A young man in a pale blue suit came around a corner, his arms laden with thick, ancient leather-bound volumes, and almost slammed into Burton. The explorer backed away, apologizing. Taking a chance, he said, “Can you tell me where I can find Miss Penelope Hemlock?” Burton knew she wasn’t likely a part of the Occult Ministry, but she was the only person he knew in this time.
“Down the hall on your right,” said the man, and hurried off.
Burton tipped his hat in thanks, but the man had already disappeared into one of the offices to put down his burden. Burton walked in the direction indicated, wondering if he was altering Time even further. If this was a time before Miss Hemlock left to go back to Burton’s London, he would be adding an additional paradox onto an already fractured timeline. He muttered all of this to himself, longing for the bygone days when all he had to worry about was malaria and bloodthirsty natives.
At the end of the hall was a wooden door affixed with a brass plate that read Operation Chronos. Burton smiled and knocked. When no one acknowledged him, he turned and knob and entered.
Operation Chronos consisted of a single narrow room, both walls lined with shelves filled almost to bursting with papers and books. At the far end was a desk with a pentagram emblazoned on its front. A tall, slender man sat on the edge of it perusing through a thick volume, a black cigarette holder jutting from his mouth, his head wreathed in acrid smoke. He looked at Burton, slamming the volume closed.
“I’m sorry,” said the explorer. “I was looking for Miss Hemlock. Is she in?”
“She just stepped out,” said the man, looking Burton up and down disapprovingly. “Mission. Are you one of the wizards? You’re supposed to report to Simon Iff. He’s upstairs.”
“I’m not a wizard,” said Burton. “I’m—this is going to sound terribly strange. I’m Richard Francis Burton.”
The man jumped from the desk and moved toward the explorer, eying him. He had a high forehead and dark hair giving way to silver. “By Jove, man. You bloody well are. How marvelous to meet you. But what are you doing here?”
They shook hands. “It’s quite a a long story,” said Burton. “It seems I have run afoul of the man Miss Hemlock has been chasing through Time.”
The man’s mouth opened so wide he almost dropped his cigarette holder. “Bloody hell! I told her not to go traipsing off after that madman. Which means she’s absconded with our chronos unit. That impudent girl. I’m sorry she’s dragged you into this. You shouldn’t be here!”
“It is not her fault I am here,” said Burton. “It was the man you’ve been chasing. I thought you knew Miss Hemlock had traveled back through Time to stop him.”
The man scowled. “Good heavens! No. I’m afraid Miss Hemlock has a mind of her own.”
“I don’t understand,” said Burton. “She told me she was a Time Agent.”
The other man snatched his cigarette holder from his mouth and uttered dry laughter. “Time Agent? I’m sorry, Captain Burton. The fool girl misrepresented herself. I shall give her a stern talking to once she returns. If she returns.”
He tamped out his cigarette in a silver ashtray and set another in its place, lighting it with a match before taking a deep drag from it. “I’m forgetting my manners. I am Ian Fleming, late of the Naval Department, now assigned to the Occult Ministry as assistant to Aleister Crowley.”
Burton arched an eyebrow. “And who is he?”
“He runs the whole Ministry. He’s a ceremonial magician who warned us of what Germany was doing on the esoteric plane. He helps us counter their magic with some of our own. Well, he and the Thinker, of course.”
“Yes, I know of the Thinker,” said Burton darkly.
“Yes, well, I’m sure our Miss Hemlock told you of the war.”
“She did. So you don’t have any so-called Time Agents running about trying to counter Germany’s war efforts?”
“Goodness, no. Bad stuff, Time travel. We only had the one working prototype, which I unwisely gave to Miss Hemlock for safekeeping. I hope she hasn’t been too much trouble for you back in your time.”
“No,” said Burton. “On the contrary. She’s quite formidable. In fact, she saved my life.”
Fleming chuckled. “Well, that’s something at least. But if she isn’t here with you, how did you arrive here?”
Burton showed Fleming the device Nebogipfel had strapped to his wrist. “The villain Miss Hemlock chased back to my time put this on me and sent me here. He said he wants me to see something. I don’t know what.”
“Good heavens,” said Fleming. “It’s similar to the one our scientists built, based on the mysterious Time Traveler’s original design, as left to us in the files of Mycroft Holmes.”
“Yes,” said Burton. “Similar, but not the same. He controls it. If I attempt to remove it, I will be lost in Time forever.”
“So why are you here now?” asked Fleming.
“I’m not sure. Our mutual devil insists on teaching me something about the nature of Time. But I know who he is.”
Fleming arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“It is hard to explain, but he represents the darker impulses of the Time Machine’s original inventor.”
Fleming puffed on his cigarette and stared at Burton. “You mean he is the mysterious Time Traveler?”
“Yes,” said Burton. “A version of the man, prone to mischief and evil. But now that I think about it, I believe he sent me here to stop something, something he himself set in motion back in my time. The thing Miss Hemlock went back to stop.”
“What do you mean?”
Burton moved upwind of Fleming’s cigarette smoke. “Tell me more about Aleister Crowley.”
Fleming nodded. “He’s our Occult Minister. A new post, he’s the first of his kind. When Germany was just getting started flexing its military muscles, I was working for the Navy. Crowley came to me with an unusual request. He wanted to fight Hitler using magical means. I, along with nearly everyone else, thought the man insane. Then a village in Poland was stamped out of existence by a giant, invisible foot. We employed Crowley’s help immediately, and I became his right hand.”
“Where is he now?”
“The old man is all over the place these days,” said Fleming, sucking his cigarette down to the filter. “He’s working on something big he says will change the tide of the war in our favor, something called the Babalon Working. He spends a lot of time with the Thinker. He’s there now, completing his final preparations.”
“Yes,” said Burton. “I know of this as well. Your Ratiocinator. It’s actually the mind of Mycroft Holmes installed with the aid of the Wold-Newton stones into a difference engine.”
“You are well-informed,” said Fleming. “No one is supposed to know that. I shall need to have a few words with Miss Hemlock upon her return.”
“She told me what she thought I must know,” said Burton. “Mycroft Holmes is still alive inside that machine in the clock tower because of a Map of Time, a list of future events that the Time Traveler’s doppelganger gave him in the past.”
Fleming’s mouth opened in surprise, almost losing its cigarette holder. “Are you saying our current state of affairs is all due to his meddling?”
“I’m afraid so,” said the explorer. “Miss Hemlock traveled back to my time in an attempt to steal the Map of Time from Mycroft Holmes after Nebogipfel gives it to him.”
Fleming scowled. “Who?”
“Moses Nebogipfel. That is what the scoundrel calls himself.”
“Oh hell,” said Fleming. “This Time travel is a ghastly business. I rue the day Prime Minister Churchill had the bloody thing constructed.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Burton. “Now, I think that the only way to stop Nebogipfel in my time is to stop this Crowley fellow from carrying out his magic spell in yours.”