have a hundred questions, the least of which is what in god’s name you are doing here with this ship!”
“We’re standing to in the service of the King,” said MacRae. “Just like all the rest out here.”
“In a Type-45 destroyer? Oh, it’s a nice white paint you put over it, and her lines are smoothed out a bit, but this is a fighting ship, and that’s a Sampson radar dome up there on your mainmast. It’s unmistakable. And who in hell is using tactical nukes? Are you people crazy?”
Wellings gave them a no nonsense look, with just a flash of anger, and MacRae eyed Morgan now, wondering just who this man really was. That statement had clearly changed the entire tenor of the conversation, for only a man from their own day would have been able to finger the Argos Fire’s heritage as a Daring Class destroyer, or know anything about nuclear weapons.
“It wasn’t us,” said Elena. “Yes, this whole situation is insane, but we’ve more sense than that. But let’s stay focused here… This artifact,” a note of suspicion was creeping into her tone now. “Just what might it be?”
“A key,” said the American. “A very unusual key, embedded in the base of the Selene Horse.”
Only another member of the Watch would know that, thought Elena, and here this man was said to be asking about Admiral Tovey… What was going on? Who was this man?
“How is it you recognize this ship as a Type-45. Not one man alive on this earth outside this ship could have known that. And how is it you know about this artifact, this key?”
“The key?” Wellings said bluntly. “Because I was the first man to discover it, and it will probably not be seen by any man alive on this earth again if we don’t take speedy action to salvage it.”
“You can forget that,” said Morgan. “Rodney is finished. There’s no way we could risk getting divers aboard now. She’ll be heading for Davy Jones locker inside ten minutes.”
The American officer shrugged, realizing this was likely true, and yet still animated with a frustrated energy. “Damn,” he said, summing up what they all seemed to feel at the moment.
“You were the man to first discover it?” Fairchild gave him an incredulous look. “It’s been sitting in the British Museum ever since the 7th Earl of Elgin persuaded the government to purchase the marbles in 1816.”
“Yes, yes,” said Wellings, “I know all the history. That 35,000 pounds bought the British government much more than they ever realized.”
“Oh?” Elena inclined her head, studying the man closely, noting how he glanced nervously at his watch. “This key you speak of,” she said. “Might it look anything like this?”
The man’s eyes widened as she drew out the key where it had been hanging on a thin gold chain around her neck. “Then you’ve already found it?” he said quickly, a look of great relief on his face. “How did you manage to get to it with all that ruckus going on out there?”
“I think we’d better sit down, Mister Wellings. You have a hundred questions in mind, and so do I. Suppose we have a little drink and get to the bottom of this. Yet before we discuss this key, and where it came from, I’d like to know who you really are. Clearly you’re not who you seem to be, and if you haven’t noticed, there’s a war on. People take a very dim view of men who put on uniforms without earning the right to do so, and it is clear to me, and most likely to these gentlemen here as well, that you are not a Lieutenant Commander in the American Navy.”
“Quite right,” said Wellings, deciding to drop the guise and identity he had assumed and do a little digging here himself. “Forgive the uniform, but it was necessary, as was the subterfuge. To answer your question, Madame, my name is Dorland—Professor Paul Dorland, of the Lawrence Berkeley Labs in the United States. And since you seem to be well out of place in this milieu, you may not be all that surprised to hear what I say next. I have come here from the year 2021, and to retrieve that very key,” he pointed. “How you managed to come by it is a mystery to me, as was my own discovery of that artifact, embedded in the base of the Selene Horse, right there aboard the battleship Rodney, on May 21st, 1941.”
Morgan gave