the keyboard- simple enough for even Ruth to be sure of
getting it right.
As soon as they had confirmed it Tom suddenly said, “Maybe we should
have tried to return home first.” The others looked at him. “It might
have taken us to the future, to where our future selves are. We could
have asked them why they left it for us- maybe there was a reason.”
Ruth looked down at the keyboard. “It’s too late now, anyway,” she said.
“And I thought it wasn’t a good idea to meet our future or past selves,” Adam said.
“If they wanted us to do something, you’d have thought they’d have
left a message,” Patrick said. “I mean, they’d know what we’d do.”
“Well, if they want us now they’ll have to come and find us,” Ruth said. “Shall we go?” She pressed the return key.
“Enter activation code,” Tom read from the screen. He found the place in the book and gave it to Adam.
“Just an arpeggio,” Adam said. “Are we ready? Then here goes!”
The story continues...
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