“Where time is concerned,” he said, returning to the main subject—and still watchful of the vagrants by the shore: they’d now joined hands, to caper in silent joy about the flames of whatever they were burning. “Where time is concerned, we are probably riding as if on some invisible arrow. There’s no going back to what has been passed, or hurrying faster to what is yet to come. But there may be an infinity of other universes. Some of these are radically different from our own, and can’t be conceived, let alone described. Some are very similar. Some are exactly the same, and some of these are at different stages of their unfolding. If travel through time is impossible, it may be possible to punch a hole through the wall that separates one universe from another.” He stopped and smiled. He thought again of Plato. “It’s like being in a prison cell, and thinking you’re the only person in the world. Then you pull a stone out of the wall, and find yourself talking to someone in another cell, who’s been there for a longer or shorter time. From what you say, everyone here seems to think The Break itself was an autonomous breach in the wall between different worlds of appearance. Perhaps it was. Or it may have been an accident brought on by the careless use of the machine that has now been employed to make a more directed breach.”
He waited for the girl to speak. She said nothing. Michael smiled again. “If you’ll pardon the observation—and I think you will—you share the self-regarding error of almost everyone else in this country. You correctly believe that technical mastery is impossible without an understanding of natural laws. You then falsely believe that, when there is no technical mastery, there can be no abstract understanding.” He looked over at the fire again. No one seemed interested in him or the girl. “But let’s go back to the matter of what Abigail Hooper wants with me. Do I fit into your hypothesis? If so, how? Or does she only want me to frustrate a separate desire by the Prime Minister to establish a relationship with the Empire along the lines described by Tarquin? Oh, and where, if at all, does your father fit?”
Jennifer leaned hear head on her knees. “I haven’t got that far. But perhaps my father was in a conspiracy to shut that Gateway Project down.” Her tone indicated hope rather than belief.
Michael decided to change the subject. “Have you any idea what happened with all the people who were on this island in 1064? Any idea what happened to the whole island as it was before The Break? A further question is why, if you people really were about to destroy your own world, would Hooper want to go back there? Or has she found another world in where there is no final war? How would she know she’d found it?”
“I don’t know about all these questions,” Jennifer said in the voice of someone ready to give way to exhaustion. “But one theory about the England of 1064 is that it just ceased to exist. Another is that the island is now being studied by some very bemused American and German philosophers in 2018. The shock of this may even have stopped the big war that was starting.”
Still paying no attention to him and the girl, the vagrants struck up a lilting song. “Well,” Michael said, keeping his voice light, “since I can expect nothing from your Government, and nothing from the local Greeks, what have you in mind for tomorrow? Does it involve a visit to the castle of Count Robert?”
There was a sudden barking of dogs, and a beam of light shone down from the Embankment. “We’re looking for a man and a woman,” Jennifer heard one of the officers shout. One of the vagrants shouted something obscene in French, and they continued their slow dance about the fire. The officer laughed, and the light of many torches shone down to the shore. “You can remember what you said when I tell you that there’s a reward of £100,000,” the officer added—“no questions asked—for any information leading to their arrest. If you do see them, keep your distance. One of them’s an Outsider, and he may be carrying a contagious disease.”
Jennifer bit her lip and waited for the denunciation. All that came back from the bonfire was another obscenity and a shout of laughter. She put a hand on Michael’s arm. They were in deep shadow of the embankment wall. The officer said something she couldn’t hear, then: “You know the penalties for harbouring an Outsider,” he said sternly. “If you think life here is bad, you haven’t seen Ireland. One hint of anti-social behaviour, and I’ll have you straight off that beach.”
“Go away, my British chum,” someone called in a strong accent from beside the fire. “The only Outsiders down ‘ere is us!” More laughter.
Now silent, the officer swept his torch over every part of the beach he could see. He spoke softly with one of his colleagues about the river mud. He stopped as, with a loud crackle, a radio jumped to life. “Red Delta Six Five Zero calling,” it said. “Have just seen two figures—possible male and female—hurrying upstream from last fix on mobile telephone. Need armed support for investigation of drainage tunnel…”
With a satisfied cry, one of the officer’s colleagues turned the radio down. “O’Sullivan’s got sharp eyes tonight,” the officer said with quiet satisfaction. He leaned over the wall of the embankment again. “You’ve missed your reward,” he sneered. “We’ve got them ourselves.” Jennifer heard footsteps that seemed to go away from rather than along the embankment.
She put a hand on Michael’s knee. “Don’t say anything,” she whispered. Not moving, she watched as one of the vagrants walked briskly towards them. He stopped a few yards away, framed in the light of the bonfire, and looked into the shadows where they’d now huddled closer together.
“You may call me Pierre,” he said in French. “I do have other names, but this one is sufficient. I am, of course, delighted to make your acquaintance.”
“If you knew we were here,” Jennifer asked, “why didn’t you tell on us?” She realised she’d spoken back in Latin, and tried to put her mind into the right gear for French. She failed, and repeated herself in English.
“Ah, but ‘ow could I snitch on my own countrymen?” he asked in English, with a wave of his arms. “It is only a year to go till ze Battle of ze ‘Astings. Whatever I can do to ‘asten ze defeat of zese English peegs—why, Pierre is your man.” He came closer and put out a hand to pull Michael to his feet. He kissed him on both cheeks, and spoke his greeting in the dialect of Old French used nearest to the Channel Ports. Michael’s response was a polite clearing of the throat and a little bow.
Jennifer took a chance. “He’s Greek.” She wondered if they could run away fast enough across the shingle. “He’s the Byzantine Ambassador. Abigail Hooper wants him dead.”
Pierre stroked his chin. “An ‘undred thousand pounds, ze good lady is offering,” he said in his unrealistically French accent. “So much to pass up for a little Greek boy.” Jennifer got out her purse of Turkish gold and gave it to Pierre. He opened it. He looked at its contents in the light of a small torch he produced from his pocket. He bit one of the coins and laughed. “Eh bien—what fine investment I ‘ave made! I spit on ze English pound, and wipe my bottom with its ‘igh denomination notes.”
He weighed the coins in the palm of his hand. “You may have half an hour before the police start tearing London apart again,” he said in a voice that, if still French, had suddenly lost all its comic tinge. “Come with me if you want to stay alive.”