Overtime Tom Holt Read online

  La Beale Isoud sat down and pressed the necessary keys. The screen flickered for a few moments and bleeped. The word

  READY?

  appeared. La Beale Isoud rubbed her palms together and nodded.

  CAN WE START NOW?

  La Beale Isoud shook her head. 'Let me just have a think, will you?' she said. 'I'm not sure what I want to send yet.'

  YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE

  'Oh, nuts to you,' replied La Beale Isoud. 'Don't fluster me, or I'll never be ready. If you want something to keep you busy, you can print me out all the towns in Europe with a population of over ten thousand.'

  There was a high-pitched screaming noise, and a stream of paper flew out of the side of the machine. It took about three seconds.

  FINISHED

  It is impossible for eight illuminated green letters to look smug, but somehow the word FINISHED managed it. The hyperfax was, after all, very good at faffing about with the laws of possibility.

  'In alphabetical order?' Isoud asked sweetly.

  NATURALLY

  'Oh.' Isoud frowned slightly. 'Well done. Now do me the same for every year between 1066 and 2065.

  The machine beeped, and then started screaming again. Meanwhile, Isoud scratched her nose and tried to think of something that would be fun to do, but which wouldn't irritate the machine, which was inclined to be touchy.

  FINISHED AGAIN

  'Well aren't you clever!' Isoud said. 'Right, I'm all ready to start. Receive mode, please. Bring me ...' She made a random sweep of her subconscious mind '... a tail-feather from the Golden Phoenix of the Caucasus Moun -'

  A bell rang, and a silver plate popped out of a door in the front of the machine. On it was a single green feather.

  'Oh,' said Isoud. 'You might let me finish my sentence.'

  SORRY, I'M SURE

  Isoud picked up the feather, looked at it closely, sniffed it, sneezed and asked, 'Are you sure this is from -' The machine beeped at her. 'Sorry,' she said, 'sorry. It's just it's not, well, very special looking, is it?'

  TOUGH

  'I didn't mean to imply -'

  DIDN'T YOU, THOUGH?

  'No,' Isoud said patiently, 'I didn't. I just thought...'

  READY?

  'Oh don't sulk!'

  (c)WIZMATIC SOFTWARE INC 2965 REGT TRADE MARK

  'Now I've offended you,' Isoud said. 'I'm really very sorry and it's a lovely feather, really. Look, it just goes nicely with my scarf!'

  YOU'RE JUST SAYING THAT

  'No I'm not,' said Isoud, through gritted teeth. 'Now, why don't we forget all about it and you bring me something nice.'

  SUCH AS?

  'Oh,' said Isoud, 'I don't know. Strawberries. An ice cream. Violets. Anything. Use your bloody imagination.'

  TOGETHER OR SEPARATELY

  Isoud's fingernails dug into her fine lawn handkerchief. 'Separately, please.'

  WRAPPED?

  'If you like, yes.'

  The bell rang, the door opened, and a little spring began firing strawberries, individually wrapped in silver foil and ribbon, straight at Isoud, who ducked. Then came the ice cream, which fortunately she was able to avoid, followed by a bombardment of violets, which burst on hitting the opposite wall and went everywhere.

  'Thanks,' Isoud said grimly when it was all over. 'Now can I have a vacuum cleaner, please?'

  The bell rang, and a beautiful chrome-plated Electrolux rolled out and sat at her feet. It too was festooned in ribbon, which managed to get tangled up with the lead.

  Isoud sighed. The hyperfax was all very well in its way, but she could see now why they'd said it needed working on before it was ready for mass market release. 'All right,' she said. 'Switch from receive mode to transmit mode, please. I want to send all this lot back.'

  SUIT YOURSELF

  The door opened, and a great wind blew through the hall. A few moments later, the feather, the strawberries, the ice cream, the violets and the hoover had all gone. So had two cushions and the heel of one of Isoud's shoes, but she knew better than to try and make something of it. She thanked the machine, decided that she would far rather get on with her embroidery instead, and stood up to switch it off at the mains.

  Then the little bell rang again, and a man fell out of the door, rolled round on the carpet a couple of times and came to rest under the sideboard. He lay there very still. The screen read:

  STILL RECEIVING

  'Really!' Isoud said, irritably. 'Please prepare to transmit immediately!'

  The screen flickered - a sort of digital shrug - and the man was dragged slowly back the way he had come. As his head collided with the leg of the table he let out a pitiful howl and Isoud, on impulse, pressed the Pause button. The screen went insufferably blank.

  'Ouch,' said the man.

  Isoud looked down at him. 'Mr Goodlet, isn't it?' she said. 'Would you care for some tea?'

  Blondel woke up, hauled himself painfully to his feet, and looked at the notice. It said:

  THIS WAY

  That didn't seem to make a great deal of sense. From what little he could see of his surroundings, he was in the middle of a huge empty space, and the only light was a sort of pale glow around the notice; there was no sign of any roof, sky, walls or anything helpful like that, and there was nothing in the notice itself to suggest which way was the way referred to. On the other hand, he instinctively felt, this wasn't the time to start making difficulties. He had just, as far as he could judge, drowned in time, and the best thing to do was probably keep a low profile, just in case he was really supposed to be dead.

  The scabbard by his side was empty, and a quick survey revealed that he had lost all the cherished little artefacts which he had collected over a very long life of time-travel: the map of the tunnel network, for example; the mirror which showed demons in their true shape; his all-purpose combined season ticket, identity card, passport, museum pass and phonecard; even his calculator watch and his comb. On the other hand, apart from a number of bruises and a nagging pain in his left wrist, he was reasonably undamaged, so the odds were still on his side. Dum spiro spero, and all that.

  He decided to walk; in which direction he neither knew nor cared, now that he'd lost his matchbox with the compass in the lid. He set out brightly, on past the notice, into pitch darkness. He started to whistle; then it occurred to him that, since he had never been this way before he might just as well give it a shot, and he sang L'Amours Dont Sui Epris.

  Another notice loomed up at him out of the darkness. It too seemed to be self-lit, and it said:

  MAXIMUM HEADROOM 4' 7"

  Since it was at least ten feet high, it was obviously lying, and Blondel ignored it. If any of this was supposed to impress him, it wasn't going to work. He'd been in places that made this seem boringly normal.

  A noise behind him - a sort of soft creaking - made him look round, and he saw a ship sailing past, about a hundred yards or so away. He had no reason to suppose that there was any water over there, or certainly not enough water to float a fifteenth-century Flemish merchantman, and so he put it out of his mind. Sure enough, the ship veered slowly away and vanished. Kids' stuff. If someone was doing this deliberately, they hadn't got beyond Grade II yet.

  The gradient changed to a fairly steep descent, and Blondel realised that what he was walking on was waves; invisible, bone-dry, rock-solid waves. If he stood still, he could feel them rising and falling very slowly. An English privateer bobbed through the shadows at extreme range, but too far away for him to be able to pick out any identifying marks. He could, however, just make out what they were singing.

  'Por li maintaindrai l'us

  D'Eneas et Paris

  Tristan et Pyramus

  Qui amerentjadis.'

  With an effort, Blondel closed his mouth, which had fallen open, and then picked up his feet and started to run. The crew were singing:

  'Orseraisesamis

  Orpri Deu de la sus

  Qu 'a lor fin soie pris...'
/>
  ... a bit he'd never been particularly fond of. He could make out the ship properly now; a heavy twin-castled long-distance flying the pennant of the Cinque Ports and the arms of Winchelsea. And they were singing:

  'L'amours dont sui epris

  Me semont de chanter.'

  Blondel filled his lungs and shouted, 'Ahoy!' Well, why not? He waited. The ship was still going. Then it changed tack, slewing around slightly. There was a sort of flat-bottomed thud and he looked up to see that they had launched a boat. He stood up and waited.

  'Are you all right?' The man in the boat was talking to him. 'Fine,' he shouted back. 'Why were you singing that particular song?'

  'I'll throw you a line,' said the man. 'Tread water till I get to you.'

  Blondel was about to comment but he thought No, why bother? He yelled back his thanks and stayed where he was. After a while, the boat came close enough for the man to throw him a length of rope, which he caught. Then he walked across to the boat and climbed in.

  'Ahoy,' he said affably.

  The man in the boat looked at him for a moment. He seemed very worried. 'Where are we?' he said.

  Blondel smiled. The man didn't look like he was ready for this; but then, people who can't handle heavy answers shouldn't ask heavy questions. He decided to put it as gently as he possibly could.

  'I can't say for sure,' he said, 'but I have a feeling that we're in the Archives.'

  'The Archives,' the man repeated.

  'That's right,' Blondel replied.

  'You don't mean the Maldives?'

  'No, not the Maldives,' Blondel answered. 'The Archives are quite different. Not that I'm sure, like I said. Did you sail off the edge of the world?'

  The man nodded.

  'I thought so,' Blondel said. 'Somebody told you the world was round, and that if you kept sailing due west you'd end up in India. A man in a pub, right?'

  The man nodded again.

  'And you thought about it, and you reckoned Yes, it must be, else the sea would all fall off the edge, and so you set out and you got to the edge and you fell off. Yes?'

  'Yes.'

  Blondel sighed. 'And all these other ships must have done the same, I suppose. That settles it. We're definitely in the Archives.' He thought about it for a moment. 'Pity, that,' he added.

  The man gave him a long, deliberate stare. 'So where are we? I mean, is there any chance of getting back?'

  'Your guess,' Blondel replied, 'is as good as mine. I got here another way, so maybe there is. On the other hand maybe there isn't, that's the trouble with this lot here. Nobody knows anything about it. Except that it exists, of course. Everyone's pretty definite about that.'

  The man's two friends who had been rowing the boat were beginning to get restless. 'I'm sorry,' Blondel said, 'maybe you'd prefer it if I left.'

  'For God's sake, man,' said the man, 'tell me where the hell we are and stop fooling about.'

  'You may not like it.'

  'For God's sake...'

  'Oh,' said Blondel. 'All right, then.'

  History, as has been observed before, is constantly changing. This is partly due to the activities of irresponsible time-travellers; but mostly the changes are quite natural.

  Consider leaves. For a while they hang about on trees; then they die, fall off and lie about on the ground. If nobody happens along to sweep them up, they rot down into a compacted mass and stay there until geological forces put heavy weights on top of them and turn them into coal. Later still, they become diamonds.

  Just as the strata of the earth have faults in them, so does history; chunks of it get pushed out of shape, deformed or misplaced. In the same way that some leaves become coal and some become diamonds, so not all events decay in the same way. Some of them, in fact, go wrong. Badly wrong. In due course, they can become extremely unstable and accordingly hazardous.

  The Archives are where events are stored which shouldn't have happened but did. It is impossible to be exact, but recent estimates suggest that they now occupy a much larger area of SpaceTime than the Orthodox or Correct course of history, and the number of reported leaks of excluded matter from the Archives into the Topside (as the Orthodoxy is called in theochronological jargon) increases alarmingly each year. To a certain extent this is due to the irresponsible and highly illegal exploitation of the mineral resources of the Archives by pirate chemical companies - most areas of Archive time predate the commercial use of fossil fuels, and so there are enormous untapped reserves of oil, coal and natural gas down there, but of course it is incredibly hazardous to bring it back - and the Time Wardens have recently been awarded Draconian powers to prevent the traffic. Unfortunately, their efforts so far have been less than successful, and the conclusion of their latest report - 'Whether it is possible to eradicate this menace, time alone can tell' - has been widely criticised as extremely unhelpful.

  'You're having me on,' the man said.

  'I didn't think you'd like it,' Blondel replied. 'Why were your crew singing that song?'

  'Which song?'

  'L'Amours Dont Sui Epris,' Blondel said.

  'Is that what it's called?' the man said. 'Because it's a good song, I suppose; everybody knows the words and when you've got a ship full of men all on the point of complete and utter panic, I always find the best thing to do is sing something, terribly loudly. Look, does it matter?'

  'You haven't,' Blondel persevered, 'seen Richard the Lion-Heart anywhere, by any chance?'

  'Who?'

  'Never mind,' Blondel said. 'It was only a thought. Look, I mustn't keep you. Thanks for everything.' He stood up and climbed out of the boat.

  'Look...'

  'Cheers, then!' Blondel waved, and started to walk.

  'Come back!' the man yelled. 'Look, how do we get out of here?'

  Blondel turned round and looked at him sadly. 'You don't,' he said. 'You never happened. Ciao.'

  He walked on for a while, thinking deeply. It was logical, after all, that by stepping out into a timeslip as he had done, he would be swept into the Archives; presumably Guy was down here too somewhere, although quite possibly not in the same Archive. For all he knew, the poor chap was swanning around somewhere in the Trojan War, shooting the hats off Greek heroes. Blondel groaned; the last thing he needed was somebody else to look for. How, Blondel now asked himself, am I going to get out of here?

  For a while he gave that some serious thought, but nothing brilliant occurred to him, and he decided not to let it worry him. At least he knew where he was, and he always found that that was the main thing. Once you'd got that sussed, in his experience, everything else fell into place somehow or another. He remembered the time he'd accidentally come up on the wrong side of the Day of Judgement. That had been a bit hairy, for a while, but he'd got away without any difficulty in the end, with the aid of a sheepskin rug and a great deal of charm. Whatever else he was, Blondel wasn't a worrier.

  Far away in the distance he saw a light, and he started to walk towards it. As he approached it, the non-existent waves under his feet became clammy and smelt unpleasantly of chemicals. Strange.

  He walked on, squelching now, and quite soon came to another notice. Whoever set up this Archive had been pretty conscientious about keeping people informed.

  EXTREME DANGER

  it said, and a little bit further down, in tiny little letters:

  MEN AT WORK

  Well indeed. Blondel stopped and scratched his head. Logic told him that it was highly unlikely that anyone could be bothered to do anything in an Archive; once you were here you were here, and either you found a way Out or you got used to it. Anything in the way of industrial activity was counter-intuitive, to say the least. However, in the circumstances EXTREME DANGER probably wasn't to be taken at face value. When you have just been edited out of history and thus caused to cease to have existed, it's hard to think of anything that could actually make things worse.

  About a hundred yards further on, he came to another notice. This one
said:

  HARD HAT AREA: NO ADMITTANCE

  Blondel grinned; then he took off his belt and wrapped it round his right hand. When people didn't want you to go in somewhere, it usually meant there was something worth taking a look at.

  He stepped forward, stopped suddenly, and rubbed his nose. He'd bumped into an invisible brick wall. More promising still.

  Very cautiously, he felt his way along the wall until his sense of touch suggested that he'd come to a gateway; then he crouched down and waited. About a quarter of an hour later, a door opened and a man in a boiler-suit and a yellow hard hat came out and started to light a cigarette. Whatever it was they did in there, they weren't allowed to smoke while they were doing it.

  Something dropped into place in Blondel's mind. He edged forward, tapped the smoker gently on the shoulder, and punched him.

  Fortunately, the man's clothes fitted Blondel pretty well. He carefully stubbed out the cigarette, opened the door and walked in.

  Inside, things were very different. There was light, for one thing; lots of it, coming from a battery of big white arc-lamps on a scaffolding tower, which loomed over a collection of huts and big machines. There was also a tall flame, rather like the flare from an oil well, rising up from a hole in what one could probably call the ground, although Flaubert would have found a more apt word for it. An illicit drilling station, of the sort that was causing all those headaches in the Time Warden's department. How very convenient.