Decade by decade, Martin and his AI, Artie (introduced in the second story of the series), work to restore their home timeline, continuously hoping that some other damnfool time traveler won’t come along and mess things up again.

In this first story, Martin (sans Artie) and a countess from a different timeline butt heads over whose timeline they should try to recreate.
I was in the way back. Far, far back. I skipped downtime and uptime, back to my past and then up to my home, and everything worked find. Then one day, in the far back, I tried to go home.

Variants

(1)
  1. “Paris, 1835” by Bill Johnson, in Analog, December 2015.
  2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Bill Johnson