The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“Car twenty-eight,” said the wireless, “come in please.”

I stopped thinking about it and checked the position of the sun.

“It’s about midday, I’d say.”

Bowden nodded agreement.

“Aren’t we car twenty-eight?” he asked, frowning slightly. I picked up the mike.

“Car twenty-eight, go ahead.”

“At last!” sounded a relieved voice over the speaker. “I have Colonel Rutter of the ChronoGuard who wants to speak to you.”

Bowden walked over so he could hear better. We looked at each other, unsure of what was going to happen next; a chastisement or a heap of congratulations, or, as it turned out, both.

“Officers Next and Cable. Can you hear me?” said a deep voice over the wireless.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Where are you?”

“About six miles from Haworth.”

“All the way up there, eh?” he guffawed. “Jolly good.” He cleared his throat. We could sense it coming.

“Unofficially, that was one of the bravest acts I’ve ever seen. You saved a great number of lives and stopped the event from becoming a matter of some consequence. You can both be very proud of your actions and I would be honored to have two fine officers like you serving under me.”

“Thank you, sir, I—”

“I’m still talking!” he snapped, causing us both to jump. “Officially, though, you broke every rule in the book. And I should have both your butts nailed to the wall for not following procedure. If you ever try anything like this again, I most certainly will. Understand?”

“Understood, sir.”

I looked at Bowden. There was only one question we wanted to ask.

“How long have we been gone?”

“The year is now 2016,” said Rutter. “You’ve been gone thirty-one years!!”

28.

Haworth House

Some would say the ChronoGuard have a terrific sense of humor. I would say they were just plain annoying. I had heard that they used to bundle up new recruits in gravity suits and pop them a week into the future just for fun. The game was banned when one recruit vanished outside the cone. Theoretically he is still there, just outside our time, unable to return and unable to communicate. It is calculated we will catch up with him about fourteen thousand years from now—sadly, he will have aged only twelve minutes. Some joke.

THURSDAY NEXT

—A Life in SpecOps

WE WERE both victims of the ChronoGuard’s bizarre sense of humor. It was just past noon the following day. We had been gone only seven hours. We both reset our watches and drove slowly into Haworth, each sobered by the experience.

At Haworth House a full media circus was in progress. I had hoped to arrive before this sort of thing really gained a toehold, but the hole in the M1 had put paid to that. Ly

dia Startright from the Toad News Network had arrived and was recording for the lunchtime bulletin. She stood outside the steps of Haworth House with a microphone and composed herself before beginning. She signaled to her cameraman to roll, adopted one of her most serious expressions, and began.

“. . . As the sun rose over Haworth House this morning the police began to investigate a bold theft and double murder. Some time last night a security guard was shot dead by an unknown assailant as he attempted to stop him stealing the original manuscript of Jane Eyre. Police have been at the crime scene since early morning and have as yet given no comment. It is fairly certain that parallels must be drawn with the theft of the Martin Chuzzlewit manuscript, which, despite continued police and SpecOps efforts, has so far not come to light. Following Mr. Quaverley’s extraction and murder, it can only be surmised that a similar fate is in store for Rochester or Jane. The Goliath Corporation, whose presence this morning was an unusual development, have no comment to make—as usual.”

“And—cut! That was very good, darling,” declared Lydia’s producer. “Can we do it once more without the reference to Goliath? You know they’ll only cut it out!”