'We are losing this war, quite simply.' Major Gloolgbolg wrapped a purple tentacle around the side of his face in a thoughtful pose. 'We're running out of men. We're running out of equipment. The enemy will get to realise these weaknesses soon, if they haven't already. Are you following?'
'Yes, sir.' Glorglax English was a challenge for an Earth boy like me who had never left my small village in the south of England until I received my conscription letter, never mind leaving the Milky Way. They didn't care about that here.
'We'll have to perform a reset.' He looked at me sternly with one of his many eyes. 'Do you understand what a reset is, human?'
'Yes, sir.' I didn't. Not then. I just pretended I did. The room was freezing. The water around my chair had reached the height of my knees. The Zarglorks are an amphibious species. Humans aren't. We weren't going to get any special concessions.
'Serving in the army is the greatest honour a man can have,' my father told me as I had set off that day with my bag on my shoulders, down to the village park where all the young men, and a few young women had gathered, waiting for the Zarglork spacecraft to complete its roll call and take us away. We waited by a war memorial, appropriately enough.
Sitting on a tiny stool, as the tepid water climbed above my waist, it didn't feel like an honour.
'Are you prepared to go to Earth to carry out this mission, Private Harries?' The Major lashed a tentacle at me. I stuttered.
'Earth?' I had not seen the planet for six months. I thought of my parents. I wrote to them every day but I didn't know if they were receiving my letters. My mother would speak in a whispered voice sometimes about how life was better when she was a girl, without the Zarglorks. My father and I would have furious rows with her; the Zarglorks were our liberators. They rebuilt the Sun after it was destroyed. Without them none of us would have been born. Our planet would be a frozen wasteland, adrift in space.
I didn't like to admit it but, sometimes I wondered whether she had a point.
'Yes, sir. I'll go to Earth.' I answered in the affirmative before I even had time to think. My father would be glad of my training.
When I arrived in Little Stepping everything looked different. Something was wrong. The air made me cough. I looked around for my parents' small house. I was standing on the right road, and it had the right name, it curved around in the right way. But all the houses were different.
'Our orders are to reset the war,' Major Gloolgbolg said into my ear. 'Find 110 Oundell Street. Await there for further instructions. Do not let us down!'
'Yes, sir.'
A man and woman walked past. You only saw clothes like that in period dramas and illustrations in textbooks. As I stared at them in their quaint tracksuits I realised what 'resetting the war' was. Going back and finding the point where it had gone wrong.
'Morning,' the man said, looking uneasily at me. He had something in his hand. I realised it was another museum piece, a communication device I had seen on school trips to the local museum. I called up a mental map and tried to look for 110 Oundell Street. In my time, it didn't exist. But it did now.
My orders were to ignore him. What if I altered the entire course of history by mistake with a few foolish words? I walked past and the woman tutted at me. She said, 'Young people, so rude these days.'
As I walked along the path a few schoolboys passed me. 'Tinfoil man!' a tiny kid of around 9 shouted. 'You look like an alien! You freak!'
His mate picked up a stone and hurled it at me. It clattered into the road. 'Tinfoil man!'
This was terrible. I wanted to go back to Earth. But not like this. I continued walking. The unpleasant encounter threw me off balance. I kept on checking over my shoulder to see if the malignant children were behind me. I crossed the road when I was sure they were out of sight. I spluttered at the fumes from the contraptions coming up and down the road. This must be a time when they were still using oil.
'Excuse me, mate.' A car rolled alongside me. The driver wound its window down. He had a slight accent and looked as though he was from China or Japan. He spoke softly and was dressed differently to the locals, in military style clothing, khakis. Perhaps he was from my regiment. 'I am looking for the London Road. Can you tell me where that is?'
Of course I knew where the London Road was. That hadn't changed, not even five hundred years later. 'That way, mate,' I said, waving an arm without thinking. As he thanked me and drove away I heard the Major's voice in my head, so crackly it was giving me a migraine.
'You idiot. You idiot. What have you done.' The reception broke up. My mental map disappeared. For a horrified second I looked around, adrift.
'Report back!' I heard the Major's voice yelling. He sounded genuinely horrified. 'Reset, reset to last point! Reset to backup 000678!'
I was back in the base. Facing Major Gloolgbolg across the table as green water swirled around my legs.
'You disobeyed an order!' he barked in my face. 'Your instructions were strict! Why did you disobey? This could have been the end of Earth! Were you born this stupid or did you have to work at it?'
'I'm sorry, sir,' I said. His skin turned a dark blue, as all Zarglorks do when they are angry.
'Sorry?' the Major said. 'It's not me you should apologise to. Your mistake almost prevented your own birth! Perhaps I should have let you carry on!'
He grabbed a bundle of antiquated newspapers from a shelf - they definitely weren't there when I left - and thrust them towards me, slamming on the table. They were covered in plastic sheeting to prevent them being soaked by the water sloshing around us.
'NORTH KOREANS NUKE LONDON,' the first ancient newspaper screamed.
Good job this had never happened.
Or had it? I put the first newspaper to one side, a chill growing in my chest.
'RAF WAR PLANES BOMBARD PYONGYANG.'
I glanced at the terrible images on the front cover. Destroyed buildings. Roads coated with radioactive dust. Fish lying belly up in rivers. Sick and dying people lying in the street. I should have known. I should never have disobeyed. Not when this could be the result. Countless generations never to be born.
What had I done?
And finally: 'NUCLEAR WINTER EXPECTED. ALL LIFE ON EARTH TO PERISH, SAY SCIENTISTS.'
No more time travel for me.
