Tempus Frangit Ch. 01

"Sylvia, it was Dan Dare, he was a character in comic books, not a TV character and what's more he didn't ride a horse, he flies space ships. Only I think they made a TV cartoon series about him once. Anyway, it has nothing to do with him or any other fictional character; I'm trying to make some logical sense out of what's going on here."

"Well, I'm going to see what Rose and Douglas, make of all this. Perhaps they can think of a sensible explanation."

Then she stomped off towards the Sugget's cottage, still rubbing her head.

I kind of wandered along behind to watch the fun. I was pretty sure that the Sugget's wouldn't be up yet -- as in out of bed, that is. Our neighbours tended to keep late nights -- as far as actually sleeping went -- on Saturday evenings, with all that that might imply. Well, Doug was always bragging that they did anyway, and usually neither of them surfaced much before about eleven on Sunday mornings.

Rose answered the door dressed in nowt but a housecoat, and demanded of Silvia, why she had "Disturbed them at this unearthly hour!" And then promptly fainted when she saw the scene beyond her best friend's face.

I got more than an eyeful, because Rose had been holding he wrap closed about her and as I said, she was wearing sod-all else. Mind, nothing I hadn't seen before when the very delectable Rose wore her bikini (and sometimes not all of it) down on the beach. An advantage to living in a small community in the middle of nowhere, dress is optional -- sometimes -- when the holidaymakers aren't about.

Silvia had covered Rose's embarrassment, by the time a very weary looking Doug appeared on the scene, demanding to know what all the noise was about.

"What the..." Doug said, ignoring his prostrate wife as he stepped over her, while staring at the hill over my shoulder.

I'll skip over the next ten minutes or so, because it is a little repetitive of what I've already told you. Only Doug took a little more logical view of situation than Sylvia had.

I kinda gave Doug I quick explanation of what had apparently happened, it didn't take very long to me to get to the -- what I thought -- intelligent sounding , "...A bubble of impossibility, Doug. We've been shifted into another dimension!"

Douglas, having surveyed the hill above us, nodded and then walked to the side of his cottage, from where he could study the valley and the beach bellow. Then he ventured.

"No, I don't think so mate. I reckon we've been shifted in time somehow. Look, the headland and the shoreline. They have both been eroded away. If we were just in another dimension at the same instant in time, then they'd be the same wouldn't they? Or near enough!"

"Good point, Doug. But maybe we're in another time, in a different dimension."

"Yeah, that's an idea."

"Will you two stop wittering on and help me get Rose back inside the house," Sylvia interrupted our deliberations.

With only slight difficulty, Doug swept his young wife into his arms and carried her into their lounge. Silvia headed for the kitchen to make the ubiquitous cup of tea. Sylvia's panacea for all ills.

-----

Maybe at this point I should tell you a little about Rose... and Douglas, as they were back then.

Rose was... is Sylvia's best friend. A very shapely twenty-four-year-old (or near enough) at the time; she was eight years younger than Sylvia and I, and some sixteen or seventeen years younger than her husband, of four years. I don't know what Doug has, but he'd hooked himself a real little... um yeah.

Whatever, they enjoyed a somewhat avant-garde and rather exuberant -- and remarkably noisy -- conjugal life. Despite his age, Rose's only complaint about her husband was, that he hadn't managed to get her with-child at the time. Rather ironic really, when I look back at it now

I might add, a complaint that Sylvia had also regularly echoed concerning her and myself, by the way. Er no, not me not getting Rose with-child, me not getting Sylvia pregnant of course! Oh come on, you know what I'm trying to say.

However, both Douglas and I placed the blame for that situation squarely on our spouse's shoulders, or rather on their metabolisms. Douglas assured me that he was firing on all cylinders in that respect. And, I knew for sure I was firing live rounds, due to a rather unfortunate (and untimely) incident with one, Mary Coplansky when I was a still a teenager. I wasn't exactly ecstatic about the abortion, but it had been Mary's decision, not mine.

Whatever, it did bring an end to a beautiful relationship. Yeah well, and I was persona-non-grata with all of the Coplansky's after Mary discovered she had bun simmering away in her oven. Damn shame that; Mary's brother Bill Coplansky had been a good mate of mine... at one time!

-----

I must admit that Doug had his mind on the logistical side of things even while his wife was recovering. I was still pondering on exactly what had happened and why; whilst Doug was calculating all sorts of things I hadn't thought of. Like, how much oxygen there might be inside the ball or dome, and how much food and drinking water we had available. Not things they usually tend to discuss in Sci-fi books and TV programs. Even though they do in disaster movies.

After Rose had recovered from her faint, we were all outside again while Douglas tried to calculate the volume of air within the sphere, (Doug thought that sphere sounded a little more intelligent than my ball or bubble) when Rose called our attention to two small specks high in the eastern sky.

I'll point out that, we'd seen nor heard a single bird, or any other living creature, outside the dome... sphere, up until that point. So we watched intently as the two specks grew larger as they approached.

Eventually it was clear that they were two craft of some kind, and that our location was their obvious destination.

Once they were close enough we could discern that one was about the size of a single-decker bus only lying on its side, the other that of a delivery van. All shiny flat surfaces, with rounded corners and ends, and no apparent windows. No wings, jet exhaust outlets or whirling rotor blades... or anything like that.

The larger craft came to a standstill about two hundred yards from the sphere and the same distance from the ground. The smaller craft came in much closer and circled round and round the sphere until we all began to feel dizzy watching it.

Then it settled near to the ground, further along the slope of the hill. Actually, had the lane still been there, right in the middle of the bugger and maybe fifty feet away from the invisible wall of the sphere. The second larger craft then also closed in and settled down near to the first.

As I said, we had heard no sound of engines and could see no evidence of propulsion units of any kind; the two craft just appeared to levitate unsupported, even when at ground level.

"Checking us out, do you think we'd better go get the shotguns?" Douglas suggested, "We have no of idea of these guys... or whatever they are, intentions."

"Doug, what bloody good are a couple of old rabbit guns going to do us, against the kind of technology those folks appear to have?"

"Good point, George. No sense in rubbing the buggers up the wrong way, is there!" Doug agreed, changing his mind.

At that moment, a door opened in the side of the smaller craft, and two men... two very tall men, climbed out of it. They had a short discussion with each other, while studying the four of us standing there, gaping back at them. Then one of them -- doing a pretty convincing impression of a John Wayne walk -- strolled over towards the invisible wall and stopped maybe ten feet short of it.

Big, I'd thought at first sight. When he was closer, I realised the guy was at least six-foot-four, maybe even taller, towering over me, anyway. Actually, there was no mistaking the fact that he was some "'andsome bugger". Well, no mistaking the fact that Sylvia and Rose thought he was good-looking anyway; from the appreciative noises and comments that reached my ears from their direction.

Broad of shoulder, and narrow of waist, with rippling muscles clearly visible through his sheer -- bright yellow -- shirt; he sauntered closer to the sphere's wall, studied us for a few seconds more then spoke. But we could hear nothing.

I cupped my hands to my ears, and he seemed to understand, because he nodded and smiled. Then he paced up and down for a few minutes apparently talking to himself.

But when he turned to his left, we could see that he was wearing a device attached to his right ear, somewhat like the gadget Lieutenant Uhura used to wear in Star Trek, only a little smaller. Actually more like the older blue-tooth mobile phone units, posers took to sporting when they first came out. Anyway eventually we confirmed that these were personal communicators, and discovered that all of the two craft's crews wore them.

For some considerable period of time, the guy was (apparently) in a heated discussion with someone; that was clearly discernable by his body language. But then he suddenly smiled at us again and gave us a thumbs-up sign. Then stepping close to the invisible wall, he placed a small device no bigger than a mobile telephone against it, studied the unit for a few seconds and then spoke to whomever he was communicating with yet again.

There are times in your life when you really wish that you'd bothered to develop the skill of lip-reading when you were younger, that was one of mine.

Another thumbs up came from the guy. Then my attention was taken by door opening in the side of the larger of the two craft, half a dozen or so, men climbed out of it and began unloading some equipment. I assume that the first guy must have looked or gestured towards the larger craft and that had caused me to transfer my attention to it.

When I looked back at the first guy, he had stepped away from the wall again and was looking around for a spot where the ground inside the sphere was on the same level as that outside. I worked that out from what happened next.

The four of the six new guys carried a... well, a large door -- complete with frame -- over and placed it against the invisible wall at the spot the first guy had chosen. Then they all stepped back and signalled for the four us inside to retire to a safe distance as well.

Once the four of us had moved back behind my garden wall, there was a bright blue flash that ran around the edge of the doorframe, accompanied by a loud bang, that all-but deafened us, which was further followed by a whistling sound.

The big guy after looking perplexed for a few seconds began frantically gesturing to his ears, and kept taking hold of his own nose. Then they all started to do the same.

Their behaviour confused the hell out of us, until Douglas suddenly shouted, "Pressure differential! Hold your noses and keep swallowing!"

The penny dropped quickly in my brain. Possibly because I'd flown in some old un-pressurised aeroplanes when I was younger. But Douglas and I had to spell out to the girls what was about to happen and what they should do.

The whistle or more precisely a clearly audible hiss, was air evidently escaping from inside the sphere to the outside world as the pressure equalised. Once the hissing had stopped, the first man put his thing-a-me-what's-it... bugger, lets call it a tri-corder, almost everyone knows what they are, even if they have no idea what a tri-corder is supposed to do actually. Does anyone? Yeah all right, everything except lay eggs!

Anyway, having apparently taken another reading, the guy smiled once more, then reached over and opened the door, which was by then, part of the invisible wall.

"Well, none of you is Professor Pemberton, that's for sure," were his first words.

"You speak English?" Douglas replied, sounding somewhat surprised.

"Not exactly as you know it, but close enough I should imagine. My name's Adona, you are...?"

To be completely honest with you, Adona's 'near enough', wasn't really! Much to his confusion. It was like having a conversation someone who spoke a version of Pidgin English for the first time. However it didn't take us long to... understand the general gist of what was being said. As time passed it became very easy for us to understand actually. However there was some confusion to start with, and for clarity's sake here I've edited out those kind of confusing parts. And I've taken the liberty of translating all the dialogue between us into English from our own time. The colloquial British version that is.

Douglas introduced the four of us.

"Unfortunate, but as we surmised. You're not who we were hoping to find here!" Adona said, (somewhat unconvincingly I thought) and then he asked, "What year do you come from?"

"1988," Douglas replied.

"Hmm!" Adona mused, then as casually as you like, continued, "There's been an almighty great cock-up somewhere. Almost seventy-five years out of sync, some idiot's got their sums wrong. It might have been a computer foul-up, but I somehow doubt it. Only as good as the idiot punching the numbers into them, are those things. There's a lot of maths involved, this could take weeks to sort out."

Adona was rambling on, as if to himself; but I somehow got the impression that the whole speech was for our benefit. And possibly even that there was something not quite kosher about what he was saying. I can't tell you why, possibly an innate distrust I've always had of people in authority. And Adona appeared to be the "Big Cheese" with these new arrivals.

Annoyingly, Douglas interrupted him, "What date is it here?"

"Ah, now, you see... that's the problem really," Adona replied. I thought, somewhat evasively.

"We kind-a started again a couple of thousand years ago, after the... anyway, I'm afraid that there's no real definite correlation between your time scale and ours. Various parts of the world recovered at different rates and all continuity was kind of lost along the way. Eventually we settled on an arbitrary start date for our calendar, but it doesn't mean much in relation to your own. This little exercise was supposed to help us put all that right. Seems the boffins were at least sixty or seventy years out in their calculations before they started."

"Bullshit!" was the word that jumped to the fore of my mind. "After the what?" Adona was being very vague about something that was going to happen in our future; only at the time I could not comprehend why. From that instant onward, I was... well, more than a little cautious and sceptical of our visitors, and everything they told us. And well, there could well be an error in their calculations but that was no reason to avoid telling us what their date was. Adona's obvious refusal to inform us about that, just didn't make any sense ether.

Our conversation was somewhat longer than that repeated here. Actually it was for a considerably longer period of time that Adona kept Doug and my attention off of everything else that was going on. I've taken a little artistic licence here and kind-of whittled it down a little, to give you the essence of what was said.

Anyway, whilst Doug and I had been talking to him, Adona had moved further inside the sphere, and he'd evidently been followed inside by at least four of his compatriots. Who were, by the time I had became aware that they were inside the sphere... Well, there was no mistaking the fact that they were chatting-up Sylvia and Rose, or at least making a bloody good show of trying to.

Hey look, I didn't get off the bloody boat yesterday; I can spot a randy letch trying to chat-up my wife, a bloody mile away.

Whatever, and as they were all extremely handsome looking guys; at least as tall as Adona, if not bigger. What's more, from where I was standing it looked like Sylvia and Rose were hanging on their every word. More alarm bells started ringing in my head.

"Er." I said gesturing towards the six of them. "That's our wives your friends are making-up to, over there!"

I figured that one look would tell Adona what was going down. But his reply totally shocked me, and Doug.

"Hmm yes, I'm sorry old boy!(sic) But we no longer have the institution of marriage in our time. Haven't had it for a couple of thousand years now. Sorry, I realise that monogamy was standard practise in your time, but it isn't here. There's nothing I'm allowed to do; we believe in free choice... er association nowadays."

"Well, we believe in free choice as you put it, in our time as well." Doug interjected, "But once partners are mutually chosen then monogamy is the rule. And it just ain't done, old boy, to... well, to come-on-strong to a married woman, that is! When a woman is spoken-for, it's just not cricket mate! I think that you'd better send us back home a bit sharpish-like, or things are liable to get a little intense around here!"

"I wish I could gentlemen, but we've got to find the root cause of this date cock-up first. Never-mind, you won't be here longer than is necessary."

"The way they're going at it over there, it looks like we might have been here too long already," Doug replied, then he stormed off calling to his wife as he did so.

"Rose, a word in private, if you can spare the time?"

As Rose -- reluctantly -- broke away and the four guys closed in around Sylvia.

Come on, they were like moths around a bleeding candle flame, or maybe more like jackals circling around an injured animal. That led me to call out almost exactly the same words to Sylvia.

Reluctantly Sylvia also broke away from her admirers and came over towards me.

"I'll have a word with my crew, but I can't promise you anything." Adona said as he moved off to where the four guys were standing. I led Sylvia into the house, where we could to talk in private.

"Jesus Christ, woman, what the hell are you playing at?" I demanded.

"I don't understand, what are you so upset about, George?" she replied, all innocent like.

"Don't come all that old 'how's your father' with me, Silvia. You know full-well what I'm annoyed about. You, pandering to those bloody freaks out there!"

"What do you mean, I was just being sociable. They're very nice guys."

Sylvia sounded annoyed at my outburst, and it could be that had some influence over what she said after that. It had more than a little influence over what I subsequently said.

"Randy arseholes, chaffing at the bloody bit, you mean!" I found myself ranting. "Christ woman, I'm surprised... no, I won't say it. But they're tongues were hanging out the moment they clapped eyes on you and Rose."

But what she said then, really shook me to the bottom of my boots.

"Can I help it, if strangers find me more attractive than my husband does? Besides, one of them might be able to do the job that you don't seem able to do."

On hearing those words, I became all-but... well apoplectic.

"Sylvia, are you claiming that I haven't kept you satisfied... er sexually, for the last ten years?"

Her expression softened a little. Maybe she realised that her last statement had been pushing the envelope a little too far.

"No, no, George, you've been a wonderful husband." She said hurriedly, but then she added. "But you have to admit, that you haven't managed to get me... well, you know. And, my biological clock is ticking, you know."

Battling with myself to get my emotions back in check, and not let our disagreement spiral completely out of control; I resorted to my usual reply when Sylvia started on the biological clock thing.

"I've told you before Sylvia, that is none of my doing. It has to be a problem with your... er, you know. I know that I don't fire blanks."

"Rubbish George, after all the trying we've done over the years, I should have had ten babies by now!"

Yes, yes, I was tempted to tell Sylvia about Mary Coplansky; but once again, I didn't. Sylvia had always been a little... er, well delicate, whenever I mentioned my experiences with old girlfriends. I figured that telling her about Mary Coplansky ending up in the family way, would have been like pouring petrol onto a fire; to wit, explosive! I didn't need that kind of grief in my life.