HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-
Excerpt from Act 1 Scene V Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Chapter 43 - Interlude in modern earth

Office of the General Officer Commanding 4 Division, Aldershot Garrison

"Are you trying to tell me that the portal through to this other dimension has stabilised?" The General's grey eyebrows beetled together and his pale blue eyes had a steely sheen to them.

Dr Norman visibly tried to hide his excitement. His glasses had slid right down to the end of his nose and were precariously bobbing there, on the point of sliding right off. Unfortunately this had the effect of dragging the General's attention away from the matter at hand and onto the glasses. His frown grew deeper. He reached out with one finger and gently pushed them up to the bridge of the young scientist's nose.

Dr Norman blushed bright red. "Sorry." He mumbled apologetically. "I keep meaning to either buy a new pair or get these tightened at the opticians."

The General stared at him for a moment. "Off!" He barked and the young man jumped about three feet in the air looking wildly around him as though he was frantically wondering what he was supposed to get off.

"S...sir?" He asked.

"Not you!" The General said. "The daft dog. Mugger...off!"

The Cavalier King Charles spaniel had an utterly astounded look on its face as his beloved master ordered him off the easy chair. This was an unheard of situation. Obviously a terriblemistake. He cast one hopeful look at the General which turned baleful as he was firmly pointed in the direction of his basket behind the General's desk. As a way of making up to the dog, the General threw a couple of treats into the basket as Mugger slunk into it.

"Good boy!" The General said.

"S...sir?" Dr Norman quaked.

"Not, you for god's sake. The bloody dog!" The General gestured impatiently to the now empty chair. "Sit down." He sighed as Dr Norman hesitated and looked over at the dog. This was obviously going to take a while.

Enlightenment flooded into Dr Norman's face as he realised that the dog had been chased off the chair so that he could sit down. "Oh, of course! Sorry." He mumbled and gingerly sat on the very edge of the chair. Unfortunately time and wear had caused the main part of the seat and the cushion to sag away from the frame considerably, so the balancing act could only last for so long before his bottom slid into the well of the chair.

The General watched calmly while the scientist struggled to seat himself comfortably. Once he had, the General leaned against his desk rather than sat down on the other chair which he normally occupied. As a senior Staff Officer in the British Army he was more than well aware of keeping the upper hand and position of authority in any conversation and by standing up while his victim was sitting, he maintained that with ease.

"What's your first name?" He asked abruptly.

If Dr Norman was surprised by the question he didn't show it. "Robert sir, but my friends call me Rob." He beamed at the General whose lips twitched as if he was going to crack a smile any second.

"I'll call you Rob if that's all right with you." He said smoothly.

There was a knock at the door before Rob could nod his assent and a young soldier came in with a tray with some cups, a teapot and a plate of biscuits on it.

The General pointed at a small table. "On there if you please." The soldier put the tray down and stood to attention. "Thank you. Dismissed!"

"Well Rob." He began to pour out two cups of tea as the young soldier quietly closed the door behind him. "As you probably know, in addition to our three soldiers and a constable, the list of missing in action now includes a very senior police officer. Apparently kidnapped from his car as it stood right outside his home. Needless to say his wife is hysterical and his children are devastated and questions are now being asked by the PM himself who wants to be personally briefed on all aspects of the case." He handed Rob a cup. "So you can imagine that the idea that there might be a way for us to lose yet more security forces personnel and perhaps a slack handful of assorted civilians to the other side is not exactly filling me with enthusiasm."

The cup rattled on the saucer and the only way Rob could make it stop was by holding them together in a death grip. Some of the tea sloshed over the side and spattered lightly onto the chintzy cloth of the chair cover. His excited smile had frozen on his face somewhat. "Yes sir...but..."

The General raised one bush grey eyebrow and Rob's gaze followed it as it climbed up his forehead. "Now you tell me that you think it might be a good idea for us to try to send someone through this newly stabilised portal?"

The cup slid across the saucer but Rob managed to rescue it by grabbing the lip. That meant that the tea slopped onto his hand. He grimaced and gingerly transferred it to the small occasional table on which the photograph of Mrs General was placed strategically facing the General's desk. The General watched the delicate exercise with a 'what is he going to do next?' expression on his face. Luckily Rob completed the transfer without damaging or upsetting Mrs General in any way. One accomplished he leaned forward earnestly.

"Yes sir. I am aware that this is now a important matter at the highest level, but we are not suggesting that we send a person through..."

"I'm delighted to hear it." The General interrupted.

"...yet."

The General's face began to turn a shade which indicated an onset of apoplexy. "Yet?" His massive eyebrows went so high on his forehead they practically took off. A sudden vision of two jet propelled grey eyebrows flying around the room assailed Rob and he squeezed out a nervous giggle but clawed it back before it had a chance to develop into hysteria.

"No sir. What we are proposing is to send a probe through with a camera to spy out the lay of the land so to speak."

The high colour in the General's face began to fade. "For what purpose? We know full well that our people are on the other side there...wherever there is. I doubt very much they're sitting there on their arses just on the other side of the damn portal waiting for us to pop through and say hello. Anyway, it's not the getting through that's the problem is it? It's the coming back."

"Ah!" Rob sat on the front of his chair. "Yes, but the dimensions and the nature of the portal has changed. According to our instruments which are constantly monitoring changes, it has become more stable. We gave it a week after the Inspector disappeared to make sure that it wasn't just a temporary stabilisation, but we are sure now."

"You think that the Inspector's disappearance is somehow linked with the portal stabilising?"

Rob shook his head. "I...we don't know. To our knowledge Inspector Davies was nowhere near the portal physically when he disappeared. I mean...nobody actually saw him and he would have been picked up on our recordings if he had passed through physically or been carried through. However the fact remains that the portal began to stabilise at the same time he disappeared and has remained stable ever since."

"Almost as though his disappearance had triggered it off." The General finished.

Rob nodded. "Yes sir."

"And you want to send a probe through to see what the score is on the other side and then bring it back to to make sure it survives the return journey."

"Yes sir." Rob leaned further forward, eagerness flowing from every pore. "The probe will send us live pictures and invaluable data back so we can see what it's like on the other side and even whether the air is healthy or whether the temperature is cold or hot."

The General finally sat down on the other chair. "All right. So what kind of range does this probe have? Are we talking a few feet or further?"

"It has a range of twenty five metres sir. Not a large range by any means but large enough that we could get a good idea of what kind of place they are in, but more importantly, it might be possible send something called a UAV through."

"Unmanned aerial vehicle." The General whispered to himself. "Of course!"

Rob grinned. "Yes sir. We have some developed for reconnaissance purposes. They're fitted with remote sensor devices capable of accurately picking up a signal over very long distances."

The General looked at him. "I think I know where you are going with this." He said softly. "You think that we can probably pinpoint where our people our located by a certain something that Chief Knowles is carrying from his special forces service. You do realise that this is highly classified information don't you?"

"Yes I do sir." Rob's face grew serious. "I worked on the development of the chip General. My clearance is up to UK Eyes Only. Sergeant Major Knowles was one member of a pilot programme for some technology to find key operatives missing in action behind enemy lines. He trialled the chip in Afghanistan after its insertion at Porton Down."

The General stood up and paced restlessly around the office. He finally came to a halt by the large picture windows which led out onto the balcony.

"The chip wasn't removed when he returned from Afghanistan because it was considered dangerous to do so in his case. He suffered an injury which required invasive surgery and which meant that the chip moved position. It now lies far too close to one of his major arteries. If the surgeons cut into him to remove it he would probably die." Rob explained.

The General nodded. "Yes, I saw the file on him when he disappeared through that damn portal. Could it have been deactivated?"

"Only by removal and destroying it."

"Hmm. I see. A somewhat fortuitous situation considering the predicament our people are in over in that other timeline." He turned to Rob. "Is there any chance at all that by sending this thing through, providing it's safe of course, we interfere with their futures and by doing so, our own?"

Rob shook his head. "I very much doubt that it has or will."

"How can you be so sure?" The General fiddled with his wife's photograph on the occasional table.

Rob stood up and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Because sir...they have had plenty of time to influence theirs and subsequently our future and nothing has happened to change anything. If it had, neither of us would probably be standing here. And if what I suspect is true sir, then the history we are talking about is so far back, it actually pre-dates the Ice Age, Dinosaurs and anything else we have managed to learn about the past. It's my belief that they are back in a civilisation that goes back to the real dawn of time. A civilisation that was destroyed by some catastrophe large enough to redesign the face of the planet and which killed off the original inhabitants."

The General felt the hairs stand up on the back of his head as Rob spoke. "You're saying that the history they are now in is actually a totally different one to ours, but just on the same planet."

Rob smiled. "Yes. The various myths we hear aren't always fairy tales General. They sometimes have more than a grain of truth in them. Elves, fairies, wizards, dragons, monsters. Where do they come from if it isn't from a deep ingrained primeval consciousness? Or are they tales to frighten children? They're certainly considered to be that today, but the people way back in time weren't children. They were certainly primitive, but not children. Yet the tales have been handed down and I believe have some basis in reality." He stood up and moved closer to the window. "What if... what if J R R Tolkien's tales weren't just tales? What if they were a history instead? A history which pre-dates ours by millions of years."

The General gasped and turned to face him. "My god, you've seen something!"

Rob nodded a little shamefaced. "We sent a probe halfway through, but had to pull it back when the military liaison officer hit the roof and demanded that we get permission. However, before we pulled it back it took some pictures." He handed the General a sealed buff envelope marked Top Secret which he had taken out of the locked briefcase he carried.

The General reached out and took the envelope with a trembling hand. He carefully undid the seal on the envelope and slid out four flimsy sheets. He turned them over carefully and studied the first one. Rob watched the colour die out of his face and saw him grope for his glasses in his top pocket. He put them on, but the picture still showed exactly what he thought he had seen without the glasses.

Staring back at the camera was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his entire life. Very tall he was, that was evident even from the grainy print. He had to be approaching seven foot tall at least. His face was slender and framed with a mass of pale blond or silver hair. The sides of his hair were braided and revealed the delicate leaf shape of his ears. He was dressed in bright chain mail armour and the expression on his face and in his bright intelligent eyes was lively curiosity. In the second picture he was reaching out for the probe with one slender, finely shaped hand. The other clutched a lethal looking spear with a bright shining tip.

"Dear god in heaven." The General whispered and the pictures fluttered heedlessly to the ground.

ooOoo