‘We had to close Hawking for a day. Residual radiation.’
‘And the professor. He’s fine, too, thank you for asking. He had a great time.’
‘There was a fireball!’
‘And I think we may have kick-started the invention of the reflecting telescope.’
‘I’ve no idea where to start on Number Eight. The outer casing looks like grilled cheese!’
‘So, quite a successful jump, I think.’
He drew a deep breath and made a huge effort at staying calm. ‘How are you?’
‘I melted my pod? Cool!’
Communication – the cornerstone of St Mary’s success.
I went off to see Eddie as soon as I was fit. To reassure myself. He laughed when he saw me. Both of us were as red and shiny and bright as new fire trucks.
He sat in his borrowed pyjamas, his bed strewn with papers, printouts, and God knows what, happily accepting Nurse Hunter’s attentions. She winked at me as she left.
‘What ho, Professor!’
‘Max, my dear. How are you?’
‘Up and about and absolutely fine. How about you?’
‘Well, I still feel as if I had been through one of those old-fashioned mangles, but that lovely young lady tells me I’ll be up in no time. Tell me, did you notice the temporal read-out?’
‘No,’ I said, very carefully. ‘We were on fire at the time.’
‘Ah well,’ he said, jovially. ‘As Joan of Arc probably said: “Build a girl a fire and she’s warm for a few minutes. Set a girl on fire and she’s warm for the rest of her life.”’
I stared at him, suspiciously. ‘Joan of Arc should have known better than to misquote Terry Pratchett. The great man might not like it. But are you sure you’re not an historian?’
He chuckled his dirty chuckle. ‘If I’d known that I would meet you …’
‘Seriously, Professor, the heat, the blast, the radiation – we should be scattered all over the universe.’
‘Yes,’ he said, a little regretfully, I thought. ‘Just think, Max, our atoms would have been part of the most spectacular galaxies, the biggest black holes, the strangest and most beautiful worlds …’
He sighed. ‘But we’re not and I have no clear idea why. Our pod protected us to some extent, of course, but I am really at a loss to account for it. I gather our arrival was spectacular.’
‘The word fireball is figuring prominently in Chief Farrell’s vocabulary these days.’
‘Another miraculous Maxwell escape. Maybe the universe has something else in mind for you.’
I laughed. If I was being kept alive, it was only in the way they keep turkeys alive for Christmas.
‘Professor, where do you think we were?’
He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Tell me Max, what do you know about the River of Time?’
I rummaged in my head for one of Chief Farrell’s faint and far-off lectures.
‘Um, well, that was Einstein’s definition of Time. That Time moves like a river, meandering around galaxies, speeding up or slowing down as it’s caught in backwaters or eddies. That there are places where Time flows differently. As in a river.’
‘Exactly. Well, one explanation is that we were trapped in some quiet backwater in the River of Time. Somewhere Time had slowed to a standstill. Stagnant water. Or, we were marooned, so to speak. Left high and dry by the River of Time. Or, still continuing the River analogy, if Time flows smoothly from one second to the next, there is the possibility we were trapped between two seconds. I don’t know.’
He threw me a cheerful look. ‘Or, I may have a really outrageous and impossible theory.’
‘More outrageous and impossible than being trapped between two seconds?’
‘Oh yes. Are you familiar with the other definition of Time?’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Newton’s Arrow of Time. Time can only move in one direction. Forwards. Never deviating from its path. Never speeding up or slowing down. Just like an arrow.’
He watched me intently as he spoke. ‘Well, if I really wanted to be controversial, then I would ask you to imagine what will happen when the Arrow of Time finishes its flight. As it must. When Time no longer moves forwards. When everything stops. When everything, everywhere, is cold and dark and dead. All the stars have burned away to Nothing. The never-ending story has long since ended. Time has stopped because there is no longer anything for it to measure. There is no change from one moment to the next. Entropy has won. The universe is dead.’
I shivered. I couldn’t help it.
‘Is that where we were? At the end of everything? At the end of the universe? How did we get out?’
‘Again, I think I know what may have happened, but not why it happened. I think opening the door allowed something to escape. A tiny, fleeting moment of time. Time was free. Time escaped. Something met Nothing. Nothing was no longer Nothing. There was a bit of a bang. And here we are.’