Overtime. Part 23

'Orseraisesamis

Orpri Deu de la sus

Qu 'a lor fin soie pris...'

... a bit he'd never been particularly fond of. He could make out the s.h.i.+p properly now; a heavy twin-castled long-distance flying the pennant of the Cinque Ports and the arms of Winchelsea. And they were singing:

'L'amours dont sui epris

Me semont de chanter.'

Blondel filled his lungs and shouted, 'Ahoy!' Well, why not? He waited. The s.h.i.+p was still going. Then it changed tack, slewing around slightly. There was a sort of flat-bottomed thud and he looked up to see that they had launched a boat. He stood up and waited.

'Are you all right?' The man in the boat was talking to him. 'Fine,' he shouted back. 'Why were you singing that particular song?'

'I'll throw you a line,' said the man. 'Tread water till I get to you.'

Blondel was about to comment but he thought No, why bother? He yelled back his thanks and stayed where he was. After a while, the boat came close enough for the man to throw him a length of rope, which he caught. Then he walked across to the boat and climbed in.

'Ahoy,' he said affably.

The man in the boat looked at him for a moment. He seemed very worried. 'Where are we?' he said.

Blondel smiled. The man didn't look like he was ready for this; but then, people who can't handle heavy answers shouldn't ask heavy questions. He decided to put it as gently as he possibly could.

'I can't say for sure,' he said, 'but I have a feeling that we're in the Archives.'

'The Archives,' the man repeated.

'That's right,' Blondel replied.

'You don't mean the Maldives?'

'No, not the Maldives,' Blondel answered. 'The Archives are quite different. Not that I'm sure, like I said. Did you sail off the edge of the world?'

The man nodded.

'I thought so,' Blondel said. 'Somebody told you the world was round, and that if you kept sailing due west you'd end up in India. A man in a pub, right?'

The man nodded again.

'And you thought about it, and you reckoned Yes, it must be, else the sea would all fall off the edge, and so you set out and you got to the edge and you fell off. Yes?'

'Yes.'

Blondel sighed. 'And all these other s.h.i.+ps must have done the same, I suppose. That settles it. We're definitely in the Archives.' He thought about it for a moment. 'Pity, that,' he added.

The man gave him a long, deliberate stare. 'So where are we? I mean, is there any chance of getting back?'

'Your guess,' Blondel replied, 'is as good as mine. I got here another way, so maybe there is. On the other hand maybe there isn't, that's the trouble with this lot here. n.o.body knows anything about it. Except that it exists, of course. Everyone's pretty definite about that.'

The man's two friends who had been rowing the boat were beginning to get restless. 'I'm sorry,' Blondel said, 'maybe you'd prefer it if I left.'

'For G.o.d's sake, man,' said the man, 'tell me where the h.e.l.l we are and stop fooling about.'

'You may not like it.'

'For G.o.d's sake...'

'Oh,' said Blondel. 'All right, then.'

History, as has been observed before, is constantly changing. This is partly due to the activities of irresponsible time-travellers; but mostly the changes are quite natural.

Consider leaves. For a while they hang about on trees; then they die, fall off and lie about on the ground. If n.o.body happens along to sweep them up, they rot down into a compacted ma.s.s and stay there until geological forces put heavy weights on top of them and turn them into coal. Later still, they become diamonds.

Just as the strata of the earth have faults in them, so does history; chunks of it get pushed out of shape, deformed or misplaced. In the same way that some leaves become coal and some become diamonds, so not all events decay in the same way. Some of them, in fact, go wrong. Badly wrong. In due course, they can become extremely unstable and accordingly hazardous.

The Archives are where events are stored which shouldn't have happened but did. It is impossible to be exact, but recent estimates suggest that they now occupy a much larger area of s.p.a.ceTime than the Orthodox or Correct course of history, and the number of reported leaks of excluded matter from the Archives into the Topside (as the Orthodoxy is called in theochronological jargon) increases alarmingly each year. To a certain extent this is due to the irresponsible and highly illegal exploitation of the mineral resources of the Archives by pirate chemical companies - most areas of Archive time predate the commercial use of fossil fuels, and so there are enormous untapped reserves of oil, coal and natural gas down there, but of course it is incredibly hazardous to bring it back - and the Time Wardens have recently been awarded Draconian powers to prevent the traffic. Unfortunately, their efforts so far have been less than successful, and the conclusion of their latest report - 'Whether it is possible to eradicate this menace, time alone can tell' - has been widely criticised as extremely unhelpful.

'You're having me on,' the man said.

'I didn't think you'd like it,' Blondel replied. 'Why were your crew singing that song?'

'Which song?'

'L'Amours Dont Sui Epris,' Blondel said.

'Is that what it's called?' the man said. 'Because it's a good song, I suppose; everybody knows the words and when you've got a s.h.i.+p full of men all on the point of complete and utter panic, I always find the best thing to do is sing something, terribly loudly. Look, does it matter?'

'You haven't,' Blondel persevered, 'seen Richard the Lion-Heart anywhere, by any chance?'

'Who?'

'Never mind,' Blondel said. 'It was only a thought. Look, I mustn't keep you. Thanks for everything.' He stood up and climbed out of the boat.

'Look...'

'Cheers, then!' Blondel waved, and started to walk.

'Come back!' the man yelled. 'Look, how do we get out of here?'

Blondel turned round and looked at him sadly. 'You don't,' he said. 'You never happened. Ciao.'