Listing to Port

Ideally, you should find the nearest tourist information facility, where clueless questions are less likely to cause alarm. Note: these questions cover nearly all known timeline families. However, many other rarely-encountered timelines exist. Always be alert for unexpected answers!

Q1. Is there anything on in Richard IV Square tonight?
A1. Yes (or No): probably timelines 1-5: Go to Q2.
A1. Never heard of it: probably timelines 6-12. Go to Q3.
A1. Reply is in French: probably timeline 13.
A1. Reply is unintelligible or in another language: probably timelines 14-16. Go to Q4.
A1. Respondent tries to eat your head: probably timeline 17. Immediate evacuation recommended.

Q2. Are there any plays on on Sunday by Francis Eaton?
A2. Yes (or No, but other plays are available): Probably timelines 1 or 2. Go to Q5.
A2. No, there are no plays at all on Sundays: Probably timeline 3. Best to look sheepish and bow your head, unless you want to get arrested.
A2. Never heard of him: probably timelines 4 or 5. Go to Q6.

Q3. How do I get to the Monument?
A1. Never heard of it: probably timelines 6 or 7. Go to Q7.  
A2. [Directions given]: follow directions. If the monument is:
       a monument to the great fire of London: probably timelines 8 or 9. Go to Q8
       a monument to the victims of the great plague: probably timelines 10 or 11. Go to Q9
       a monument to the fire from the sky: probably timeline 12. Have a beer. Timeline 12 has easily the best beer.

Q4. [Mime eating and drinking something]
A4. [Respondent points in some direction or other]: Probably timeline 14.
A4. [Respondent points to watch or clock and shakes head]: Probably timeline 15.
A4. [Respondent looks around, then offers you a swig from a bottle behind the counter]: Probably timeline 16. Unless contraindicated, accept the drink. You’ll need it.

Q5. What are the opening hours of Sanderson’s Bath Engine and Revelatory Emporium?
A5. [Gives some hours, or don’t know]: Probably timeline 1.
A5. Never heard of it: Probably timeline 2.

Q6. Is there anywhere I can take my capybara for a run around?
A6. Yes, there’s a dedicated capybara run in Hyde Park. Probably timeline 4.
A6. I’m sorry, you have a what? or similar answer. Probably timeline 5. Pretend this was a mistranslation and you meant dog.

Q7. Observe the passers-by on the street for five minutes. Is anyone wearing green top hats with gilding/gold braid?
A7. No, or perhaps one or two only: probably timeline 6.
A8. Yes, lots of people (male and female): probably timeline 7. Note that you should try and steal one of these hats as soon as possible.

Q8. Ask for directions to Paternoster Row.
A8. [Directions given]: Probably timeline 8.
A8. Did you mean Paternoster Square? or similar. Probably timeline 9. This is my home timeline. It’s not too bad, as they go.

Q9. Where might I find a light for the hospital of the blind?
A9. What?/Don’t understand/etc.: probably timeline 10.
A9. One of: gives directions, hands you a face mask, or complicated handshake: one of the timeline 11 family. These are sufficiently similar that you can use the same guidelines for all of them. Consult your timelines handbook for more information.

1. In Ompal Pomabley, there is not a building - not a hall, an outhouse, a single shed - that is not on wheels. Some say that the city’s founders came fleeing from a great disaster, having nothing but the shirts on their backs, and vowed that they would never again have to leave all that they owned behind them. Whatever the reason, the naked city is nothing but a crossing framework of roads and parking places. On it, like sleepy behemoths, the vehicles of the city stand parked. And from time to time, the great engines of the city come out, and this house or this other one trundles down the wide ways of the city to some other spot. Those than need work are towed to the builders’ yard, where they queue outside in a rambling, decrepit street that changes each day. Those whose inhabitants have committed a crime are locked shut and towed to the prison quarter. Those in receipt of good fortune may tow their houses up to the glossy suburbs on Pombaley Hill, perhaps freshening up with a stop in the Street of Painters beforehand. Indeed, Ompal Pombaley’s three great hills are famed for many miles around. From their summits, one may see approaching disasters from a great distance. From their summits, one is also generally safe from Ompal Pombaley’s own prevailing danger: faulty brakes. In retrospect, it may have been unwise to found the city in the foothills. Barely a day goes by when some poor soul is not crushed to death by the runaway Court of Justice, or at the least chased down the Ompal Way by an out-of-control shed. The inhabitants greet this all with a shrug. These are normal, everyday risks and quite unlike the exotic dangers that they fled from.

2. Life in London No Not That London No Not That One Either is a sedate and placid affair; one may sit and watch the red sunsets from its high plazas, and admire the distant views of Olympus Mons from its many air cafes. In Spring, the cherry trees blossom under the dome just as they do on Earth, and the blossoms form great clumps in the red dirt and have to be swept away before they clog the city’s narrow drains. It is not a city prone to violent displays of affection or affectation, to carnivals, to flashmobs or to sudden effusions of the naked. Indeed, the main defining feature of its inhabitants of London No Not That London No Not That One Either is the hoops they are prepared to jump through, when travelling in the wider Solar System, to defend their city against the other, more famous Londons. There is not an inhabitant of London No Not That London No Not That London Either who has not railed at the suggestion that they might have a River Thames, or some kind of replica Tower Bridge, or even a gambling arena like New London on Titan. They regard their little, quiet city as far superior to its messy forbears; and that opinion is the defining sentiment of the city, without which it would return to the red dust.

3. I cannot say much about the people of Eekeek, because the only people who live there are fugitives. Exactly who or what else lives there it is difficult to say, because the old records are riddled with translation errors. Some say it is a city of the mice, and famous around the world as the model for many cradle tales. Other translations of the same text have it as a city of curiously small humans. Yet others say it is merely a city of the timid. In any case, we know that the inhabitants once welcomed all comers; that they danced for the provincial officials and wrote letters in brown ink, now long-lost; that they were objects of curiousity for science but never properly studied due to some problem, never fully stated; and that visitors to the city were advised to bring their own food. The reasons for the shuttering of Eekeek are similarly surrounded in mystery. Some make reference to a diplomatic incident, others to a disaster, while others state that the city itself never existed in the first place. In any case, few have heard of the city since. What, then, are we to make of the recent reports of a traveller to the far South? They, too, are riddled with conflicting details. Some say she penetrated the city disguised as a five-decker bus; others that she merely took a number five bus, on which her presence was unremarkable. In any case, she claimed that humans were living there; and that they had fled the justice of the outside world; that they were quite happy in their lives in that peculiar city; and they would prefer no more visitors, please.