Disclaimer: The makers of the film The Patriot own Colonel Tavington. I own the rest.

Genre: romance/time travel

Tavington contemplates the paradoxes of time, and has an epiphany…

Episode 9: The Door Into Time

Part II

Diana was curled up on the bed, waiting for him. He was not angry with her, and did not like to see the suppressed fear in her attitude. He sat down close beside her, and rested a soothing hand on the admirable curve of her hip.

"Alan is such a swine," she muttered.

"Yes, I rather think you're right," he replied.

"I didn't want you to find out like that. I needed more time. We have all the time in the world, at this end of history. I was going to talk to you first, and then show you the accounts, and discuss it with you afterward. I just needed more time."

"What's done is done. I suppose I knew all along how badly hurt I was. I hadn't bothered to consider that I could not possibly have survived those wounds in my own time." He lay down on his side behind her and they nestled like spoons. He wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her tight against his chest. "How in the world did you rescue me? Did no one notice that I was gone?"

She cleared her throat. "No one realized you were gone. Give us credit for careful planning. We had time to obtain a medical cadaver bearing a slight resemblance to you. With gruesome injuries and a uniform just like yours, it was taken for you. I wasn't there, of course. It was Michael, Mark, Keith, and Dieter."

"The gunsmith?" Thinking it over, he could see those four dealing with the situation effectively.

"Yes—he's quite the military history buff. They opened two horizontal gates, only minutes apart. One was for scouting. They discovered that you were wounded about twenty yards away from the site we originally supposed. The second gate was carefully chosen to avoid catching a local, and led back directly into Mark's operating room. They rushed out, with body armor under their 18th century uniforms and protected by a dense smoke screen. They arranged the corpse, snatched you up, and were back fast enough to save your life. But it was a very near thing."

He said gravely, "Then I shall render my heartfelt thanks to them tomorrow. But why me?"

"I love you."

His throat swelled, and he kissed her hair. "And I you, my dearest. But that doesn't explain why your four friends would risk themselves for me, and why the rest of the staff would permit it. I thought you were all terribly concerned about affecting the past unwisely."

"And we are. And the rest of the staff didn't know about it until we could present them with a fait accompli. Oh, Michael and Dieter thought it was all a ripping adventure. Mark was interested in the medical challenge. Keith went along with it because I persuaded him that you would be a wonderful addition to the research team, and that this was our only chance to recruit you."

"What is it you would have me do, Diana? I am not a scholar, nor a scientist."

She rolled over, facing him in the dim light. "But you have an intimate knowledge of a world we only know from books. Remember how incompetent I was back in Charleston? Everyone thought I was a complete lunatic. They say that 'the past is a foreign country—they do things differently there.' You have practical expertise that could be vital when exploring any place from the late seventeenth century through the first third of the nineteenth." She stroked his cheek, and teased, "You need a shave."

"I know," he admitted. "God forbid that I grow a beard like some of your friends!"

"Beards help them blend in when we visit the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It was a very hirsute time."

"How very uncivilized." Tavington snorted a laugh. "So you want my advice. Do you want my company on your travels?"

"Yes," she confessed. "One of the most important lessons learned from my difficulties in Charleston is that sending a time traveler alone into a past world is terribly frightening and stressful for him-–or for her. Any extended research trips will be done in pairs, at least, from now on."

He had had enough of the Aurora Project for one night. He fumbled for the hem of her shirt and eased it over her head. As he tossed it to the floor, he purred, "And what shall the pair of us research tonight?"

They were adrift without a leader, Tavington decided. He observed the various project members, each intent on their specialties, and saw noover-arching objectives. Walford had used them to establish a comfortable refuge, and then discarded them. It was an interesting situation, but one without purpose. He explored the huge compound, and discovered that much of it was unused and uninhabited. There were empty barns for livestock and horses; there were empty barracks for individuals and families. One day he found a huge boathouse with two large and handsome yachts, both gathering dust. There was a "hangar" containing two "airplanes." The pilots, he learned, had been dismissed along with so many others. Workshops were silent. He paused in one, fingering a freshly minted gold guinea with the date "1772." The material resources of the Aurora Project were breathtaking.

He visited Jennifer in her vast greenhouses, as he often did in the morning, enjoying the scent of growing things, the perfumes of her exotics, and the curious hybrids in the garden plots.

"It seems to me you could use some help," he observed.

She was becoming accustomed to him, though she still blushed whenever he spoke to her. "Are you volunteering?"

He knelt beside her in the perfectly balanced growing medium. It did not smell like proper dirt, but it served it purpose. "For today, perhaps. I am no expert. How can they expect you to deal with all of this alone?"

"I had assistants before the Boss fired them," she mumbled. "Rogelio and Sheila and Tracy. They were really nice." Her hair hid her face as she worked. "I miss them. They didn't want to go. Rogelio had his whole family here, and Tracy had a little boy and they didn't really have anywhere else to live. I've heard that none of them are in good shape right now. They have stipends to live on as part of the confidentiality agreement, but nothing else. There isn't much out there unless you're fabulously rich."

Tavington sat back on his heels, head cocked to one side. Things suddenly seemed clearer. "You said Walford sent them away. But he is not here. What is to prevent you from recalling all the staff he dismissed? I was told there is still a great deal of capital left to spend on the project."

She stared at him, and then ducked her head. "I don't know. I didn't think about it. What if he comes back and is mad about it?"

"My dear Jennifer," he snorted. "It seems quite clear that he is not returning. It is time for the entire Project to reconsider its future. Do you never meet to discuss these issues?"

She was planting lettuce, and continued scattering the tiny seeds, her face toward the raised bed. "Department heads used to report, and sometimes we had general meetings. But the Boss isn't here to call meetings any more, so I guess we got out of the habit."

Tavington returned to the task of the moment, and handed her a second pack of seeds, still thinking. "I believe it is time to renew old habits, and perhaps learn some new ones."

They worked together in silence, moving from one plot to the next. Several times Jennifer seemed ready to speak, and then did not. She was plainly working herself up to make a pronouncement of some sort. Tavington decided to be patient. He was an outsider, and it would not do to press these unworldly folk too hard.

She stood up and pushed a lock of hair from her face. "Calling them back in is a really good idea. I can't believe I didn't think of it. But if I go to Lisa in the front office, she'll tell me she needs authorization to rehire them."

Tavington remembered Lisa, the project secretary. She was an older woman, efficient and unimaginative, dutifully filing the specialists' reports, and observing the established procedures. She had given Diana and her friends some argument about Tavington's presence, calling him an "unauthorized expenditure." She was not a bad sort, for she had apologized in some confusion for her rudeness. Nonetheless, she was a mere clerk--a born follower--and was still clinging to the dictates of her revered "Boss."

"Did Walford leave no one in charge?"

"No, I guess he didn't care what happened once he was gone." She shrugged. Tavington felt uneasily that the girl was all too accustomed to the idea that her fate was unimportant. Perhaps Walford had deliberately chosen his team for submissive qualities, as far as he possibly could. Or, in the case of the scholars and engineers, for such devotion to their chosen fields that they were indifferent to the situation as a whole.

"Jennifer." He walked over to face her, and touched a pitifully thin shoulder with a gentle hand. She would not look at him, and seemed alarmed at the physical contact. "Don't you think it matters what happens?" She shrugged again. He persisted. "What do you want to achieve with this project?"

She muttered, "I want to grow my plants."

"Yes, but what else? Do you want to stay in this place forever?"

"It's better than outside. Nobody bothers me. We're really safe here."

He gave her a slight shake. "Think! It cannot last forever." She looked up at him beseechingly, appalled that he had suggested something so terrible. Quietly but firmly, Tavington said, "With Walford gone, it is time for the project members to set their own course. What happened to the idea of changing the past to save the future?"

She pulled away. "Oh, go talk to Diana! I don't think it's possible anymore. It's just too hard. Did she tell you what happened to Esther?"

"Who?"

"You just talk to her." She ran a dirty hand through her hair. "If you can think of a way to get my people back, that would be great. But you should still go talk to Diana."

It was not Diana he spoke to, but the geologist Michael, whom he found lounging in the library before lunch time. He was about Tavington's size, a big-shouldered man with shaggy dark-blond hair and extraordinarily large boots. Those boots were propped up on a library table, as Michael leaned back in his chair to read. He saw Tavington enter the library, and gave him a cordial nod. Before he could get back to his book, Tavington walked over and asked abruptly, "Who was Esther?"

The Irish-American's mouth quirked up, and his eyes glinted with mischief. Tavington said stiffly, "And do not say the wife of Ahasuerus, or I shall knock you out of your chair. I was discussing project goals with Jennifer and she seemed very pessimistic. She mentioned an Esther, and said it was all too hard."

Michael Kelly chuckled grimly, and threw a glance about the huge circular room. One level above, Alan Swinburne was reading in a paneled carrel, his bony face engrossed in his book. On the other side of the room, two engineers were deep in whispered discussion, their hands tracing their arguments to and fro. Diana was nowhere in evidence, and Michael, reading his thoughts, told him, "Diana's with Penny, discussing appropriate dress fabrics for the 1730's. She's a stickler for details, and she's still angry about losing our wonderful seamstresses."

"That's another issue I'll raise in due course." Tavington ignored Michael's puzzlement. "Now, who is Esther, and why is she such an object lesson in the futility of the project goals?"

Michael gestured at a chair, and Tavington sat down at the table. In a quiet murmur, plainly meant only for Tavington's ears, he began an unhappy tale.

"Esther Simon was another of our historians. In fact, she was the department head. She was quite a coup for Walford to collect—an extremely well-known figure in her field—an expert in European studies. Her theory was that if we could stop the outbreak of the First World War, we could save millions of lives, slow down the pace of uncontrolled technology, and prevent some of the worst developments from radical political theories and from the period of colonization that followed the war."

"Colonization hardly began with the First World War," Tavington pointed out dryly.

"True. But Esther didn't think we could avert that particular process entirely. She got into it pretty fiercely with Keith and Diana, who thought we should try an earlier intervention so we could prevent the African slave trade. Esther was committed to changing the past as little as possible, and it's obvious that the further back you go, the greater the changes you cause. Anyway, Walford gave Esther the go-ahead." He lowered his voice still further, and went on.

"Esther tried to prevent the assassination of Grand Duke Ferdinand. I won't give you all the gory details, but the upshot was that she succeeded in delaying his trip through Sarajevo, but it wasn't enough. The assassins still got the Grand Duke and his wife—and Esther and two other team members were killed trying to save them. It was a disaster. I think that was when Sam gave up on changing the past and decided just to live with it."

Tavington had listened in silence. After a moment's thought, he said, "Then he's a coward."

He took his leave and strode quickly through the halls to the swimming pool. It was a good place to think, while he used up superfluous energy. A new and quite novel idea had crossed his mind, and he needed to sort it out.

The auditorium was sparsely peopled when they arrived that evening. Diana had warned Tavington that many of the team members hated general meetings, and made a point of avoiding them. She was the new history department head, in fact, because while she was younger than Keith or Alan, they had absolutely refused to serve in that capacity. It was only by telling her colleagues something of what Tavington had planned, that she had persuaded them to attend at all.

Those who knew Tavington best were present. He had talked to a number of them: experts who desperately wanted the return of their assistants for a variety of reasons. He had also cultivated the physicists and the engineers to find out if his idea was even possible. They had told him it was, but they had not believed that he was going to seriously suggest it.

Diana herself was somewhat shocked at his proposal. It was something so far beyond the original scope of the project that it took her a few days to comprehend the possibilities. She had agreed to support him, but Tavington knew that it was partly because of her feelings for him, not because she was convinced that his idea was sound.

The staff straggled to their seats, chattering all the while. Diana attempted to catch their attention, but they were treating the meeting as a social event. After a moment, Tavington went to the podium, and used the voice that had set the British Legion quaking in its boots.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I am the newest among you! Nevertheless, if you would do me the courtesy of attending, I would like to offer some observations that may be of some interest to you!"

His acid tones cut through the gossip: the staff assembled fluttered like startled pigeons. It was enough. He had years of experience as an officer, and this was an undisciplined crowd that needed leadership.

He had organized his remarks carefully, surmising that his first proposal would be well received. The suggestion that the dismissed technicians and their families be recalled was a popular one. Only Lisa dithered a little, nervously insisting that they had no authority to do so.

Tavington had prepared for this objection. "In the absence of Mr Walford, and in the absence of any deputy appointed by him, I propose an executive council to direct research and oversee the administration of the project. The department heads could meet on a regular basis—"

There were a few groans. A physicist complained, "I'm a scientist, not a manager! I don't have time for steering committees!"

Tavington cut him off tersely. "I believe that you will want your department represented, if only to prevent others from steering it in a direction disagreeable to you! If a ship is not steered, it drifts aimlessly and ends on the rocks!"

Michael was in the second row, grinning. He leaped to his feet. "I agree that we need to take charge of the project ourselves. I also agree that meeting more than once a week would interfere with vital research. Colonel Tavington here has executive experience, and no regular duties. I move that we elect him chief executive officer, to be answerable to the committee of department heads!" He roared out, "All in favor say aye!"

"Aye!" shouted a chorus of relieved voices.

Michael gave Tavington a wink, and said in an aside, "Looks like the job's all yours, bucko!"

Diana regarded him with sympathy, not understanding that the staff had done exactly what he had hoped for. Tavington was only slightly surprised at the offer. It was apparent that few of these people relished the idea of exercising authority. Yet someone must.

Michael turned to face the other staff members. "Anyone say nay?"

Alan stood. "I'm not precisely in disagreement, but I cannot but wonder what Colonel Tavington has in mind." He sneered slightly. "And I presume you do have something in mind, do you not, Colonel?"

It was a perfect opportunity. Tavington declared, "I do indeed."

This was the crisis. Tavington could refer the technical questions to the members of the applied physics department, who were all present. He presented his proposal quickly, clearly, and with the same air of supreme confidence he had used to explain battle plans and give orders. He had not lost his touch.

They were quiet, and then muttered a little among themselves. They were willing to consider it, at least.

Keith waved his hand, and stood. "All of us? You really mean all of us? That many people are bound to be noticed."

"Yes." Tavington replied crisply. "We shall be noticed. All of us, and the entire laboratory complex as well. Dr. Kolb assures me that a time gate of a commensurate size is quite feasible. We shall go openly. What reason have we for secrecy? It avails us nothing. And the more of us who go, the greater credence, the greater security, the greater chance of establishing a communality that can survive the challenges of the past, and create the kind of world we all desire. We shall have one another. There will be no more lonely journeys into the past."

Gretchen objected, "But if we alter the past too much, we can never return to the future. We won't exist."

"No," Tavington agreed, "But is it not your consensus that this future is untenable?" She nodded reluctantly. "Well then," he continued, still in resolute command mode, "Dr. Kolb and his able colleagues have found that even if one alters the future, one can still remain in the past. Therefore, our researchers can propose a past that suits our needs. We can go anywhere, to any time. In the event that past is not to our liking, we can always go further back in time. But to protect the team as a whole, and to explore all possible options, it is necessary that the entire project make the journey."

He had them. He could see their growing excitement as the idea caught fire. Diana was gazing at him in awe. She had never seen anything of his life as a soldier, and had never witnessed his dealings with his men or with the enemy.

Dieter stood next, and called out, "So where do we begin? Everything must be in order before we dare move the entire compound."

"I quite agree," affirmed Tavington. "Therefore, there will be a meeting of all department heads tomorrow morning. I suggest all of you get a good night's sleep and come to the meeting prepared to contribute useful ideas. And that is all I have to say at the moment." He gave them a slight bow of acknowledgement and stalked away through them, dismissing the shouted questions with "Tomorrow." It was always better to make a commanding exit than to stay and bicker. That only caused one to lose authority.

He passed through the grey-metal halls, and heard light steps running after him. He waited to let Diana catch up. She was quite aglow, and he was pleased that he had won her over, at least.

"William! You were brilliant! Everyone is so inspired—at last we have a direction. I admit I didn't think it possible, but now I'm so excited!" She took his arm and pressed against him. "How about the Restoration? We can help prevent the plague and fire in London. Charles II might be rational enough to believe us. What about Bermuda before the landing of 1609? What about—"

"What about getting to bed?" he growled amiably, nuzzling her ear. "And tomorrow we shall also began making plans for our private life together." He swept her up in his arms and rushed to their room. Tomorrow would be soon enough to talk, soon enough to have that abominable device excised from under her skin, soon enough to began having the life he wanted, even if it were to be in the distant past. For himself, he had visions of sailing past the Pharos of Alexandria, or riding through the green freshness of a land uninhabited centuries before. New Zealand? Madagascar? Perhaps Diana's idea of Bermuda might be suitable. Anywhere but this claustrophobic metal hothouse.

He kicked the door open, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, covering his face with kisses. She was giggling like a young girl. He smiled slightly, and ruthlessly caught her mouth with his, pressing her up against the wall. He grasped her under her thighs and heaved against her, again and again. The glass prisms of her silver candlesticks clinked together sympathetically with the vibrations. Diana cooed softly as sensitive parts rubbed together, pleasurable even through the barrier of their clothes. Tavington once more mentally cursed whoever had set the fashion of women wearing pants. It was unnatural, unattractive, and bloody inconvenient. Turning, he tossed her onto the luxurious bed, and was on her before she could manage a laugh of protest.

Next chapter: Part III. Tavington continues his hijacking of the Aurora Project, and considers where to go. Shall they travel to prehistory, to the Hellenistic Mediterranean, to late Roman Britain; or to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution? And who shall they take with them? Tavington considers retrieving some old comrades.

Apologies to the brilliant and likable Dr. Rocky Kolb of Fermilab, one of my favorite physicists. You might enjoy his book, Blind Watchers of the Sky.