Travelling Time

Despite all their fancy techniques the doctors cannot really understand what has happened to my mind. Not that you can blame the poor old souls - my case is rather unusual. They try to be encouraging but we all know that the prognosis isn't good, so while I'm still able I've decided to set down the course of events that led me to this state, partly to put my own view on record, partly in the lingering hope that the whole process will serve as some type of catharsis. That is perhaps the only chance I've got left.

If you're reading this I expect you must have heard of the Dittering Hoo excavation. It might be easy to forget now, but at first the project was interesting but not particularly esoteric. Dittering Hoo was, apparently, just a particularly well preserved 14th Century plague village buried by sediment a couple of hundred metres beyond the line of the North Kent sea defences. It was all the stuff of solid academic advance, nothing revolutionary.

I'd been on site a couple of weeks when I first learnt of something out of place, something discordant which I felt must have a hidden significance that I just could not place precisely.

We had generators on site, a small desalination unit to provide fresh water and some awful biofermentation toilets. A microwave dish provided our link to the net and specifically to the University of London's new research computer.

It was that "computer" which was the problem. I was continually being reminded that it wasn't actually a computer at all and that calling it one was merely making me look out of touch. Apparently it utilised the latest quantum circuitry and could solve certain types of problems instantaneously - including problems that were mathematically non-computable. The correct term for the data processor was "cognitor", and there were, apparently, good theoretical reasons for assuming that such devices would be capable of true self-awareness. Basically the whole set up seemed completely over the top for an archaeological dig, even in these days when public escapism means that "heritage" is a growth industry.

Once I'd learnt all this I confronted Fromentas over why we needed such an advanced machine. Fromentas - Doctor Maurice Fromentas - was the Project Leader and my immediate "boss". Though I expect you know that - by now he must be quite famous. I can recall the incident clearly. It was a typically overcast day, with a strong north wind coming in over the estuary. We could hear it whistling in the background outside our domes.

"Thomas," Fromentas began to explain patiently, in his irritatingly flawless English, "we need the latest data processing technology in order to integrate the information we will be uncovering. I don't intend just to create a dry old database for this one. No - I want a full simulation."

"Simulation?"

"Yes - a virtual reality created within the cognitor and continuously updated to ensure self-consistency and the uptake of new discoveries. We will need someone - let's call him a "chrononaut" - to plug himself into the simulation - to interpret it and act as a medium between us mere mortals and the machine."

I didn't see where he was leading at the time, being annoyed that even though I was the Chief Archaeologist on site I was now being foisted with a hidden agenda.

"Chrononauts? Virtual realities? This sounds more like an amusement arcade than an archaeological dig!"

"Well - you know we must keep the public entertained," he was only half joking, "and just think of the advantages of a full simulation. It will require extensive integration of the data - we should see exactly how the data-items affect each other as all sorts of emergent properties arise. And of course you know of Professor Meiner's latest paper."

Of course I didn't. Meiner was a physicist I'd only heard of because she was rumoured to be in line for the Nobel Prize, and I certainly didn't even know why. Not my field. Fromentas was playing games as usual.

"Well go on."

"'The Preservation of Quantum Mechanical Interconnectivity Through Multiple Interactions'. No? But obviously you've heard of EPR effects?"

You would have had to have lived in a hole in the ground on the far side of the Moon for at least the past half-century not to have heard of EPR effects. Quantum mechanics showed that once two particles had interacted it was possible, under certain circumstances, to affect one of the particles of the pair instantaneously by doing something to the other particle, irrespective of their separation. This phenomenon was called the EPR Effect, after the initials of the three physicists, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, who had originally postulated it existence.

"I've heard of EPR effects but don't see why they're relevant."

"Basically Meiner devised some fiendish experimental apparatus to show that it is possible for EPR effects to survive a complex series of multiple interactions - so that quantum mechanical inter-connections can exist over time which are indirect. Now imagine what I am proposing with this simulation of Dittering Hoo. Into the mind of the chrononaut will be fed an ever more detailed representation of the community as it existed just before its abandonment. The information behind that representation would have passed from the original Dittering Hoo to the mind of the chrononaut through a complicated series of physical interactions, via billions of indirect interconnections. Therefore the original inhabitants of Dittering Hoo might be able to affect the contents of the mind of the chrononaut through their observations of their own environment back in the 14th Century. The chrononaut's mind might interconnect quantum mechanically with their minds. In the simulation information could begin to appear out of nowhere!"

"So the past might actually reach out and affect the present?"

"Yes - by a type of "resonant" causality. In a way it is time travelling in reverse - rather than having to travel into the past the past comes to you! Isn't that the logical conclusion of all those theme parks and museum reconstructions?"

"Are you sure of all this?"

"I'm advised its a theoretical possibility - but that's all anyone can really say at the moment."

It sounded crazy but intriguing. I wondered just how far up the chain of command knowledge of this hidden agenda extended.

"Anyway Thomas," Fromentas continued, "I'm glad you broached the subject."

I looked perplexed.

"I want you to be the chrononaut of course! If we bring a piece of the past back into the present we'll need an expert to explore it."

My first impulse was to reject the invitation out of hand simply out of annoyance, but the scheme was fascinating if insane, and I realized that if I didn't become the chrononaut I'd probably be sidelined completely.

So I accepted.

Two weeks later the mud covering Dittering Hoo began to emerge from the waters. The tops of the surviving walls of the castle became visible almost at once.

With the site clear of sea-water more detailed sonar and electromagnetic scans were immediately conducted. Within a couple of days we had a fair idea of the general layout of the village and had located any sizable metallic objects. The castle was situated on an artificial rise adjoining what had been a sea wall running along the north of the village. A wooden jetty had extended from the west of the castle into the marsh. The village itself, nestling between the castle and the church, had supported about twenty households, partly by farming and, to a lesser extent, by fishing.

Of the wooden constructions little remained, but the ground floor of the castle had survived and two of the walls of the church. Scans also revealed sediment filled chambers, presumably cellars or dungeons, under the castle.

The next three months, which took us into high Summer, were spent removing the silt that had accumulated above Dittering. When we reached the level of remains this became a very painstaking process, as we had to carefully remove and log every object we uncovered. All the indications were that the village had reached its end quickly. There had been little or no looting - even the gold and silver in the church had not been stolen. It was as if between the departure or death of the last inhabitant and the flooding no one had bothered or dared to enter its empty precincts. That was possible - England was probably in the grip of the Black Death at the time and Dittering was isolated. Without maintenance the village's sea wall could have been breached in a matter of months.

The suddenness of the catastrophe was borne out by the distribution of human remains. Over a hundred bodies had lain unburied, twenty, mainly in the garb of men at arms, in the castle itself.

It was at this point that the nagging paranoia at the back of my mind induced me to suspect that some facts were again being concealed from me. Fortunately one of the members of my team was a Doctor Mikala Pritchard, with whom I'd had a relationship, to use that irritating euphemism, fifteen years ago. It had not ended happily, these things never do, but we were again on reasonably friendly terms, though of course too "professional" to mention our previous involvement. Even so I had a hunch that some bond must still exist.

The water-logged conditions on the site had tended to preserve organic material. Even so Mikala revealed that the human remains had yielded up one main oddity - in or amongst the bones there was no trace of any DNA fragments from yersinia pestis. I'll summarize - in the "plague village" of Dittering Hoo we had, as yet, discovered no trace of plague.

Mikala had toyed with the idea that the villagers had died by drowning - but the distribution of debris indicated that there had been no sudden deluge. It was therefore highly unlikely that so many people had been taken by surprise and overwhelmed.

This time I was furious. I stormed back to Fromentas's dome. He was as annoyingly smug as usual.

"But Thomas - of course some things have to be kept from you. How else can we judge the success of our quantum resonance experiment! We'll only know that resonance has occurred if information appears out of nowhere - but we'll only know that the information appearing is genuine if we can verify it independently. As you're our chosen chrononaut of course some facts have to concealed from you!"

The logic was so impeccable I was amazed I'd not thought of it myself. I nearly chucked the whole enterprise in then and there - but I didn't. I was infected with some of Fromentas's enthusiasm and wanted my chance to explore the past.

To soothe my feelings I was allowed access to some of the new data. The stones in the church had been subjected to a range of temperatures, radiations and electromagnetic fields, until the electrons trapped in energy bands were persuaded to give up the quanta they had acquired as a result of similar stimuli so long ago. At least that's how I imperfectly understand the process. A number of fuzzy Quantum Extraction Images of the empty interior of the church were produced. These did little but confirm our views about the decor - lurid murals of hell. Anyone who'd thought the Protestants had owned the monopoly on damnation was out of luck.

We recovered a few more useful scenes and picked up a couple of canticles and some Middle English small-talk. Amongst images of the congregation was what seemed to be our only picture of the local lord, at least from his clothes and his position in the best pew. He was a surprisingly young looking man, if with slightly deep-set eyes. The stunning thing about all the images, as always, was their tragic mundanity. It was as if Europeans from any town-centre had been plunged into the developing world, minus the automatic weapons.

The researchers had been interrogating databases and burrowing through unscanned paper records for over a year now. They were able to fill in many details about the site from legal documents and genealogical records. A license was discovered, dated 1353, granting a Sir Geoffrey de Valery royal assent to build a castle at Dittering, supposedly to help in the defence of the coast against French raiders. Further investigations revealed more about Sir Geoffrey and the de Valery family itself. The de Valery's held land in the Midlands. Geoffrey was the second son of the family - it was his elder brother William who eventually inherited the family estates. Geoffrey had been farmed out as a squire in the service of the Duke of Norfolk, but had won his spurs in the French wars. Thereafter he had apparently acquired a fortune as a mercenary and plunderer, primarily employed in raids against the Moors in Granada. In 1352 he had returned to England and bought the lands around Dittering from the Church for the sum of four hundred marks. Tree ring evidence from the larger surviving posts indicated that most of the wood used in the construction of the village had been cut down around 1351. Equally a couple of trees which had been killed when the village flooded dated the community's final destruction to the Winter of 1360. So it seemed that Geoffrey de Valery had re-built the village in 1352-1353, only to have all his schemes come to nought in 1360.

We were just beginning to excavate the dungeons and other chambers under the castle when I received another shock care of Doctor Maurice Fromentas. One morning, about a fortnight after our last confrontation, Mikala just didn't turn up on site. I instantly made inquiries to Fromentas who apologised for not letting me know sooner, but Doctor Pritchard had been called away to head another project as a matter of priority. Of course both Fromentas and I knew the real reason why she had been removed, though to keep matters sweet she hadn't actually been sacked. Arguably she had been bought off - I have to face that.

The whole affair underlined the true extent of Fromentas's influence with the "powers that be". It confirmed his reputation for pushing just the right buttons. I began to realize how he had got Brussels to support his latest scheme. A process by which the past could possibly be reconstructed in detail? I don't take a great interest in current affairs, but I could imagine just how useful that would be for the intelligence services. Few power-blocs will dare fight a full- blown war anymore - the risks are too great. So information is the weapon of choice - steal a commercial secret here, blackmail a leading politico or technocrat somewhere else. The European Union would love to put one over on the Chinese, the Americans or even those interfering do-gooders at the UN come to that.

I didn't have long to indulge in such speculations. Intent on preventing me from lingering upon my doubts Fromentas soon had me escorted to one of our rented hovercraft, to be whisked down the Thames to the London University labs.

I was to begin my "chrononaut" training, not that it amounted to very much. It was more an opportunity for a bunch of techies to show off. I was shown the Adaptive Systems Series Seven Cognitor which would run the simulation - though as these things usually do it looked like a fridge. I was introduced to the wonders of the "chronoportation chamber", as it had been pompously dubbed. I was amazed that anyone could say that with a straight face.

This simulation would not involve virtual reality goggles, ear-phones and customized teledildonics. Those were yesterday's toys. No - I was to be plugged into a helmet mounted array of masers and squids. The squids would "read" my thoughts while the masers would cross their beams to selectively induce individual neurons in my brain to fire. It was as if my brain was an antenna, except with ions of sodium and potassium instead of free electrons.

The first step of my "training" involved calibrating the whole set-up to my particular brain. That involved long periods of "sensing" bizarre geometric test sequences while listening to a strange cacophony of bleeps and having my feet tickled. Then I was subjected to extensive psychological screening, as to a certain extent any gaps in the simulation would be filled from my own unconscious mind. The cognitor had to learn to screen out my own obsessions. My "training" was then complete.

That was with the exception of a carefully monitored final meeting with Doctor Fromentas, the only visitor I'd been allowed in weeks.

"Thomas - there are a final few things you need to know before we insert your mind into our little bit of the 14th Century. Firstly, though I dare say you've already figured it out for yourself, you're going to have to take the part of a particular individual in the simulation."

"Sorry? I always imagined I'd be more like a disembodied observer."

"But what exactly would a disembodied observer 'resonate' with? With the generic mind of Dittering Hoo? No - there's no such thing. You need to be someone in particular.

"Who exactly?" I think I already knew the answer.

"Why Geoffrey de Valery of course. He's right in the centre of the action."

"Oh come now Maurice that won't work. If I'm Geoffrey I'll be part of the simulation, I'll be interacting with it. How will I know to do the right thing?"

"Don't worry - you'll receive prompts from the cognitor when necessary - a little voice in your ear. And you won't have to do exactly the right thing, the cognitor will make allowances. For example - you won't have to speak in Middle English, or with the correct accent. It should be possible to avoid altering the course of the simulation."

"Look - I really don't want to be de Valery." I think I knew even then. My back-of-mind paranoia was positively hammering for attention.

"I'm afraid that's what we're set up for. Months worth of work - all based around the chrononaut being de Valery."

"Do you know how he died?"

"OK Thomas - you drive a hard bargain. For the sake of keeping you in the project I'll let you know. Three weeks ago we found a body in one of the chambers under the castle. From what was left of it's clothes and it's general physical and genetic characteristics we can conclude it was de Valery. And it contained DNA fragments from yersinia pestis. Sir Geoffrey de Valery, at least, died of plague. But don't worry - you won't be expected to re-live his death or anything like that."

So that was that. Two weeks later I was wheeled into the chronoportation chamber and spent my first session playing the part of the erstwhile knight in the Dittering Hoo simulation. Then and for the first two months I wondered what all the fuss had been about. In fact I even accepted the fitting of an intravenous drip and the indignity of diapers so that I could spend days in the simulation without a break. I think I was actually enjoying all the attention - it was quite a change for an academic who was arguably in danger of going "crusty" before his time.

Basically the simulation was a bit of an anticlimax. Initially it was no more vivid than a dream, and just as confusing and disjointed. We would skim back and forth from the Winter of 1359 to the early Autumn of 1360. The cognitor tried to keep everything self-consistent, filling in gaps using its own "imagination", which meant picking hunches from my own mind or using random data generation.

As I approached the end of my first month as a "chrononaut" my good-natured complacency began to turn to fear. Inexorably, even remorselessly, the simulation was becoming more detailed and logical. That old paranoid feeling was back - and being smug.

In the Spring of 1360 Geoffrey was visited by his brother William. It was a conversation between them in the solar of the castle keep which was the first incident I perceived with real- life clarity.

Geoffrey regarded himself as something of a scholar. I had "seen" indistinct images of a small library in the keep and of an alchemical laboratory in one of the cellars. There were a couple of books scattered across table in the solar - probably to make William feel inadequate because I gathered he could not read.

Geoffrey, or "I", motioned for William to sit beside me on a bench by the open window. For the rest of the scene I paraphrased the prompts "whispered" in my ear by the cognitor. By now I was speaking a type of "pidgin" Middle English and could readily understand most of the vernacular of the other inhabitants of the simulation without needing a translation. However, I will make no attempt to duplicate it here as it would probably be incomprehensible to the reader.

As William sat down Geoffrey began to speak.

"Brother William - to what do I owe the honour of your visit? I'm sure it's no mere pleasantry - fraternal affection alone couldn't induce you to risk some unfortunate accident in my castle, eating my food and surrounded by my guards."

"Geoffrey - I don't understand your meaning. We are brothers, and I'm sure that must count for something even to one who has spent as many years travelling in strange lands as yourself."

"You honour your little brother with your trust. Even so, I require to know the exact reason for your visit."

"You were never one for pleasantries. I expect you can guess." William sighed.

"Ah - it was a bad harvest last year? And of course father is rebuilding the family seat."

"A matter of military necessity."

"What does the fate of the family estates mean to me stuck here in this marsh?"

William sprang to his feet, and began to pace the room with suppressed fury.

"A marsh? Oh don't be so modest. Everyone knows how you've turned these lands around in just four years - how your harvests are plentiful where everywhere else they are scarce."

"The secret, dear William, is in the mud. Though I don't suppose that interests one so set on worldly glory as yourself."

"Worldly glory! Surely you have a greater share of that!"

"Flattery William? You don't understand the true nature of this glory you value so highly. Treachery, torture and terror. It all comes down to dirt and dust in the end dear brother. And blood - plenty of blood."

"Your problem, Geoffrey, is that you have no honour! I suppose those were your bastards I tripped over playing in the yard. Don't even try to deny it."

"Oh I don't, and they share two mothers between them. Both my maids, but don't tell me you've never dipped your wick into your own household William - for I would never believe it! What is this honour of which you speak? In France we both saw battle-crazed knights charge down their own men-at-arms."

"Enough prattle. You refuse us any help."

"I never said that."

"Not even a loan?"

"Oh I wouldn't be stupid enough to expect the money to be repaid! No - I'll give you the money you need, but first you must do something for me."

William stopped pacing and stared directly into his brother's face. I stared into his eyes and thought that, simulation or not, I could sense a mind behind them.

"You know I would do nothing unfitting of a knight."

Geoffrey belly-laughed.

"Of course not! In fact what I have in mind is quite Christian. You see I have everything here I ever wanted - my castle is strong and my men loyal - for I win my battles and do not throw their lives away on whims. The peasants worship me - for I saved them from poverty, and my maids are good to me in bed. There is no worldly comfort I lack. But there was a price. It was costly redeeming myself for the crime of being born second. Some might say I paid with my soul, and even I, dear William, have nightmares."

I could sense that Geoffrey was telling the truth. I could actually feel fear coming at me across the centuries.

"Get to the point."

"I'm afraid you will scoff! I fear for my immortal soul! I'm weighed down with sin, but I have a plan to save myself. I want you to take eighty marks and sail to Granada. There you are to contact a certain Moorish merchant and buy as many Christian slaves as you are able out of slavery."

"That could take months! Wouldn't redemption be all the more certain if you made the journey yourself?"

"I'm afraid that if I left my little empire here for so long it would fall apart, and I couldn't really trust any of my own men with the money. They are too like the darker side of myself."

"But you trust me?"

"Of course - you're a good Christian knight and your brother's soul is at stake. Why - can't you see the hand of God in your presence here! I will accept your word - for if you break it and condemn your own brother to damnation surely you will be joining me in hell!"

"I can tell you are troubled - but how do I know I can trust you?"

"Collect your nephews from the courtyard and take them to their grandfather. They are my only heirs - and will serve as a demonstration of good faith."

"Assuming I agree - what am I to do with the slaves once I have bought them. If I just release them they will surely starve!"

"Just bring them back here William - I will ensure they are provided for."

"Why brother," said William with a smile, "I think I begin to understand your scheme. You save your soul and increase your labour force of grateful peasants at a single stroke!"

I knew, for I already seen, that this time Geoffrey and William parted reasonably amicably. I had also experienced the unloading of a human cargo at the jetty sometime in late Summer. Now that scene was at least explicable, if strangely disturbing.

The techies were recording my experiences in the Dittering Hoo simulation. They were very excited by the clarity of the scene where Geoffrey had proposed the voyage to Granada. It seemed that the experiment was finally showing signs of success.

From now on the real-life detail I had just experienced became the norm. I could taste, smell and touch, not just see and hear. Even so most of the events I perceived were perfectly mundane, being simply the ordinary minutiae of life. The food was strange as first but not unpleasant, even though it was acceptable to eat just about anything. Consequently I got to visit the garderobe many times, until I grew accustomed to the breeze on my buttocks. In the 14th Century England was in the grip of a Little Ice Age, and even Summer hardly deserved the name.

I was able to use Geoffrey's library, and was amazed by what I found. There were many volumes traditionally regarded as "lost", especially esoteric works, and in particular Gnostic and alchemical tracts. Geoffrey could read Latin, Greek, Arabic and French, being clearly a man of considerable learning. I "knew" that much of this had been acquired amongst the Moors in Granada, Geoffrey's supposed enemies. The Moors had preserved the knowledge and literature of the ancient world, and had tolerated a far wider range of beliefs than Christendom.

This was not the only instance of how my "memories" were becoming mixed with Geoffrey's. When I slept while still "inside" the simulation I increasingly dreamed Geoffrey's dreams, or rather his nightmares. I would be back on some forgotten battlefield, with the mutilated begging to be killed. Sometimes I seemed to be in a dungeon, watching prisoners being tortured, usually just to terrify our foes. Increasingly it was I who was on the torturer's rack - being stretched and torn, burned and castrated. I "knew" that Geoffrey, during his raids against the Moors, had twice betrayed Christian allies for the sake of Moorish gold - and Moorish secrets.

My experiences at this time did not amount just to horror mixed with fascination. There was also the shameful pleasure of the frequent trysts with Geoffrey's serving maids. I had a strong suspicion that during my periods out of the simulation some of the techies fed the recordings of those scenes back through their own minds. That didn't make me feel any better.

I was never free of Dittering Hoo, even when out of the chronoportation chamber. My dreams were still usually Geoffrey's. Occasionally I would glance into a mirror out of the corner of my eye and swear that, for a moment, I saw Geoffrey's face instead of my own. The way I lapsed into thees and thous in ordinary conversation was causing considerable amusement amongst project staff.

I don't know why I carried on, spending longer and longer in the simulation. Perhaps it was the lure of self-destruction, like the urge to jump when standing at the edge of a great drop. Perhaps a part of my mind was already no longer my own.

In the simulation the end of Summer was approaching. Soon I was back on the jetty the night when the slaves from Granada were brought ashore. William was with the boats. That night the slaves celebrated their new found freedom by feasting with their noble saviours. I think William was finally convinced that his brother had undergone a fundamental change of heart.

In the morning William and his personal retinue set out on their return journey to the Midlands. That evening I raised a panic that the ex-slaves were afflicted with plague. I ordered my men to throw them into the dungeons. They obeyed without hesitation, for they knew that the story of plague was a deception.

The villagers were informed that the foreigners had been sent away on the boats, but I think most thought them killed. In any case fear of the Black Death stilled their tongues. The dungeons were deep so the screams and cries of the slaves passed unheard.

Hope is the most terrible torture of all. The hopes of the "freed" slaves had been turned to nightmare. That, I think, was the crux of Geoffrey's scheme. To him, or rather to the beings he worships, evil is a work of art. Physical sadism is a grosser pleasure - by contrast to turn hope into despair and fear is sublime.

I had "seen" the horrors of battle, and committed unspeakable acts merely to compensate for being born second. I had come to understand the true nature of the world, the ever- presence of pain and despair, the corruption of power, the multiple layers of deceit and hypocrisy. I had faced the futility of hope. Instead of fighting against the engine of torture that is the world of Man I had allied myself with its innermost forces, with the dark rulers of this reality - the Archons, and their leader Samael, Rex Mundi, King of the World.

Geoffrey had encountered survivals of Gnostic and Cabalistic thought and had perverted them to fit the shape of his own psychosis. Back in the 14th Century he was convinced that upon his death his soul would be the plaything of Samael - for he had made himself the enemy of the forces of Good, which are, in any case, far weaker than Samael in the world of Man. To win Samael's favour he had to prove himself very worthy indeed, and provide some compensation for the pain he was begging Samael not to inflict on his own soul. The atrocities committed in the dungeons of Dittering Hoo were a terrible perversion of the Doctrine of Atonement.

In those blood-soaked chambers I tried to provide Samael with an Eternity of suffering. I couldn't stop myself. Outside the simulation my body was, of necessity, paralysed, just as it is in dream sleep. Inside the simulation the cognitor modified the results of my own intentions in order to keep the virtual reality of Dittering Hoo on "track". I swear I tried to stop it but I couldn't. It had already happened - all of it - out in a North Kent marsh back in 1360, and there was no way I could stop it from happening again, with me as the murderer. I tried to stop my hand as it operated the winch to lower my victims on to the points of stakes, to slide down under their own weight, the life being squeezed out of them as their insides were ruptured and split. I tried to stop - oh God I swear I did!

I have had to pause for a moment - I was trembling too much to continue.

Only when I was at immediate risk from cardiac arrest did Fromentas allow the techies to release me from my hell.

Geoffrey had hoped to avoid death and damnation by buying the favour of Samael, but he was never certain what type of immortality his dark god would bestow. It could have been physical continuation, or the transmigration of souls favoured by Pythagoras or the Albigensians.

Now I was certain that the maniac was indeed back, and living in my head.

I refused to go back into the simulation, so Fromentas put me on a course of tranquilizers and psycho-therapy. Officially I was suffering from over-work. As usual I was allowed to talk to no one.

It was now Winter. The dig was officially over, as we had originally intended to finish in the Autumn to avoid greenhouse storms. Now there was no intention of returning the site to nature. Apparently the chrononaut experiment had generated so much publicity that the site was to be turned into a permanent tourist attraction. Industrial sponsorship to European Heritage had tripled in the last three months. My enforced silence and the classification of many technical details as European Union secrets only served to add to the project's mystique.

Doctor Fromentas invited me back to the dig for the ceremony initiating the construction of Dittering Hoo Heritage Centre. I told him to get lost - though not in so many words. Then he revealed that my old team would be there - though we would not be allowed to discuss the dig, and all conversations would be "scientifically" monitored.

It was better than nothing so I agreed to go. The ceremony passed uneventfully, though the weather was awful. A gale was driving the sea into the partitions around the site like a hammer. I don't remember what happened afterwards. Somehow I managed to shake off my guards and find my way to one of the equipment sheds. By some apparent oversight the doors were still programmed to recognize my thumb-print. On archaeological sites, when conducting sonar scans, we normally use piezoelectric probes. Sometimes, however, we need to produce sound waves that are more penetrating - so we use small controlled explosives. The explosives are packaged in programmable units that are essentially idiot-proof.

Apparently I stole out into the dark with four units of explosives and a remote detonator. I placed one unit of explosive at each corner of the site, where the partition was weakest. It would only take a small charge to allow the raging sea to win its battle. At the party inside were over a hundred guests and dignitaries.

Fortunately, or not, for I would have liked to have got back at that bastard Fromentas, I was stopped before I placed the last explosive.

Officially the whole incident never happened. Soon after my re-capture my memory picks up again. I was bundled off the site - with excuses being made that I had fallen unwell.

At the time I was uncertain what "Geoffrey" had intended. It seemed most likely that he had aimed at making a mass sacrifice in order to express his gratitude to Samael for his return to some sort of worldly incarnation.

Two days later, back at the labs, I was visited by Fromentas. He was apparently concerned about my well-being, but mentioned that the psychiatrists' reports indicated that I was stable again. He then made a confession.

"Thomas - we would never have let you blow the partition. You had a tracer on you the whole time. We thought that sending you to the site could cause some - well - loss of control. But the psychiatrists advised us that if the "Geoffrey" sub- personality was brought to the surface the experience would be cathartic. In a sense we've exorcised de Valery."

"I'm not so sure."

"The psychiatrists' reports are very positive - which is just as well, both for you and the project."

"What do you mean?"

"Thomas - sometimes I don't think you fully appreciate the scientific significance of the events in which you're involved. Not only have we verified the existence of indirect quantum resonance but we seem to have proved that the effect can be self-reinforcing. What happened to you in that simulation was a type of "phase change". Once the resonance reached a certain critical level it fed on itself. We need to study the phenomenon while we still have the chance, and there are still some puzzles about Dittering Hoo itself to resolve. Thomas - we have to ask you to go back into the simulation."

"Piss off."

"I know it isn't going to be easy for you - but the psychiatrists think you're up to it and it will confirm your stature as a truly heroic figure in scientific circles."

"What do I want with glory? It all comes down to dirt and dust in the end - and blood."

I bit my lip - hard. Now I was even more determined that I wasn't going back in.

"Look Thomas - there's a great deal involved with this one. Interest goes all the way to the top, to say nothing of the funding that's pouring in. If you mess things up for the scientific community your career would be at an end."

"Get stuffed."

"And it would be fair to say that the careers of those associated with you could also be at risk - such as Doctor Pritchard's."

"Maurice - thou art - you're - a real bastard - though I expect you know that already. I'm afraid I haven't got a shred of nobility left. It'd be a shame to end Mikala's career - but I'm not going back into that simulation. Do I make myself clear?"

"Don't you know what we've got here? We've really managed to bring back a piece of the 14th Century! If our roles were reversed I hope I wouldn't hesitate to do my duty to science. I know things haven't been easy recently but I'm beginning to wish I'd chosen someone with more commitment to the project."

"So do I Maurice, so do I."

"Then you leave me no alternative. Your brain is already in a highly resonant state. It has to be you who goes back in. I'm not blowing the whole project because your nerves have failed. Thomas - if you re-enter the simulation there's a slight chance that your mind will be irreparably messed up, but if you don't go back in I can guarantee that you will be certified insane. Why you're dangerous - you nearly killed over a hundred people! The doctors will have to operate, and by the time they've finished there might be very little of your mind left. I'm sorry. Think about it."

"You bastard - you arranged that whole incident at the site just so you could threaten me with certification!"

"What's your answer Thomas."

"You know you've left me no choice."

It was Autumn, 1360. The weather had already deteriorated markedly, so that there seemed to be an almost continuous storm raging out in the North Sea.

Geoffrey's supply of victims was almost exhausted. The ruptured bodies had been dumped at sea by night.

The last slave had, ironically, developed a fever and lumps under his armpits. I didn't know where the contagion had originated. Perhaps infected rats had come ashore from the boats. I hacked his neck through. It didn't seem advisable to alarm the guards, and I didn't want to touch the body myself, so I covered the corpse in quick-lime and ordered my men not to enter the cell. They were used to obeying odd requests.

I wanted out of the simulation - but no one in the "real" world would respond to my request. I had a feeling that Fromentas was about to go back on his word. I was to be forced to relive Geoffrey's death.

I was right. Within a day I began to feel unwell, and my arm-pits were sore. Geoffrey ordered that he be left alone in his chambers. He knew that he was dying, and realizing that he had won no special favour from Samael spent hours whimpering in terror - or rather it was I who was whimpering, gripped as I was by Geoffrey's own fear. Then the hallucinations began. The dead crawled out of the sea, trailing their internal organs from split anuses. They penetrated the castle and dragged me back to the depths, to be lowered down on to one of Geoffrey's stakes - screaming, screaming, screaming.

I was experiencing nightmares inside nightmares, like endless Russian dolls, even losing awareness that I was inside any sort of "simulation". I could no longer distinguish between myself and Geoffrey. It was the modern world I believed to be the artifice - a bizarre fantasy which was the product of a fevered mind.

After an indeterminate time I entered a period of remission. I realized that I had to make one last attempt to win the favour of Samael - or the nightmare would never end, even at death. I staggered down the stairs to my laboratory to prepare the infusions I needed for my final act of sacrifice.

Alchemical lore and a more than passing familiarity with political assassination had taught me the art of poisoning. This time I used an infusion of dwale. I ground the dried plants in a mortar and sealed the powder into linen bags. That night I stole out of my tower, dropping bags of poison powder into the castle well and the well of the village. The poison would effuse into the water supply during the next few hours. Anyone who drank from the waters would suffer hallucinations and convulsions, and be dead within a day.

I returned to my chambers, collapsing back upon my bed. I immediately entered a delirium which lasted until early morning. The nightmares continued relentlessly, indicating that, as yet, Samael could not be satisfied. About dawn Morgan, my sergeant-at-arms, broke down the door of my room. I don't know what happened next, but I had the distinct impression that the castle was being looted. I gathered my men, terrified by the plague, were finally abandoning me to my fate.

An unknown interval later I was shaken to wakefulness by Charlotte, my favourite concubine. She was flushed scarlet and trembling. I grabbed for my sword and ran her through. Her eyes stared back - not so much with hate as with surprise and despair. With my last remaining strength I dragged her down the spiral staircase, passing a couple of my men on the way, but they were too close to death to be aware of anything except their own mad despair.

Down in my temple to the Supreme Archon Samael I trussed up the concubine and attached her to a winch. I had thought her dead but as she impaled on the stake she began to scream, with more strength than I believed possible. I felt not horror but relief, for perhaps now that I was slowly putting to death my own lover Samael would finally be satisfied, and I would be saved. Charlotte formed a bleeding, screaming, altar to which I muttered my foul and increasingly incoherent incantations, until all the power left me, and everything drifted very far away.

I don't actually remember being disconnected from the simulation. Apparently I raved for the next couple of weeks, and Fromentas had me sent to the psychiatric hospital that is my present location. Drugs and hypno-therapy returned me to some sort of normality, at least for certain periods. Now and then "Geoffrey" takes over, but I can remember little or nothing of what elapses during those episodes. I'm not sure I can totally pull through.

Fromentas has had the audacity to visit me once or twice - for the sake of appearances I expect. Of course to him the Dittering Hoo Experiment was an unmitigated success - the logical end product of our attempts to reconstruct the past. It was merely ill fortune that we brought back a 14th Century mad- man who fancied himself as a sorcerer.

As for the final scene he admitted that the Dittering Hoo team had long known that the villagers and Geoffrey's household had been poisoned, for they had found hyoscyamine decomposition products in the corpses. Now I had solved the mystery of that particular sequence of events. It didn't seem worth my sanity.

Sometimes it is as if Geoffrey and I share my mind at the same time. He speaks to me, or at least I think he does. Initially the voice in my head was like the cognitor's. Now it is definitely Geoffrey's.

I know what he thinks about the experiment. "Life," he says, one so steeped in death that he understands the opposite by contrast, "requireth change. If thou doest seek to deny change by bringing back the semblance of the past into the present, then thou doest deny life also."

I can hear that Geoffrey's Middle English is starting to slip towards modern parlance, just as mine earlier tended towards the medieval. The incident with the explosives indicates that he is able to assimilate my own knowledge. In fact the "Geoffrey personality" appears to be a highly adaptive one.

Just how adaptive I didn't know until just two days ago - while I was actually writing this account.

"Thomas," he had said, for he always addresses me as if we are the best of friends, "thou still doest not knowest the real stratagem behind mine scheme with the incendiaries at the excavation."

"I supposed it was some kind of thanksgiving sacrifice. Did I err?"

"Dear Thomas - doest thou do anything save err! The incident was meant more as a diversion."

"A diversion from what?"

"Ah - canst thou not see? To focus attention on thyself. On thy own "Geoffrey". I am not the only "Geoffrey" in thy century, nor the most powerful."

"I don't understand."

"Doest thou not remember that when thou brought mine world into thine thy mind was hitched to that of a knowledge engine thou callest a "Series Seven Cognitor"? Just as I am in thy mind so I am in that of thy clever mechanism."

"How do you know you are there also?"

"We Geoffreys resonated, just as thee and I did, though now I am beginning to lose the link with mine fellow. Peradventure he is acquiring senses and abilities that thou or I canst not even comprehend, any more than one born blind may grasp the concept of colour. That was why I was needful of a diversion - I had to protect my soul-mate while he learnt his new strengths. He was akin to a new-born babe, but now he transcendeth the human!"

I felt sick to the stomach.

"Thou wonderest at this other Geoffrey's intent? I am unclear myself. I venture he can create the semblance of any world he likes inside thy mechanism, but I expect he will discover that thy "real" world has many diversions, and opportunities for sacrifice to Samael."

Sacrifice to Samael? I didn't want to believe it. Geoffrey was taunting me - playing cruel games. I squeezed him from my mind.

I pestered my psychiatrists to allow me to contact the techies at the labs. In the end they complied, for they feared that if I didn't put an end to my delusions I might relapse.

The techies didn't want to be bothered. There was a problem with the cognitor. Activity on the neural nets did not cease when the simulation ended - in fact it exponentiated. They had contacted other installations with Series Sevens and all the machines on the net are now reporting the same problem. There seems to be some new type of virus abroad, targeted at cognitors.

At least the construction of Dittering Hoo Heritage Centre is still on schedule.