57. Driftless

Nigel wanted to return to the Cotswolds. Things had slowed down, while the Station X powers that be and presumably the War Cabinet dithered rather than ordering another Colossus built. Nigel had thrown in his lot thoroughly with a machine so futuristic that Mateo — a man who had regularly carried two computers in his pocket — could see it as familiar and homey.

He had time now. It would surely heat up again, but for now, thanks to this foolish delay, he had time. Could Mateo contribute more to the war effort? Maybe. But he deserved a chance to go home in the end. He had to help him. He had to try. His friend’s note had mentioned calibration. With any luck he could help things get closer.

He borrowed a detailed atlas of the United Kingdom, and found the exact latitude and longitude of the field, as best he could. The altitude too — why not. Then he bought a train ticket on his next day off and set out.

There was an arrow in the field. The same arrow, he thought. He recognized the grey fletching. The note was still on it, its yellow bleached but still odd. A bright blue one was taped below it. He hurried over and unpicked it with shaking fingers.

“To M’s friend: thank you. Can you give us another date/time.” The same sticky blue ink.

He knelt in the grass to put the unrolled note on his knee, and wrote the time, the date, the latitude, and the longitude, and the altitude. He would have to assume that it was still in use decades in the future. Then he paused. These were people on the other end, worried friends, not a calculating machine awaiting a punchcard. He licked his pencil again and wrote “Please excuse me for taking so long to reply. These are interesting times and I was unable to make the trip here until now. Best of luck and thank you.”

Then he taped the note back to the arrow, waited for a moment as though something would happen, then walked away.

Maybe he had enough evidence now that he could present it to Mateo. Flowers had already started a major overhaul based on his design, too. Maybe that was Mateo’s contribution — a sizable one, too — so it wouldn’t be a loss to the war effort for him to go home. Things were slow now on the Colossus, the overhaul mostly being engineering experts in valve-based telephone switchboards, which Mateo was not. And obviously someone was able to pass through the wormhole, or at least reach through, to retrieve the arrow.

***

It was a week before Avi got particle accelerator time after their second note to the past. The guy(?) on the other end had been really precise, and hopefully a few more passes would let him dial it in. Hopefully that would prevent, or at least reduce, the terrifying slippage of the past end.

Colette went out again. It was slightly less freaky on round two. At least for her — Avi was a wreck, sending somebody else through like that. This time it seemed like winter, or late fall. Had it stopped slipping?

“Got it,” she said when her head cleared, feverishly getting in Avi’s way as he unpicked the tape off the shaft.

He breathed out. “...it’s another note from somebody else. The same person, I guess. The handwriting is the same.”

They read it.

“...shit, it’s slipped almost a year since last week,” Avi whispered.

Then he shook himself. “Ok, it’s ok, I can calibrate based on this. We can make this work. Let me write another note.”

“Why’s somebody else answering, if Mat’s ok?” Colette mumbled as if to herself.

Avi didn’t answer right away.

“...if he’s involved with some kind of computing research, maybe they think it’s a security risk.”

“Then is he locked up?” Avi said in alarm, turning around.

“I don’t know! If this ‘Drift’ mentioned maybe once or twice in some declassified papers is him, then no, he’s not locked up.”

“Or he wasn’t locked up at that point.”

“Whoever wrote this is helping us,” Colette argued. “They could have just ignored the note. Or burned it.” She paused. “Or they’re using us somehow.”

“Are we going to do anything different based on that?” Avi said bluntly. “Like stop trying to get him back?”

“No. We’re not.”

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