“Hush,” said Rune. “My lodgings are, I will agree, insalubrious, but there is a purpose behind everything that I do. You really must hush.”

“Why?” asked Will.

“Because otherwise my landlady, Mrs Gunton, will hear us. She is probably far gone with gin at this hour of the day, but nevertheless, she lacks for a month’s rent and will make loud her concerns regarding this, if we grant her the wherewithal so to do.”

“Ah,” said Will.

“So kindly hush and follow me once more.” And Rune pushed past Will and led him by the faltering light of the knubby candle up a flight of rickety stairs, and eventually to the lodgings of Hugo Rune.

These lodgings were not well appointed. They were meagre. They were sparse. They were wretched. They were a bit of a shambles. A wan light fell through unwashed windowpanes and illuminated a small and charmless room. Or hovel. A straw pallet served as a narrow bed, too narrow indeed for the bulk that was Hugo Rune. This straw pallet was somewhat rucked about. A chair, far gone with the woodworm, served no purpose at all and sprawled on its side in the centre of the hovel. Many papers, most of which were unpaid bills, lay scattered all around and about. A steamer trunk stood undisturbed in a corner, a large and glorious steamer trunk, too large, it seemed, to have ever been brought in through the doorway. And too glorious to have found its way into such a hell hole as this.

“Violation!” cried Rune, peering all around and about and throwing up his mighty hands. “Foul violation. Someone has been here. Several someones in fact.” Rune sniffed at the fetid air. “They have been here,” he said.

“They?” asked Will.

“All in good time.” Rune perused the steamer trunk and nodded his great head. “All is as it should be regarding my trunk,” said he.

The steamer trunk, all brass bosses and hasps and red leather paddings, was a thing of great beauty and evident expense.

“My life’s possessions dwell within” said Rune. “I am at present a ship without a port.”

“You appear to have fallen upon unfortunate circumstances,” said Will.

“Well observed,” replied Rune. “But this is not in fact the case. I am independently wealthy. My father was in the brewery trade. Hardly a gentleman’s profession, I grant you, but his demise benefited me to the extent that I have been able to experience things that most people can only dream about.”

“Indeed?” said Will.

“Sit down,” said Rune, kicking the straw pallet back into shape. “Would you care for a glass of champagne?”

“Champagne?” Will almost managed a smile. “I’ve read of champagne, but I’ve never tasted it.”

“A world without champagne?” Rune shook his head, removed his top hat from it, and placed the stylish item upon the steamer trunk. “For that crime alone we should act, if for no more.”

Will sat himself down upon the straw pallet. “Who are you?” he asked. “I remember you, and your name, somehow, although I don’t know how I do.”

Rune shed his topcoat and removed from a large inner pocket a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “I acquired this to toast your arrival,” said he. “But you should have arrived here, in this room. I cannot conceive how my calculations could have been at fault.”

Rune uncorked the champagne, poured two glasses, handed one to Will.

“Thank you very much,” said Will and he took a tiny sip.

“To your liking?” asked Mr Rune.

“Indeed,” said Will. “Very much so.”

“Then that at least is as it should be.” Rune lowered his ample posterior onto the steamer trunk and cupped his glass between his hands. Hugo Rune stared down upon Will. And Will stared up at Rune.

Will considered the man who sat before him. He was an enigma. Will found him most disturbing.

Hugo Rune said, “What do you remember, Mr Starling?”

“About what?” Will asked.

“About how you made your arrival here, for an instance.”

“Ah,” said Will and he wondered what to say; what, in fact, he should say. He knew nothing about this giant of a man. Whether he might be trusted, for an instance.

“What do you know?” Will asked.

“I know all,” said Hugo Rune.

“Then why are you asking me?”

Rune sighed. “It is of the greatest importance,” he explained. “What you do remember and what you do not. If you remember too much, you will be of no use to me. If you are aware of all that lies ahead for you here in this time, you would not be able to function.”

Will shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Naturally not. Then allow me to explain. You were brought here from the twenty-third century.”

“I came of my own accord,” said Will.

“You had no choice,” said Rune, “considering the circumstances. I arranged these circumstances.”

“You sent the robots to attack me? To kill people?”

“Not that,” Rune held up a mighty hand. “But the wherewithal that you should be able to make your escape. After all, I worked upon the construction of that machine with my good friend Mr Wells.”

“H.G. Wells?” asked Will.

“The very same. He was hopelessly lost on the project, he called upon me to explain the concept of time to him. How time actually functions. It does not function as you might believe it to. Events in the future can affect the past. Not a lot of people are aware of this ultimate truth.”

“I wasn’t aware of it,” said Will.

“Naturally not. But I set Wells upon the right course.”

Will sipped further champagne and found it greatly to his liking. “I really don’t understand any of this,” he said.

“Which is how it must be. Of your ancestors, what do you remember?” Rune tapped at his temple with a pudgy finger. “What is in here, inside your head?”

“Let me think.” Will thought. “Actually, not too much,” he said, when he had done with his thinking. “But I’m sure I could remember a great deal, two full centuries at least. I can remember everything up until about …”

“The year of eighteen ninety-eight,” said Rune.

“Yes,” said Will. “But nothing more.”

Rune nodded his head and offered Will a very broad smile. “Exactly as it should be. Because you are now in eighteen ninety-eight and those other memories of your ancestors that you held in your head have yet to exist. The events that will become these memories have yet to occur. You cannot have memories of things that are yet to happen.”

“But they had happened,” said Will. “Where I come from. The future. They had happened in the past.”

“You are now in a portion of the past. This is the time that is real for you now. The only memories of your ancestors you have now, are those that exist up until the present moment. The future has yet to occur. You will achieve great things in the future. Under my tutelage, of course.”

“Oh of course,” said Will.

“Irony?” asked Rune. “Or sarcasm? I have little time for either.”

“And you knowing about everything,” said Will.

“That was sarcasm,” said Rune. “Make that the last time you use it in my presence.”

“Listen,” said Will, “I don’t know who you are, or what you want from me. I have got myself involved in something incredible, and I feel, well, I don’t know, privileged I suppose, to actually be here. But how am I ever going to get home again to my own time?”

“When your work here is done, you will return home. I promise that to you.” Rune now delved into a waistcoat pocket and brought out his cigarette case. “Care for an oily?” he asked.

“Oily rag,” said Will. “Fag. Cockney rhyming slang. I’ve never actually smoked a cigarette. We don’t have them any more in my time. They’re deadly poison, you see. I learned in history class how the cigarette companies all went bust in the latter part of the twenty-first century, when thousands of dying smokers successfully sued them.”

“Happily, that is in the future,” said Rune, withdrawing a cigarette, striking a Lucifer and lighting it up. “In this day and age cigarettes are very good for your health.”