Oxford—April 2060
MR. DUNWORTHY WENT OVER DR. ISHIWAKA’S CALCULATIONS again and then called, “Eddritch, come into my office, please.” When his secretary appeared in the doorway, he said, “I need you to ring up the lab and see why they haven’t sent over that slippage analysis yet.”
“They did send it, sir,” Eddritch said, and just stood there.
I should never have let Finch become an historian, Dunworthy thought, thinking longingly of his previous secretary. “Well, then, where is it?”
“On my desk, sir.”
“Bring it to me,” Dunworthy said, and when Eddritch came back with the file, he asked, “Has Research telephoned?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they had the information you requested and that you were to ring them back,” Eddritch said. “Would you like me to ring them for you?”
No, because you would very likely fail to inform me you’d put the call through, Dunworthy thought. “I’ll do it myself,” he said, and rang them up.
“There were two hundred fatalities that night,” the tech who answered the telephone said. “Twenty-one in the area you asked about. But that figure doesn’t include those who might have been injured on that date and later died of their wounds.”
Or anyone who was killed days—or weeks—later as a consequence of what they did, Dunworthy thought.
“Do you want us to attempt to find out about those who suffered eventually fatal injuries?” the tech asked.
“We’ll see. Give me what you’ve found thus far. You said twenty-one that night?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Six firemen, an ARP warden, a Wren, an officer in the Lancaster Rifles, a WAAC, a seventeen-year-old boy, and two charwomen.”
“No naval officers?”
“No, sir. But as I said, this is only the people who died that night.”
“Have you the exact locations where they were killed?”
“For some of them. The officer and two of the firemen were killed in Upper Grosvenor Street, and the others fighting a fire in the Minories. The ARP warden was killed in Cheapside. The post was hit.”
“What about the Wren?”
“She was killed in Ave Maria Lane.”
Only a few streets away from St. Paul’s. “Is there a photo of her?”
“No, not with the death notice. Do you want me to try to find one?”
“Yes. And I need the names of the fatalities and, if possible, photographs. As soon as you can. When you have it, phone me directly.”
He gave her the number, rang off, and started through the slippage analysis, afraid that it held more bad news. But although there was a slight increase in the average amount of slippage per drop, it wasn’t as large as Ishiwaka had predicted, and several of the drops were in areas where their opening was highly likely to be observed, which could account for the increase. And there was nothing to indicate a spike.
But the analysis didn’t include this week’s drops. He told Eddritch to ring him at the lab if Research phoned, and went out Balliol’s gate and over to the Broad.
As Dunworthy turned up Catte Street, Colin Templer caught up with him. “I’m glad I found you,” he said breathlessly. “That idiot secretary of yours wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
He should reprove Colin for calling Eddritch an idiot, but there was a certain amount of truth to his assessment. “Why aren’t you in school?” he demanded instead.
“We had a holiday,” Colin said, and at his look added, “No, truly. You can ring up the school and ask them. So I came up to see you. I’ve an idea for an assignment,” he said, walking beside Dunworthy. “Do you know the land girls?”
“Yes. In World War II. They were these women who—”
“I am familiar with the land girls. You’re proposing to pose as a female and enlist in the Women’s Land Army?”
“No, but the reason they had to have land girls was because the farm laborers had all gone off to the war, and the farmers hired boys as well, so I thought I could say I was fifteen—that way I’d be too young to be called up—and I could observe wartime farm life. You know, food shortages and all that.”
“And what’s to stop you from enlisting the moment you get there? Or haring off to London to see Polly Churchill?”
“That’s the last thing I’d do,” Colin said fervently, and Dunworthy wondered what that was all about. Had she laughed at him and hurt his feelings? “And I promise I won’t enlist. I’ll swear to it if you like. Or sign an oath in blood or something.”
“No.”
“But I’ve found a farm in Hampshire where there wasn’t a single bomb or V-1 for the entire war. And I’ve researched milking cows and gathering eggs—”
They’d reached the lab. Dunworthy stopped outside the door. “I am not sending you anywhere until you have passed your examinations, been admitted to Oxford, and completed your undergraduate degree—none of which look likely at this point.”
“That’s unfair. I rewrote my essay on Dr. Ishiwaka and got high marks on it, even though I still think his theory’s rubbish.”
And let’s hope you’re right, Dunworthy thought. “Run along,” he said. “I have business to conduct.”
“I don’t mind waiting.”
“There’s no point. I do not intend to change my mind. And in case you were hoping to sneak into the drop with me the way you did when I went after Kivrin Engle, I am not here to use the net. I am here to talk to Badri.”
“Then there’s no need to bar me from the lab, is there?” Colin said, sidling in before Dunworthy could shut the door. “I’ll wait till you’re done and then tell you my other idea. You won’t even know I’m here.”
“See that I don’t,” Dunworthy said, and started over to Badri, who was at the console.
“If you’re here about your drop to St. Paul’s,” Badri said, “we just finished calculating the coordinates, so you can go at any time.”
“Good,” Dunworthy said. “I want to see the slippage for this week’s drops. Is the amount still increasing?”
“Yes.” Badri called it up on the screen. “But the rate of increase is less than last week.”
Good, Dunworthy thought. Perhaps it was only a temporary anomaly.
“I’ve been looking at the individual drops,” Badri said. “The elevated slippage seems to be confined to drops back to World War II, so the increase could be due to the greater incidence of divergence points wars produce. Or to wartime conditions—civilian observers, ARP patrols, that sort of thing.”
But scores of historians had gone to World War II over the years, and there’d been no increase in the average slippage. “Have all the historians I spoke to you about been canceled or rescheduled?”
“Yes, sir,” Badri said, and Linna handed him a list.
“What about Michael Davies?” Dunworthy asked, looking at it.
“We rescheduled him to do his Dunkirk evacuation observation first. He left”—he consulted the console screen—“four days ago. He’ll be back six to ten days from now.”
“And the Pearl Harbor drop’s scheduled for when?”
“The end of May.”
Good, Dunworthy thought. I’ll have six weeks before I need to make a decision. “Why the uncertainty in when he’ll return? Was the projected slippage high?”
“No, sir, but his drop’s outside Dover, so it may take him a day or two to make it back there after the end of the evacuation.”
“We had a dreadful time finding him a drop site,” Linna volunteered. “The only one we could find was five miles from Dover.”
Dunworthy frowned. Difficulty in finding drop sites was one of the signs Dr. Ishiwaka had predicted. “An abnormal amount of difficulty?”
“Yes,” Linna said.
“No,” Badri said, “not considering the large number of people in the area. And the high level of secrecy surrounding the operation.”
“Any other instances of difficulty finding a drop site?” Dunworthy asked.
“We had some minor difficulty finding Charles Bowden one in Singapore, but we were finally able to send him through on the British colony’s polo grounds. And we had a good deal of difficulty with Polly Churchill’s, but that was because of your location requirements and the blackout.”
“Send her to see me as soon as she returns from the Blitz. When is that?”
“She should be reporting in tomorrow or the day after with the address of the boardinghouse where she’ll be staying.”
“What? Do you mean to tell me she hasn’t reported in yet?”
“No, sir, but there’s nothing to worry about,” Badri said. “She may have had difficulty finding a room to let, or she may have decided to wait till she had a job as well. That way she could tell us the name of the department store—”
“She’s been there a month,” Dunworthy said. “It can’t possibly have taken her that long to find a job. Why wasn’t I told she hadn’t reported in?” He turned accusingly to Colin. “Did you know about this?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Colin said. “She hasn’t been there a month. Has she, Badri?”
“No. She’s only been there two days.”
“What? Eddritch told me a month ago that she’d left on assignment.”
“She did, sir, but not for the Blitz,” Linna said. “We were having difficulty finding a drop site for her, so she suggested we send her to one of the other parts of her project first.”
“And you did? You sent her to the zeppelin attacks on London without obtaining my approval first?”
“You’d already approved the project, so we thought … But we couldn’t send her to the zeppelins. She hadn’t done her World War I prep yet. We sent her to the third part.”
“The third part?” Dunworthy thundered. “And then you sent her to the Blitz?”
“Yes, sir, we—”
“In spite of the fact that I’d told you to cancel all out-of-order drops?”
“Out-of-order?” Badri said. “I … you didn’t say that was what you were doing. You only gave us a list—”
“Of drops which were to be rescheduled so they’d be chronological. Or canceled if that wasn’t possible.”
“You didn’t say anything about chronology,” Linna said defensively.
“I … I’d no idea,” Badri stammered. “If we’d known—”
“Is something wrong?” Colin asked, coming over. “Has something happened to Polly?”
Dunworthy ignored him. “What do you mean you had no idea?” he said to Badri. “Why else did you think I was rescheduling them? And if Polly Churchill was on assignment, why wasn’t she on the list you gave me?”
“You asked for a list of every historian in the past,” Linna said, “and she’d already returned.”
Dunworthy wheeled on Colin. “You knew she’d gone, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew,” Colin said. “What’s wrong? Why wasn’t she supposed to go to the Blitz?”
Dunworthy turned back to Badri. “How long will it take to set up the coordinates on Polly’s drop?”
“Has something happened to Polly?” Colin said again.
“No, because I’m pulling her out of there.”
“You’re sending a retrieval team after her, sir?” Badri said.
“No. That will take too long. I’ll go myself. How long?”
“But you don’t know where she is,” Badri argued. “She’ll be checking in in another day or two. Wouldn’t it be easier to wait till—”
“I know she’s looking for a job on Oxford Street. How long?”
“I’d have to change her drop to send mode,” Badri said. “It’s set up for a return drop at the moment. A day or two.”
“Too long,” Dunworthy said. “I want her out of there now. And I don’t want anything to interfere if she tries to check in. How long to set up a new drop nearby?”
“A new drop?” Badri said. “I’ve no idea. It took us weeks to find Polly’s. The blackout—”
“What about the St. Paul’s drop?” Dunworthy asked Badri. “How long to set new temporal coordinates?”
“An hour perhaps, but you can’t go through to St. Paul’s. John Bartholomew was there in—”
“Not in early September. He didn’t go through till the twentieth.”
“But you can’t go through in early September. It’s too dangerous.”
“St. Paul’s wasn’t bombed till October,” Mr. Dunworthy said.
“I’m not talking about St. Paul’s. I’m talking about your—”
“What day did Polly go through?” Dunworthy interrupted.
“September tenth.”
“Has something happened to her?” Colin said. “Is she in some sort of trouble?”
“What time was her drop set for?” Dunworthy asked Badri.
“Five A.M. The raids on the night of the ninth were over at half past four, and the all clear didn’t go till 6:22.”
“Set mine for four A.M. That way the fire watch will still be up on the roofs and I’ll have the entire day to find her.”
“You’re pulling her out the same day she went through?” Colin asked.
Badri said, “Sir, you can’t go through with a raid in progress. And the tenth is too close to—”
“I’ll only be there the few hours it takes to find her, and there’s a tube stop just down from the cathedral. I can go straight to Oxford Street from there. And the raids that night were over the East End, not the City.”
“Tell me why you need to pull her out,” Colin said, his voice rising. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” Dunworthy said. “I’m merely pulling her out as a precaution.”
“What do you mean, a precaution? Against what?”
I knew I shouldn’t have let Colin into the lab, Dunworthy thought. “There’s been a slight increase in the amount of slippage,” he said. “And until we know what’s causing it, I’m not sending historians on multi-part drops, that’s all. I was unaware that Polly had left on hers or I would have stopped her from going. Since she’s already there, I’m bringing her back.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, I must,” Colin said earnestly. “I promised her I’d come rescue her if she was in trouble.”
“She is not in trouble—”
“Then why are you pulling her out? And what do you mean, a slight increase? How much?”
“Only a few days.”
“Oh,” Colin said, and Dunworthy could see the relief in his face.
But he was a bright lad; he’d make the connection. Dunworthy needed to get him out of here. “Colin, I need you to go to Props and tell them I need a 1940 identity card,” he said, afraid Colin would balk at leaving, but he was eager to help.
“What name do you want on the card?” he asked.
“There’s no time to make up a special one. Have them give you whatever they have on hand.”
Colin nodded. “You’ll need a ration book, as well, and a shelter assignment card and—”
“No, I’m only going through for a few hours,” he said. “Just long enough to locate Polly and bring her back.”
“But you’ll need money for the tube and things. And what about clothes? Should I go to Wardrobe and—”
I can just imagine what Wardrobe would come up with, Dunworthy thought. “No, I’ll wear what I have on,” he said. A tweed jacket and wool trousers had, thankfully, been wardrobe staples for a century and a half.
“But you’ll need a gas mask. And a steel helmet,” Colin said. “It’s the Blitz—”
“I am fully aware of the Blitz’s dangers,” Dunworthy said. “I have been there several times.”
“Sir?” Badri interrupted. “I think you should send a retrieval team instead of going yourself. It would only take a short time to set one up and a day or two to prep them—”
“There is no need for a retrieval team.”
“Then at least someone who hasn’t been to 1940—”
“You could send me,” Colin said eagerly. “I know all about the Blitz. I helped Polly with her prep—”
“You are not going anywhere,” Dunworthy said, “except to Props to fetch me an identity card.”
“But I know when and where all the raids were, and—”
“Go,” Dunworthy said. “Now.”
“But … yes, sir,” Colin said reluctantly, and ran out.
“How long before Linna will have those coordinates set up?” Dunworthy asked Badri.
“A few minutes. But I really think you should send someone who hasn’t been to 1940 before. You’re clearly worried about the increase in slippage making it impossible to pull people out by their deadlines, which means you shouldn’t—”
“The increase in slippage at this point is only two days, which would put me through on the twelfth at the latest, and I will be there less than a day. I’ll be in no danger. Linna, do you have those coordinates?” he called over to her.
“Nearly,” she called back, and Dunworthy took off his watch and began emptying his pockets.
The door to the lab banged open, and Colin came skidding in, waving a handful of papers. “You’re Edward T. Price,” he said. “You live at eleven Jubilee Place, Chelsea. I brought you two five-pound notes.”
“And I see you’ve changed out of your school blazer into something Wardrobe fondly imagines young boys were wearing during the Blitz,” Dunworthy said.
Colin flushed. “I think I should go with you. With two people looking, we can find Polly twice as fast, and I know where every single bomb fell on the tenth.”
“As do I. Give me my money and identity card.”
“And here’s your ration book,” Colin said, handing them to him. “You might get hungry. I brought you a pocket torch. To help you see where you’re going.”
Dunworthy handed it back. “All that will do is get me arrested by the local ARP warden. Pocket torches weren’t allowed in the blackout.”
“But that’s all the more reason for me to go with you. I can see really well in the dark—”
“You are not going, Colin.”
“But what if you’re hit by a bus? That happened a lot in the blackout. Or get into some other sort of trouble?”
“I will not get into trouble.”
“You did last time,” Colin said, “and I had to rescue you, remember? What if that happens again?”
“It won’t.”
“Mr. Dunworthy?” Linna said from the console. “I have the coordinates if you’re ready.”
“Yes,” he said, and saw Colin dart a calculating glance at the draped folds of the net and the distance between it and where they were standing. “Thank you, Linna, but I need a few more minutes. Colin, on second thought, I believe you’re right about the torch. If I’m to get Polly out quickly, I can’t afford to sprain an ankle falling off a curb.”
“Good,” Colin said, holding the torch out to him.
“No, this one won’t work,” he said. “It’s too modern. And it needs to be fitted with a special blackout hood to eliminate the beam’s being seen from above. Go ask Props if they have one with a hood, and if they haven’t, then paste strips of black paper over the glass. Hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” Colin said, and dashed out.
“You have the coordinates ready?” Dunworthy asked Linna as soon as Colin was gone.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “We can do it as soon as Colin—”
He went over to the door and locked it. “Send me through.”
“But I thought—”
“The last thing I need is a seventeen-year-old tagging along while I’m trying to find a missing historian,” he said, walking over to the net and ducking under its already descending folds. “A seventeen-year-old who, as Badri can attest, has a history of stowing away on journeys to the past.” He centered himself on the grid. “Ready,” he said to her.
“I think you should at least wait until we’ve set up the return drop,” Badri said. “If there’s increased slippage, and you go through later than—”
“You can set it up after you send me through. Now, Linna.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She began typing, and he saw the beginnings of the shimmer.
“Don’t send anyone else through on assignment till I return. And if Polly comes back through to check in, keep her here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Colin’s not to be allowed anywhere near the net while I’m gone.”
The shimmer was beginning to grow and flare, obscuring Linna’s features. “He’s not to come through after me—or Polly—under any circumstances,” he said, but it was too late. The net was already opening.