Original Fiction from Sirius S-F: "Replacement Charles" by Patrick S. Baker

Introduction: Sirius Science Fiction commences with this time travel tale told in a classic, snappy entertaining style that we feel exemplifies the kind of spec fic we are seeking. There have been many, many time travel stories written since H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" in 1895, and we feel this holds its own  against the classics. It rose to the top of our initial slush pile, and we are proud to use it as the lead-off story as we launch what we anticipate will become a leading original science fiction web zine.

Lou Antonelli

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Kingdom of the Eastern Franks, Near Liege, Year of our Lord 715

“I think we have run far enough,” Charles said to his half-brother, Childebrand.

“Me as well,” the younger man agreed.

The other four horsemen nodded in agreement. Spread out behind the horsemen was a ragged column of warriors on foot, some wounded, and all exhausted from the losing battle and the long retreat.

“I’m going off in the woods to pray,” Charles announced. “Alone.”

Childebrand nodded again. His older sibling was a Godly man who often prayed alone, especially in times of trouble. And nothing was more troubling than so many good men dead or hurt in a losing battle.

Charles dismounted and walked into the woods, which were now just leafing out and turning green in the early spring. He went over a small rise and out of sight of his associates, found a patch of bright afternoon sun and knelt down. Shutting his eyes, and clasping his hands he started to pray.

The silver dome popped into existence over the praying man. Charles was thrown back and cracked his head on a rock, knocking him half unconscious. He instinctually curled into a ball to protect himself. The silver dome popped out of existence, leaving behind what looked like a fist-sized rock. The rock rolled forward on hidden wheels until it sensed movement and then it stopped still. After the deer ambled by, the rock moved again.

                                                            ***

General Classroom Building, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.

 Year of the Common Era (CE) 2017

The two men in dark suits entered the classroom and walked up to the front just as the professor said to the forty-one students: “After losing his first battle Charles, later called Martel, or the Hammer, never lost again. No one is really sure what changed to make Charles such a great warlord. . .”

“Professor Bock,” the older of the two men in suits said as they both flashed their ID, “Special Agent Cole, FBI, and Mr. Usry, Army CID.”

“I don’t like being interrupted during class,” Steven Bock said sourly.

“This is an emergency, sir,” Usry said and handed Bock two sheets of paper. “You’ve been recalled to active duty, Major Bock. You are ordered to come with us immediately.”

Bock looked at the papers. The first one ordered Steven Bock, Major, Military Intelligence, US Army Reserve, to active duty for an indefinite period of time. The second sheet was a written order signed by the Commanding General, Military Intelligence Command, directing Major Bock to accompany the agents immediately. Both documents were stamped top and bottom with TOP SECRET/JANUS in red. Bock had never seen orders like this.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the professor said to his class. “I have been called away. You know the readings due next Monday. I hope to see you than. Have a good week-end.” The students left the class quickly, afraid the professor would suddenly call them back.

“Alright gentlemen, I need to call my neighbor to feed my dog and then we can go.”

“Call her on the way, sir,” Cole said. “We need to go now.”

Bock shoved his books and lecture notes into his briefcase and waved at the government agents to lead on.

After calling his neighbor, Mrs. Newman, to watch his dog, Bitsy, the agents confiscated Bock’s phone. They let him have his books, his briefcase and writing materials after a thorough search.

Cole drove an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria to the Missouri Air National Guard base attached to the Columbia Airport.  The trio boarded an Air Force C-21A, better known as a Learjet Model 36, which took off as soon as the door was shut. They flew west.

“Before you ask us anything,” Mr. Usry said. “We don’t know anything about anything. We were told to collect you and accompany you on board this aircraft. We don’t even know where we are going.”

At that announcement, Bock frowned and then pulled out his books and notes, spread them out across three seats and tray tables and started to work on his next monograph.

                                                            ***

Undisclosed Location, Near Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, CE 2017 

Four hours after wheels up from Missouri, Bock sat in a small and dingy office, in the basement of a small and dingy building, just off a small and dingy airfield somewhere in the Desert Southwest. A female Air Force brigadier general named Ellis sat facing him. Bock’s personnel records open in front of the general.

“Major Steven Bock, USAR: BA History, University of Missouri-Columbia, Masters European History, American Military University, PhD Medieval History, Rockhurst College. Speaks fluent German and Latin, has working knowledge of French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Commissioned Military Intelligence, branch detailed Infantry. Two tours in Iraq, one as an infantry platoon leader, one as a battalion S-2. Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, one with a ‘V’ device, two Purple Hearts. Airborne wings, Combat Infantry Badge, Close Combat Badge. Top Secret Special Compartmentalized Information Clearance. Now associate professor of History at UMC.” She closed the dossier, “Come with me.”

“General Ellis, when am I going to get some explanation about what is going on?”

“Right now, major.” Ellis said as she stood. “Right now.” 

Bock followed Ellis down a hallway and through what Bock could only describe as an airlock guarded by an Army MP. Ellis opened the outer door with a key card. While in the airlock, Bock felt his hair stand on end as an electrical wave wash over him.

“Sort of a degaussing,” Ellis said to Bock’s unspoken question.

The general then used a retina reader, fingerprint scanner and key code to open the inner door. Another MP stood guard inside, his weapon pointed at Ellis and Bock as they came through. The inner hallway was bright and hospital clean.

Ellis took Bock down the corridor, none of the doors had any name plates on them. She opened a door into an infirmary. On one of the three beds was a man between 25 and 35 years-old. He had light brown hair, cut long over his ears, but with bangs, a neatly trimmed beard the same shade. He was a bit over six-feet tall, appeared to be reasonably fit, he was deeply tanned, like he spent most of his life outside. An IV dripped clear fluid in one arm, while his head and chest were wired to various monitors. A doctor in a white coat monitored the patient from behind a desk and another MP stood next to the doctor.

“Bottom line up front, Major Bock, is that America has a time machine. It is called Project Janus,” Ellis said. “This time machine can place and retrieve inanimate objects back and forth in time and in space, anywhere and anytime on this planet. As to why you are here, we sent a probe back to near Liege to 715 AD, in what the scientists call a ‘temporal backwash’ this man came back to our time. I need you to talk to him, figure out who and what he is and see what if anything we need to do about him. Understand this has never happened before, so we have no idea what we might be dealing with regrading changes in the time line.”

Bock’s mind reeled and spun, he flopped down on the empty bed. A time machine! The historian in him quickly imagined all he and his fellows could learn from being able to directly observe the past. All the mysteries they could solve.

Ellis interrupted his train of though.

 “Can you do it?”

“Ah,” Bock started, than stopped, then started again. “Depends, if this guy is educated, I could probably manage a conversation in Latin. If he’s not, then the Franks likely spoke a Rhenish Franconian dialect of Old High German, closely related to Dutch, but no one really knows. So, I might manage using my Hoch Deutsch, but that would likely be the harder way to go. What was our subject wearing when he showed up? That might give me a clue to his status.”

Ellis ordered the MP to fetch the time traveler’s gear. In a few minutes the MP with another helping brought in a bundle of clothes sealed in a plastic bag, some chainmail armor and a sword.

Bock warmed to his mission as he quickly examined the clothes and weapons. The clothes was a woolen tunic and pants died blue and in good repair, white linen undershorts that tied at the waist. A leather belt that held a scabbard. The sword was good iron, heavy, but well balanced and had been used; there were nicks in it.  The hilt was plain wrapped leather. The man’s armor was long chain-mail shirt with short sleeves.

“That sword and scabbard cost as much as seven cows and the armor as much as six mares,” Bock declared. “This guy is pretty high status, at least a land-owner, maybe nobility, or maybe a satellites, a paid retainer of a great noble. With any luck he’ll speak enough Latin for me to figure out who he is at least.”

Ellis looked on, impressed by how the young major had quickly moved on from the shock of learning of time travel to focusing on the job at hand.  

“I need a dimly lit room with nothing in it but his bed, a plain table and chair,” Bock said. “And can you put him back in his clothes without waking him up?”

“We can do that,” Ellis said, after the doctor nodded. “But we will have security cameras in the room as well.”

Bock nodded to that and then thought for a moment about asking for a set of clothes similar to the time travelers’ but decided his blue blazer, yellow dress shirt and khaki pants were close enough in style to not shock the time traveler unduly.

In less than half an hour, Bock had everything he requested.  He sat in the chair as the doctor pulled the IV out of the time traveler’s arm and slapped a bandage on the tiny wound. The time-traveler was restrained at wrists and ankles. The doctor than gave the traveler a shot in the upper right arm.

“He’ll be wake up in a moment,” the MD said, walking quickly out of the door.

                                                ***

The time-traveler jerked awake and shouted something that Bock couldn’t interpret. Then the traveler’s eyes landed on Bock and he said something else in a much calmer voice. It sounded vaguely German, but the vowel sounds were off; shorter and more guttural then High German or Modern Dutch.

“I am Bock,” Bock said slowly in Latin. “Satellities and medico to my lord abbot. My lord’s men found you in the forest near Leige and brought you here for aid.”

“I am Charles, Son of Pippin. Am I a prisoner?” Charles said and shook his restrained wrists.

“No, Lord Charles, but you had a fever and thrashed about, so we tied you to the bed.”

“I don’t have a fever now.”

“True,” Bock walked around the bed and released the restraints. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“You did not hear of the fight?”

“No,” Bock said.

“Ragamfred, Neustrian Mayor of the Palace, made common cause with the vile Frisian pagan, Radbod, to attack and ravage my family lands. I gathered what forces I could and marched against the Frisians. We were surprised, badly beaten and had to retreat. I lost many good men. I was alone, praying for guidance when a dome of silver light surrounded me and then I woke up here.”

Bock sat silent for a moment. Then asked: “Was your father Pippin of Herstal, Mayor of the Palace for Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy?”

“Yes,” Charles said simply.

“My Lord Charles,” Bock said. “I must report what you have told me to my lord abbot. Do you want any food or drink?”

“Yes, please, Brother Bock.”

“My fellows have taken a vow of silence,” Bock said as he stood. “From which I am released in order to speak to you. Please respect that and ask them no questions.”

“Of course,” Charles said.

                                                            ***

Ellis was waiting in the observation room.

“What should we feed him?” she asked.

“Plain bread, meat cooked well done, an unpeeled apple or other fruit and either wine or beer, no water.” Bock answered. “Give him a small paring knife and a clean white cloth for him to wipe his hands. No fork, they hadn’t been invented yet in his time.”

“Do you know who you have?” The historian went on to the general.

“I picked out that Charles is his name,” Ellis said.

“Not just any Charles. He is, or will be, Charles Martel. He will become Prince and Duke of the Franks, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy. He’ll get the cognomen Martel, Martellus in Latin, the Hammer in English, for defeating the Muslim Moors at the Battle of Tours in 732 and likely saving Christian Europe from becoming part of the Islamic caliphate. His grandson is Charlemagne, first Holy Roman Emperor. He is arguably the most pivotal person in Early Medieval Europe. You have to send him back to as close to the time you grabbed him as you can.”

“We can’t,” Ellis said. “We have tried before to send animals on a round trip in time, it has killed every one of them, from rabbits to apes. When they make a second trip, they dissolve like a sugar cube in hot tea, only bloodier.”

“We have to do something,” Bock raised his voice. “We have no idea what his disappearance will do to time.”

“So far . . .” the general started.

The room shook violently. Bock, Ellis and the guards were all thrown to the floor and the furniture toppled over. The quake seemed to go on forever. Then it stopped.

“What was that?” The general said, mostly to herself. “This place is supposed to be geologically stable, that is why we picked it.”

“I’ll go see what is happening,” Ellis told Bock.

The historian looked at Charles on the TV monitors. The time traveler seemed none the worse for the quake He simply turned the table and chair upright, collected his meal off the floor and started to eat again.

Bock ordered the MPs to bring Charles another beer. He also asked the MP to bring him the same thing they had brought Charles. In a moment the MP returned with a plastic dinner plate with two slices of wheat bread, a hamburger steak grilled almost black, two apples and a plastic cup of some American lager.

Bock ate slowly and watched Charles until Ellis returned a couple of hours later.

“Come with me, Major,” Ellis said from the door.

The general took Bock to the security room. A set of closed circuit TV screens showed all the public areas of the base. Several screens showed static and one showed a view of a valley with a blasted city in the center.

“What’s that look like?” Ellis asked Bock and pointed to the last screen.

Bock studied the view for a moment.

“Hiroshima after the atomic bomb,” the historian finally said.

“I agree,” Ellis responded. “Seems time has changed on us. That city should not exist and obviously it shouldn’t have been hit with a nuke. Also the background radiation outside is ten times what it should be.”

“Why weren’t we affected?” Bock asked.

“My boffins,” the general used the British term for civilian scientists. “Developed what they call an entropy shield, its designed to keep time displacement waves inside the base. They think that it also protected the base from the change in the time line.”

Bock nodded his understanding. He read science-fiction his whole life and if he was going to buy time travel, which he had, he could certainly buy an “entropy shield.” He could also buy that time had changed and the alternate world created by Charles Martel’s disappearance had destroyed itself.

                                                ***

The historian followed the general to a well-appointed conference room.  The whole staff of Project: Janus, about 30 people, was packed into the room, but two chairs at the head of the table were empty. As Ellis entered, everyone rose, even the civilians. The general motioned everyone to sit down and for Bock to take the empty seat next to her. The general then quickly explained the situation.

“Ideas?” Ellis said as she sat. “Opinions? Anything useful?”

“Ma’am,” Colson, the Army Major and the project’s supply officer, spoke. “We have about ninety-day of food, if we ration. Water is not a problem since we recycle that. The micro-nuke plant is good for at least ten more years.”

The room was now dead silent. Bock became aware of the rising tension around him. The military and scientists were stymied and they, as a group, were not used to that feeling. These people were the ones that had the answers, or the means to find the solutions and then the way to execute those results. But in this circumstance they had nothing, no answers, and no one said anything.

“Send me back,” Bock said, quietly at first. Then louder, “Send me back in place of Charles.”

“What?” Ellis said. “That is nuts.”

“Maybe,” Bock said. “Maybe not. I already bear a resemblance to Charles, your docs could do some plastic surgery to make me look more like him. I’ll grow my hair and beard out. I have three months to learn how he speaks and acts. I’ll learn his background as much as I can. Also I know how his life is supposed to go, or did go, or whatever. Tenses are hard when dealing with time travel. I should be able to follow the outline of his life well enough to return time to normal.”

“What about your life here?” one of the boffins asked.

“Right now it doesn’t exist.”

“But if we can restore the time line some other way, you will not be here to resume that life?”

“Who cares?” Bock said. “I don’t. I’m an only child, my folks are dead. I’m divorced and, not blaming my ex, but she doesn’t want to have much to do with me. Only thing is, if the plan manages to fix time, I’d like to know that someone good adopted my dog, Bitsy.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Ellis said. “We can put you on extended active duty, then kill you off later, pay your SLGI to anyone you want, give you a nice award, like another silver star, maybe the Distinguished Service Cross. Where do you want to be buried?”

“Hmm,” Bock thought. “Leavenworth?”

“Sure, can do,” Ellis said. “If this works.”

                                                ***

Bock went to Charles and explained to him what had happened. Then Ellis and Bock took the medieval man on a tour of the time machine facility. Charles may not have grasped the concept totally, but with a: “If this is God’s will”, he resigned himself to the fact he could not return home.

At the end if the tour, Ellis, Bock and Charles sat in the interview room.

“Do you still have abbeys in this time and place?” Charles asked.

“Yes,” Bock said. “A number of them.”

“I never wanted to be a war leader, a Dux Bellorum,” the time traveler went on. “But I had to fight for my family, and the people who depended on me. If I could have, I would have retired to an abbey for a life of contemplation. Perhaps you can arrange that now, possibly somewhere near my home lands.”

“We can do that,” Ellis said as Bock translated. “Could I ask? What convinced you we are telling the truth about time travel and all the rest?”

“You did, my lady,” Charles said. “All the wonders of this place are nothing compared to a woman war leader, a Duxes Bellorum who orders men around like you do, and the men obey without resentment.”

“Yeah,” Ellis said. “We have come a long way, baby.”

Bock did not translate that.   

“Also, your beer tastes like cow piss,” Charles smiled. “No decent abbey would serve such swill.”

                                                ***

Eighty days later, Bock stood outside the time-displacement machine. The TDM looked like a closed MRI designed by M. C. Esher and built by Rube Goldberg. The historian’s face still hurt a little from the cheek bone reduction and the nose break that made him look even more like Charles. He was dressed in Charles clothes and armor. Charles was dressed in Bock’s clothes.

“I’ll do my best for your family and your legacy,” Bock said. 

 “May God go with you, my friend,” Charles said and they hugged.

Ellis came up to Bock.

“I’ll take care of things at this end,” she said. “You take care of things at yours.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Bock said. “Make sure my ex gets all my insurance and any money from my estate, she deserves it for putting up with me.”

He then saluted Ellis, who returned the salute and said: “Godspeed.”

Bock crawled into the machine and balled up in the fetal position. The machine started to hum, louder and louder. Bock felt the pressure build and then just before it was about to crush him, the world turned silver and he was gone.

                                                            ***

Kingdom of the Eastern Franks, Near Liege, Year of our Lord 715

Bock, now Charles, slowly uncurled and stretched out his sore limbs.

“Charles, Charles,” came a voice from over the rise.

“Childebrand?” Bock shouted back.

“Charles,” his younger half-brother came over the rise. “What happened, brother? We saw two lightning strikes. So I came looking.”

“I have received a divine revelation and know what to do to rescue our fortunes,” Charles said.

Childebrand looked long and hard at his older brother. Charles seemed somehow different. Maybe it was a visitation, or the closeness of the lightning, but this new Charles seemed more confident, more self-assured.

“Let us join the other,” Childbrand said. “So you can tell us all your plans.”

                                                ***

Undisclosed Location, Near Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, CE 2016

Time snapped backed to the original line twenty-three hours and twenty-three minutes after Bock went back to AD 715.

 General Ellis opened her new copy of the Continuations of the Chronicles of Fredegar she had just received and put it down next to the dog-eared copy of the same book Steven Bock had left behind. Slowly and carefully she started to read at Chapter Eight, set in 715 and through to Chapter 24, set in 740.

The texts diverged at Chapter 24. In the “original” Charles Martel died in 740. In the “revised” version he retired to a monastery, Abbaye Saint-Jacques de Liege and lived to age 72. Charles’ last words, which the chronicler carefully recorded were: “Tell Ellis I did my best.” The chronicler admitted he had no idea what the words meant, or who Ellis was.

The general did a quick internet search. She went to Charles, who her MPs had started calling “Charlie Hammer”.

“I know the abbey you may retire to,” Ellis said. “And they take dogs.”

Charlie Hammer nodded, petted Bitsy the Carolina Dog, and said in German-accented English: “Thank you, my lady general. I’m sure Bitsy and I will like it.”

###

About the Author:

Patrick S. Baker is a U.S. Army Veteran, and a retired Department of Defense employee. He holds Bachelor degrees in History and Political Science and a Masters in European History. He has been writing professionally since 2013. His nonfiction has appeared in New Myths, Sci-Phi Journal and Medieval Warfare Magazine. His fiction has appeared in Astounding Frontiers and Broadswords and Blasters Magazine as well as the After Avalon and Uncommon Minds analogies. In his spare time, he plays golf, reads, works out, and enjoys life with his wife, dog, and two cats.