We both shook our heads. I was still gobsmacked and Sussman knew better than to talk in front of the Boss. We withdrew.
We filed sedately through Mrs Partridge’s office, feeling her stare on our backs. We walked quietly along the corridor and slowly down the stairs. We entered the Library, nodded politely to Dr Dowson, who was peering into a microfiche reader and again to Professor Rapson, muttering to himself in the Early Mesopotamian section. We dropped our files on one of the big data tables to establish ownership, climbed out of the window, walked casually down the path, and into the sunken rock garden, where we finally took a breath.
I jumped onto a bench, lifted my head to the grey sky and shouted ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ and began to sing, ‘We are the champions’ and play air guitar. Sussman cartwheeled off down the path and back again, whooping incoherently. I jumped off the bench, met him as he straightened up, and the two of us hugged, jumping up and down together until we got tangled up and fell over. I was on the bottom, still shouting ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ as Chief Farrell came around the corner. The ground never opens up and swallows you when you need it to.
There was a fairly crowded silence and then he said politely, ‘Good morning, Miss Maxwell and whoever that is. May I be of any assistance?’
Sussman was shaking with laughter and deliberately keeping his face hidden, so I looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Good morning, Chief. No, everything’s fine, thank you. We’re just having a small celebration.’
‘What do you do for large celebrations?’
‘Oh, we really let rip for those, Chief. This is only a 2.5 on the Richter Scale.’
Eventually, we calmed down, climbed back in through the window, and got down to it. We were laying out our files when Kalinda and Peterson turned up. Word had already got around.
‘What have you got?’ demanded Kal. ‘Come on, is it a Big Job?’
I grinned at Sussman. ‘You have no idea.’
‘What? What have you got? Don’t make me come over there!’
I took a deep breath, savouring the moment. Once I told Kal and Peterson it would be all around the unit in minutes. Or less.
‘It’s a big one,’ I admitted. ‘In fact, it’s the Big Job. Three months full study, climate, geology, flora, fauna, even a star map. The works.’
She grinned at me and I could see my own excitement reflected in her eyes. ‘Flora? Fauna? When? Where? What have you got? Jesus I’m going to kill the pair of you in a minute.’
‘Guess,’ said Sussman.
‘Oh God, I don’t know. Flora, fauna … something biological. The Beagle! You’re going to the Galapagos.’
Sussman snorted with derision. ‘Oh, come on Kal, look at our specialties. I’m early Byzantine and Max doesn’t even get out of bed for anything after the Peloponnesian Wars.’
‘Well, not Troy. The two of you would be screaming from the rooftops. Egypt? Mesopotamia? Oh, I know. The Great Rift Valley. You’re going to study the early migrations.’
‘You don’t know the half of it. Way further back than that.
‘Jeez, I don’t know. What?’
I drew deep breath, feeling it all bubbling up again. ‘The Cretaceous Period. Sixty-seven million years ago, give or take. We’re going to live with the dinosaurs!’
And then again, the two of us were jigging about like a pair of idiots, chanting, ‘We’re going to see a T-rex, a T-rex, a T-rex,’ until Dr Dowson frowned gently at us.
They stared. I could see the conflict. Envy competing with shock. I didn’t blame them. Something similar was going through my mind. Peterson, the sensible one (and imagine a group where Peterson is the sensible one), said quietly, ‘But have you thought? It’s so far back.’
I knew what he meant. The further back you go, the fewer reference points there are. How do you know if you’ve gone back twenty, thirty, sixty, one hundred million years without a handy newspaper or dress shop opposite? And, although this was ridiculous, I think we all instinctively felt the invisible cord, our trail of breadcrumbs, our route home stretched thinner and thinner the further back we went. Sixty-seven million years ago (give or take) would stretch it very thin indeed, possibly to breaking point.
Kal had been too quiet too long. ‘Max, it’s so far. Far further back than anything we’ve ever done before. Aren’t you just a bit worried?’
‘It shouldn’t make any difference. Yesterday, or sixty-seven million years, they’re the same; you know that. Look on the bright side; we’re far more likely to be eaten by the indigenous fauna than lost in time.’
She sighed. ‘Do you guys need a hand?’
‘Not at the moment. We need to look through the parameters now, but we’ll almost certainly need you at some point.’
‘How long’s your lead-in?’
‘Three months.’
She blinked. ‘Yes, it would be, I suppose. We’ve got late nineteenth-century Vienna and we’ll be there and back before you’ve even set off.’