The Fear of All Sums
By Samuel Marks
Chapter Four
The Cavalier's head was spinning. He could barely remember his own name, let alone that of the man who had helped get him to safety. Was it Titan? No, Titus, that was it. The man—General Something Fancy and Unpronounceable Titus—handed the Cavalier a suit of Roman armour to protect his modesty and to prevent any further awkwardness between the strangers. Their hug a few moments ago had been bad enough. It was only awkward for Titus, of course. The Cavalier had rather enjoyed it.
He could fell regeneration energy dancing around his body and, though it would stay with him for a good few hours yet, it was becoming less effective at combatting the cold. As such, the Cavalier was glad to get dressed and shield himself from the harsh winds. He may not have liked his new body on first impressions, but he had to look after it. He had become rather careless with his bodies of late, and he couldn't afford to be like that anymore, much to his annoyance. Being careful wasn't usually much fun at all.
General Titus took a seat in front of the Cavalier, and smiled reassuringly. He seemed like a good man, the Cavalier thought. Tough and butch and not really his type at all, but a good man nonetheless. A soldier. A man of war. The Cavalier had met plenty of those, the best and the worst. But never had one been so kind to him as Titus had been on this day.
"Thank you," said the Cavalier. "For saving me."
"That's quite all right," replied Titus. "Thank you for putting some clothes on."
The Cavalier nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed something. There was something amiss in this tent. Something wrong. He could feel it in his bones. His Time Lord senses were tingling, but he couldn't quite place what it was. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. And then he saw it. In the corner of the tent. A machine. An actual piece of working machinery in Ancient Rome. Something out of time...
"Now, stranger, we have lots to discuss—"
"What is that?" asked the Cavalier, pointing in the direction of the anomaly.
General Titus rose up out of his seat and crossed the room, reached the machine before the Cavalier. He threw a large piece of fabric over the machine, concealing it from the Cavalier's view.
"It's a distraction, clearly," said Titus. "Please, sit down, stranger. Tell me how you came to be wandering the Alps, and how you happened to... not die."
The Cavalier noticed a determined look in General Titus' eyes. The Roman clearly wasn't going to rest until he knew the truth. As much as the Cavalier wanted to find out about the strange machine, he did as he was told and sat down. The Cavalier took a deep breath, filling his brand new lungs with the cold mountain air, and began to speak.
"I was being followed by someone," said the Cavalier, "through the Time Vortex. Their ship had a trans-dimensional warp drive that meant they could follow me right across the dimensions, through supernovas and black holes and loops in the causality nexus that I thought might cancel out the tracking signal on my TARDIS. But I couldn't shake them.
"So I materialised here," he went on, without stopping for breath, "close to my intended destination, somewhere in the Alps. And as the chameleon circuit was doing its job, my TARDIS suffered a direct hit from their anti-matter cannon. My ship—my home—was completely obliterated. I narrowly escaped the same fate. I was weak; I was hurt. So I ran, luckily found your camp, and managed to regenerate. Completely rewrote my biology and managed to live. Understand?"
"Not completely," said General Titus. "Not much, in fact. Your enemy... Is he the same as ours? Are you facing the wrath of Hannibal of Carthage?"
"Nah," said the Cavalier. "Could be anyone after me. In my travels, I tend to upset a lot of people..." But then he realised that something was amiss. Something else... "Hang on," he said, "how do you know that Hannibal is coming for you?"
The Cavalier had intended to come to Ancient Rome at this time to witness the famous point in history where Hannibal, enemy of Rome, lead his forces across the Alps to launch a dangerous surprise attack against the Roman Empire. So, he wondered, how could they possibly know that the attacker was on his way?
"We have the greatest minds in the known world working for us, sir. They have created wondrous technology that gives us the gift of foresight, amongst many others things."
Could that be what the strange machine was for? "Show me now!" the Cavalier demanded.
General Titus unveiled the machine in the corner of the tent. The Cavalier found himself trembling as he approached it, because he knew what it was, and therefore he knew what it meant. "What have you done?" he asked, noticing terror in his own voice. "And, you know, how?"
The Cavalier found himself looking at what was unmistakably a computer screen, upon which a map of the surrounding area was displayed. It was covered with tiny dots, each representing one of the forty thousand men that were under the command of Hannibal—along with their accompanying party of elephants—who were coming to attack the Roman Empire.
"Is there a problem?" wondered Titus.
"This is a radar," said the Cavalier. "And this is very, very wrong..."
