The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

PREVENTION

His name was Edward John Oxford, and he was born in the year 2162. He was a physicist, engineer, historian, and philosopher. At the age of thirty, he invented the fish-scale battery, a flake of material no bigger than a fingernail, which soaked up solar energy on one side and stored it in vast amounts on the other. The battery transformed technology and technology transformed the world.

A journalist asked, "How does it feel to single-handedly change history?"

"I haven't changed history," he replied. "History is the past."

He chuckled, as if enjoying a private joke, for though he was a genius, he was also an eccentric and obsessive, and the past was his primary fixation; specifically, the year 1840, which was when his ancestor, also named Edward Oxford, had fired two pistols at Queen Victoria.

Both shots had missed, and the original Oxford had been acquitted on grounds of insanity and committed to Bedlam. Years later, he was released and emigrated to Australia, where he met and married the granddaughter of a couple he'd known back in London, prior to his crime. History didn't record her name, just that she was far younger than he, which wasn't unusual for the period. They began a family whose descendants wound through the generations to the Edward John Oxford of 2162.

The fish-scale battery couldn't change the past. It was, however, an element of a far grander project that could, for its inventor had created it to power time-travel technology.

Edward John Oxford had a plan: he was going to visit 1840 to clean the stain from his family name.

There were, of course, numerous technical challenges, the relationship between time and space being the most awkward of them. He solved this by "tethering" his device to gravitational constants: the Earth's core and distant galaxies whose position remained comparatively static. This enabled him to select an exit point in the past relative to his terrestrial position in the present; and if that exit point was already occupied by something, his device was programmed to shift him to a safe place nearby.

It was an essential function, but it caused an immense drain on his batteries, so, retaining it as an emergency measure, he found another way to minimise his chances of materialising inside a solid object.

There can be no doubt that the insanity of his ancestor had resurfaced in the inventor, for his solution was bizarre to say the least. Oxford wove his miniaturised time-travel technology into a suit, the boots of which he mounted on two-foot-high spring-loaded stilts. With these, he could leap twenty feet into the air, vanish from his current time, and appear in the past twenty feet above the ground in nothing more solid than air molecules.

It was crazy, but it usually worked, and when it didn't, the programming took over and moved him out of danger.

There was also a psychological issue. Oxford knew that in travelling to the Victorian age he was risking severe disorientation. He therefore included in his suit a system whereby Victorian reality would be, from his perspective, overlaid with his own twenty-second-century reality. His helmet would alter the way his brain interpreted sensory data, so that when he looked at a hansom cab, he would see and hear a modern taxi; when he observed Victorian people, he would see citizens of his own time; and towering over the skyline of 1840, he would see the skyscrapers of the 2200s. Also, because the sense of smell is most intimately connected with memory, he ensured that his would be completely nullified.

He knew that moments after his arrival in the past, he'd have to remove his suit and face Victorian London without the filter. This would only be for a short period though, and, once he'd completed his mission, he'd quickly don the suit and crank up the illusion. He hoped that he could thus avoid culture shock.

On his fortieth birthday, Edward John Oxford completed his preparations.

He dressed in mock Victorian clothing, then pulled his time suit on over the top. It was a white one-piece garment of fish-scale batteries, with a rubberised cloak hanging from the shoulders that he could wrap around himself to protect the suit when it wasn't charging.

He affixed the round, flat control unit to his chest and lowered the heavy helmet, which was large, black, and shiny, over his head. Intricate magnetic fields flooded through his skull. Information began to pass back and forth between his brain and the helmet's powerful processor.

Bouncing on the stilts, and with a top hat in his hand, he left his laboratory and tottered into the long garden beyond.

His wife came out of the kitchen-the house was at the other end of the garden-and walked over to him, wiping her hands on a towel.

"You're going now?" she asked. "Supper is almost ready!"

"Yes," he replied, "but don't worry-even if I'm gone for years, I'll be back in five minutes!"

"You won't return an old man, I hope!" she grumbled, and ran a hand over her distended belly. "This one will need an energetic young father!"

He laughed. "Don't be silly. This won't take long."

Bending, he kissed her on the nose.

It was nine in the evening, on February 15, 2202.

He instructed the suit to take him to five thirty on the afternoon of June 10, 1840; location: the upper corner of Green Park, London.

He looked at the sky.

"Am I really going to do this?" he asked himself.

In answer, he took three long strides, hit the ground with knees bent, then projected himself high into the air. His wife saw a bubble form around him and he vanished.

Edward Oxford literally jumped through time.

A moment of disorientation.

A short fall.

He thudded onto grass and bounced.

Glancing around he saw a rolling park surrounded by tall glass buildings with advertising flashing upon their sides. In the near distance was the ancient form of the Monarchy Museum, once known as Buckingham Palace, where the relics of England's defunct royal families were displayed.

A sonic boom echoed as a shuttle headed into orbit. People zipped overhead in their personal fliers.

Oxford ran into the wooded corner of the park, ducked into the trees, and pushed through the undergrowth until he felt safe from prying eyes. Then he stripped off the time suit and draped it over a low branch.

He reached up to his helmet, switched it off, and removed it.

A foul stench assaulted his nostrils: a mix of raw sewage, rotting fish, and burning fossil fuels.

He started to cough. The air was thick and gritty. It irritated his eyes and scraped his windpipe. He fell to his knees and clutched at his throat, gasping for oxygen. Then he remembered that he'd prepared for this and fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out a small instrument, which he applied to the side of his neck. He pressed the switch, it hissed, he felt a slight stinging sensation, and instantly he could breathe again.

Oxford put the instrument away and rested for a moment. His inability to catch his breath had been a perceptive disorder rather than a physical one. The helmet had protected him from the idea that the atmosphere was unbreathable; now a sedative was doing the job.

Unfamiliar sounds reached him from the nearby road. Horses' hooves, the rumble of wheels, the shouts of hawkers.

He stood and straightened his clothes, placed the top hat on his head, and made his way to the edge of the thicket. As he emerged from the trees, a transformed world assailed his senses, and he was immediately shaken by a profound uneasiness.

Only the grass was familiar.

Through dense, filthy air, he saw a massive expanse of empty sky; the tall glass towers of his own time were absent, and London clung to the ground. Ahead, Buckingham Palace, now partially hidden by a high wall, looked brand new.

Quaintly costumed people were walking in the park-no, not costumed, he reminded himself; they always dressed this way-and their slow pace appeared entirely unnatural to him.

Despite the background murmur, London seemed to be slumbering under a blanket of silence.

He started to walk down the slope toward the base of Constitution Hill, struggling to overcome his growing sense of dislocation.

"Steady, Edward," he muttered to himself. "Hang on, hang on. Don't let it overwhelm you. This is neither a dream nor an illusion, so stay focused, get the job done, then get back to your suit!"

He reached the wide path. The queen's carriage would pass this way soon. My God! He was going to see Queen Victoria!

He looked around. Every single person he could see was wearing a hat or bonnet. Most of the men were bearded or wore moustaches. The women held parasols.

Slow motion. It was all in slow motion.

He examined faces. Which belonged to his ancestor? He'd never seen a photograph of the original Edward Oxford-there were none-but he hoped to see some sort of family resemblance. He stepped over the low fence lining the path, crossed to the other side, and loitered near a tree.

People started to gather along the route. He heard a remarkable range of accents and they all sounded ridiculously exaggerated. Some, which he identified as working class, were incomprehensible, while the upper classes spoke with a precision and clarity that seemed wholly artificial.

Details kept catching his eye, holding his attention with hypnotic force: the prevalence of litter and dog shit on the grass, the stains and worn patches on people's clothing, rotten teeth and rickets-twisted legs, accentuated mannerisms and lace-edged handkerchiefs, pockmarks and consumptive coughs.

"Focus!" he whispered.

He noticed a man across the way standing in a relaxed but rather arrogant manner, looking straight at him and smiling. He had a lean figure, round face, and a very large moustache.

Can he see that I don't belong here? wondered Oxford.

A cheer went up. He looked to his right. The queen's carriage had just emerged from the palace gates, its horses guided by a postilion. Two outriders trotted along ahead of the vehicle, two more behind.

Where was his ancestor? Where was the gunman?

Ahead of him, a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white breeches, straightened, reached under his coat, and moved closer to the path.

Slowly, the royal carriage approached.

"Is that him?" muttered Oxford, gazing at the back of the man's head.

Moments later, the forward outriders came alongside.

The blue-coated individual stepped over the fence and, as the queen and her husband passed, he took three strides to keep up with their vehicle, then whipped out a flintlock pistol and fired it at them. He threw down the smoking weapon and drew a second.

Oxford yelled, "No, Edward!" and ran forward.

The gunman glanced at him.

He looks just like me! thought Oxford, surprised.

He vaulted over the fence and grabbed his ancestor's raised arm. If he could just disarm him and drag him away, tell him to flee and forget this stupid prank.

They struggled, locked together.

"Give it up!" pleaded Oxford.

"Let go of me!" grunted the would-be assassin. "My name must be remembered. I must live through history!"

A distant voice yelled, "Stop, Edward!" and a flash of lightning caught the time traveller's eye.

He looked across the park toward it. The man with the pistol did the same.

The flintlock went off, the recoil jolting both men.

The back of Queen Victoria's skull exploded.

Shit! No! That wasn't meant to happen!

He gripped the gunman, shook him, and heaved him off his feet.

His ancestor fell backward and his head hit the low cast-iron fence. There was a crunch and a spike suddenly emerged from the man's eye.

"You're not dead!" exclaimed Oxford, staggering back. "You're not dead! Stand up! Run for it! Don't let them catch you!"

The assassin lay on his back, his head impaled, blood pooling beneath him.

Oxford stumbled away.

There were screams and cries, people pushing past him.

He saw Victoria; she was tiny, young, like a child's doll, and her shredded brain was oozing onto the ground.

No. No. No.

This isn't happening.

This can't happen.

This didn't happen.

The smiling round-faced man was suddenly at his side. "Bravo, my friend!" he muttered. "Jolly good show!"

Oxford backed away from him, feeling terrified, fell, got up again, shoved his way out of the milling crowd, and ran.

"Get back to the suit," he mumbled as his legs pumped. "Try something else!"

He raced up the slope and ran into the trees.

What had caused that bolt of lightning? It had come from the same direction as the shout: "Stop, Edward!" Who had that been? He hadn't seen anyone clearly; there was too much happening.

He found his suit, slipped on the helmet, and activated it.

A sense of well-being flooded through him as the distant noise of electric cars, passenger jets, and advertising billboards assailed his ears. He pulled on the suit and set the navigation system for three months into the past. His lunatic ancestor would be working in a public house-the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street; that was a recorded fact.

"I'll go and talk him out of it," he whispered. "It's what I should have done in the first place."

A terrifying feeling of inevitability sank into his bones.

It won't work.

Try anyway!

It won't work.

He pushed through the undergrowth, returning to the edge of the woods.

"Step out into the open, sir!" came a voice.

Oxford froze. What now?

He crept ahead, trying to see whoever it was through the trees.

"I saw what happened-there's nothing to worry about. Come on, let's be having you!"

He remained silent.

There! A policeman!

"Sir! I saw you trying to protect the queen. I just need you to-"

Oxford plunged out into the open.

The policeman gasped, stepped back, and fell onto his bottom. He threw his truncheon.

The club whirled through the air and crashed into the control unit on the front of the time traveller's suit. Sparks exploded and a mild electric shock jerked through his body.

"Damn!" he cried, and bounded away. He slammed his stilts into the ground, leaped high, ordered the time jump, and winked out of June 10, 1840.

The suit malfunctioned.

Instead of sending him back three months, it sent him a good deal further; and rather than shifting him half a mile northward to a secluded alley behind the Hog in the Pound, it threw him twenty-one miles beyond.

He blinked into existence fifteen feet in the air with an electric charge drilling through him and crashed into the ground, unconscious. His limbs twitched spasmodically for thirty minutes, then he became very still.

Four hours later, a horseman narrowly avoided riding over him. The man reined in his mount and looked down at the bizarrely costumed figure.

"By James! What have we here?" he exclaimed, dismounting.

Henry de La Poet Beresford, the 3rd Marquess of Waterford, bent and ran his fingers over the strange material of the time suit. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before. He grasped Edward Oxford by the shoulder and shook him.

"I say, old fellow, are you in the land of the living?"

There was no response.

Beresford placed his hand on the man's chest, beside the lanternlike disk, and felt the heart beating.

"Still with us, anyway," he muttered. "But what the devil are you, old thing? I've never seen the like!"

He pushed an arm under Oxford's shoulders and lifted him; then, with no small amount of difficulty, shoved him onto the horse's saddle, so that the helmeted head hung on one side of the animal and the stilted boots on the other. Beresford took the reins and led his mount back homeward, to Darkening Towers.

Oxford regained his senses five days later.

Henry Beresford had tried and failed to remove the time suit; he could find no buttons. He'd succeeded, however, in pulling off the boots and in sliding the helmet from the comatose man's head. He'd then placed his unexpected visitor onto a bed, with his shoulders and head propped up against pillows, and had covered him with a blanket.

Unprotected by augmented reality, Oxford's first intimation of consciousness arrived through his nose. He was forced from oblivion by the stench of stale sweat, the mustiness of unlaundered clothes, and the overwrought perfume of lavender.

He opened his eyes.

"Good afternoon," said Beresford.

Oxford blinked and looked at the clean-shaven, moon-faced man sitting beside him.

"Who are you?" he croaked, his hoarse voice sounding to him as if it came from someone else.

"My name is Henry de La Poet Beresford. I am Marquess of Waterford. And who-and, indeed, what-are you? Here, take this water."

Oxford took the proffered glass and quenched his thirst.

"Thank you. My name is Edward Oxford. I'm-I'm a traveller."

Beresford raised his brows. "Is that so? To which circus do you belong?"

"What?"

"Circus, my friend. You appear to be a stilt-walker."

Oxford made no reply.

Beresford considered his guest for a moment, then said, "Yet there are no carnivals or suchlike in the area, which rather begs the question: how did you end up in a dead faint inside the walls of my estate?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you could tell me where I am, exactly?"

"You're in Darkening Towers, near Hertford, some twenty miles or so north of central London. I found you in the grounds, unconscious, five days ago."

"Five days!"

Oxford looked down at the control panel on the front of his suit. It was dead. There was a dent on its face and scorch marks around its left edge.

Beresford said, "I apologise for the indelicacy of my next statement, but the fact is, I was unable to get you out of your costume and I fear you may have fouled it whilst in your faint."

Oxford nodded, reddening.

Beresford laid a hand on his arm. "I shall have my man bring you a basin of hot water and some soap, towels, and fresh clothing. You look to be about my size, a little taller, perhaps. I shall also instruct the cook to prepare you something. Will that be satisfactory?"

"Very much so," replied Oxford, suddenly realising that he was famished.

"Good. I shall leave you to your ablutions. Please join me in the dining room when you are ready."

He stood and walked toward the door.

"Incidentally," he said, pausing, "your accent is unfamiliar-where are you from?"

"I was born and raised in Aldershot."

The marquess grunted. "No, that's not a Hampshire accent."

He opened the door to leave.

"What news of the queen?" Oxford blurted.

Beresford turned, with a puzzled expression. "Queen? Do you mean young Victoria? She's not quite the queen yet, my friend, though His Majesty is said to be on his deathbed."

Oxford frowned. "What date is it?"

"The fifteenth of June."

"Still June!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What year?"

"The year? Why, 1837, of course!" Beresford looked at his guest curiously. "Are you having problems with your memory, Mr. Oxford?"

"I-yes-a little."

"Perhaps you'll remember more once you have some food inside you. I'll see you downstairs."

He left the room and moments later his valet, a thin and stiffly mannered gentleman, sidled in carrying a large porcelain basin, two towels, and a bar of soap. The valet departed then returned with a full set of clothes. For a third time, he went away and came back, this time with a bucket of steaming water, which he poured into the basin.

Finally, he spoke: "Will you require anything else, sir?"

"No, thank you. What's your name?"

"Brock, sir. May I offer you a shave?"

"I'll do it myself, if you don't mind."

"Very good, sir. There is a bellpull beside the bed, here. Summon me when you're ready, and I'll escort you down to the dining room. May I take your, er, costume to be laundered?"

"The costume, no, Brock; I'd rather take care of that myself, if you don't mind. However, I have a suit on underneath and I'd be very grateful if you'd arrange for it to be washed. I'm afraid it's in rather a state."

Brock nodded.

Oxford sat up, removed the control panel from his chest, and slid his finger down the time suit's front seal. Brock's eyebrows rose slightly but his face remained impassive as the strange material fell open and Oxford shrugged out of it.

The suit beneath followed and was handed to the valet, along with the soiled underclothes.

Wordlessly, Brock departed.

Oxford washed, shaved awkwardly with the cutthroat razor, and put on the clothes Beresford had loaned him. They felt rough and irritating against his skin.

He turned the time suit inside-out and wiped the inner surface clean. The fish scales held no charge and, he guessed, had been flat for the past few days. A few minutes beneath the open sky would revitalise them. The control panel was severely damaged. Until it was repaired, he would be unable to travel. The most pressing problem, though, was that it was no longer able to transfer power from the suit's batteries to the helmet, which meant he had to somehow survive without augmented reality. Here, inside the house, with just a few people present, that wouldn't be a major issue. However, wider exposure to this time period might result in culture shock, which, in theory, could be intense enough to threaten his sanity.

He rang the bell and Brock reappeared.

"This way, sir," said the valet.

Oxford followed him out onto a broad landing and down an ornate staircase. As he descended, he noticed that the house was in an extreme state of disrepair. Its onetime opulence had sunk into a lazy decadence; the moulded trim around the edges of the ceilings, once painted in bright colours, was now flaked and faded; the wood-panelled walls were warped and split; the rugs, hangings, and curtains were threadbare; plaster had cracked; dust and cobwebs had gathered.

They reached the foot of the stairs and passed along a corridor, turned into another, and another.

"What a house to get lost in!" muttered Oxford.

"Darkening Towers is a very old mansion, sir," commented Brock. "The man who built it was somewhat eccentric and it has been added to many times over the years. The master purchased the estate less than a month ago and has not yet had the opportunity to effect repairs."

"It's a veritable maze!"

"The dining room, sir," said Brock, opening a door.

Oxford passed through into a long, shadow-filled room. It was hung all around with portraits of stern-looking elders. A chandelier was suspended over a banqueting table. Beresford rose as he entered.

"Ah, my dear Mr. Oxford, you appear much refreshed. I trust the clothes fit you?"

"Yes, thank you," replied the time traveller, though in truth they were a little tight.

Brock ushered him to the opposite end of the table and pulled out the chair for him.

He sat.

The valet bowed toward Beresford and left the room. His place was taken by a butler, who stepped to the table and poured red wine for the two men. A couple of maids hurried back and forth, bringing plates of meat and vegetables. The various odours seemed thick and cloying to Oxford; too rich and intense, as if the meal had been marinating in butters and fats before it was cooked. He eyed the food uncomfortably, noting the rivulets of grease on its surface, but, nevertheless, his stomach rumbled.

Beresford emptied his glass in a single gulp, was served another, and said loudly, "So how's the memory, my friend? Has anything come back to you?"

Oxford hesitated.

He made a decision.

"My Lord Marquess-"

"Henry, please."

"Henry. I have decided to tell you everything because, the truth is, I desperately require help. Do you mind if we eat first, though? I'm half starved!"

"Not at all! Not at all! Pray settle my mind, though-you are not from a circus, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"And your costume is something more than it seems?"

"You are very perceptive, Henry."

"Eat, Mr. Oxford. We shall talk afterwards."

An hour later, the time traveller, feeling bloated and a little sick, accepted a brandy, refused a cigar, and told his host almost everything. He omitted the queen's assassination and, instead, claimed that he'd travelled back through time simply to meet his ancestor.

They had moved to the morning room after the meal and were sitting in big wooden armchairs beside a crackling fire.

Beresford was drunk.

He was also incredulous.

And he was laughing.

"Great heavens above!" he roared. "You're as fine a storyteller as that Dickens fellow! Have you read Pickwick?"

"Of course I have. This isn't a fiction, Henry."

"Balderdash! What can be more fictive than a man from the future being propelled into the past by a suit of clothes?"

"Yet I maintain that that's what happened."

"You're a strange one, I'll admit," declared the marquess. "Your speech is rather too direct for an Englishman, your manner too casual by half. I have you down as a foreigner, my friend!"

"I told you-I was born and raised in Aldershot."

"In the year 2162, you say. What's that? Some three hundred and twenty-five years from now?"

"Yes."

Beresford refilled their glasses and lit another cigar.

"Let's just say I'm prepared to play along with your rum little game, Edward," he said. "You say you require my help. In what manner may I be of assistance?"

"I need you to purchase for me a complete set of watchmaker's tools."

"For what purpose?"

"I have to repair my suit's control unit. I'm hoping that watchmaker's tools will be fine enough for such work."

"Control unit?"

"The circular object you saw on my chest."

"And am I to take it that when this `control unit' is repaired you will once again be capable of flight through time?"

"Yes."

"Phew! I have never heard such a tale in all my born natural! Yet I have it in mind to humour you! You will remain here as my guest and I shall get you your tools!"

"There is something I can tell you," said Oxford, "that might lend credence to my story."

"Really. What is that?"

"Five days from now, you will have a new monarch."

Slowly, over the next seven days, Henry de La Poet Beresford's amused disbelief began to waver.

The death of King William IV at Windsor Castle had, of course, been expected and came as no surprise. The fact that Oxford had predicted Victoria's ascension to the throne on June 20 wasn't particularly amazing-more a lucky guess, in all probability.

However, after extracting a vow of silence from his host, Oxford revealed a great deal more about the world he'd come from, especially about the different technologies and power sources available to future man. The human race, it seemed, would lose none of its inventiveness as time progressed.

It was the way the man spoke and moved, though, that most convinced the marquess. There was something indescribably foreign about him, yet, conversely, the longer he spent with him the more Beresford believed that his odd visitor was, as he claimed, an Englishman.

"You are evidentially a sophisticated individual," he said one morning, "yet-if you'll pardon my bluntness-you lack the social graces I would expect from a gentleman."

Oxford, who was seated at a table and using the watchmaker's tools to poke at the incomprehensible innards of his "control unit," responded without looking up.

"No offence taken, Henry. I don't mean to be rude; it's just that in my time social interaction is far less ritualised. We express our feelings and opinions just as we please, openly and without restraint."

"How barbaric!" drawled the marquess, dangling a leg over the arm of his chair. "Are you not permanently at one another's throats?"

"No more so than you Victorians."

"Victorians? Is that what we are now? Why, I suppose it is! But tell me, my friend: what possible advantage can there be in the abandonment of our ritualised'-as you would have it-behaviour? Are not manners the mark of a civilised man?"

"The advantage is liberty, Henry. From this century forward, the concept of liberty becomes central to personal, social, political, economic, and technological developments. People do not want to feel suppressed, so great efforts are made to establish, if not true freedom, then at very least a sustainable and overwhelming illusion of it. I doubt there's ever been a time when human beings were truly free, but where-or, rather, when-I come from, more people believe they are than in any other period of history."

"And what do they gain from it?"

"A life in which they are able to pursue opportunities without restraint in a quest for personal fulfillment."

"Fulfillment?"

"The sense that you have explored your inherent abilities to their utmost."

"Yes, I understand," replied Beresford, thoughtfully. "But surely if a person's opportunities are unbounded, then the possibilities increase? Doesn't that make it impossible to explore them all, and extremely difficult to settle upon any one area which can be explored to the point of fulfillment?"

Oxford looked up and frowned. "You make a good point, Henry. It's true that many people in my time are frustrated not by limitations but by an inability to make choices. They feel their lives are without direction and struggle to find their place in society."

"Whereas the humble `Victorian' labourer," mused Beresford, "knows his place almost from birth and almost certainly never gives thought to an idea so ephemeral as `fulfillment' except, I venture to suggest, in reference to a hearty meal and a pint of ale!"

"Done!" exclaimed Oxford.

"What?"

"The control unit. Fixed! It's a makeshift repair but it'll get me home, where I can give it a proper overhaul before coming back."

"To 1837, you mean?"

"I have some business in 1840 to take care of first, but yes, I'll come back, Henry. I'll bring you a gift from the future as a token of thanks for the hospitality you've shown me these past few days."

"For how long will you be gone?"

"My Lord Marquess, the concept still eludes you, doesn't it? I'll be back mere seconds after my departure, even if I'm away for years from my perspective. Would you have Brock fetch my suit from upstairs?"

"Certainly," responded Beresford. He pulled a cord that hung beside the fireplace. "You intend to leave at once, then?"

"There's no time like the present." Oxford smiled.

The valet appeared, was given his instructions, bowed, and departed.

Beresford lifted a bottle of red wine from beside his chair and took a swig from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Oxford eyed him disapprovingly. "It's a little early, don't you think?" he asked.

"My dear friend-it's never too early!" advised the marquess, languidly. "Besides, it's a wonderful restorative."

"Curing a hangover with red wine is a sure way to become an alcoholic."

"Nonsense! Besides, I can assure you that if you really do disappear into the future right before my eyes, the shock is liable to kill me unless I take a spot of wine to soften the blow!"

Brock reappeared carrying the time suit with its attached cape, the boots with their stilts, and the helmet. Oxford took the items, picked up the control unit, and followed Henry Beresford out of the room, along the hallway, around a corner, and into the big ballroom. They crossed this, opened the veranda doors, and exited the house.

The man from 2202 slipped into his suit and affixed the control unit to his chest. He placed the helmet on his head, pushed his feet into the boots, heaved himself up onto his stilts, then bent and shook the hand of the man from 1837.

"You really believe it, don't you?" said Beresford.

"Yes. Wait here. I'll be back in what for you will be just a moment."

He strode out onto the grass.

Oxford had managed to restore a channel between the control unit and the helmet. It transmitted his instructions, which were read straight from his brainwaves, but the connection wasn't stable enough for the augmented reality function.

He set his destination: ten o'clock on the evening of February 15, 2202; location: the garden of his house in Aldershot. He hoped his supper hadn't gone cold.

It was a sunny day and his batteries required less than two minutes before they were fully charged.

"Okay," he muttered to himself. "Let's go home and start again."

He waved at the marquess then bounded forward and jumped into the air.

"Now!" he ordered.

Reality blinked.

He fell and landed on flat ground beside a tree.

It was night.

It was not his garden.

He looked around. The lights of a small town shone behind him. A tall fence lay ahead, on the other side of a road. Low buildings were just visible in the darkness beyond it. Beside a gate, he saw a sentry box and standing in it, a man in uniform.

The man lifted something to his mouth and a spark of light flared.

Bloody hell. He was smoking! No one smoked in 2202.

Oxford, concealed by the tree, took a couple of steps until he was better able to see the sign above the gate. It read: British Army. North Camp. Aldershot.

This was not possible.

There had been a military base there since 1854 but it had been demolished in 2079 to make way for the town's expanding suburbs.

"Right place, wrong time!" he muttered, moving out of cover.

He approached the sentry rapidly, his stilts making a metallic clacking on the road surface. It attracted the man's attention.

"Christ Almighty!" the soldier exclaimed as he saw the tall gangly figure. "Stop! State your name and b-"

Oxford slapped the weapon aside and, in a sudden fit of temper, took the man by the throat.

"What's the date?" he demanded.

The sentry's face went slack. "Wha-wha-wha-?" he gibbered.

"The date!" spat Oxford, and struck the soldier's face with the flat of his palm, once, twice, thrice, until some semblance of comprehension crept into the staring eyes.

"What's the date?" he repeated. "Day, month, year?"

"Fri-Friday, M-March the ninth," stuttered the soldier.

"Year?" urged Oxford, shaking the man.

"1877."

Oxford's hand dropped and he stepped back in surprise.

The soldier fumbled for his rifle, raised it, and pulled the trigger. A bullet scored the side of Oxford's helmet, jerking his head painfully. A shout came from off to the right. He heard the sound of booted feet running on the road. He turned, paced away, ordered his suit to take him back to Darkening Towers, leaped into the air, and landed in sunshine.

"You were gone less than two minutes," called the marquess. "I'm convinced, Mr. Oxford! You vanished right before my eyes! It was simply astonishing! I say, what's wrong with your helmet?"

The time traveller stumbled across the grass and collapsed to his knees at Beresford's feet. He reached up to remove his headgear and yelled in pain as heat blistered his hands.

"Careful! There's some sort of blue flame dancing around your head," advised the marquess. "Wait a moment!"

He ran into the mansion and emerged moments later holding a curtain, which he'd ripped down from inside one of the veranda doors. Wrapping it around the helmet, he lifted it from Oxford's head and dropped it onto the grass. The curtain started to burn. Beresford used the tip of his boot to pull it away. The blue fire flickered around the uncovered black dome then shrank and died.

"I didn't get home," said Oxford, yanking his boots off.

"To the future? Why not? Where did you go?"

"I went to Aldershot, to the place where my home is, but it wasn't there yet. I landed in 1877."

"Forty years from now," said Beresford, picking up the stilt-boots. "Come inside. My guess is you no longer object to alcohol?"

"It's still too early for me, Henry. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit alone for a bit. I have to work out what happened."

"Very well. I have business in London today anyway, and will probably stay overnight, so I'll leave you to your contemplations and will see you tomorrow morning. Treat the mansion as your own."

"Thank you, Henry; you continue to be very generous. I don't know how I'd manage without you. You have been a great friend."

"Not at all; think nothing of it! As a friend, may I make an observation?"

"Of course."

"You're beginning to look a little wild about the eyes, Edward. Since your arrival here you have worked on that control unit without cease. Perhaps you should rest up for a few days. Do something different. You could come to London with me. I'm going to the Athenaeum Club. Brunel will be there, the famous engineer-have you heard of him?"

"Of course! He's still famous in my time!" said Oxford. "But I can't, Henry. I can't leave Darkening Towers. This seclusion is bearable but if I step beyond these walls I'll be confronted with a world very different from my own. Too different! It's liable to cause a severe form of culture shock from which I may never recover."

"Culture shock? What is that?"

"Think of all the things that make you the man you are today, Henry. What if they were all replaced with entirely different things? Would you still be the same man?"

"I would adapt."

"Yes, up to a point adaptation is possible, but beyond that point, destruction beckons."

"Very well, if London is too much for you, then rest here. Sleep, drink, but leave off working and thinking for a few hours at least."

"I'll try."

Just after midday, the Marquess of Waterford rode out of Darkening Towers, leaving Oxford to his own devices.

Brock served a light lunch that the time traveller ate without tasting. Despite his host's advice, his mind was entirely occupied with his unsuccessful jump home. Later, he prodded and probed his helmet's hardware but without the proper tools repairs were impossible. He had to get back to 2202!

He brooded through the afternoon and into the evening, slumped in an armchair, oblivious to Brock, who occasionally appeared to tend the fire, to bring tea, and to offer food.

Eventually, after the valet had cleared his throat four times without gaining Oxford's attention, Brock said, "Excuse me, sir, do you require anything? Only it's one o'clock in the morning and I should like to retire for the night."

Oxford looked at him with faraway eyes. "What? Oh, no, go to bed, Brock. Thank you."

The valet left and Oxford remained in the chair.

The fire died.

The night passed.

The sun rose.

Brock reappeared.

He found Oxford pacing up and down.

"Shall I instruct the cook to prepare you some breakfast, sir?"

"No!" snapped Oxford. "Where's your master?"

"In London, sir. I expect he'll be back later this morning."

"Call him! I need to speak with him at once!"

"Call him, sir?"

"At once, dammit!"

"I'm afraid you've misunderstood me, sir. He is in London."

"I understood perfectly well! Get him on the-Ah! No! Of course. I'm sorry, Brock. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'll wait. Would you tell your master I need to see him the moment he arrives?"

"I will, sir."

"Thank you."

He had to wait until three o'clock.

Beresford had barely entered the mansion before he was brought up short by a wild shout: "Where the hell have you been? I've been waiting all day!"

Passing his gloves and hat to Brock, the marquess looked at the haggard figure who'd shouted from the door of the morning room.

"By James!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with you, Oxford?"

"Get in here, I have to tell you something! Quick!"

Beresford shrugged and walked into the chamber, unbuttoning his riding jacket and slipping out of it.

"What's on your mind?" he said, tossing the garment over the back of a chair.

Edward Oxford, his eyes blazing, his mouth twisted into a painful grin, ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair and laughed. It was a wild, horribly pitched sound.

"I can't go back!" he yelled. "I can't go back!"

Beresford dropped into an armchair. "Back where? Home, you mean? To 2202?"

"Yes, of course that's what I mean, you bloody fool!"

"Steady, man. Calm down. Remember that you're my guest here."

Oxford wrapped his arms around himself and gazed at the marquess.

"I killed a man," he whispered.

"You did what? When?"

"Three years from now. I killed a man by accident. He was my ancestor."

"Good Lord! Sit. Tell me more."

Oxford shuffled to a chair and fell into it. He stared at the floor.

"Henry, imagine that time is a cord stretching forward from now all the way to the year 2202. Now picture a point on that cord a short distance ahead of us-the year 1840. There is a man at that point whose name, like mine, is Edward Oxford. We'll call him the Original Oxford. As you move along that line, you see this man fathering a child, and that child grows and becomes parent to another, and that one does the same, and so on and so forth until you reach 2162, when a descendant of the Original Oxford gives birth to me."

"I get the picture," said Beresford. "So what?"

"Now move forward to 2202, my fortieth birthday. I jump back from that far end of the line to 1840 and I kill the Original Oxford before then jumping to the start of the line, where we are now."

"The present moment," offered the marquess.

"Yes. Now, at 1840, the line has been cut. The stretch of it containing all the Original Oxford descendants is no longer joined to the part of the line that we are on. It still exists, perhaps, but not for us. For us, everything after the death of the Original Oxford must be written anew. There's nothing there for me to jump forward into!"

"But you went to 1877. That's beyond the cut!"

"Yes, it is, and I've been puzzling over that all night. I think I know what happened. I think I jumped to the end of my natural life span."

"I don't understand you."

"Henry, if I remain in this time, by 1877 I will be eighty years old. Friday March 9, 1877, I am certain, will be, barring accidents, the end of my days."

"Do you mean to suggest that you can travel within your own allotted time, as it were, but to go beyond that you need a future which, for you, has already been established?"

"Yes, exactly."

"To all intents and purposes, then, you seem to have wiped yourself out of existence. But why, Edward? Why did you kill this man?"

"I'd rather not go into that. Like I said, it was an accident."

"So go and prevent it. If you can travel as far as 1877, then 1840 remains well within reach. Go and stop the death of the Original Oxford."

"Henry, don't you see? I'm here; I killed him; no one stopped me; therefore if I try, I will surely fail!"

"The complexities of time travel are far beyond me," answered Beresford, "but in the future you were alive and invented a time suit. That cannot have been possible if someone killed your ancestor. Yet here you are. It seems to me that just because you perceive that things occurred a certain way doesn't mean you can't go back and alter them."

Edward gazed into space.

"Yes," he whispered thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose that's true. It's worth a try!"

He sprang to his feet.

"I have to work on the suit, Henry. There's damage to the helmet and the control unit requires further attention!"

"For pity's sake, man, rest first! You look as if you've not slept all night!"

"I haven't! There's no time for sleep!" barked Oxford, crossing to the table where his gear was laid out.

Beresford shook his head.

"Of all people," he said quietly, "I would have thought you'd have all the time in the world."

Three years later, Edward Oxford hit the ground running.

He was farther away from the other two Oxfords than he'd planned and, as he raced past a policeman, he realised that he was too late, as well; the two men were already locked together; the pistol was already raised toward the queen.

"Stop, Edward!" he bellowed.

Suddenly a bolt of energy flashed out of the control unit and into the ground. He doubled over in pain as the charge ripped through him and looked up again just as the pistol went off and Queen Victoria's head sprayed blood.

The monarch fell backward out of her carriage.

The Oxfords wrestled. The Original tripped and went down, his head smacking onto the railings.

It was me, thought the time traveller. The distraction; the shout and the flash. I looked up at myself here on the hill and in doing so moved my ancestor's arm. I caused the pistol to point at her head!

"No!" he groaned. "No!"

The control unit let loose a shower of sparks.

He turned.

The policeman had almost caught up with him.

Oxford sprang over the constable's head and landed back in 1837.

"I can't stop it!" he told Henry de La Poer Beresford as he entered through the veranda doors. "It might not have happened at all if I hadn't gone back just now!"

He dropped his face into his hands and moaned.

"Sleep," ordered Beresford. "Once you are rested, you'll think more clearly. We'll find a solution. And remember, you have forty years in which to work on it."

"Bloody hell!" cursed Oxford. "I can't stay a Victorian recluse for the rest of my life. Besides, my wife is expecting me home for supper."

He suddenly chuckled at the contrast-the extraordinary and the mundane-and lost control of himself, throwing his head back and laughing wildly, a harsh and unbalanced noise which caused the marquess to step back a pace.

It echoed through Darkening Towers, that horrible laughter.

Maybe it echoed through time.