"Impossible," Mira said. "You must have misunderstood him, Cathy."

"But he as good as acknowledged that my argument based on Cartridge's rule was valid," I objected, "which implies that he knows about a theory of Temporal Physics derived more than a century later. Which in turn implies that he has to be a temporal explorer, himself."

"It is true that the man may have misunderstood Catherine's remark," Sara Jenkins observed. "But it is extremely unlikely, in view of his later statements and actions.  Therefore, I tend to agree with Catherine's conclusions, here."

I was sitting under a tree in the park that surrounded our school, alone, with the ansible before me.

My Temporal Instructor, her graduate student Mira and I were discussing  the implications of what I had learned in the course of my meeting with the man our school secretary had described as 'a ruggedly handsome devil'.

"After all, he gave up on his attempt to kidnap Natty as soon as I claimed that I knew for a fact she was going to complete a further term at St. Albert's," I added.

"On the other hand, we have scrupulously kept records of all Temporal Transits that have taken place up to this day," Sara amended. "Thus, we know for certain that nobody other than Catherine has ever been sent to this particular place and time."

"Do those records also include special missions and such?" Mira asked.

It was no secret that the Institute of Temporal Physics collaborated with the Council of the Alliance when it came to missions related to fields such as central intelligence and espionage.

"Those special missions are in the records, too, and for a good reason," my Temporal Instructor explained. "We all learned the hard way that having more than one temporal explorer in the same remote time period may yield most undesirable consequences, especially if the two temporal explorers do not know about each other's activities."

The most infamous such incident, the so-called Palmer-Kline Incident, had occurred in the early years of temporal exploring. At the time, the public interest – and therefore, the distribution of research funds - had been focused on spectacular investigations of certain events in ancient time periods that were shrouded in mystery. One such topic had been the Trojan War. Had the Trojan War actually happened, and if so, who or what had caused its outbreak? As part of the efforts, historian Nestor Kline of the Institute of Historical Studies at Edmonton had been sent to 1193 BC to mingle with the Achaeans, and Prof. Cassandra Palmer from Altwin University  had been sent to the same remote time period to do research at the city of Troy. Neither one of those two esteemed explorers had been aware of the other one's activities. After their return, a tribunal had been held to clarify what exactly had happened and who, if anybody, was to blame. In the end, historians knew a lot more about that era. However they were none too happy to learn that, in the final analysis, Cassandra Palmer and Nestor Kline, two temporal explorers from the late 22nd century, had unwittingly caused the outbreak of the Trojan War.

"So we have to accept the conclusion that this man is a temporal explorer originating from a time in our own future?" I asked.

"Yes, I am afraid that's what it comes down to," Sara agreed.

"But even in the future, they must have knowledge of the records of Temporal Transits that we keep, don't they?" Mira asked. "However, that man apparently did not know anything about Cathy and her mission."

"There are two possibilities that I can see," Sara replied. "Either, we are talking about a future where the records we so painstakingly keep have been lost or are no longer accessible, for whatever reason. Or else, the records are still there but people of the future do not care about them."

"So, what am I supposed to do the next time he shows up?" I asked her. "After all, he almost succeeded in kidnapping Natty Fogg. I don't know if I will be able to stop him, next time."

"That's an important point, Catherine. You need to understand that it is not your task to stop that man from abducting Natty Fogg, or whatever he may have in mind. You were sent to the 1960s merely to observe. In fact, I am considering to take you off this assignment altogether, as it can no longer be ruled out that the situation will create hazards for you safety."

"But ... you can't do that," I whined. "Now that we know that my roommate is the historical Natty Fogg, we need to know what is going to happen to her."

"Certainly. But we may need to replace you with a more experienced explorer or even with a special agent."

"But it is not even guaranteed that anybody other than me can be sent to this temporal era, what with all those failed previous attempts at transits to these parts."

There was a moment of silence.

"Who told you about those failed attempts, Catherine?" Sara sounded angry. "You were not supposed to know about that."

Belatedly, I remembered that Mira had asked me not mention to Sara that Mira had told me about this. I did not reply, but apparently Sara had figured it out already.

"That was you, Mira, wasn't it?" 

"Thanks a lot, Cathy," Mira muttered. She sighed. "Look here, Sara ..."

"We shall talk about that later today, Mira," my Temporal Instructor told her.

"I am sorry," I said. "Honestly, Sara, it was all my fault. I bugged and bugged Mira until she accidentally told me about it."

"It is not your fault that my graduate student is unable or unwilling to follow simple instructions, Catherine. But you are right. These problems we experienced will need to be taken into account when we make the decision whether to take you off this assignment or not. However, your safety will have to take first priority. We need to further  discuss this, but I have a meeting to attend ten minutes from now, so we have to postpone that. Mira, the two of us need to talk. At half past eight, in my office."

"I will be there," Mira acknowledged. She did not sound enthusiastic about it, exactly.

From the other end of the line, the sound of footsteps could be heard. Sara, getting ready to leave.

"You really got me in trouble here, Cathy," Mira grumbled.

"I am sorry about that, Mira," I repeated. "But hey, you are better off than I am when I get in trouble here. At least you don't need to worry about being put over the knee later today."

"We shall see about that," Sara grimly remarked.

Apparently, she had still been within earshot. Mira and I kept our silence until the sound of her receding footsteps could no longer be heard.

I cleared my throat. "She was joking, right?"

"I think so," Mira replied. She snorted. "I certainly hope so."

Our conversation ended on that cheerful note.

When I returned to my dorm room. I found Natty stretched out on her bed, writing in her blue notebook. She looked up as I entered as the room and closed the door behind myself.

"You took a long time," she observed.  "How many cigs did you smoke, I wonder?"

"Uh, I am not sure. A few, I guess."

While I was not a good liar per se, for some reason I was even worse at it when I was lying to Natty.

For a moment, I watched as she jotted down equations in her notebook. "There is not much space left in that notebook."

"Yeah, I will have to get a new one soon."

"Another blue one?"

"Not necessarily. The previous one was red."

"Really?" I tried to hide my excitement. "Do you still have it somewhere here on your shelves?"

"Actually, no." She grinned. "It is sort of silly, really. But when we had our excursion to London – I mean, the previous one, about half a year ago – myself, Nancy, Langden, Morgan and Carmichael bought a metal box. Each of us put some personal stuff into it and then we buried that box, to be found by survivors or possibly by extraterrestrials visiting Earth, after the next great war. I had filled up all the space in my previous notebook, so I put it into that box."

"I see."

Another piece of the puzzle had been solved. So Natty's current notebook, the blue one, came after the famous Red Notebook. But what exactly did that imply?

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A / N : As always, thank you for taken the time to read this chapter. If you enjoyed it, please consider voting or adding a comment.