The Compton Bay Discrepancy
It was raining on the Military Road, which Lieutenant Commander Isla Penhaligon of the Department of Temporal Investigations found oddly reassuring. The Federation had abolished money and cured most diseases, but the Lymington ferry still ran eleven minutes late.
The message that had brought her here was short. Combadge found in Wealden mudstone, Hanover Point. Strata dated 125 million years. Please advise.
Dr Morwenna Cass met her on the cliff path in a yellow waterproof, holding a flask of tea and a small evidence case. She was a palaeontologist, sixtyish, with the weathered patience of someone who spent her life staring at the ground.
“Found it Tuesday,” Cass said. “Right beside the theropod footprints. I’ve been doing this thirty years, andI’vee never found a thing that wasn’t a bone or a rock.”
"Chroniton decay is wrong,” she said. “If this had sat in mudstone for a hundred and twenty-five million years, it would be dust. This has been in the ground for about six days.”
“Six days,” Cass repeated, and sipped her tea. She did not look surprised.
Penhaligon noted that and said nothing.
Flipped over, the badge had a line of engraving scratched into the back with something sharp: ASK THE NEEDLES. TIDE IS WRONG. Beneath it, smaller, a service number. She ran it through her pad. Lieutenant Tobias Ferrar, USS Solent, listed missing following a transporter accident near Alpha Centauri, forty-one years ago.
"Forty-one years,” Penhaligon murmured. “And somebody wants me to think he fell into the Cretaceous.”
“Perhaps he did,” said Cass.
“No. Someone buried this on Tuesday morning, beside a footprint that thousands of tourists photograph every summer, and then reported it to the one organisation that cannot ignore it.” She closed the case. “You wanted me here, Doctor. I’d like to know why.”
Cass looked at the grey sea for a while. “Let’s go to the Needles,” she said. “You’ll want to see the tide.”
They took Cass’s old electric runabout along the cliff road, past Freshwater and the green sweep of the Down, and parked below the Old Battery. The chalk stacks stood in the water, white and jagged, the lighthouse at the end like a candle someone had forgotten to blow out.
Penhaligon’s tricorder began to complain before she was out of the car.
“There’s a temporal shear,” she said. “Small. Stable. It’s been here a long time.” She swept the device towards the cliff face. “Forty years, at a guess. It’s been leaking at low tide, which is why the tide tables are wrong. The water’s been moving a few seconds out of step with the moon.”
“Tobias noticed that,” Cass said quietly. “In 1971.”
Penhaligon turned slowly. “Say that again.”
“He came out of the shear on a Tuesday in March, soaking wet, wearing a uniform nobody had designed yet. The old lighthouse keeper took him in. He never found a way home. The shear only opens one direction, backwards.” Cass opened her waterproof and took out a battered tin box, rusted at the hinges. “He worked on the island for forty years. Mended boats. Taught the local children to name the stars. He was my great-great-grandfather.”
The wind pushed rain across the chalk. Penhaligon said nothing.
“He died,” Cass said. “In his bed, in Freshwater, very old, very stubborn. He left us this and told us never to give it to Starfleet, because Starfleet would only seal the shear and call it safe.” She held out the tin. “But I wanted someone to know. He never could say it aloud. He was a man who lost his whole century, Commander, and I couldn’t bear it if nobody in yours ever learned his name.”
“So you planted the badge.”
“I put it where it would be found, in a layer where it couldn’t possibly belong. I knew your people couldn’t resist an impossible date.”
Penhaligon almost smiled. “That was forged evidence and a false report to a Federation department.”
“Yes,” said Cass. “Are you going to arrest me?”
Penhaligon looked at the stacks, the shear, and the incoming tide, running a few seconds wrong, as it had for forty years. She looked at the tin box.
“I’m going to write that the badge was a hoax by a local enthusiast, that the readings are residual noise from a decommissioned subspace relay, and that the case is closed.” She took the tin and held it carefully. “And then I’m going to write a second report, privately, recommending that the Needles shear be protected as a historical site. Not sealed.”
Cass let out a long breath.
“One condition,” Penhaligon added. “You’ll show me his grave.”
The churchyard at Freshwater was quiet, the grass wet and bright. The headstone was plain Isle of Wight stone, the lettering weathered but clear:
TOBIAS FERRAR
Mender of boats. Namer of stars.
Late of the USS Solent.
Penhaligon pinned the old gold badge to the cold top of the stone and stood there until the tide, a few seconds late as always, turned.
It was raining on the Military Road, which Lieutenant Commander Isla Penhaligon of the Department of Temporal Investigations found oddly reassuring. The Federation had abolished money and cured most diseases, but the Lymington ferry still ran eleven minutes late.
The message that had brought her here was short. Combadge found in Wealden mudstone, Hanover Point. Strata dated 125 million years. Please advise.
Dr Morwenna Cass met her on the cliff path in a yellow waterproof, holding a flask of tea and a small evidence case. She was a palaeontologist, sixtyish, with the weathered patience of someone who spent her life staring at the ground.
“Found it Tuesday,” Cass said. “Right beside the theropod footprints. I’ve been doing this thirty years, andI’vee never found a thing that wasn’t a bone or a rock.”
"Chroniton decay is wrong,” she said. “If this had sat in mudstone for a hundred and twenty-five million years, it would be dust. This has been in the ground for about six days.”
“Six days,” Cass repeated, and sipped her tea. She did not look surprised.
Penhaligon noted that and said nothing.
Flipped over, the badge had a line of engraving scratched into the back with something sharp: ASK THE NEEDLES. TIDE IS WRONG. Beneath it, smaller, a service number. She ran it through her pad. Lieutenant Tobias Ferrar, USS Solent, listed missing following a transporter accident near Alpha Centauri, forty-one years ago.
"Forty-one years,” Penhaligon murmured. “And somebody wants me to think he fell into the Cretaceous.”
“Perhaps he did,” said Cass.
“No. Someone buried this on Tuesday morning, beside a footprint that thousands of tourists photograph every summer, and then reported it to the one organisation that cannot ignore it.” She closed the case. “You wanted me here, Doctor. I’d like to know why.”
Cass looked at the grey sea for a while. “Let’s go to the Needles,” she said. “You’ll want to see the tide.”
They took Cass’s old electric runabout along the cliff road, past Freshwater and the green sweep of the Down, and parked below the Old Battery. The chalk stacks stood in the water, white and jagged, the lighthouse at the end like a candle someone had forgotten to blow out.
Penhaligon’s tricorder began to complain before she was out of the car.
“There’s a temporal shear,” she said. “Small. Stable. It’s been here a long time.” She swept the device towards the cliff face. “Forty years, at a guess. It’s been leaking at low tide, which is why the tide tables are wrong. The water’s been moving a few seconds out of step with the moon.”
“Tobias noticed that,” Cass said quietly. “In 1971.”
Penhaligon turned slowly. “Say that again.”
“He came out of the shear on a Tuesday in March, soaking wet, wearing a uniform nobody had designed yet. The old lighthouse keeper took him in. He never found a way home. The shear only opens one direction, backwards.” Cass opened her waterproof and took out a battered tin box, rusted at the hinges. “He worked on the island for forty years. Mended boats. Taught the local children to name the stars. He was my great-great-grandfather.”
The wind pushed rain across the chalk. Penhaligon said nothing.
“He died,” Cass said. “In his bed, in Freshwater, very old, very stubborn. He left us this and told us never to give it to Starfleet, because Starfleet would only seal the shear and call it safe.” She held out the tin. “But I wanted someone to know. He never could say it aloud. He was a man who lost his whole century, Commander, and I couldn’t bear it if nobody in yours ever learned his name.”
“So you planted the badge.”
“I put it where it would be found, in a layer where it couldn’t possibly belong. I knew your people couldn’t resist an impossible date.”
Penhaligon almost smiled. “That was forged evidence and a false report to a Federation department.”
“Yes,” said Cass. “Are you going to arrest me?”
Penhaligon looked at the stacks, the shear, and the incoming tide, running a few seconds wrong, as it had for forty years. She looked at the tin box.
“I’m going to write that the badge was a hoax by a local enthusiast, that the readings are residual noise from a decommissioned subspace relay, and that the case is closed.” She took the tin and held it carefully. “And then I’m going to write a second report, privately, recommending that the Needles shear be protected as a historical site. Not sealed.”
Cass let out a long breath.
“One condition,” Penhaligon added. “You’ll show me his grave.”
The churchyard at Freshwater was quiet, the grass wet and bright. The headstone was plain Isle of Wight stone, the lettering weathered but clear:
TOBIAS FERRAR
Mender of boats. Namer of stars.
Late of the USS Solent.
Penhaligon pinned the old gold badge to the cold top of the stone and stood there until the tide, a few seconds late as always, turned.
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