azdak

So there I was thinking I'd never write fanfic again, and I've gone and committed Sapphire and Steel fic....



EVEN SUCH IS TIME

Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust.
Walter Ralegh



They always want to know. They always want to understand. As if they could. As if it would do them any good. Just the thought of Time finding its way in through a crack in their heads makes his gut tighten.

Yet Sapphire always humours them.




"You can think of time as a river. Normally it only flows one way. If you throw a stick in the water, it will move downstream. But sometimes a dam will stop the flow, and then you get eddies and whirlpools. Sometimes the current flows backwards for a stretch."

"And what are these... these ghosts, then? Debris on the water that's flowing backwards?"

"You could say so," says Sapphire.

"I think you've said quite enough," says Steel.




"I don't understand," says the ship's captain. He glances over at the big brass clock. As if Time were something measurable, mechanical.

"Time," Sapphire tells him, "is like a railway track running through the countryside. The passengers on the train can't get off, so they have to move forwards, with the train. But all around them is a vast landscape, and the creatures that live there sometimes manage to leap aboard the train."

"That's enough," says Steel. "He doesn't need to know any more."




"Are you telling me that time is a dimension, like space?" says the customs official, running his hands through his bushy hair.

"In a way, yes," says Sapphire. "Except that the time dimension you know is rolled up so tightly you can only move through it one way."

"Rolled up? Like a tube?"

"Yes. But there are other temporal dimensions that aren't rolled up, and sometimes they intersect with this one. That creates weak spots, where interactions can occur."

"That's when the trouble starts," says Steel. "Now can we get on with the job?"





"There is a corridor," says Sapphire, "and the corridor is time. It surrounds all things. And it enters all things. You can't see it. Only sometimes, and it's dangerous."

The boys frowns. "This – corridor. Can you enter it?"

"No, not in the way you imagine. You can't enter into time, but sometimes time can try to enter into the present. Break in. Burst through and take things. Take people. The corridor is very strong; it has to be. But sometimes, in some places, it becomes weakened. Like fabric, worn fabric. And when there is pressure put upon the fabric...."

"Time comes in," says the boy.

"Reaches in and takes out what it wants," corrects Steel. "And we think that Time has broken into that room."

That puts an end to the discussion, all right.




"Tell him," says Steel. He holds his finger half an inch from his thumb. "Tell him this much."

"There is a force," Sapphire begins.

"This much!"




"You mean it's true?" says the Professor. "Calabi Yau dimensions really exist?"

He's vibrating with excitement, oscillating like one of the strings in his theory.

Don't tell him any more than he needs to know! warns Steel.

"Yes," says Sapphire.




"I don't understand," says the woman. The stained glass window above the altar casts coloured shadows on her face. Greens and reds and blues and yellows. It's the only colour in the room.

"Time, real time, is to the time you know as earthly existence is to the Kingdom of Heaven," says Sapphire. "You experience time in a limited form, in one direction only. But sub specie aeternitas there is no past and no future. Time is everywhere and all things are in every moment of Time simultaneously."

"And death shall have no dominion," says the woman. Her face is glowing beneath her wimple, and the colour doesn't come from the stained glass.

For one awful moment Steel thinks Sapphire's done it this time.