Well, I needn’t have worried about what was going to happen to me there, because the day after I typed my last entry, I woke up in the early hours of the morning to find that I was no longer in my bed, but was on a damp, and cold, grassy bank.

I’d almost allowed myself to believe that I wasn’t ever going to be sent again, and that Professor Ilyes would find a way of communicating with the Hermes team. So you can imagine that I was a bit down as I huddled up against the cold, and waited for dawn to break.

When it did, I found myself on a bare hillside, with view towards what looks like Norwich – but not a version of the city that I particularly recognised. The spire of the cathedral was visible, but no other tall buildings at all. There was plenty of smoke though, rising from chimneys on the buildings I could make out, so obviously the place was inhabited.

The thought of getting some warm food inside me saw me walking briskly towards the city.

As I got closer to the first building, I saw that this Earth is clearly very different to the one I had just come from. I would have guessed we were in a medieval world – in addition to the shabby buildings, the people I passed were in general quite a bit shorter than me, thin, and poorly-dressed.

Then, though, I saw a large passenger jet flying high overhead.

I was just getting over that conundrum, when I saw a face that I recognised – it wasn’t hard to spot him, as Tom, at six foot five and eighteen stone does stand out from the crowd.

After mutual exclamations of surprise and pleasure at finding each other, he took me to his house, and briefed me.

My first surprise was to discover that he has been here the whole time since the first sending. I don’t know why, although I began to wonder if I am the only member of the team to have a device implanted – I am the officer in the group, so perhaps the device was just for me – and if it is, in some way, keeping in touch with Hermes, and causing me to be sent then that might explain why Tom has been stuck here the whole time.

I had a look at his back later, and there’s no sign of a scar, or any hint that something has been surgically inserted there.

The second oddity was that he is sure that he has been here for nearly three years. I am pretty certain that I’ve only been going through this for just over two years (and the dates on this site seem to confirm that).

Perhaps this has happened because, as the professor guessed, weight (or mass) has been a factor in the time-shift. If she was right, the heavier we are, the further back in time we get pushed. In that case, Kate is probably nearer home than both of us are.

Tom has lent me his wristpad to write this up – he can’t access the internet with it, whilst I (obviously, as I’m writing this) can. This makes me think that the device planted in my back must be some kind of transmitter/aerial which is allowing me to communicate back to ‘our’ world.

The more I think about it, the more suspicious I am becoming. Why send two engineers and an officer on what should have been an instantaneous trip? Did the scientists in fact have an idea of what was happening (were there perhaps signs of wear and tear on the inanimate objects they sent?) and did they therefore pick us because they thought that the three of us, working as a team, might be able to survive what we have actually been through – and be able to give a coherent report when (or if) we returned?

Perhaps that explains why only I have whatever the thing in my back is – they thought we’d all be together and could track us (or keep in touch, or whatever function it plays) with it.

It is quite tiring writing this way, rather than using a computer keyboard (a wristpad is really intended for brief reports from the field, not documents like this). This entry has taken me nearly three days to type, so I’ll close now, and try to write up some more observations when I can.