Chapter 10



For three weeks I R&R'd from my trip to the past. I took my gold into an assay office, and cashed it in. It was 264,243 dollars and 12 cents, after taxes. Not a bad haul, really. After all, gold hunting is legal. My not saying exactly where I got it, just naming the general area, was in keeping with time-honored gold hunting tradition. Plus, they tested it, and admitted that it all came from the same general area.

My future counterpart had placed his car in the 'between', and pulled it through time, to boot. Which meant I should be able to do it, as well. So I practiced placing heavier and heavier loads into the between. I could see this was going to take some time.

Days turned into weeks, and then months. I was more than recovered, and I was stronger mentally than ever. I was able to shift myself with the car to preset points; but going into the past with it, was not going well. I had a very short range indeed.

It was also getting closer to the time I would head off to the school Bell maintained, and learn some advanced flying with instrument, and emergency landing techniques. The influx of cash from my sale of the gold I had collected, was a big help to me financially. I was still woefully short of where I had been as 'Tom', but 'Ben Porter' was doing well, and legally, too! At least, as far as the state and federal governments were concerned.

I was also itching to get into some sort of business where my special talent would stand me in good stead. Retriever of lost artifacts, maybe. But very discrete. It would not do to get to famous and be recognized. This was going to have to take some thought. In the meantime, there was an interesting treasure I could recover; not that I could ever display it, of course.

King John of England had foolishly lost it crossing a 'low tide use only' crossing of some sort back in the early 1200's. The man had lost most of the crown jewels of England. I felt well enough to do a little time diving, and some scuba diving as well. Nothing like swimming for 'lost treasure' to get one interested in a little history. Who knows, I might even spend a little time there visiting the area.

Not in the vicinity of the Avery-Smythes, though. No, they were living in another part of England, and would not be anywhere near the area I would be visiting. Of course, they were staunch loyalists, and might have had someone with the King. Of course, they had also been involved in the Magna Carta fiasco, too, come to think of it.

This was the same 'King John' who had been held prisoner by his nobles until he signed that document. Who says contracts aren't legal despite being coerced? Being held prisoner, sure seems like 'coerced', to me. Most governments around the world refuse to honor those types of documents now-a-days. So following this logic, it would seem you can't hold someone to a contract that he was forced to sign. Of course, the rules and laws were different, back then.

King John had not taken it lying down, either. As soon as he was free from the nobility that had participated in holding him until he signed, he said he refused to honor this document, and a civil war ensued. That was in 1215. It was in the following year, October of 1216, that he died of dysentery.

This meant another trip to Europe, England to be specific, but I had points to transport to, so I was not worried about 'passport control' or being seen by people from the government who shouldn't see me. It would be embarrassing to get a ticket for a flight, and then be stopped at 'passport control' by a government that thought I was dead.

I contacted the Canadian company that had provided me with all my "period" equipment, to date. I explained my wants and needs. I specified the exact period of clothing I would need, from footwear to headgear. October in England should not be too bad.

I figured that when it came time to make the time dive, I would do it in two stages. I just had to be sure I had enough power in the first stage, to make finishing trip to the time I wanted to be in, feasible. The lateral transport would not be a problem, as it would be done in the 'between'.

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By the time the clothing and equipment I ordered from the Canadian company arrived, I had a plan in effect. I had already made the scouting trip to the area in England I wanted. I had set some points to use for transporting, when I was ready to do the 'time dive'. One of the things I did, was to get several pounds of pepper. I would exchange it for 'coin of the realm'. Pepper was a very expensive item back then. It would give me enough gold to live very comfortably, if I wanted too. Hell, I didn't even need to do that really, just go in, get the treasure, and get out. I wanted to feel and taste the flavor of this time period, though.

I also held back several pounds of different spices, including more pepper, in my 'peddlers pack', to explain myself to anyone in authority. It was a disguise, after all.

After all, I was going to see King John of England. He was a man who had a bad reputation. I think, perhaps, it was undeserved. When you broke down his actual deeds against other monarchs, and looked carefully; the guy actually did a pretty good job in a difficult time, with almost impossible situations. He was a good administrator, but sucked as a war leader. So what? Well, the people back in that time demanded perfection in everything from their kings and queens.

I was also spending time in my car, the one my future self brought back from the future. The more I used it, the more I appreciated it. While the apparent hard drive was 10 gig in my onboard computer, there was more hard drive space connected from a hidden source. Why he did it this way, I was unsure. But the actual computer hard drive storage space inside the computer in the car, was a lot greater than my first understanding led me to believe. Much greater.

I was talking with the AI, when it mentioned something that made me curious: my perception of time, versus my living through that same amount of time. My future self had been worried about this, and he'd done research and experiments. The results were as follows. If I went back into time, and lived an hour or a day in that actual period, then it was a normal day or hour of living I had done. It counted on my life span.

The tricky part was when I was in that 'almost there' point in the time, when I was observing. The place I used to observe from, was outside of normal time. It flowed differently. My biological clock did not really recognize the time spent in the 'almost there' zone. It did recognize being in the time zone properly, though. My future self had spent over a day in the 'almost there'. No beard grew, no hunger developed... nothing. When he stepped through to that actual zone, time and biological imperatives kicked in. It was very interesting, really.

I spent time trying to store more and more power for my own use. I wanted to have an emergency supply stored in my body. It was something I had been doing, to try to improve my energy handling, and to get myself more used to this ability. It still felt strange, storing this energy.

I gathered some scuba gear together, and made sure the twin tanks were charged. I had an inflatable vest for emergencies, a watertight flashlight, an underwater camera, my wet suit, a depth gage and a waterproof watch. A knife finished out my ensemble. I was not going to take chance. If an English soldier found me... well, to bad for him.

The game plan was to watch what happens the first time. Then I would go back again, and insert myself at the appropriate point. I would be touching items and placing them in the 'between' for storage and later retrieval. I could then take my time taking each item placed into the 'between' out, and cleaning and examining what I had.

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I was finally ready. I placed everything I would need in the 'between' as a group. I transported myself to modern day London, and then traveled back in time two hundred years. I paused, briefly. I had studied the past carefully. I changed my clothing to the appropriate attire of the early 1200's, and grabbed my pack. I found the point I wanted, and tapped the power. I stepped forward into the correct time zone.

I checked to make sure I had come out in the correct area. Yup. I also sensed the connections, as tenuous as they were, to the area. I would transport or teleport there, as soon as I sold a bit of my spice stock. Spices were a safe commodity to sell, as there was always a demand from the wealthy nobles. The royalty had a 'pipeline', so to speak.

I enjoyed dickering with the merchant whose eyes lit up when I pulled out my first wrapped parcel of pepper. Two and a half pounds of pepper. We dickered for a bit, and soon arrived at an agreeable price. Just about any spice commanded a good price, but pepper was king of spices by reason of its scarcity.

While I was dickering, I noticed a couple guys keeping an eye on me. They were probably local thieves or hooligans. No problem.

One of the things I had, was an awareness of my immediate surroundings to a degree that was astonishing. I had started developing it when I went back in time the first time, and it had been getting stronger. If I had been paying attention to it during my 'time dive' back in Alaska, I would not have been caught as I had been.

The problem was, that I got so much information through that source, that I sort of tuned it out as a defense mechanism. I had problems processing all the extra info that my brain was getting in addition to the normal sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. I also had a spatial perception of what was around me, down to incredibly fine detail, when I concentrated on it. I think it had something to do with, or was tied in with, another ability. My ability to see something, and put it into the 'between', with just a push from my mind. I did not have to touch it with my hands.

These two goons were almost broadcasting thief and other nasty ideas just by being there. After I concluded my transaction with the merchant, I picked up my pack, and started walking out of the area. Sure enough, Billy and Badass were right behind me. I led them to a quiet place. I could almost feel their anticipation as I seemed to be walking straight into a place that was quiet, and out of the way.

I stopped and turned around, facing the way I had come. The two were still some distance from me, but closed rapidly. They were pretty upfront, I'll give them that.

"We'll take yer gold, and leave ye alive. Argue, and ye're for the river," the bigger of the two said, smacking the fist of one hand into the other with a meaty thud.

Well, that was straight enough. I cocked an eye at them, and pushed them gently into the 'between'. Hmm. I sure as hell didn't want to leave them in there, and yet I didn't want to kill them out of hand. Oh, well. Something would come to me 'in time', I was sure.

Since I was out of sight of anyone, I connected mentally to the location of the largest town I had previously scouted out, and transported there. While my connection was still there, it was in the future. I had not taken this into consideration. Damn, ok, I transported myself to the town in the future, and then 'time dived' back to the appropriate time zone. Yup, my two erstwhile robbers were there, ready for me to release them, or to let them stay in the 'between'.

It was early morning when I chose to arrive that day in October, and I made my way to the ford where the army would soon be crossing. I took off my pack and placed it into the 'between'. It was a hell of a good storage place. I checked my connection with my scuba gear, and it was intact. I had plenty of power to pull it though from the future.

I had placed things in the 'between' in the past before, and was able to pull it out very easily. This was the reverse of that. It was harder to do, and took more power. I had never noticed it before, but for some reason, I now had a "feeling" of power used, that I'd never had before. Perhaps I was developing better control? I was sensing the power I used in way that I had never before. Also, when you pulled something from the 'between' and you had placed it there in the past, you had already established a route so to speak. Doing the reverse took more power. I had done that before, too. I just never realized how much power it took.

I chuckled at a sudden thought. I just knew my two thieves wanted to make restitution for their evil ways. I found a spot and released them, just in time to be intercepted by the advance guard of the King's supply train. I stayed in the 'almost there' and watched the fun. They did a fast song and dance, and were astonished at finding themselves in a totally unexpected location and confronting, not a scared person, but an advancing army. Incredibly, they managed to stay out of the army's way, and not make themselves a nuisance to the King's guard.

'Some people have all the luck, ' I thought, as the two made their way out of sight.

Edited by TeNderLoin

Chapter 11