“Finally, one night after Emmett had been at work on the console and his calculations for near three months, we sat in this very chamber, talking privily over an ewer of John Whyffler’s best ale. He had been in an increasing sweat and fret for weeks, brusque in his speech, and short-tempered on all occasions.
” ‘Weel, Ken, well be tryin’ it an hour arter dawn, on the morrow. By sich calculation as meself can make, an’ as me memory serve me, oor time be about six hours ahead of theirn, so the lab ne’er will iver be missed.”
“Never missed?’ I said. ‘But Emmett, surely when the morning comes, they’ll notice a missing building?”
“‘By St Sola’s toenafls . . .’ he began, peevishly, then stopped and smiled slowly. It’s sorry I’m bein’, Ken, but the strain on me poor mind hae been sommat fierce, these last moons; ye dinna ken, I see. We be here in the past, e’en should we hold yon lab here for years, it’ll be as the bare blinkin’ o’ y’r e’e to the folk in that world.’
” ‘No, Emmett,’ I disagreed, ‘it’s you who don’t understand. You never really knew much about history—the history of our home world—so I don’t think you ever have understood just what happened to us, just where we really are. Emmett, this is not our world we were projected into, not the history of our world we’ve been living, all these years. Emmett, we can only be on a parallel world, so what is projected here from that other world must be here for good and all. Just look how long the console has been here, yet you said that it could be expected to snap back to whence it and we came within hours or at most days after our arrival. Doesn’t its continued presence tell you something?’
“The Irishman shrugged, shaking his full head of hair, his stiff moustachios aquiver. ‘V may be a-havinf the right of ‘t, Ken . . . y’ may be wrong, too. Aye, lang years has it been . . . here, but how are we tae ken the relation of oor time tae that of yon world we quitted, sae lang or short a time agone? There, in that sad world, the beam of that bitch’s heat-stunner still may be a-cracklin’ the air neath those computers, yTcnow? All what I may say for sairtin sure be that yon console still be a-drawin’ poower frae that world … or frae somm’eres. An’ wi’ luck an’ the blessin’s o’ the saints, it’s bringin’ that lab tae us we will be.’
“And to this very day, Bass,” sighed the aged Archbishop, “I know not which of us—me or Emmett—was right in our suppositions. But that night I issued an order that all activity on the north side of the hall be suspended until the nones of the next day.
“As the sun rose like a new penny out of the eastern mists, I was in my place on the battlements atop the tower-keep, whilst Emmett did some last-minute tinkering and calculating in the torch-lit cellar . . . He had my wristwatch—his own having been battered to ruin in some long-done skirmish—so I could only cast glances at the sundial.
“At length, he came panting up the steep stairs to join me upon the donjon roof and peer anxiously betwixt the ancient merlons, snapping glances at the watch on his hairy wrist. Finally, he devoted all his attention to the face of the instrument, then he looked up.
“‘It’s time, Ken. The console’s on automatic, it should switch onnnn … now!'”
The old man lifted the ewer and poured the last of the ale into his mug. Impatiently, Foster said, “And? Then what, Hal? What happened, dammit?”
The Archbishop smiled, while plunging a loggerhead into the brew. “Patience, Bass, patience. My throat’s getting dry.” When he had sipped at the steaming ale, he leaned back, wrapping his cold hands about the warm mug, dosed his eyes, and went on with the tale.
“What happened, you ask. Nothing, friend Bass, not really. Oh, I thought to see a brief flicker of moving, brown water, flanked by square, blockish buildings, for an eyeblink of time overlying the hall and grounds, but then it was gone—if ever it was in anything or anyplace other than my memory-nudged mind.