by John M Grier
Destiny
After a few more days of leisurely sailing, they approached Jack’s island. Janet had been enjoying herself in spite of the situation. She decided to just let herself go and enjoy whatever happened. She was with Paul finally and just being with him, experiencing new things with him was a wonderful feeling.
She had never been on a boat before, or to the Caribbean, which was beautiful. She could certainly see why Jack liked it here so much. Her only bit of apprehension was with Suzie. She couldn’t quite place it, but something was amiss with her. She quietly decided to just keep an eye on her and maybe whatever was bothering her about Suzie would come to the surface. Until then, she had no complaints.
She was appalled to discover that they were in fact actually in the past. It was either that, or Jack had created an elaborate charade to fool them. The hardest thing to get past was the automobiles she saw when they passed close to the Florida shore. Automobiles with internal combustion engines polluting the atmosphere! And people didn’t seem to be dropping dead from the lack of oxygen that simply must be surrounding the things, based on what she had been taught.
Finally approaching Jack’s island, Janet found herself in awe of the stone castle sitting on top of a cliff overlooking a natural harbor.
Jack maneuvered the vessel into the harbor and dropped anchor. He said, “Normally, I would go to shore in the skiff, but since we have the hovercraft with us, it’ll be much easier for us because we can avoid the climb to the top.”
Everyone piled into the hovercraft as he un-strapped it from the roof. After climbing in himself, he started the vehicle and cruised to the top of the cliff, parking near the moat. He got out and picked up a rock near the moat. Turning it over, he poked it with his finger several times and a draw bridge lowered itself. Obviously, the rock was a disguised remote control.
Jack got back in and drove the hovercraft across the drawbridge and parked in the courtyard. Everyone piled out and just stood, looking around. Suzie spoke first “Wow Jack, this place is really something!”
Paul said “Yes, it most certainly is! I don’t know what I was expecting, even after you told me what it was, but this is far more than I ever hoped to see.”
Jack said “Paul, you’ll find the furnishings interesting as well. Remember, this is one thousand years in your past. And, I furnished it with antiques from my past. As an archaeologist, you will be enthralled, I assure you.”
Janet said “Am I to understand that this is actually your home? It certainly seems like a city all by itself.”
“Yes, it’s simply my home, and for the most part I’ve lived here alone. Although to be honest the castle has only been here for a few years. Since I’ve had the time machine, I would go back to a time to experience an event or era in the past and stay there for several weeks or months, years in this last jump. But, always when I came back I’d use the auto return function and arrive at the same moment I left.
“That’s the one really crazy aspect of my life. To be honest, I actually have no idea how old I am. At first I didn’t even notice, but as I spent more and more time away, in another time, I came to realize that I was living my entire life in other times. By the calendar, I am only 35 years old, but look at me, obviously I am middle-aged. This is why I’ve lived my life as a bachelor.”
They had walked into the building as Jack was talking. Paul was immediately engrossed in the matching suits of armor standing guard by the enormous main entrance. On the stone walls reaching off to either side were swords, shields and a wide assortment of medieval weapons. Tapestries hung at places that seemed appropriate as well.
Janet said “Jack, if you’ve been gone for ten years, and live here alone, why does the place seem so clean?”
Jack said “That’s a good question, Janet. The answer is two-fold, however. First, when I built this place, seven years ago by one way of counting, decades ago by another, I put in place everything I could think of that would make my life easier. One of the things I found was about one hundred years in my future. It was a series of little robots that stay away when they sense human presence. When no one is here, or, when everyone is asleep, they come out and quietly clean the place, top to bottom.”
“The other is the time line itself. In this time line I’ve only been gone for a few weeks. I went on a trip to Canada and from there made the jump to your time. Ten years passed, but I returned to the same instant I left.”
