The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF

by Mike Ashley

  Despite preparations for the live broadcast, John Salvin still adhered to his routine of watching the Parting Shot film – something he invariably did at least twice a day. So, in the seclusion of his hotel room, John took the phone from his pocket, brought up that precious video, and touched “play”. As always, he’d flinch as if stung by the sight of Kerry and Laurel, walking toward the single-engine plane where they’d wave their farewell. Kerry, forever enshrined in the phone’s memory card (and a host of backup devices) would sing out: “We’ll be back by one. See you then.” After they boarded the plane John felt the same painful tug of grief as the nineteen-second film came to an end.

  He sat down on the bed to watch the clip again, and hoped with every atom of his heart that the experiment would be a success.

  Ten hours to Zero Hour.

  After the drama of the woman apparently trying to murder the show’s director, those members of staff assigned to take care of the “civilian” component of the show acted pretty much like sheepdogs. John found himself, along with Kamana and the rest of the vigil party, being herded to the hotel lounge for a briefing. There were plans indicating where they’d wait on Mount Snowdon, where the cameras would be positioned, and the location of the summit café and toilets. And after that, instead of being left to roam the village (and perhaps develop cold feet over taking part in tonight’s live broadcast), everyone was ushered into the cinema at Snowdon’s railway station – there they watched a film about the history of the rack-and-pinion railway, and its sturdy little engines that hauled carriages full of visitors three-and-a-half thousand feet to the barren summit.

  Even though their movements were slickly managed, John had ample opportunity to witness the growing number of men and women gathering in the streets, as if this was the approach of Judgement Day. When the vigil party sat outdoors for lunch at the station café John watched the influx of spectators with astonishment.

  Kamana whispered to him in awe, “These crowds remind me of a scene from that film Quatermass and the Pit – just before all hell breaks loose.”

  Meanwhile, steam engines regularly pulled out of the station; they made a ferocious panting sound as they began their ascent of the mountainside. Carriages were crammed with film crew, cameras, and equipment – the TV entertainment army was heading to the frontline, ready to fight the ratings war.

  Kamana shivered, and her bare arms went to gooseflesh. “It’ll soon be our turn for the train.”

  John checked the station clock. “Eight hours to Zero Hour.”

  At six o’ clock the vigil party gathered at the muster point. By this time, crowds filled the area outside the little platform where the locomotive waited, hissing steam. When a production assistant called out the names of those taking part in the broadcast, John and Kamana, and the others, had to find a way through dense clumps of men and women – these were members of the public that had decided to get as close to the time-travel experiment as possible. After nearly being abducted yesterday John remained alert to any sudden outburst of strange behaviour, or even attack. However, most people nodded and smiled as he and his group passed by. Of course, the show’s participants were being recognized from their videogrammes that been broadcast on Thursday’s edition of Impossible, Isn’t It? Strangers even reached out to shake hands with John and the rest of the vigil team during their short walk to the waiting train. There were comments of “Good luck”, “I hope it all goes well”, and a tongue-in-cheek, “Say hello to them from me, won’t you?”

  Just then, an old man gently took Kamana’s arm so he could have a word. “What I don’t understand,” he began, “is how did they send your telly messages into the future?”

  Kamana answered good naturedly, “There’s no special fast way of transmitting them forwards through time. They’re like time capsules. They’ll reach the future just like anything else.”

  “So the video messages aren’t there yet?” he asked with a puzzled frown.

  An eager young man answered on Kamana’s behalf, “The recordings will be found eventually. Our descendants will see the videogrammes, and know the experiment’s date and location. The idea is that scientists hundreds of years from now might have discovered the secret of time, and they’ll travel back here to meet these people. Isn’t that right, Mrs Banerjee?”

  Before she could respond, the minder ushered the party through the platform gate and into a snug little railway carriage.

  “Next stop, the summit!” declared their minder before slamming the door shut.

  Kamana sat down next to John, shot him a telling look and shivered. “Three hours to go until Zero Hour, and I am starting to feel terrified.”

  Zero

  The rack-and-pinion railway journey to the summit of Mount Snowdon takes around sixty minutes. Their speed up the gradient never exceeded five miles per hour, and the clatter of steel cogs engaging with teeth in the track meant that John Salvin could hear very little in the way of the other passengers’ conversations. Most, however, would be discussing the televised vigil that grew ever closer. Kamana sat beside him on the bench seat, one hip touching his, which was as much to do with the limitations of space as any hint of growing intimacy between them. Nevertheless, John enjoyed the closeness. They were forming a bond. Due to us having a shared agenda in this experiment, he asked himself, or is this the start of something bigger? Once again, he wondered if he could accurately read her body language. Were there tell-signs that she liked him, too?

  A man in a straw hat debated the experiment with a woman in a red dress. On this occasion his voice succeeded in reaching John over the train’s vigorous clanking. “They say the purpose of time is to stop everything happening at once.”

  “What if people come from the future?” the woman asked. “Isn’t there a danger that they’ll bring a dangerous virus with them? What if we’re all infected?”

  Another chipped in, a guy with a sun-reddened bald head: “Listen. The past ceases to exist the second it becomes the past – so will we see folk in golden suits from AD 3000? No, we’re going to see bugger-all. This experiment will be a total failure.”

  Smiling happily, the man in the straw hat gazed at the mountains. “I’m glad I brought the camera; it’d be a complete waste of a journey if I hadn’t brought the camera.”

  John spoke to Kamana, “If nothing happens up there at Zero Hour, no visitors materialize from tomorrow, what will you do?”

  “Continue my life as a widow. What else can I do?”

  John experienced intense disappointment that she was prepared to surrender to a life of widowhood. He glanced sideways at the woman, her black hair rippling beautifully in the warm breeze flowing through the open window. Her dark eyes gazed in the direction of a shining lake, and at that moment he knew that Kamana Banerjee didn’t see the lake . . . no, in her mind’s eye, she saw herself being catapulted back three years to the London street where her husband was just about to step through a door and be killed by a bullet meant for someone else. No doubt Kamana visualized herself pulling Mr Banerjee away to safety before the fatal shot was fired. Kamana still loved her husband. John winced at the futility of his powerful desire for this woman, because he knew she wouldn’t be interested in him – not while Murad Banerjee still remained alive in her mind.

  He gazed at those vistas of rocky slopes, immense mountains and serene valleys in the evening sunlight. They were breathtaking. Yet he soon found himself thinking about his own wife who’d gone missing five years ago. True, his legal status was very much Single; however, he experienced a sudden agonising spasm of guilt, because he’d been planning to try and . . . what’s the right word? Seduce Kamana? No, “seduce” had connotations of exploitation. Instead, John had entertained warm, romantic hopes of developing a relationship with her. He realized his feelings toward Kamana had usurped thoughts about the arrival of visitors from the future this evening. This fantasy about somehow begging a lift back five years to stop his wife and daughter boarding the plane in Norway s
eemed not only absurd, but childishly unrealistic. What’s more, had he been so arrogant to believe that some powerful individual from the future would slam the flow of time into reverse gear so he could reclaim two lives? He loved Kerry and Laurel. Yet the simple truth is they were dead. Now here he was, sitting beside this lovely woman. Here were two living human beings who had the marvellous opportunity to build a new future for themselves. But no . . . Kamana was shackled to her dead husband. While he, John Salvin, had become the gutless puppet of his dead wife and his dead daughter. A sudden rage blazed inside him. How he craved to yell, or kick out at something – anything! Conflicting emotions smashed against one another – guilt, jealousy, anger. As he sat there, he clenched his fists, and furiously willed his imagination to carry him back into the past.

  It is five years ago. Kerry and Laurel are following the pilot to where a light aircraft is waiting. My wife carries the new pink camera. Within moments, the plane will soar away in the direction of the fjord. Soon the machine and its passengers will vanish from the radar, never be seen again. Today I have been given this miraculous opportunity to save them. All I need do is stop Kerry and Laurel boarding the aircraft. I can pretend I feel ill and must return to the hotel straightaway. The sightseeing flight will be cancelled. My wife and daughter will still be alive.

  I call out, “Kerry, wait!”

  Instead of climbing aboard, she turns to face me. “John? What’s wrong?”

  “Just be sure to take some good photographs up there, won’t you?”

  Laughing, she brandishes the camera. “Don’t worry. We’ll get plenty.”

  With that, Kerry follows Laurel on to the plane. Within seconds it takes off, just as it always does in my memory, and quickly dwindles into a silver star in the sky. “Yes, I had the chance to save you both, but I didn’t. Because, if you were still alive, I would never have met Kamana.”

  “John? Are you all right?” Kamana’s large eyes were full of concern. “You don’t look at all well.”

  “Kamana, I have an important confession. The man who shot your husband was me. Three years ago, I murdered him, knowing that his death would bring us together. I want you.”

  John thought: Now what? How will she react to a statement like that? That I gunned down Murad? Go on, take a guess. Shocked and silent? Hurt and tearful? Anger and throwing punches?

  She touched his hand. “John, what’s the matter?”

  He blinked. No, he hadn’t actually voiced that admission about slaying her husband. Those words had all been inside his head. He smiled. “Maybe it’s the altitude. I feel dizzy.”

  “Breathe deeply, try and relax.”

  Okay, some brutal instinct had urged John to make a confession about killing her husband. Not that he’d actually murdered the man, of course. What he wanted, with a violent passion, was to slaughter the memory ghost that kept its deathly grip on this woman. If she did not fully accept Murad’s death, and the permanence of his death, she’d never be able to fully reclaim her own life.

  “I was thinking about my wife and daughter.” John decided not to reveal what he’d really been thinking; instead, he diluted those raw scenarios with a lighter comparison. “We might never travel back in time, but in a way Kerry and Laurel are constantly moving forward into the present to be with me. What’s more, I can’t help but picture what my wife’s response would be if she materialized tonight and I admitted to her that I needed to find someone new to have in my life.”

  “You hold imaginary conversations with your wife?” She gave a solemn nod. “Inside my head, I talk for hours with Murad.”

  “Maybe we should tell these memory ghosts of ours to leave us alone?”

  Her expression snapped to one of shock, but not in response to what he’d just said. Instead, she exclaimed, “John, your nose is bleeding.”

  “The altitude,” he said, though he knew it was nothing to do with that. He visualized his blood vessels bursting one after another due to the sheer emotional pressure building inside him. In truth, he wanted to free them both from their past tragedies – only he didn’t know how. The intensity of that frustration was the real cause of the nasal haemorrhage.

  “Here, these are clean tissues.”

  The rest of the journey became dominated by attempts to stop the cascade of blood. Others in the carriage offered handkerchiefs and good advice. “Hold your head back,” suggested the man in the straw hat. “Pinch the bridge of your nose,” advised the woman in the red dress.

  At last, the clanking of the train abruptly stopped. In the silence that followed an excited voice shouted, “We’re here!”

  Immediately after that, John noticed the haunting drone of an aeroplane circling high overhead. Zero Hour was almost upon them.

  Kamana helped John from the carriage as production staff rushed forward, eager as sheepdogs, to round up the vigil party. Swiftly, they herded everyone from the station to the mountaintop café, which stood just feet away. John’s nose still bled so copiously he wondered if a major artery had exploded inside his head. Rather than dousing the café floor with his lifeblood he decided to remain outside.

  The show’s director hurtled forward. “My God! What happened to you?”

  John could only manage grunts through the fistful of tissue he pressed against his face so Kamana answered for him, “A nose bleed.”

  “Thank goodness! I thought he’d been shot. We’ll have to find him a clean shirt.”

  “Mr Salvin needs medical treatment.” Kamana sounded annoyed with the man. “He can’t take part in the show like this.”

  “We’re one down already with the girl in hospital. He must take part.”

  “Then get him some first aid.”

  “Okay, just trundle him over there to those seats. Our first-aider will be along as soon as. We’re having our usual frantic five minutes. Happens before every show.” He waved at a technician. “Tom! Make sure the monitors are properly shaded. I can’t see a blessed thing in this sunlight.” The director whirled away to impose order on chaos.

  Kamana spoke softly, “Don’t worry, John. I’ll find someone to take a look at you.”

  John left bloody splotches on the ground as he headed toward a line of plastic chairs. Here, the summit of Mount Snowdon buzzed with activity. Technicians fiddled with cameras that had been set on tripods. Cables snaked to a large tent that served as the control centre. A satellite dish, which would beam live transmissions to the outside world, had been erected beside the café. The much-publicized Greatest Experiment of All Time would begin shortly, with the presenter interviewing the vigil party live on TV, perhaps trying to elicit heart-breaking stories and tears. Those “Dear Tomorrow” videogrammes would be replayed again, and the viewing public would be reminded about the nature of the experiment: that it’s hoped the video messages will be unearthed centuries from now when the first viable time machines are ready to set sail for the distant past. The presenter would repeat the invitation to time travellers “to please visit us here on Mount Snowdon at 9 p.m., on the tenth of July” with the year flashing brightly onscreen.

  To John Salvin it seemed as if he watched technical preparations for the show from faraway; the sound of voices grew fainter. Meanwhile, a frighteningly large pool of blood continued to grow on the ground between his feet.

  Kamana strove to remain calm, yet there was a distinct note of tension in her voice. “Sit here, John. I’ll bring help.”

  The evening sun dazzled him. Above the mountain, a light aircraft circled with determined persistence, the sound of its engine somehow becoming more penetrating and unsettling. Blood loss made his mind so light it seemed to detach himself from the Earth to float up there, high above the landscape where the aeroplane flew. In fact, when he opened his eyes he found himself occupying the seat beside the pilot; in the two seats behind him were Kerry and Laurel. They ooohed at the gorgeous scenery spread out below them. Kerry used the pink camera that she was so proud of to take photographs for her husband to see lat
er. John had imagined hundreds of times before that this is how they’d be on that fatal flight out over the Norwegian fjord. Yet he’d always stopped himself from visualizing what happened to the plane, causing it to disappear. Today, however, he made the decision to keep the images rolling. On board, the engine grew louder, a sustained note of such power that the sound alone appeared to hold the plane high above the water. But just a moment later the engine died – this was followed by an alarming silence.

  “Don’t worry,” said the pilot. “This isn’t a problem. I can restart her.”

  Kerry and Laurel’s expressions were forensic studies in absolute horror. Their eyes had grown shockingly large in their faces.

  “Not long now.” The pilot flicked switches in front of him, his movements becoming progressively faster. “The engine will soon be running again.”

  However, that powerful sustained note of the aircraft’s one and only engine didn’t return. Apart from air rushing over the wings there was no other sound. Kerry put her arm around Laurel and held the ten-year-old girl tightly.

  Then Kerry spoke gently, yet firmly, “Laurel, listen to me. I love you. Your daddy loves you. Now close your eyes. I want you to picture your daddy’s face.”

  A calm ocean greeted the plane. The machine vanished beneath its surface the instant it struck. And John Salvin rode all the way down into that turquoise, undersea world with his family. Five years later they were still there – the pilot, Kerry and Laurel – one thousand feet deep on the ocean bed. Not lost as such. Because how can three dead people know what it feels like to be lost? Only those who are still alive and are still grieving are lost when such a tragedy occurs.

  A colossal explosion of sound snatched John Salvin back to the here and now. Men and women ran for the shelter of the café. Lightning blazed from a black cloud that bruised the once flawless, blue sky. More thunder bellowed across the face of the mountain. A distinct odour of rain filled the air, prompting technicians to rush and cover the cameras before the deluge came.