"Not if needing it means having to discuss that in front of the audience we don't."

"He does live here," Ripper points out. "Not discussing it in front of the audience, we can do, but if I lock him out of the bedroom he's going to know why."

"And you probably don't want to come along while I build myself a house in the nearest middle of nowhere to be a base of demonic operations."

"...I don't know," says Ripper, "that sounds sort of fun."

"It might not be immediately convenient to give you a lift back here, you know."

"More in the neighborhood of days. I want a place to be but that won't take long, and - 1995, your internet's probably for shit, I'd be better off making paper books."

"Books about...?"

"Might start with a recent encyclopedia. Nineteen-ninety-fucking-five. I wonder if I'm running around being seven or eight years old somewhere?"

"...That would be weird," says Ripper.

"A bit, yes, but I suppose I might as well check, if I am I have plenty of time to give myself all kinds of useful information and then he can start doling it out when he's like sixteen and I'd just as soon go home."

"So I'm going to go out, find a place where I will have room to take off in a cute little atmosphere-friendly space shuttle, make one, and go check - what month is it?"

"December."

"Check Phoenix, Arizona for a tiny little successor to my various plans. We have at least some matching musicians, maybe I match too even though I am not a musician. I do loosely qualify as a historical figure back home."

"Have fun with that."

"I'm outlining my plans so you can decide if you want to come along for the ride," Cam clarifies. "Arizona, check for mini-me, build house in the desert, loiter in a library and hope nobody asks why my coat's so lumpy, go home and make my own copies of useful references, sometime in between these errands I can hop you back to I'm assuming somewhere in Britain."

"Sure," he says.

"You accompanying or no?"

"Eh, why not," he says. "I should find some clean clothes first, maybe."

"I'm not in a particularly tremendous hurry," says Cam agreeably.

Cam tucks his futuristic computer into his coat pocket and waits.

He returns, wearing clean clothes! Much better.

"Where's a good place to take off in a mini spaceship from here?" Cam inquires. "A roof will do if we can get to it."