“There are a few professionals about, but Smite Solutions is smart—they’ve booked them for other jobs at the same time as the smiting: helping a lady across the road, being with someone in a difficult moment, reminding someone of the path, that sort of thing. Trivial, one might think, and easily canceled for this job. Trouble is, righteous men would never back out on an agreed appearance—and you can’t offer them more money, because they won’t take it.”

“And if they did, they wouldn’t be righteous.”

“Exactly.”

I should have known there would be one or two snags.

“So, as you can see, we should have a few subs in case of mishaps, just in case. But they’re tricky to find, as they don’t draw attention to themselves and would never volunteer themselves as righteous because they would never see themselves as such. Plus, we have the usual problem of being swamped with volunteers, eager to promote themselves as righteous.”

“And all who can be instantly rejected for that very same reason.”

“Right.”

“Luckily for us, we’ve got a seriously righteous man lined up. He’s a real pip—not even a shred of malice, ego or selfishness. Even a whiff of him will be enough to divert the stream of destruction away from the sinful.”

“Don’t let Goliath find out,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a smile, “we’ve got him in a safe house where he is being looked after by semirighteous people— who are in turn being protected by people who are quite happy to be not righteous at all when it comes to protecting the main guy.”

He climbed into his car, slammed the door and wound down the window.

“Give my love to Landen and Tuesday, won’t you?” he said. “And although I don’t want to add any pressure, if Tuesday could find the value of Uc before midday on Friday, it would save a whole lot of uncertainty—and we can keep our righteous man in reserve for another time.”

“She’s doing her best,” I said, “but she is only sixteen. Most scientists don’t start achieving this level of success before they are old, gray, cantankerous, forgetful and smelly.”

“I know,” said Miles. “The planet’s lucky to have her. Cheerio!”

He started the engine, and we waved as he drove off.

“So, Mum,” said Friday, “the timepark?”

“The timepark.”

27. Wednesday: Kemble Timepark

27.

Wednesday: Kemble Timepark

The C-90-F Reverse Fluxgate time engines, despite being shown to not work, still maintained a residual capacity to bend space-time and exhibit time-dilation phenomena. Physicists had argued long and hard over the apparent contradictions, and concluded that time travel might exist in an entangled intermediate state of working and not working, with no apparent contradiction. In that respect time is very like a tiresome soap star: wayward, petulant and unpredictable.

Norman Scrunge, Time Industry Historian