Chapter 21

When the French innkeeper's car reached the appointed place, Phileas and Jules looked around in complete confusion. It was indeed just a field, a large open area. The channel was several miles away. Were they really going to be left here with an injured woman?

Phileas had no chance to dwell on it. Miss Fogg opened her door and carefully worked her way out of her seat. Phileas could tell her leg still caused her pain and quickly came to her aid. Fogg steadied them both with his cane as he waited for the other two men to join them on the side of the road.

"Take care, Jacques," Roberta said, giving the man a kiss on the cheek as she leaned from Phileas's support to his. "It looks like you won't be seeing me again for some time."

"Be well, Mademoiselle." The Frenchman smiled and handed Roberta the package he had brought with him. "These are our contributions to allied intelligence. Give it to your people with France's compliments." With that, he returned to his vehicle and left.

Roberta watched as he drove away. "Jacques will go to the next town to send word of what happened. All the resistance needs to know about this incident. Let's get off the road and into this field, she indicated to their right. We can wait in that stand of trees over there."

Time went by slowly as the three waited. With an injured woman leaning on his side, Phileas felt very vulnerable. "Is someone coming for us soon?" he asked hopefully, watching the roads.

"Yes, very soon," Roberta assured him. But she was not watching the roads. Her eyes were scanning the stars.

Moments later, a large vehicle appeared out of nowhere in the darkness. Roberta Fogg nearly screamed in fright as the thing came into being not ten yards in front of her. She quickly pulled her pistol out of her bag, but Phileas stopped her. "It's all right, I know what this is."

Phileas stared at the huge metal craft in front of them. He gave Miss Fogg's support over to Jules so he could approach the time machine. Its door opened. Out of it came the familiar form of Jean Passepartout. The Frenchman stepped out of the time machine and walked straight to him. Phileas had never seen the seriousness in his face.

"Phileas Fogg," he said. "You must be coming with me. This altering of time to do a good thing has caused only terrible things to happen. You trying three times to make time do as you wanting. It will not. We discussing this. You telling Passepartout yourself where and when to be finding you."

Phileas's shock at that pronouncement was strong, but so was his determination. He had taken on this mission and would see it though. But apparently, I have–and failed.

"Tell me what has happened Passepartout," Phileas said. "Perhaps we have neglected something."

"You have only neglected comprehending that time does not do what Phileas Fogg wanting!"

His former valet said it sternly, fire in his eyes. For a moment Phileas was too shocked at the man's tone to see anything but Passepartout, a former servant, had just shown unbelievable disrespect in speaking to him. "I beg your pardon?"

"You not needing to beg pardon, Phileas Fogg." Passepartout said it, deliberately misunderstanding him. "Ones sending you are ones who must beg pardon. They very arrogant, thinking time be bending to mortal wishes. They sending you on fool's errand. Three times you trying. Three times you being killed! Three times the Foggs of this time being killed! Once Jules Verne is taken away! Once even Rebecca being killed. She coming to you, letting you make her try changing what won't! You coming with me now. Give up changing time!"

Never had Passepartout ever spoken to him this way, but Phileas heard his old friend's words, even couched in angry accusations as they were. Three attempts and all failures? A heavy weight settled on his heart. There was a part of him, a warrior that refused to give up the fight. But a more civilized part of him knew a lost cause when he saw one. Phileas let his anger and his disappointments go. He turned from Passepartout and paced the field a few moments before settling on a decision.

"Passepartout, move the Phoenix over to those trees where it will be out of sight. Miss Fogg is waiting for conveyance back to England. We see her off before leaving. He turned, looking back to Jean. "Will that be satisfactory?"

"Most satisfactory, sir," Jean said. He did not smile or show any of his normal humor in answering. Whatever Passepartout had gone through before coming here had made him as sober as a judge. And that, frankly, disturbed Phileas down to his soul.

Roberta Fogg stood on one foot against Jules Verne's side, staring wide-eyed at what was being said in front of her. She had had several shocks since the sun set. This was one too many to comprehend.

Phileas Fogg walked the short distance back to her. "It seems we will not be going with you after all," he said. "I would ask that you not repeat anything you have heard. Our presence seems to have caused more harm than help. As such, I will… remove us and allow what will be to be. I am sorry."

"There!" Roberta said, pointing up into the sky.

Phileas looked in the direction she indicated but saw nothing. Finally, staring and concentrating, he saw something moving through the stars. Miss Fogg pulled a thick instrument out of her bag. She did something to it in the dark. A beam of light flashed, stabbing the night.

A low buzzing, like a swarm of bees could be heard before anything could be clearly seen. In awe, Phileas watched as a large machine with wings glided to the field in front of them. It made the ground with a few bounces. She flashed the light again several times. The machine turned in response, growling toward their position. A young man came out of the machine by a side door jumping to the ground. "You are hurt!" He said as he noticed her bandaged leg. He showed a pistol pointing it at Verne and Fogg. "Who are your friends?"

"Friends and family," Roberta answered. "Father is dead. Our room was raided. I lived through it by a miracle. They came looking for me after the soldiers left. These two helped me get here."

The pilot asked, "Will they be coming with us?"

"No, they are staying."

The pilot nodded. "Sorry about your father. Let's go." With that he opened another door in the machine and helped Phileas and Jules carry Miss Fogg inside. Once she was seated, they left the flying machine and watched it move away and lift off the ground. It was the strangest of the strange things they had seen thus far.

"Let's go, Fogg," Jules said. "She will be alright."

"For now," Phileas said. "But what of a month from now?"

Phileas was not quite the same man when he came back to his own time with Jules and Passepartout. I had a chance to keep my family alive and well and failed at every turn. I assume, in three tries, Jules and then Rebecca and Passepartout and I would have looked at the problem from every angle possible. And, I don't personally have direct knowledge of any of it, so will always have lingering doubts that I could have succeeded if given another chance. But seeing Jean Passepartout's still stony countenance. Plainly all had come to a bad end and a fourth effort would be useless.

In four generations my family will be wiped out by some remnant of the League of Darkness. It is a defeat I would have preferred not to know. I would never have known had the timekeepers not interfered. Phileas could not bring himself to anger against them. The timekeepers had done all they could to counter the threat without interfering with the flow of time, as they saw it.

The three men returned to the mid-nineteenth century the same day Jules and Fogg had been removed from London. It had been decided that they would remain in the country for a short time before heading back to the city. They would have to explain why they had suddenly decided to go to the country to Rebecca, but that would be a minor undertaking. The major problem was getting Passepartout back home. He would have to remain in the country until they were sure he could do so without running into himself. An odd paradox. Something nagged at Phileas, shouldn't this Passepartout also not exist anymore?

The time machine they left parked in the cavern where it had been hidden, to be hidden again. Phileas looked at the machine one last time, considering all he knew of time travel now and the possibility of one last trip. "Passepartout, do you remember Mrs. Westland?"

"Yes," Jean said. "She leaving, to teach at girl's school."

"She died a year after she left us of pneumonia," Fogg said. "I was told of it because I wrote her reference and there was no one else to inform. She was buried near the school. I have always felt badly about her being trapped here in the past, so far away from her family. I never considered it before, but having the Phoenix… I am thinking it would be good to correct that. Andrea didn't belong here and should not have had to die alone."

"You wanting to take her home," Passepartout said. At present, he didn't want to even think of time travel, but he would willingly pilot the machine again for that endeavor. Good lady should not have come to past any more than they going to future. "It being good thing," he said. "When you ready to make journey, Passepartout being ready to go."

"Thank you, my friend." Phileas felt bone deep tired. "We will discuss it again later. For now, let's go to the house. We will stay the night and head back to London tomorrow. I will make inquiries in France to see if it will be safe for you to return home."

After a walk in the dark to the manor house, the men found it empty but for McIvers who acted as caretaker when Fogg was not in residence. McIvers had been with the family too long to ask questions of the sudden appearance of the master of the house with his two French friends. He prepared three rooms and made plans to have breakfast available in the morning.

Phileas didn't feel much like talking, so he bid his friends goodnight to sequester himself and his troubled thoughts in his room.

Phileas was just reaching for a nightshirt when an odd moment of dizziness came over him. In the next second, he was in the harsh, brightly lit room that the timekeepers had transported him to the first time. Dr. Nance came through the wall as he had done before and motioned him not to speak until he had closed the door again.

"What do you want?" Phileas said, annoyance showing in his voice. "The attempt has been made and failed. There is no point in another try. You should never have gotten me involved."

Dr. Nance's normal overly energetic manner crackled about him like static electricity. "You aren't supposed to be here, but I had Peter bring you in for a short message. The others didn't want you contacted again. Listen to me, sir. We don't have much time. You didn't fail. It worked. You made one small change that made all the difference. We would never have known about doing what you did. Your family lived through the war and for generations afterward. I wanted you to know. I wouldn't want to go through life thinking my family's future had been cut short because of something I did or didn't do."

The wall behind Dr. Nance reopened itself and a man's red curly head peered into the room. "Times up Nance; I can't keep this off the transport logs forever."

"Goodbye, Mr. Fogg," the doctor said and hurried back out the door.

The world shifted once again. Phileas was back in his own room. He sat down heavily on the bed. When the strange unreality of what had just happened settled, he shook his head and smiled. There is only one thing I could possibly have done.