As I’ve got Tom’s wristpad, I’ve been using it in spare moments to do some research. I was checking whether there was any reference to Project Hermes in this world, when I came across an article about the god Hermes himself.

From what I could remember about ancient mythology, I had understood that Hermes was the messenger to the gods. I seem to recall, when I was in Greece on holiday one year, seeing him as the symbol they use for their post office. That seemed to make sense as the name for a project intending to send things a distance.

I now see, however, that he wasn’t just the messenger to the gods. He was also the Greek god of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and commerce in general (none of which have anything to do with this project, as far as I can see) but he was also the god of the cunning of thieves and liars.

I have been wondering for some time if the scientists in the team knew, or suspected, more than they were letting-on to us. Perhaps they thought they were being very clever, naming their project after the god of the cunning of thieves and liars. I’m sure they must have had some test objects (particularly the heavier ones, which must have travelled further back in time) returned showing the effects of their journey. Yet they sent us on our way, with no hint of what might happen. The cunning of thieves and liars, indeed.

The further I looked, though, I found that there is even more to the god Hermes. He wasn’t just a messenger between the gods themselves, but, as a translator, Hermes was a messenger from the gods to humans. Hermes apparently gives us our word hermeneutics, which is about the art of interpreting hidden meaning.

Perhaps I’m just getting paranoid now, but one site told me that being the herald, or messenger, of the gods, it was also Hermes’ duty to guide the souls of the dead down to the underworld – and he was closely connected with bringing dreams to mortals.

That information certainly set me to thinking. What is the real purpose of Project Hermes? Guiding the souls of the dead down to the underworld sounds horribly like what has happened to us.

So I dug a little deeper, and I found that Hermes had another function, according to some authorities. He was also the god of boundaries and of the travellers who cross them. That might just fit in with the aim of the project as it was explained to us, but it sounds far more like what we are actually experiencing.

It all makes me wonder whether Hermes is genuinely intended for military transport (in which case it’s a complete and utter failure) or whether the scientists in charge had a good idea what was going to happen to us, and sent us – unprepared - on some kind of scouting expedition into other dimensions.

I will have questions, when I return home.