‘But haven’t we already given them the answer,’ interrupted the lackey. ‘Well, indirectly anyway,’ he amended.
‘Some information has been “delivered” yes,’ said the thin man cautiously. ‘As you say, indirectly – not to them. But it is of no use to them at present, and it is not in their hands as yet anyway, it’s not time yet as I believe I already told you,’ he added with a hint of impatience.
‘The stage has been set, and the players positioned,’ he ruminated, ‘and all else is in the hands of the gods – so to speak. Destiny and the planning department are not as fixed nor as absolute as the pawns – I mean the humans involved seem to believe.
‘Humans can be steered however, and often with better results, as we have seen, than when they are told what they must do, in which case sheer human perversity usually makes them do the exact opposite.’ he rolled his eyes. ‘We have made such mistakes before and even when that is not the case, things can still go wrong. We do not know for example, what this Askphrit character might suddenly decide to do, he has fooled us before. The truth is that in dealing with humans, anything at all can, and often does, happen. Best we do not interfere too much in case something of the kind happens again. In this way, we leave our options open to change our plans if necessary, even up until the last minute.’
‘And we can disclaim all knowledge if it all goes horribly wrong,’ added the lackey shrewdly.
The stern and humourless face of the thin man creased suddenly into a wink.
‘Now you’re getting it,’ he said.
* * *
On the other side of the next door, they found themselves in Liverpool, circa April 1912 according to Tamar.
‘How do you know?’ asked Denny ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’
For answer, she pointed a shaking finger at the dock, and he followed her gaze and saw … The Titanic.
Denny nodded. ‘You know that ship then?’ he surmised.
Tamar stared at him in bewilderment. ‘It’s the Titanic,’ she said eventually.
Denny shook his head. ‘Whatever it is,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I’m not picking it up from you this time. What about it?’
‘Well,’ she said, apparently thinking hard. ‘It’s the TITANIC.’
’I’m going to shake you in a minute,’ said Denny. He was picking up on her distress, but no facts were coming through at all. ‘What
about
the bleeding Titanic,’
‘It sank,’ she told him baldy.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘That’s a shame,’ he said lamely. He really was not that interested.
‘A shame?’ said Tamar incredulously. ‘The most famous wreck in history. 1500 people drowned, and you say… all you can say is … you never heard of it did you?’ she realised suddenly.
‘No,’ he admitted, ‘and that’s a problem isn’t it?’ he added, suddenly catching on.’
They both turned to gaze at the ship.
‘1500 people drowned?’ asked Denny.
‘Yes,’
‘Shit!’
Tamar told him the story of the Titanic; he was flabbergasted.
‘That’s terrible,’ he said ‘what a momentous cock-up.’
‘Are you sure it’s real though?’ he added.
Tamar nodded uncertainly. ‘I see what you mean,’ she said. ‘One of us has got it wrong, that’s for sure.’
‘How could that happen?’
‘History must have changed,’ she said. ‘And for some reason only one of us remembers the original version,’ she shrugged.
‘So what
is
the original version?’ asked Denny putting his finger squarely on the nub of the problem.’
‘That’s the fifty thousand dollar question,’ said Tamar glumly. ‘Will she sink or won’t she?’
‘And is she supposed to sink or not anyway?’ Denny added to the confusion.
‘Dunno,’ said Tamar unhelpfully.
‘Why do we remember it differently?’ said Denny. ‘If changing history changes our memory of it, as you say, then why…?’
‘… Does one of us remember it the way it was
before
it was changed?’ Tamar finished for him.
‘It’s got to be you,’ he said. ‘I mean who’s the Djinn around here anyway? You never saw the world like humans do and anyway, you were alive when it happened, I wasn’t.’
Tamar reluctantly agreed to this. She did not like it at all, because it meant that the ship was meant to sink in order to fix the timeline and that they would have to be the ones to make sure it happened, because it clearly was not going to happen on its own.
‘It doesn’t matter why,’ she said. ‘We may have been the ones that caused it in the first place …’
‘Or Askphrit.’ put in Denny.
‘Either way, it’s got to be all this jumping around in history that’s done it,’ she said.
There was a silence.
‘So what do we do?’ asked Denny eventually.
‘Nothing?’ said Tamar hopefully.
‘Um,’ said Denny and scratched his nose meaningfully.
‘Well look,’ said Tamar. ‘We don’t even know for sure that I’m the one remembering it right. Maybe
you
are. So we don’t even know for sure what’s going to happen here, I mean not really. Just because I was here at the time doesn’t mean my memory now is right. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s far more likely that it’s you that’s got it right not me.’
‘Explain,’ said Denny tersely
‘The change must have happened while we were in mainframe, which means that it’s more likely that the memory you took with you into mainframe was the right one. Because I was living at the time it happened,
my
memory will have altered along with the timeline – if it didn’t, then I would be remembering something that never happened.’
‘So she’s going to sink, and we have to stop it from happening?’ said Denny eventually. ‘Because it’s more than likely our fault anyway.’
‘Even if it wasn’t …’ began Tamar
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Denny testily. ‘Funny how you weren’t so keen to fix the timeline when we thought
you
might be the one remembering it right.’
Tamar looked down.
‘Because if the timeline changed from a massive disaster to a happy ending then you would rather just leave it that way?’ he pressed on mercilessly.
‘Fifteen hundred dead, Denny,’ she said plaintively. ‘Fifteen hundred!’
‘It doesn’t make a difference,’ he said sternly. ‘Surely not mending a rift in time when you know about it is just as much a crime as deliberately causing one. Especially if there’s a good chance that we caused it in the first place’
Tamar just looked stubbornly at him.
‘You can’t always play the hero,’ he said gently. ‘Sometimes you have to do the right thing.’
‘Gosh that was deep,’ he added to himself. ‘Practically Zen, in fact.’
‘Nah,’ said Tamar allowing herself a smile. ‘Zen’s that thing where you talk a lot of bollocks in order to confuse yourself into believing just about anything isn’t it? What you said actually made a lot of sense.’ She sighed. ‘I wish it didn’t.’
‘Here’s some more sense for you,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty clear that the timeline has changed, right? So whatever is going to happen is the wrong thing. Therefore, it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. Whatever happens on that ship, we have to be there to put it right again. Fancy taking a cruise?’
‘And if the ship
doesn’t
hit the iceberg?’ said Tamar.
‘Then your memory was the right one. The ship sank, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll just have to face it and …’
‘And what?’ said Tamar.
‘Well, sink the ship obviously.’
‘How?’
‘Um …’
It’d be easier to make sure she
doesn’t
sink,’ said Tamar gloomily. ‘I mean just from a practical point of view even.’
‘I know,’ said Denny. ‘Spot the iceberg and shift it out of the way – easy.’
‘Exactly, but if there is no iceberg …’
‘Damn!’
‘There are always going to be a lot of people to say something weird happened,’ pointed out Tamar. ‘Doesn’t mean anyone will believe them – we know that.’
‘So we just …’
‘Make a huge great iceberg out of nowhere.’ affirmed Tamar gloomily.
‘Bugger!’
* * *
‘Bugger!’ said Stiles
‘As you say,’ agreed Hecaté.’
‘Right!’ said Stiles pacing again. ‘Right! So … we can fix this. I just have to … Okay, let me think for a bit.’
He continued pacing up and down the room muttering to himself. It was not in his nature to give up and accept things and besides, for one thing, they had promised Tamar and Denny that they would keep an eye on them, and how could they do that now, in the “time soup” that had been created? And for another, if they did not fix this, the historical ramifications could be horrendous. He could just imagine Tamar’s fury and Denny’s sarcasm. Oh no! Anything but that!
Besides, Stiles liked a good conundrum to solve; it was the policeman in him.
Hecaté maintained a respectful silence while she waited.
Eventually he stopped pacing. ‘Right,’ he said again. ‘It’s obvious really. We have to get in there and put this lot back where they belong and get the people who are in the wrong files back where
they
belong’
Hecaté raised an eyebrow ‘Just like that?’ she asked.
‘No, not “just like that”,’ he said. ‘I never said it would be easy, but there’s no other way. We have to go into the files. I mean we can, can’t we, now that we have the password? We can get in from here.’
Hecaté nodded ‘The hands on, practical approach?’ she said, ‘mmm.’
‘The
human
approach,’ said Stiles. ‘Sometimes it works you know.’
‘So I have learned,’ she said. ‘I admit it would not have occurred to me to take such an arduous route.’
‘Sometimes you need to do more than just snap your fingers,’ said Stiles. ‘That’s life,’
‘Very well,’ she said humbly. ‘How do we begin?’
‘By tracking the historical anomalies of course,’ said Stiles with a grin.
* * *
Denny bounded up to the prow and balanced on the rails, fastened to the rail was a notice bearing the mystery “No persons beyond this point”. ‘That’s all they know,’ said Denny. He outstretched his arms and yelled. ‘I’m the king of the wor-r-r-ld!’*
[*
He was obviously picking this up from Tamar although he did not know it
.]
‘Pillock,’ said Tamar contemptuously, ‘do you
want
to draw attention to us?’
‘Ha!’ retorted Denny. ‘If shifting a bloody great iceberg out of the middle of the ocean doesn’t draw attention to us, I don’t know what will.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘If it comes to that, we’ll be long gone by the time anyone notices that.’
Denny subsided; he knew this was a strain on her. ‘How long have we got?’ he asked quietly.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said in a strained voice.
‘And not a sign of any ice at all,’ said Denny
‘I know,’ she said gloomily.
All that day they could feel the tension mounting. They barely spoke at all, and Tamar was beginning to get that look on her face that Denny interpreted as “I don’t give a stuff what the universe says, I’m doing it my way.”
This was worrying. He knew damn well when she was up to something. He decided to tackle her before it was too late.
* * *
He got straight to the point. ‘You know if that iceberg doesn’t appear by 11.30 that we have to… that you have to manifest it don’t you?’
‘Why?’ said Tamar bluntly.
‘Tamar!’ he said warningly.
‘Oh sod off!’ she told him. ‘I’m not killing fifteen hundred people just because…’
‘I know how you feel,’ he told her. ‘But we can’t save all the people all the time. What are you going to do? Spend the rest of your life hurtling through time, stopping disasters, and preventing wars and assassinations? What’s next? Atlantis? Pompeii? JFK? The day the Beatles split up? All those things have already happened. It’s too late.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she snapped, ‘of course I’m not, and I know that, but this is different. It hasn’t happened yet – not as such.’
Then the penny dropped for Denny. She knew – had known all along, that the ship was meant to sink and that she intended to do bugger all about it. She had lied to him. He lost his temper.
‘You’re rationalising and you know it,’ he snapped – he intended to say a lot more, but Tamar turned on him in sudden fury.
‘Yes, I know it, so what? Anyway, you can’t stop me, so sod off and leave me alone!’
Denny was startled at her vehemence; she sounded like she hated him. He walked away in silence.
* * *
He wandered to the other end of the ship and leaned over the back, contemplating whether or not to throw himself overboard. He was feeling depressed, and it was more than just the fight that was behind it. Perhaps he was getting sick of this kind of thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a couple of weeks just watching the telly and eating crisps and not having to worry about all this stuff? He was getting weary of it.
‘Fifteen hundred people, Denny. Fifteen hundred,’
Denny jumped.
‘I can’t just let them die, Denny, I can’t.’ Tamar was behind him suddenly, sobbing. (She had become, since humanity had hit, a very soggy person.) ‘How can you be so callous?’
‘Oh you know me,’ he said, ‘I’m a completely heartless bastard.’
She looked at the floor. ‘I
do
know you,’ she said. ‘That’s why I don’t understand.’
Denny was silent for a long time, ‘Okay,’ he said, eventually, ‘do what you want! To hell with it.’ He rubbed his forehead wearily. ‘Remember what happened the last time I said that?’
* * *
The world felt strange around him; he recognised the feeling from somewhere. The air felt thick with destiny, perhaps because he knew what was going to happen. No, that wasn’t it – he could
feel
it – history was changing because of Tamar’s determination to change it, or rather not to change it back to what it ought to be. The reverberations were making themselves felt already. His memory of the events was the same, but it was as if he was looking through a window at the world as it would be after she had done it – as if he was in both worlds at once. This, he realised was the power of the Athame. He weighed it in his hand; ‘I just wish I knew what would happen if she goes through with it, what the consequences will be …’