The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack bas-1

by Mark Hodder

  "For how long will you be gone?"

  "My Lord Marquess, the concept still eludes you, doesn't it? I'll be back mere seconds after my departure, even if I'm away for years from my perspective. Would you have Brock fetch my suit from upstairs?"

  "Certainly," responded Beresford. He pulled a cord that hung beside the fireplace. "You intend to leave at once, then?"

  "There's no time like the present." Oxford smiled.

  The valet appeared, was given his instructions, bowed, and departed.

  Beresford lifted a bottle of red wine from beside his chair and took a swig from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Oxford eyed him disapprovingly. "It's a little early, don't you think?" he asked.

  "My dear friend-it's never too early!" advised the marquess, languidly. "Besides, it's a wonderful restorative."

  "Curing a hangover with red wine is a sure way to become an alcoholic."

  "Nonsense! Besides, I can assure you that if you really do disappear into the future right before my eyes, the shock is liable to kill me unless I take a spot of wine to soften the blow!"

  Brock reappeared carrying the time suit with its attached cape, the boots with their stilts, and the helmet. Oxford took the items, picked up the control unit, and followed Henry Beresford out of the room, along the hallway, around a corner, and into the big ballroom. They crossed this, opened the veranda doors, and exited the house.

  The man from 2202 slipped into his suit and affixed the control unit to his chest. He placed the helmet on his head, pushed his feet into the boots, heaved himself up onto his stilts, then bent and shook the hand of the man from 1837.

  "You really believe it, don't you?" said Beresford.

  "Yes. Wait here. I'll be back in what for you will be just a moment."

  He strode out onto the grass.

  Oxford had managed to restore a channel between the control unit and the helmet. It transmitted his instructions, which were read straight from his brainwaves, but the connection wasn't stable enough for the augmented reality function.

  He set his destination: ten o'clock on the evening of February 15, 2202; location: the garden of his house in Aldershot. He hoped his supper hadn't gone cold.

  It was a sunny day and his batteries required less than two minutes before they were fully charged.

  "Okay," he muttered to himself. "Let's go home and start again."

  He waved at the marquess then bounded forward and jumped into the air.

  "Now!" he ordered.

  Reality blinked.

  He fell and landed on flat ground beside a tree.

  It was night.

  It was not his garden.

  He looked around. The lights of a small town shone behind him. A tall fence lay ahead, on the other side of a road. Low buildings were just visible in the darkness beyond it. Beside a gate, he saw a sentry box and standing in it, a man in uniform.

  The man lifted something to his mouth and a spark of light flared.

  Bloody hell. He was smoking! No one smoked in 2202.

  Oxford, concealed by the tree, took a couple of steps until he was better able to see the sign above the gate. It read: British Army. North Camp. Aldershot.

  This was not possible.

  There had been a military base there since 1854 but it had been demolished in 2079 to make way for the town's expanding suburbs.

  "Right place, wrong time!" he muttered, moving out of cover.

  He approached the sentry rapidly, his stilts making a metallic clacking on the road surface. It attracted the man's attention.

  "Christ Almighty!" the soldier exclaimed as he saw the tall gangly figure. "Stop! State your name and b-"

  Oxford slapped the weapon aside and, in a sudden fit of temper, took the man by the throat.

  "What's the date?" he demanded.

  The sentry's face went slack. "Wha-wha-wha-?" he gibbered.

  "The date!" spat Oxford, and struck the soldier's face with the flat of his palm, once, twice, thrice, until some semblance of comprehension crept into the staring eyes.

  "What's the date?" he repeated. "Day, month, year?"

  "Fri-Friday, M-March the ninth," stuttered the soldier.

  "Year?" urged Oxford, shaking the man.

  "1877."

  Oxford's hand dropped and he stepped back in surprise.

  The soldier fumbled for his rifle, raised it, and pulled the trigger. A bullet scored the side of Oxford's helmet, jerking his head painfully. A shout came from off to the right. He heard the sound of booted feet running on the road. He turned, paced away, ordered his suit to take him back to Darkening Towers, leaped into the air, and landed in sunshine.

  "You were gone less than two minutes," called the marquess. "I'm convinced, Mr. Oxford! You vanished right before my eyes! It was simply astonishing! I say, what's wrong with your helmet?"

  The time traveller stumbled across the grass and collapsed to his knees at Beresford's feet. He reached up to remove his headgear and yelled in pain as heat blistered his hands.

  "Careful! There's some sort of blue flame dancing around your head," advised the marquess. "Wait a moment!"

  He ran into the mansion and emerged moments later holding a curtain, which he'd ripped down from inside one of the veranda doors. Wrapping it around the helmet, he lifted it from Oxford's head and dropped it onto the grass. The curtain started to burn. Beresford used the tip of his boot to pull it away. The blue fire flickered around the uncovered black dome then shrank and died.

  "I didn't get home," said Oxford, yanking his boots off.

  "To the future? Why not? Where did you go?"

  "I went to Aldershot, to the place where my home is, but it wasn't there yet. I landed in 1877."

  "Forty years from now," said Beresford, picking up the stilt-boots. "Come inside. My guess is you no longer object to alcohol?"

  "It's still too early for me, Henry. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit alone for a bit. I have to work out what happened."

  "Very well. I have business in London today anyway, and will probably stay overnight, so I'll leave you to your contemplations and will see you tomorrow morning. Treat the mansion as your own."

  "Thank you, Henry; you continue to be very generous. I don't know how I'd manage without you. You have been a great friend."

  "Not at all; think nothing of it! As a friend, may I make an observation?"

  "Of course."

  "You're beginning to look a little wild about the eyes, Edward. Since your arrival here you have worked on that control unit without cease. Perhaps you should rest up for a few days. Do something different. You could come to London with me. I'm going to the Athenaeum Club. Brunel will be there, the famous engineer-have you heard of him?"

  "Of course! He's still famous in my time!" said Oxford. "But I can't, Henry. I can't leave Darkening Towers. This seclusion is bearable but if I step beyond these walls I'll be confronted with a world very different from my own. Too different! It's liable to cause a severe form of culture shock from which I may never recover."

  "Culture shock? What is that?"

  "Think of all the things that make you the man you are today, Henry. What if they were all replaced with entirely different things? Would you still be the same man?"

  "I would adapt."

  "Yes, up to a point adaptation is possible, but beyond that point, destruction beckons."

  "Very well, if London is too much for you, then rest here. Sleep, drink, but leave off working and thinking for a few hours at least."

  "I'll try."

  Just after midday, the Marquess of Waterford rode out of Darkening Towers, leaving Oxford to his own devices.

  Brock served a light lunch that the time traveller ate without tasting. Despite his host's advice, his mind was entirely occupied with his unsuccessful jump home. Later, he prodded and probed his helmet's hardware but without the proper tools repairs were impossible. He had to get back to 2202!

  He brooded through the afternoon and
into the evening, slumped in an armchair, oblivious to Brock, who occasionally appeared to tend the fire, to bring tea, and to offer food.

  Eventually, after the valet had cleared his throat four times without gaining Oxford's attention, Brock said, "Excuse me, sir, do you require anything? Only it's one o'clock in the morning and I should like to retire for the night."

  Oxford looked at him with faraway eyes. "What? Oh, no, go to bed, Brock. Thank you."

  The valet left and Oxford remained in the chair.

  The fire died.

  The night passed.

  The sun rose.

  Brock reappeared.

  He found Oxford pacing up and down.

  "Shall I instruct the cook to prepare you some breakfast, sir?"

  "No!" snapped Oxford. "Where's your master?"

  "In London, sir. I expect he'll be back later this morning."

  "Call him! I need to speak with him at once!"

  "Call him, sir?"

  "At once, dammit!"

  "I'm afraid you've misunderstood me, sir. He is in London."

  "I understood perfectly well! Get him on the-Ah! No! Of course. I'm sorry, Brock. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'll wait. Would you tell your master I need to see him the moment he arrives?"

  "I will, sir."

  "Thank you."

  He had to wait until three o'clock.

  Beresford had barely entered the mansion before he was brought up short by a wild shout: "Where the hell have you been? I've been waiting all day!"

  Passing his gloves and hat to Brock, the marquess looked at the haggard figure who'd shouted from the door of the morning room.

  "By James!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with you, Oxford?"

  "Get in here, I have to tell you something! Quick!"

  Beresford shrugged and walked into the chamber, unbuttoning his riding jacket and slipping out of it.

  "What's on your mind?" he said, tossing the garment over the back of a chair.

  Edward Oxford, his eyes blazing, his mouth twisted into a painful grin, ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair and laughed. It was a wild, horribly pitched sound.

  "I can't go back!" he yelled. "I can't go back!"

  Beresford dropped into an armchair. "Back where? Home, you mean? To 2202?"

  "Yes, of course that's what I mean, you bloody fool!"

  "Steady, man. Calm down. Remember that you're my guest here."

  Oxford wrapped his arms around himself and gazed at the marquess.

  "I killed a man," he whispered.

  "You did what? When?"

  "Three years from now. I killed a man by accident. He was my ancestor."

  "Good Lord! Sit. Tell me more."

  Oxford shuffled to a chair and fell into it. He stared at the floor.

  "Henry, imagine that time is a cord stretching forward from now all the way to the year 2202. Now picture a point on that cord a short distance ahead of us-the year 1840. There is a man at that point whose name, like mine, is Edward Oxford. We'll call him the Original Oxford. As you move along that line, you see this man fathering a child, and that child grows and becomes parent to another, and that one does the same, and so on and so forth until you reach 2162, when a descendant of the Original Oxford gives birth to me."

  "I get the picture," said Beresford. "So what?"

  "Now move forward to 2202, my fortieth birthday. I jump back from that far end of the line to 1840 and I kill the Original Oxford before then jumping to the start of the line, where we are now."

  "The present moment," offered the marquess.

  "Yes. Now, at 1840, the line has been cut. The stretch of it containing all the Original Oxford descendants is no longer joined to the part of the line that we are on. It still exists, perhaps, but not for us. For us, everything after the death of the Original Oxford must be written anew. There's nothing there for me to jump forward into!"

  "But you went to 1877. That's beyond the cut!"

  "Yes, it is, and I've been puzzling over that all night. I think I know what happened. I think I jumped to the end of my natural life span."

  "I don't understand you."

  "Henry, if I remain in this time, by 1877 I will be eighty years old. Friday March 9, 1877, I am certain, will be, barring accidents, the end of my days."

  "Do you mean to suggest that you can travel within your own allotted time, as it were, but to go beyond that you need a future which, for you, has already been established?"

  "Yes, exactly."

  "To all intents and purposes, then, you seem to have wiped yourself out of existence. But why, Edward? Why did you kill this man?"

  "I'd rather not go into that. Like I said, it was an accident."

  "So go and prevent it. If you can travel as far as 1877, then 1840 remains well within reach. Go and stop the death of the Original Oxford."

  "Henry, don't you see? I'm here; I killed him; no one stopped me; therefore if I try, I will surely fail!"

  "The complexities of time travel are far beyond me," answered Beresford, "but in the future you were alive and invented a time suit. That cannot have been possible if someone killed your ancestor. Yet here you are. It seems to me that just because you perceive that things occurred a certain way doesn't mean you can't go back and alter them."

  Edward gazed into space.

  "Yes," he whispered thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose that's true. It's worth a try!"

  He sprang to his feet.

  "I have to work on the suit, Henry. There's damage to the helmet and the control unit requires further attention!"

  "For pity's sake, man, rest first! You look as if you've not slept all night!"

  "I haven't! There's no time for sleep!" barked Oxford, crossing to the table where his gear was laid out.

  Beresford shook his head.

  "Of all people," he said quietly, "I would have thought you'd have all the time in the world."

  Three years later, Edward Oxford hit the ground running.

  He was farther away from the other two Oxfords than he'd planned and, as he raced past a policeman, he realised that he was too late, as well; the two men were already locked together; the pistol was already raised toward the queen.

  "Stop, Edward!" he bellowed.

  Suddenly a bolt of energy flashed out of the control unit and into the ground. He doubled over in pain as the charge ripped through him and looked up again just as the pistol went off and Queen Victoria's head sprayed blood.

  The monarch fell backward out of her carriage.

  The Oxfords wrestled. The Original tripped and went down, his head smacking onto the railings.

  It was me, thought the time traveller. The distraction; the shout and the flash. I looked up at myself here on the hill and in doing so moved my ancestor's arm. I caused the pistol to point at her head!

  "No!" he groaned. "No!"

  The control unit let loose a shower of sparks.

  He turned.

  The policeman had almost caught up with him.

  Oxford sprang over the constable's head and landed back in 1837.

  "I can't stop it!" he told Henry de La Poer Beresford as he entered through the veranda doors. "It might not have happened at all if I hadn't gone back just now!"

  He dropped his face into his hands and moaned.

  "Sleep," ordered Beresford. "Once you are rested, you'll think more clearly. We'll find a solution. And remember, you have forty years in which to work on it."

  "Bloody hell!" cursed Oxford. "I can't stay a Victorian recluse for the rest of my life. Besides, my wife is expecting me home for supper."

  He suddenly chuckled at the contrast-the extraordinary and the mundane-and lost control of himself, throwing his head back and laughing wildly, a harsh and unbalanced noise which caused the marquess to step back a pace.

  It echoed through Darkening Towers, that horrible laughter.

  Maybe it echoed through time.

  DISSUASION

  Nothing is permanent, least of all the thing you think of
as I.

  Edward Oxford raved all evening until Beresford summoned Brock and together they half pushed, half carried him up the stairs and into his bedroom. They pulled off his clothes-both had learned how to unfasten the time suit-and put him to bed. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep, muttering to himself, groaning, tossing and turning.

  When he shuffled into the morning room the next day, he looked gaunt and fevered, with dark circles around his eyes.

  "Eat," commanded Beresford, indicating the food the butler had placed on the table.

  Oxford sat and ate in a desultory manner, his eyes glazed.

  "I have a question," said the marquess.

  His guest grunted.

  "Where is your ancestor now, at this moment, June 1837?"

  "He's fifteen years old. He lives with his mother and sister in lodgings at West Place, West Square, Lambeth."

  "And where will he be when you kill him?"

  "Green Park."

  "Then you must go to Lambeth, find him, and convince him that he'll be murdered if he visits Green Park in 1840."

  Oxford leaned back in his seat and looked at the marquess.

  "Yes," he mumbled. "Yes. If I can manage it; if I can bear the exposure and hold myself together, it could work."

  "Do you know where West Place is?"

  "Yes, it's right beside the Imperial War Museum."

  "The what?"

  "The Imp-No, wait, that hasn't been built. It's-It's the Bethlem Royal Hospital!"

  "Bedlam, you mean?"

  "The very place where my ancestor will spend twenty-four years of his life if I prevent myself from killing him."

  "He was-is, I mean-a lunatic, then?"

  "At this point in time, 1837, he's beginning to show symptoms of mental disturbance. The illness reaches its peak in 1840, when he commits a criminal act. He's caught, tried, and committed to Bedlam. Over the next couple of decades or so, he recovers his wits, though he remains incarcerated. They eventually move him to Broadmoor, then he's freed and deported to Australia where he meets and marries a girl. They have a child who is my Idon't-know-how-many-times-great-grandfather. "

  Beresford leaned forward and rested his chin upon his hand, contemplating his strange houseguest.

  "But now," he muttered, "none of this will happen?"