A Blink of the Screen

sky, about three centuries too soon. That’s the kind of thing that happens, like I said; it’s going to be at least fifty years before we get it right. Fifty-three years, actually, because I met this man in a bar in 1875 who’s from a hundred years in our future, and he told me. I told them at Base we might as well save a lot of effort by just, you know, bribing one of the future guys for the plans of the next model. They said if we violated the laws of Cause-and-Effect like that there’s a good chance the whole universe would suddenly catastrophically collapse into this tiny bubble .005 Ångstroms across, but I say it’s got to be worth a try.
    Anyway, the copper wire gave me a load of trouble.
    That’s not to say I’m an incompetent. I’m just an average guy in every respect except that I’m the one in ten thousand who can time-travel and still end up with all his marbles. It just gives me a slight headache. And I’m good at languages and I’m a very good observer, and you’d better believe I’ve observed some strange things. The Charlemagne coronation was going to be a vacation. It was my second visit, paid for by a bunch of historians in some university somewhere. I was going to check a few things that the guys who commissioned the first trip had raised after reading my report. I had it all worked out where I was going to stand so I wouldn’t see myself. I could probably have talked my way out of it even if I had met myself, at that. One thing you learn in this trade is the gift of the gab.
    And then a diode blew or a one turned out to be a zero and here I am, whenever this is.
    And I can’t get back.
    Anyway … what was I saying …
    Incidentally, the other problem with the copper wire is getting the insulation. In the end I wrapped it up in fine cloth and we painted every layer with some sort of varnish they use on their shields, which seems to have done the trick.
    And … hmm … you know, I think time-travelling affects the memory. Like, your memory subconsciously knows the things you’re remembering haven’t happened yet, and this upsets it in some way. There’s whole bits of history I can’t remember. Wish I knew what they were.
    Excuse me a moment. Here’s another one. An oldish guy. Quite bright, by the look of him. Why, I bet he can probably write his own name. But, oh, I don’t know, he hasn’t got the …
    Hasn’t got the …
    Wish I knew what it was he hasn’t got …
    … charisma. Knew it was there somewhere.
    So. Anyway. Yeah. So there I was, three centuries adrift, and nothing working. Ever seen a time-machine? Probably not. The bit you move around is very, very hard to see, unless the light catches it just right. The actual works are back at Base and at the same time in the machine, so you travel in something like a mechanical ghost, something like what’s left of a machine when you take all the parts away. An idea of a machine.
    Think of it as a big crystal. That’s what it’d look like to you if, as I said, the light was right.
    Woke up in what I suppose I’ve got to call a bed. Just straw and heather with a blanket made of itches woven together. And there was this girl trying to feed me soup. Don’t even try to imagine medieval soup. It’s made of all the stuff they wouldn’t eat if it was on a plate and believe me, they’d eat stuff you’d hate to put in a hamburger.
    I’d been there, I found out later, for three days. I didn’t even know I’d arrived. I’d been wandering around in the woods, half-conscious and dribbling. A side-effect of the travelling. Like I said, normally I just get a migraine, but from what I can remember of that it was jet-lag times one million. If it had been winter I’d have been dead. If there’d been cliffs I would have thrown myself over one. As it was, I’d just walked into a few trees, and that was by accident. At least I’d avoided the wolves and bears. Or maybe they’d avoided me, maybe they think you die if you eat a crazy person.
    Her father was a woodcutter, or a charcoal burner, or one of those things. Never did find out, or perhaps I did and I’ve forgotten. He used to go out every day with an axe, I remember that. He’d found me and brought me home. I learned afterwards he thought I was a nobleman, because of my fine clothes. I was wearing Levi’s, that should give you some idea. He had two sons, and they went out every day with axes, too. Never really managed to strike up a conversation with either of them