by Ian McDonald
In history. I can’t express the excitement and the terror in those words. Not studying history. Not discussing history on some forum or Facebook page, not reading history, not even touching it in diaries, photographs, archives, firsthand experiences, like Thorn’s boxes filled with her greygram’s cozy war. In history. It touching me. Terrifying. The time storm is coming. No dodging, no avoiding, no parleying.
Things in my time traveler’s bag I did not pack, which have hitched. Dread. Rootlessness. Adventure. Hope. This is not my home. I feel the heat, taste the car fumes, scent the cooking fats and stray coils of perfumes. I listen to the voices, the traffic rumble, the radio and the rap, the rasp of Vespa engines, the sirens; I take in the sun-bleached stone, the colors of the tiles, the blue of the Virgin’s robe in the glass shrine on the corner of Via Aldo Manuzio; the quality of the light and the haze of the sky and the lie of the landscape of clouds, but they aren’t mine. I make spaghetti with oil and garlic and chilli and take my coffee in three sips; I discuss football, politics and local scandal at the bar, but I do not belong. I never did; I never will. I would always been that Englishman, foreign, separate, alien. This is not my home. The Fens were not my home. Clapham was an expensive slum, never a home.
Then I try to reach beyond the seductions of the sensual world, to start to a particular electricity, a tingle in the world, a resonance of my body with the reality underlying that of the senses. Entanglement. Tom told me I would know it, and I understand that now. Summer storms flicker over the roof tiles, but they are just electricity. This is not the time; this is not the place. That place will be Shingle Street, and soon, I think. I will stand there and catch one of the harmonics that ripple up and down through time. The doors of history will open and I will be swept through.
Not yet. Not now. Not until I have packed one final item for my bag. A notebook—good, bound in exquisite soft leather, creamy vellum pages that take the ink or pencil with equal facility and grace. Empty now, but I know the title.
I watch the lightning along the edge of the city, lift my pen and write on the first page: Time Was.
About the Author
Photograph by Jim C. Hines
IAN McDONALD was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He has won the Locus Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He now lives in Belfast.
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BOOKS BY IAN MCDONALD
LUNA TRILOGY
Luna: New Moon
Luna: Wolf Moon
Luna: Moon Rising (forthcoming)
EVERNESS SERIES
Planesrunner
Be My Enemy
Empress of the Sun
INDIA IN 2047
River of Gods
Cyberabad Days
CHAGA SAGA
Chaga
Kirinya
Tendeléo’s Story
DESOLATION ROAD SERIES
Desolation Road
Ares Express
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
The Dervish House
Brasyl
Sacrifice of Fools
Necroville
Hearts, Hands and Voices
Out on Blue Six
COLLECTIONS
The Best of Ian McDonald
Speaking in Tongues
King of Morning, Queen of Day
Empire Dreams
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
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About the Author
BOOKS BY IAN MCDONALD
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
TIME WAS
Copyright © 2018 by Ian McDonald
All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of two men on a rural road © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel, cover photograph of night sky © Getty Images
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
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ISBN 978-0-7653-9145-2 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9146-9 (trade paperback)
First Edition: April 2018
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