Tomorrow's Guardian

by Richard Denning

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – NEVER BORN

  Tom walked a few paces away from Septimus and stared in horror around the burnt out husk that was once his home. Could a fire have destroyed it whilst he was away? If so, where were the fire engines or the police and why were there no crowds? What was going on?

  In the distance he heard church bells ringing; the bell ringers practised at the local church every week on Thursday nights. So it was now mid–evening on the same Thursday night he had left his house and gone off to rescue Charlie. All that adventure and the encounter with Redfeld, even his doze in the park had taken just four hours.

  It all seemed frankly ridiculous, like some nightmare. Yet, he was becoming aware how easy it was to change history. Feeling panic rising, he spun back to face his companion.

  “It’s not possible! It can’t be the right day. We must have gone to a different day in the future or something,” Tom said, his voice quavering.

  “Dad! Mum!” he shouted into the ruin, but there was no reply. Under his feet he felt the crunch of broken glass.

  Septimus moved towards him and again placed his hands on Tom’s shoulders. It was obviously an attempt to comfort him and perhaps calm him down. Unfortunately, Tom was not in a receptive mood and he glared at Septimus and felt himself shaking, although whether through rage or fear he was not sure.

  “Well, what’s going on? Did you do this? I trusted you. Was this all a trick to get me away from here so your friends could do this?” Tom demanded.

  The Welshman shook his head. “I promise I didn’t do anything of the sort,” he said, but Tom thought he had a guilty look on his face.

  “Well who did? Who burnt the house down? Can you tell me anything, Septimus? Can you tell me if my parents are alright?”

  Letting go of Tom, Septimus reached into his trouser pocket. He brought out a small device that looked a little like an iPod. There was the sound of beeping as he pressed a few buttons. He then held the item up at arm’s length and swept it around in a half circle. After pressing his buttons again he looked up at Tom, but said nothing.

  “Well? What’s that?” Tom asked, knowing he sounded rude, but not caring.

  “We call it a Time Sniffer. Probably got a more technical name but I don’t know it. It can detect deviations from the time line.”

  “Eh?”

  “If someone does something to alter history this tells me it has happened,” the man explained.

  “Alter history: you mean this might have happened in the past?” asked Tom, thinking it would explain why the house was cold as if the fire had happened long ago. He swallowed, tried and failed to keep the anxiety out of his voice, “Well, has anyone?”

  Septimus nodded, “I’m sorry, but yes. I am confused though. This thing is giving me mixed messages. Something more complex has gone on than a simple change. This device detects two types of change. It feels the change in a location. Someone has changed history relating to this spot. But also it detects change relating to people.” He suddenly stared down at the boy. “Of course, that’s it! It feels it on you. Some change to do with you. It’s a strong signal and I think ...” He stopped speaking and dropped the device.

  “Oh my God! It can’t be, can it?” he said, staring at the device as it lay on the ground and then leaning over and picking it up again. He grimaced as he took in the symbols on the screen, then looking up he stared at Tom.

  “What? Septimus, what is it?” Tom thought the Welshman seemed a little afraid of him and it scared him.

  “Something very bad has happened here. This thing says the fire occurred twelve or so years ago and that your parents died in it. You are a paradox, my boy: you don’t exist. You were never born!”

  Tom stared back, dumbfounded. Septimus seemed to be in earnest, but now he was speaking nonsense. “That’s rubbish. I was only here this afternoon. Obviously that device is wrong.”

  “Tom, you know better than most that history can change. There are various powers in this universe with vested interests in the course of time. They seek to change it, to preserve it, to observe it or some just to profit from it. ”

  “Yes, I know – we have been through all this already, and we know which sort you are, don’t we?” Tom retorted sharply. His companion looked just a little ashamed, but kept on talking.

  “I’m trying to explain that someone is interested in you,” Septimus went on patiently. “The fire was started to destroy you.”

  “Me? It’s my family that has disappeared.”

  “Maybe, but it’s an old trick,” the stranger said, then seeing the puzzled expression on Tom’s face, explained. “Say that I killed your father and mother thirteen years ago. How could you have been born?”

  Tom felt the colour drain from his face, but he answered anyway, “Well I couldn’t have been, of course.”

  “Quite. This little device,” he waved the small box, “can see what happened. By the look of things, in the year before you were born there was a fire here. Your parents were trapped and killed. You and your sister were never born. Someone went back and tried to make it that you never existed, because of the powers you have. To prevent what you perhaps have already done or maybe one day will do.”

  “Redfeld! It’s that Redfeld. He said I would regret it!”

  Septimus narrowed his eyes, a thoughtful look crossing his face. “But the clock – what is that doing here? Your room never existed so how is the clock here?”

  Tom looked at the clock lying scorched and tarnished in the rubble. Crumpled as it was, it had the appearance of a shiny sweet wrapper that someone had screwed up and thrown away. Even so, or perhaps because of this, Tom felt a lump come to his throat and tears found his eyes.

  “My father,” he said, quietly wiping the tears away.

  “What was that?”

  “It was a family heirloom. My father gave it to me when I was ten.”

  “And so it would have been here in this house before you were born?”

  Tom’s hands were shaking and he felt cold. His head was spinning. He nodded in answer.

  “But, if what you say is true. If they are … gone,” he gulped and felt his eyes moisten again. “If that is so, what am I still doing here?” he asked wearily.

  An hour had passed and they were sitting in Professor Neoptolemas’s study. Septimus had insisted that they both return at once. The Professor was sitting at his desk looking sadly at Tom in a chair opposite, whilst Septimus was pacing around the room.

  On returning, Tom had been distraught and kept asking the Professor to help bring his family back. “Professor Neoptolemas. What about my family? Can anything be done to bring them back?” he said, his voice quavering. “Can’t we just go back to the night my parents died and stop the fire from burning down the house?”

  “We must proceed carefully, Thomas. We must plan this. If we go back and get it wrong, we cannot try again.”

  “Yes, but ...”

  “But nothing! We cannot revisit a point in space–time that we have already visited.”

  “Why?” Tom persisted. “Why can’t we?”

  “Because it’s rather like taking two magnets and then tying to push both north poles together: the two poles repel each other.”

  “But I have been here when I have also been at home – like after Isandlwana when I stayed two days healing up, haven’t I?”

  “That’s something to do with distance. You can still put the two magnets on a table and that’s fine, it’s only when they are close – within each other’s magnetic field – that they repel each other. We believe that we all have a kind of temporal field around us and that is what prevents us meeting ourselves. Does that make sense?”

  Tom shrugged, “A little, perhaps. So there is no way to help my parents ? is that what you’re saying?” Tom could feel the tears welling and tried to swallow them back.

  “No, I think we can help, but we will have to think of a plan.

  “When can we start?” With a burst of hope, Tom sat forward in h
is chair, his gaze fixed on the old man’s face.

  “Straight away: but first we must go over everything that has occurred to you. Everything real and everything you have dreamt about. Somewhere amongst all this there is something I don’t understand. There is some other factor we are overlooking; can you think what it might be?”

  Tom stared at the old man and then began talking. He told the Professor about Redfeld and their previous meetings. Then he told him of the visit to the alternative Isandlwana and to the U–boat and of the final argument. Then, painfully, he spoke of going home and finding the awful truth that his parents were gone.

  The old man had, at first, looked anxious and then had lapsed into silent thought for a long time afterwards. Tom was still stunned and shocked by what had gone on with his parents and had not minded the long time of quiet.

  “So, you have met Captain Redfeld? What does he want from you?” the Professor had finally said, softly, almost as if to himself.

  “Redfeld!” said Tom, jumping to his feet in alarm. “Do you know him?”

  “Thomas, be assured that I am not in league with Captain Redfeld. Don’t worry; he and others like him are the enemy of this Institute as well as enemies of yours. Please sit down and let’s think about what might have occurred.”

  “But how do you know Redfeld?” insisted Tom, still alarmed at this revelation.

  “It’s a long story, but please believe me when I say I am as worried about the Captain’s intentions and plans as you are. But we must stay focused on the matter at hand. Why, for example, are you still here if your parents were killed, you asked me, yes?”

  Tom sat down and nodded. Behind him, he heard Septimus stop walking and then start tapping his fingers on the back of Tom’s chair. Finally, he coughed.

  “Ah, well that would be my fault. I took you out of time for a while. We went back to Malta in World War Two … or maybe it was whilst we were in Redfeld’s version of history,” Septimus said. Something did not sound quite right about that, but Tom could not place it.

  “I don’t get it. How was I here to travel with you if my parents died some twelve years ago?”

  “Astute question, Mr Oakley”, said the Professor. “That’s one of the strange realities of time travel,” he said, his hand moving across to a pile of books which, as ever, occupied much of the desk.

  “It’s something to do with the fact that if someone leaves a point in time and travels back to alter that point in time, only those present at that point in time can be altered.”

  “Eh?” Tom said.

  “Learning curve a bit steep today, eh, Tommy?” said Septimus with a kind laugh. “Don’t worry I don’t get it either. But then I am not a scientist. The bottom line here is that because we were not here you still are. Ahem … that’s even more confusing – sorry!”

  “You can say that again … what’s up?” said Tom, noticing a thoughtful expression dawn on the other man’s face. “Septimus? Hello?” Tom said again, waving his hand in front of the strange little Welshman’s face. Septimus blinked and looked at him.

  “Sorry, Tommy, I was still trying to figure out when he did this. It seems unlikely that he would have ordered it before I, we ? I mean you ? declined his offer and I left you on the way to the park. But if not then – when?”

  “Thomas, was it possible you Walked after you returned from Captain Redfeld’s last encounter? I mean before you Walked home just now?” Neoptolemas asked.

  Tom thought about the strangest of the dreams he had experienced: the ones occurring in the Office; those with the old man in the grey suit – the Custodian – and the rest of the Directorate. Those dreams did not make sense. He had thought they were meaningless, now he was not so sure. Who was this Custodian and how was he involved?

  “Well, sir, there was a dream. Yes a dream. I was in Hyde Park and I dozed off.”

  “You had one of those dreams when you seemed to be somewhere else, and someone else? Is that what happened?”

  “Yes, there was a man in a grey suit who looked a bit like you, Professor. He was in an office and there was this weird table with sand on it … and Redfeld came and …” Tom went over the last dream. Then he reported the earlier dreams of the same place.

  At the end the Professor looked thoughtful. “Thomas, there is a lot going on here I do not understand and the part played by many in this is unclear,” the old man said, looking first at Septimus then at Tom. “Give me a few hours to think this over and we will talk again.”

  “But my parents…..” Tom said.

  “You have my word that we will find them if it is possible. We will bring them back. But I need some time to think about it.”

  “I must go chaps,” Septimus said suddenly and Tom realised that he had been very quiet for a long time.

  “What? Where are you going, Septimus?” Tom said.

  “Indeed, I would like to know that, Mr Mason,” the Professor asked, leaning forward to peer over his spectacles, now looking rather like Mrs Rogerson, the English teacher at school, Tom thought darkly. Although, was it really still his school if he had never been born?

  “You do your thinking, Prof. Tom, you rest and I will go and see what I can find out,” said Septimus. His shoulders slumped down and with a sigh he added, “I’ll make everything ok again, Tom – I promise!”

  Then, before either of the others could protest, he swept out of the room. A few seconds afterwards, they heard the front door slamming shut, leaving Tom staring at the Professor who, like Tom, seemed to be wondering exactly why Septimus was so upset.