TS01 Time Station London Read Online Free Page A

take second place to affairs of state. The whole future of England depends on our deliberations tomorrow.”
    To Brian’s surprise, the young woman giggled as she reached up and patted Rupert’s lapel. “Oh, Rupie, you’re so cute when you get like that. She’ll be angry, she’ll pout, but I’ll just ring her up and tell her I will come alone.”
    What a vacuum-head , Brian thought.
    Cordise raised a hand and summoned a hansom cab. “Cavendish Square,” he told the man at the reins.
    Brian followed them to the young woman’s residence, then Cordise to his home, on Kings Mews, off Bayswater Road, in North-West One, a place he had become entirely too familiar with over the past few days.

    Time: 2223, GMT, February 28, 1938
    Place: Apartment of Brian Moore,
    Threadneedle Street, London, England

    In his rented room off Threadneedle Street, Brian Moore spent most of what remained of the night going through recent newspapers. If Cordise considered tomorrow’s debate of importance enough to cancel a date with so beautiful, if scatter-brained, a young woman, the Temporal Warden wanted to know the subject of that deliberation. His eyes felt like burn holes in a carpet when he at last came upon three articles, written over a period of as many days, that enlightened and energized him.
    “What’s this?” he asked himself aloud.
    The first read: Fierce debate rages in the House of Commons over the re-appointment of Winston Churchill to a post in the Admiralty. The second gave more detail and added: Opposition to Mr. Churchill is being directed by Sir Rupert Cordise, Labour Member from the Cotswold District. MP, Sir Rupert, to the hisses and calls of ‘Shame! Shame!’ from across the aisle, contends that Mr. Churchill made a shambles of his first turn in office and will most probably do likewise this time. The most recent, from that day, stated that debate was expected to close and a vote taken within the next two days. It all left Brian in a dark mood. Whatever he did, he would need the assistance of the others at London Station. He might as well, he decided, go there and get started now.

Time: 0300, GMT, March 2, 1938
    Place: Time Station, Thameside
    London, England

    “The hell of it is, Vito, Frank, I cannot simply kill Cordise outright. The history log shows him still alive in 1941.” It was three in the morning and Brian had not slept at all.
    Vito came back encouragingly, “Is he present after that?”
    “Not that I could find. Of course, I didn’t make a thorough search. It could simply be that he left government and faded into obscurity. I’ve been wrestling with my brain, and my conscience truth to be told, ever since I found out Cordise thinks the vote will come today. Somehow, we have to keep him from being there, short of putting him in a grave.”
    Frank Matsumoto, security man for Time Station London, nodded thoughtfully. Vito produced a wicked grin. “There are a lot of ways to keep a man from going to work on any given day.”
    Exasperated, Brian spoke back urgently. “But don’t you see? We have to keep him away long enough for the vote to be taken so that it goes our way.”
    “I say we kill him. That’s the easiest.”
    “No, Vito! We can’t. It would disrupt the Timeline.”
    Vito shrugged. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”
    Matsumoto prompted Brian. “What did you have in mind?”
    Brian calmed himself, thought over what he had been outlining in his head. “All right, this may sound complicated, but here’s what we should do.”

    Time: 0830 GMT, March 3, 1938
    Place: Haddington Mews, off Kensington Way,
    London, England

    Precisely at 8:30 that morning, the Bentley belonging to Sir Rupert Cordise coughed politely and quietly into life and rolled serenely down the long, circular drive in front of the marble-faced brick town residence. The gatekeeper swung wide one half of the tall, wrought-iron barrier, and the second most dignified automobile in England poked its chrome and