The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [231]
“Then,” replied my father thoughtfully, “we will have to outsmart them! They will expect us to arrive at the right time and the right place—but we won’t. We’ll arrive at the right place but at the wrong time, then simply wait. Worth a try, wouldn’t you say?”
I smiled.
“Definitely!”
I was conscious of a series of rapid flashes and there we were in a blacked-out Humber Snipe, driving alongside a dark strip of water on a moonlit night. In the distance I could see searchlights crisscross the sky and the distant thump-thump-thump of a bombing raid.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Dad changed down a gear.
“Approaching Henley-on-Thames in occupied England, November 1946.”
I looked out at the river again, an uncomfortable feeling starting to develop in the pit of my stomach.
“Is this . . . is this where Landen—you know—in the car accident?”
“This is where it happens, but not when. If I were to jump straight there, Lavoisier would be on to us like a shot. Ever played Kick the Can?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a bit like that. Guile, stealth, patience—and a small amount of cheating. Okay, we’re here.”
We had reached an area of the road where there was a sharp bend. I could see how an inattentive motorist might easily misjudge the road and end up in the river. I shivered.
We got out and Dad walked across the road to where a small group of silver birches stood amidst a tangle of dead bracken and brambles. It was a good place to observe the bend in the road; we were barely ten yards away. Dad laid down a plastic carrier bag he had brought and we sat on the grass, leaning up against the smooth bark of a large birch.
“Now what?”
“We wait for six months.”
“Six months? Dad, are you crazy? We can’t sit here for six months!”
“So little time, so much to learn,” mused my father. “Do you want a sandwich? Your mother leaves them out for me every morning. I’m not mad keen on corned beef and custard, but it has a sort of eccentric charm—and it does fill a hole.”
“Six months?” I repeated.
He took a bite from his sandwich.
“Lesson one in time travel, Thursday. First of all, we are all time travelers. The vast majority of us manage only one day per day. Now if we accelerate ourselves like so—”
The clouds gathered speed above our heads and the trees shook faster in the light breeze; by the light of the moon I could see that the pace of the river had increased dramatically; a convoy of lorries sped past us in sudden accelerated movement.
“This is about twenty days per day—every minute compressed into about three seconds. Any slower and we would be visible. As it is, an outside observer might think he saw a man and woman sitting at the bottom of these trees, but if he looked again we would be gone. Ever thought you saw someone, then looked again only to find them gone?”
“Sure.”
“ChronoGuard traffic moving through, most likely.”
The dawn was breaking and presently a German Wehrmacht patrol found our abandoned car and dashed around looking for us before a breakdown truck appeared and took the car away. More cars rushed along the road and the clouds sped rapidly across the sky.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” said my father. “I miss all this, but I have so little time these days. At fifty daypers we would still have to wait a good three or four days for Landen’s accident; I’ve a dental appointment, so we’re going to have to pick it up a bit.”
The clouds sped faster; cars and pedestrians were nothing more than blurs. The shadow of the trees cast by the sun traversed rapidly and lengthened in the afternoon sun; pretty soon it was evening and the clouds were tinged with pink before the rapidly gathering gloom overtook the day and the stars appeared, followed by the moon, which arced rapidly across the sky. The stars spun around the pole star as the sky grew bluer with the early dawn and the sun began its rapid climb in the east.
“Eight and one-half thousand daypers,” explained my father. “This is my favorite bit. Watch the leaves!”
The sun now rose and set in under ten seconds. Pedestrians were