Number Five was Kal’s favourite pod. They’d been through a lot together, but they’d both survived. Unlike my pod – Number Eight – still badly damaged after emergency extraction from the Cretaceous Period last year, and lying in pieces all over Hawking Hangar as Chief Farrell and his technical crew attempted to reassemble it.
The console and computer were to the right of the door in Number Five, with the two lumpy and uncomfortable crew seats bolted to the floor in front of it. The toilet was in a partitioned corner. Various lockers around the walls contained all the equipment any historian could possible require. Most importantly, a kettle, a couple of mugs, and a small chiller containing a bottle of something potent provided the essentials of life.
Pods are our centre of operations; solid, apparently stone-built shacks which jump us back to whichever period we’ve been assigned and from which we work, eat, and sleep. They are cramped, frequently squalid, and despite all the technical section’s best efforts, the toilet never works properly. Number Five smelled as all pods do – hot historians, wet carpet, overloaded electrics, unreliable plumbing, and cabbage.
Bunches of thick cables ran up the walls and looped their way across the ceiling. Lights flashed amongst the mass of dials, gauges and read-outs on the console. The co-ordinates were all laid-in ready for the return jump. The effect was shabby hi-tec. Scruffy and battered. Just like us historians. Just like all of St Mary’s, really.
We work for the Institute of Historical Research, based at St Mary’s Priory just outside Rushford. We don’t do time-travel. That’s for amateurs. We’re not time-travellers – we’re historians. We ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’. So much more classy. We’re fairly stand-alone, but we answer to the University of Thirsk for our funding. Sometimes, it’s not a happy relationship, but we’d recently pulled off a huge coup, successfully rescuing books from the burning Library at Alexandria. At the moment, Thirsk loved us. That wouldn’t last.
I helped Kal pull off her coat. As decreed by the fashion of the late 1880s, it was tight fitting, including the sleeves and this had helped prevent too much blood loss. I ripped the sleeve of her blouse (there would be a reproachful memo from Wardrobe in the morning) and slapped on a sterile dressing.
‘There you go, as good as new. Sit down. I’ll put everything away. Don’t get cold. Put your coat back on.’ She shrugged it on again. She wore navy blue. I had grey. Both outfits looked shabby but well cared-for. We had gone for the poor-but-honest-shop-girls look. Our bustles had caused much hilarity amongst our heathen colleagues. Our corsets had nearly bloody killed us.
I stuffed her pistol and torch back inside her muff and dropped it on her lap. She sat stroking the soft material. ‘There’s a bottle in the chiller. Shall we have a final drink for my final mission?’
I got the bottle and a couple of mugs and she did the honours. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers, Kal. All the best.’
We chugged back a mugful and I felt myself begin to relax a little. It had been a strenuous night, but it was over now. Time to unwind before going back. We leaned back and put our feet up on the console.
‘My God,’ said Kal, regarding me with a strange mix of euphoria, astonishment and sadness. ‘That was my last jump. I’ve survived. I’ve actually survived. Do you know, there were times when I never thought I would? That night in Brussels after the Duchess of Richmond’s ball – I lost Peterson in the chaos and thought I’d never find him or the pod again. The Corn Law Riots. That time with you at the Somme. Do you remember running through all that mud? Or Alexandria, when Professor Rapson nearly blew us all to kingdom come? I survived it all. And now, we may have seen the Ripper and lived. I’ve made it. I never thought I would.’
She shook her head in disbelief.
‘Yep, the stories you won’t be able to tell your kids.’
She laughed and drained her mug.
I leaned forward to refill.
‘Will you miss it, do you think?’
‘Oh God, yes. Yes, I’ll miss it.’
‘Then … why?’
She sighed. ‘I want something more. This has been enormous fun. Still is. But I want something else. You may not understand, Max, but Dieter and I … well, maybe one day … maybe one day, I’ll want a kid. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I want, but I do know this isn’t enough any more.’ She smiled at me. ‘And maybe, one day, you’ll feel the same.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Max, you never know.’
‘We’ll see.’
I didn’t know else what to say. I couldn’t allow myself to think about how much I would miss her. She was my rock, confidante, co-conspirator, drinking companion, and lifesaver. Whatever was required. The word ‘friend’ didn’t even begin to cover it. I couldn’t comprehend a world without her. And she was leaving St Mary’s. This was her traditional last jump. She was going off to work as our liaison officer at the University of Thirsk. She’d been promoted.