Rebel in Time

'From Washington,' she said, smiling. 'I'm a little older but it's still me. Roxanne Delcourt.'

The words stunned him; he clutched to the sides of the chair as though suddenly dizzy. Dr Roxanne Delcourt! A visitor from another time, another age. The urgencies of battle had driven all memories of Washington from his brain. He was now so adapted to this world that he really had forgotten he had not been born in this age, but had travelled here from the future.

'Roxanne! I'll be damned, but it is you!'

'It is. Perhaps not the youngster you knew, I'm almost eighty-five now. But with the new drugs…'

'But you're not eighty-five, I remember that much, you must be closer to fifty-five. I don't understand. And what are you doing here? How did you find me?'

The questions tumbled out as long-forgotten memories returned. A distant world where he had once lived. Washington, DC, the laboratory off the Beltway, the machine that had sent him here. He hadn't thought about them in a very long time. The pressures of war, of staying alive and keeping his men alive, these had driven everything else from his mind. Memory came rushing back now.

'But what are you doing here now?' he asked. 'Your presence here, it can be no accident. And… your age, forgive me, it is hard to take in all at once.'

She nodded agreement. 'I'm sorry to be so abrupt. But it was the only way. My time is so limited. Let me tell you what happened after you left. We found the report that you prepared for us, thank you for that. We started digging for it the very next morning. When we cracked open the ancient box and saw the yellowed paper, the faded ink, I can't begin to tell you the impression that it made on all of us. I think it was then that we knew we had to do something to help you. We really began working in earnest, all of us. Admiral Colonne, he's retired now, but still strong, he helped. He sends his best wishes. And Bob Kleiman made me promise to say hello from him when I saw you. He was the one who was supposed to be here, not me.' A shadow crossed her face. 'Dead, cancer, over ten years ago. Or can we talk about time like that, subjective time?'

Her face was suddenly drawn, all of the years of her life in the lines scribed upon it.

'Roxanne,' Troy said softly. 'Thank you for coming. For caring that much about me.'

She blinked and sat up straighter, returning his smile. 'Someone had to, didn't they? The research went ahead after you left. Absolutely top secret. But everyone in government was so afraid of the possibilities that our hands were almost completely tied. They just didn't know what to do with us. Particularly with all the research restrictions that came in after the One-day War. After they discovered what McCulloch had done they actually stopped all experimenting for ten years. But eventually the programme continued. We worked for almost thirty years on improving the machine. It sounds so strange when I say it like that. Thirty years of my time have elapsed, while — what? — it has been five years for you. But it took us all of those years of work to develop the means to both travel backwards in time and then return.'

Troy's first confusion was over and he was beginning to understand what Roxanne and the team had accomplished. And why she had travelled back in time to this year, to seek him out.

'Do you mean.?'

'I do.' Her voice was so quiet that he could barely hear it. 'I've come to take you home, Troy. It's possible. It's no longer a one-way trip.'

Troy was on his feet, pacing the length of the tent and back, unable to stay still. It was impossible, it couldn't be happening. But it was. Could it be true? He spun to face her.

'Return to when?' he asked. 'To the time I left from — or soon after that?' She shook her head sadly.

'No, that is impossible. Or if it is possible — we just don't dare experiment to find out. Despite all of our work we still know so little about the real nature of time. I told you, it took us over thirty years to perfect the machine, and you never returned during that time. Therefore you didn't, you couldn't. But we'll go back together. Things aren't too bad in twenty-fifteen. Though there have been changes.'

Twenty-fifteen. The year was unimaginable. What sort of world would it be? For some reason he did not want to know. He spoke his doubts aloud.