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added bluntly, “Or his family.”
    “I understand,” Inchquin said, moving on swiftly. “Well, we really need more data than this. It is all too sketchy at the moment. Tony, can you radio the team up on the hill? Perhaps they have managed to track him down…”
    Suddenly, Carole called out from behind her terminal. “Councillor. There is some sort of reading. We have an emerging time signal. It’s faint but it looks like there is a possible deep time disturbance… possibly time-travel initiation.”
    “Can you pinpoint it?”
    “Difficult to identify it precisely – but the impacted year is 1587. Looks to be early on in that year.”
    “Location?”
    “England – definitely. South-east. Must be London.”
    “Well that decides it then. It looks like Christie was right and the Revisionists are making their move. We must not waste any more time. We need to mobilise immediately.” Inchquin rose to his feet and placed both palms on the table, his voice grave.
    “I feared it would only be a matter of time before this happened again. Everyone – security protocol is Triple Alpha. VIGIL is now on high alert. You all know what to do.”

Sixteenth-century Sortie
    Jack stood in front of the Taurus. He felt different emotions. Not all of them good. Last time he had been in the Taurus control room, he had thought he was going to die. It loomed ominously behind a solid wall of thick green glass that extended from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. The great machine had been expanded and rebuilt since he last saw it. From their previous mission, VIGIL had learned that the Revisionists’ Taurus was significantly larger than VIGIL’s and had the capability to transport sizeable items of machinery, as well as people. In the last six months, work had been carried out on VIGIL’s Taurus to ensure that it was up to scratch. However, VIGIL would only ever use their machine for emergencies such as this. They were reluctant to transfer equipment that was potentially out of period because of the historical consequences it could have. The Revisionists, they had learned, were not so fussy.
    The great machine sat brooding among a complex assortment of engineering equipment – pipes, cables and access gantries. The shell of the Taurus itself was a raised metal platform bounded by a semi-closed arrangement of hefty, black metal struts. There were eight of them. They rose from the ground andbulged out to surround the platform and then they rejoined each other at the top. The simplicity of this structure belied the wonder and complexity of its function. This machine could take you back in time.
    The VIGIL team quickly developed a plan based on piecing together the little information that they had gleaned from Christie’s message to VIGIL. A party of four would be conveyed to February 1587 to attempt to locate and intercept Pendelshape before he carried out the Revisionist plan. This would not be easy, as the details of his intent and his location were sketchy. The search party on the hill had reported back and so far there had been no sign of Tom Christie. It was unlikely he would contact VIGIL again – there was too high a risk that he might reveal his own whereabouts. In any case, it seemed likely that he only knew the outline of the Revisionist plan. Nevertheless, Inchquin had instructed the search party to continue through the night.
    The time-travel team had already been chosen: Tony, Gordon, Jim De Raillar and Theo Joplin had been dispatched to the preparation annex for equipment allocation and further briefing. It was not clear to Jack what would be done with Pendelshape in the event that he was found by the VIGIL squad, but he suspected that it would not be pleasant.
    Inchquin had issued orders to power up the Taurus and the remaining VIGIL team members had already arrived to support the emergency mission. Everyone seemed to be well drilled – emergencies like this were something that they now practised for