we can’t afford to have him underfoot during battle. But I don’t want him there on
his own account; he’s too unsophisticated to know that bombs can kill him. He got
involved in another fire fight when he was just a kitten… and it did almost kill
him. I don’t want that ever to happen again. But I have never figured out how to
lock him up.’
‘Just a moment, Richard.’ Gwen Hazel stood up. ‘Jubal, may I offer a suggestion?’
`Hazel, it says on the organisation chart that you are in command of this operation,
all phases. I think that entitles you to make a suggestion. One, at least.’
`Come off it, Jubal. There is a third member of our family that has more influence
over Pixel than either Richard or I. My daughter Wyoming.’
‘Does she volunteer?
‘She will;
‘Stipulating that she will, can she control Pixel every second for about four hours?
For technical reasons involving how we handle the time/space gates will use about
that much Boondock time. So Dr Burroughs tells me.’
I interrupted. ‘May I say something?’
‘Hazel, do you yield?’
‘Don’t be silly, Jubal; of course I do.’
‘Certainly we should use Wyoh; the child is utterly reliable. But don’t have her try
to hang on to Pixel here; one sneeze and he’s gone. Take both of them to Oz and have
them stay with Glinda. With Betsy, rather, but with Glinda’s magic to ensure that
Pixel doesn’t walk through any walls.’
‘Hazel?’ Dr Harshaw enquired.
‘They’ll both love it.’
`It is so ordered. Now back to the raid. Projection, please.’ An enormous live
picture grew up behind Jubal and around him. ‘This holo is not Coventry itself but
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our Potemkin Village practice ground that Athene has built for us, about eighty
kilometres east of here. Take a bow, Teena.’
The executive computer’s voice came out of the air: ‘Thanks, Papa Jubal, but that’s
Shiva’s work – Mycroft Holmes and me linked in synergistic parallel, with Minerva
waving the baton. Now that I’ve got you all gathered together, let me remind you
that all of you are invited to our wedding, Minnie and me to Mike, after the
conclusion of Operation Coventry Cusp. So you all had better start thinking about
wedding presents.’
‘Teena, you are crassly materialistic and neither of your composite bodies can
possibly be ready that soon:
`Gotcha! Ish okayed moving our bodies to Beulahland, so now we can be uncorked and
animated on any date we pick. You better study up on the laws of temporal paradox,
Jubal.’
Dr Harshaw sighed. ‘Conceded. I look forward to kissing the brides. Now will you
please let us get on with the operation?’
‘Don’t sweat it, Pops. You know or should know that there is never any hurry in a
time operation.’
`True. But we’re all a bit eager. Friends, Teena – or Shiva – built our practice
field from photos, stereos, holos, and motion pictures taken at Coventry on 1 April
1941. You will recognise 1941 as a date so far back that all time lines patrolled by
the agents of the Circle of Ouroboros are, in 1941, a single time line. In short,
anything we do in Coventry in 1941 affects all civilised time lines – civilised in a
parochial sense, of course; the Circle is not unbiased.
‘Research for this operation turned up an odd fact. Lazarus?’
My son stood up. `History of World War Two 1939-1945 as I recall it shows a more
favourable outcome in England and in Europe than that which turned up in this
operation’s field research. For example, my oldest brother, Brian Smith, Junior, was
wounded in the landing at Marseilles, whereupon he was sent to England, to Salisbury
Plain and the American training command. Mama?’
‘Yes, surely, Woodrow:
‘But the history we researched shows that this could not have happened. The
Luftwaffe won the Battle of Britain and there never was a Marseilles landing, much
less an American training command in England. Instead, Germany was smashed from the
air by atomic bombs delivered from North Africa by American B-29 bombers. Friends
and family, I was in that war. No atomic bombs were dropped on Europe in the war I