Chapter 3
Phileas and Jules had a similar thought cross their minds at the same time. There had been three time machines. Dumas's Phoenix which had been sent away just as the doctor had described. Young Al's creation they had dealt with in a similar manner. The third had been sent by sabotage into the distant past where it should have stayed, never to cause anyone trouble again.
Dr. Parker said, "In September of 1939 and December of 1940, two of your grandson's sons will be killed. One we believe was a natural occurrence in the flow of time. The other was not. By records we can keep, that second death happened one week before it was supposed to. The murder of your great-grandson and two others later were highly suspicious. The two young people were not supposed to have died so young. And since that event, there has been attempts on two of the last three male heirs to the Fogg line. If they are killed, your direct line will be eradicated. We have also detected some tampering with other far-reaching events in the following year. If those changes are allowed to stand, they will cause a dramatic shift in the flow of future events."
Dr. Hatfield took the conversation up in summation. "Someone in your past, sir; someone that has obtained access to time travel, has decided your family line is in their way. 1940 is part of a crucial block of time that determines the course the world takes in its development. You were an agent in the Secret Service. Your wife was a very active agent and is an administrative officer in your present. Either you or she has made a very dangerous enemy."
"Whoever is doing this must be stopped!" Dr. Nance said, breaking in. He had been fidgeting through his colleague's explanations and could stay silent no longer. "You will know your enemies better than us and for complicated reasons we cannot go into our distant past to hunt them down. You, however, can go into the year 1940 with less chance of causing damage. We can place you near the first attack on your family. If you are not able to stop that event from happening, that out of time death will not be overly damaging to the continuum. Being there, however, may give you information you need to keep the next murders from happening. The next two people are the crucial ones to save. If you manage to save their lives and stop your enemy from acting further, you will have been successful."
Dr. Hatfield said, "Now, sir, can you think of any person or persons in your past who would have a grudge against you of this magnitude. Would they have access to time travel?"
"Why don't you already know that?" Jules cut in. "It seems to me you know a great deal and should be able to handle this yourself." Their explanations and non-explanations troubled him. All knowing scientists should not have to depend on us to do their work.
"I concur," Phileas said. The situation was mind boggling, but with access to time travel of the type you have, and with records of the kind you say you possess, you should not need our help. "I would also like to know why you, as the regulators of time travel, if I have that right, cannot police your own problems?"
Dr. Nance took up that question. "Mr. Fogg, we don't know your enemy. We can't find any reference to who this person or persons might be. If we went into the past, we would be working completely blind."
He then turned to Jules. "To answer your question, Mr. Verne, we don't have very detailed records from your time. Yours is before the time of precise record keeping. It is also before archiving techniques that stand up to wear. Handwritten diaries fade, fires destroy. Multiple copies of civil and personal records don't exist in your time in a way that would allow us to cross-reference a specific person and know his or her past with any detail. That sort of information is crucial to our acting in the past. It keeps us from adversely affecting the timeline. So, as there is no way for us to know who or what we will be dealing with, we have decided to request your help."
She dropped her gaze feeling a need to further explain. "This is a highly unorthodox thing we are doing, getting people from the past involved in our concerns. The need to stop this person is great. We had to send observers to scout your activities and choose the best time for transport. We knew you, Mr. Fogg, owned the house, but not where you were or if you were even in England at the time."
She went silent, looking at Phileas Fogg. Until a very detailed search into the nearest geographic locations of the time jumps had been done to discover the identity of the time traveler from the nineteenth century, we didn't know Phileas Fogg had ever been more than a fictional character from one of Jules Verne's books. When the search coordinates were converted into nineteenth century addresses, the name on a mortgage certificate for a house in London and the deed to an old manor house that used to exist in Derbyshire, shocked everyone. Upon further research, we discovered Phileas Fogg had been the son of the founder of the Secret Service and a long-time agent in his own right. At that point, we knew we had no hope of finding out who our culprit was. Mr. Fogg could have gained a time traveling enemy from anywhere over his and his wife's long careers. And Secret Service archives told too little.
Dr. Nance took up the conversation once again, raking his hair away from his eyes in frustration. "We don't expect you to fully understand the constraints we live under. We only ask that you, with your knowledge of your own past, go to the year 1940 and attempt to stop the destruction of your family line. If you do this, you should be able to stop whoever is trying to tamper with the timelines. Doing it ourselves is too dangerous."
"Why?" Jules said. "And this time, please give me a straight answer."
"Because… we know the history of the year 1940," Dr. Nance reluctantly said. "My ancestors lived through it and some of them died in it. If I were to go back in time, the emotional baggage could cause me to try to warn the inhabitants of things to come. It has happened again and again. A ban on time travel before the date it was officially discovered exists to avoid that. You, however, could go into the past and see that only one thing gets changed to the way it should be. You have no knowledge of other events. You didn't live through the year 1940 nor have you ever been told of it or read about it, so you are not going to be tempted to meddle in extraneous events. You can concentrate on the one event, in this case, the capture of an enemy from your own time. They must be kept from doing whatever getting your descendants out of the way will allow! Sir, that is a very dangerous time to tamper with! The repercussions–"
Dr. Parker shouted, "Nance, enough!" The nervous younger scientist went silent. Dr. Parker turned to his guests to make the final appeal. "If you agree to help us in this, you will be moved to a point two hours before the first attack takes place. You will remain until an hour after the second attacks. Whether you are successful or not, you will be brought back to your own time moments after you were brought here. If you have not succeeded, the chance will have passed. Protecting the last two heirs will serve no purpose. The continuum will have become so fractured by then, it will make no difference."
"I see," Phileas said. Not that he truly understood a single thing, it just seemed the thing to say.
"There is one small glitch in this," Dr. Nance said. "Because you two were taken from your time together, you must transport through time together for now on. I can't send Mr. Verne back to his own time without you, Mr. Fogg. And I can't send you to the year 1940 without him."
"Just our luck," Phileas said sarcastically. He had been warming up to what they were asking, but now would have to refuse. He and Rebecca had beaten the League of Darkness. Yet, Phileas thought he still might have a mission or two left in him. But Verne, he had always been a hapless partner, one who had no major responsibilities or ties. He was now a settled man with a wife. And maybe, just maybe, his new book was the first with more to come. It wouldn't do, risking him in something that didn't concern him.
"I can see what you are thinking Fogg, and the answer is yes," Jules said, giving Phileas a hard look. "I would be more than happy to be of assistance. And no, you are not going to be noble and refuse this chance to protect your descendants because of my presence. Especially as we both know who we may be up against. That does concern me on a very personal level."
Fogg was taken aback by Verne's determined stance, and then irritated. When did Jules Verne get the gall to speak to me that way? Sometimes, I prefer the younger man Jules was to the mature self-assured man he has become. The young idealistic Jules Verne may have been self-righteous, but he never openly challenged me. Well… never in the heat of battle or over the details of a mission. At every other occasion, Verne's strong views were impossible to contain.
"I am not going to go back to our time without attempting to correct this problem Fogg," Jules insisted. "And as we can't do this without each other, you will just have to accept me as your partner."
Phileas gave his friend a stern look that grudgingly changed to a rueful smile. "I accept your terms, so long as you agree to give me the lead. Seniority and experience after all," Phileas drawled.
"Of course," Jules accepted. "It will be like old times."
"Not quite, my friend," Phileas corrected. "There will be two of our old team missing and we are both older." Loathe as I am to mention not quite being the man I once was. Five years of retirement has allowed a lifetime of rigorous work to catch up with me. Besides needing my cane these days, my sight is fading… and other things. Should I really be doing this? What is the alternative? Do I still have what it takes to handle that enemy?
Jules dismissed the naysaying he saw in his friend's eyes. Being older felt like an asset, in his case. The fact that I am older and more experienced in life should make this proposed jaunt more likely to succeed. But even then, did I not help rescue Rebecca from Count Rimini, along with a few dozen other such events? With my present maturity and strength and Fogg's long experience we should do just fine. Jules said to the three waiting for their answer; "We accept the mission."