The Temporal Bracelets

Fred shook his head and held up his hands, in a gesture of bewilderment. His jaw dropped slightly. When he chose to speak, he argued. "You can bully us all you want, but you are simply not giving us anything to work with! I have not a clue who your enemies are! And we only have a two week period to work with!"

"True enough, my little starling." mused the Snark. "I did not say that this assignment was going to be easy. But you have quite a lot of time, if you are prudent. You can move back and forth within that two week period. So you can explore, travel back a week, and explore again, as often as you need to."

"But wouldn't things get hopelessly muddled?" replied Astra, "If we bring back Horace, wouldn't your enemies know about this, and take preventative measures?"

The snark made another odd noise, similar to a purring cat or a boiling pot of water. "My little plumcake, these things have a way of working themselves out. I will explain the facts simply. Nothing that you do, while wearing that bracelet, will have a bearing on the events more than two weeks hence. It will be as if they never happened - they will be just peculiar memories for you and Fred. Ah, and do not try to go beyond those two weeks. The consequences would be most unpleasant. Horace is to be extracted from the future. Once that is accomplished, you will come back here, to exactly this time, and you will return your instruments. If I do not see you back in thirty minutes, I will know that you did not take me seriously, and I shall have to take more extreme measures."

Astra and Fred looked at each other and nodded their heads in agreement. The Snark was crazy, and he/she/it was dangerous. It would be much better to use these bracelets to go off into the near future, and get away from the Snark. They could determine what to do later.

The Snark explained how the bracelets worked. They had a little slider which would loosen or tighten the bracelet. If they took the bracelet off, they would return to the current time. If they tightened it to the first mark, one day would pass. On the second mark, two days would pass, and so forth. There were a total fourteen marks engraved in the metal. The Snark informed them that as time passed, the bracelets would get tighter, dangerously so after the fourteen day mark was passed. They could also loosen the bracelets to travel back in time, provided that the fourteenth mark had not been passed.

Fred and Astra adjusted their bracelets, and went ...

1. one day into the future, after adjusting them to the first mark.
2. one week into the future, after adjusting them to the seventh mark.
3. five hundred years into the future, after adjusting them to the seventh mark. The Snark had failed to calibrate the bracelets correctly.

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