The 16th & 17th Centuries
Afonso Valente (c. 1470 – c. 1503 [died in prehistoric/13 AD sea-cliff cave]): A Portuguese sailor from the early Malabar expeditions. Displaced backward into a sea-cliff cave near Calicut, where he perishes in his wool-and-velvet clothes with a silver cross at his neck, leaving behind the rusted casket and the warning etched into the limestone wall: "Seu destino é aqui amigo. Buscar em seu perigo. Deus não irá protegê-lo à luz do cristal."
Bartholomew Browne (1631 – ? [displaced May 1682 to 30,456 BC]): A gentleman of strict routine living in a cottage in Camden and running his family’s trading shop at the corner of Dane Street and Red Lion Square, London. Displaced to the prehistoric Thames in May 1682 after discovering a wooden box beneath a broken floorboard.
Mr and Mrs Browne (c. 1605 – 1666): Bartholomew’s merchant parents, who purchase a job lot of Indian goods from Raahi Shah and mysteriously vanish during the Great Fire of 1666.
The Ancient World & The East
Raahi Shah (7 BC – 1748 [across temporal jumps]): A twenty-year-old impoverished fisherman’s hand from a Sangam fishing village near Calicut in 13 AD. After rescuing an injured eagle from cruel merchant boys along the red-dirt tracks of the coast, he shelters in a sea-cliff cave, finds Afonso Valente’s skeleton and crystal, and is cast across the centuries—from 1502 Portuguese Calicut and 1066 London to 1660s Restoration London.
Anup Shah (1671 – 1792): Raahi Shah’s son and an Indian merchant trading between Calicut and Deptford, London.
The 18th Century
Isaac 'Peck' Peckham (1762 – 2042 [later Nestor Ioannou Drakos]): Self-taught reader and former General Post Office messenger hired in October 1775 as apprentice to John ‘Longitude’ Harrison.
John 'Longitude' Harrison (1693 – 24 March 1776): Celebrated inventor of the Marine Chronometer and creator of the sixth timepiece (H6) and its duplicate at Red Lion Square.
William Harrison (1728 – 1815): Son of John Harrison.
The Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne (1732 – 1811): Fifth Astronomer Royal at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and John Harrison’s bitter nemesis.
Corporal Charles Brent (1749 – ?): Former East India Company soldier and personal enforcer to Dr Maskelyne.
Private Edward Cobb (1756 – ?): Scar-faced twenty-year-old disgraced soldier saved from the gallows by Dr Maskelyne after falling asleep drunk on sentry duty at the Tower of London.
Samuel Hoy (1740 – 1821): Deptford merchant who owns a private mooring on the Thames and dines aboard Anup Shah’s trading ship in 1774.
The 20th & 21st Centuries
Dan & Terry (fl. 1970 – 2026): Ministry of Defence radar operators stationed in Building 7 on the shingle spit of Orford Ness, Suffolk.
Dr Nestor Ioannou Drakos, AKA "The Dragon" (1762 / 1998 – 2042): The adult incarnation of Isaac Peckham. Adopted in Athens in 2011 by Ioannis and Eleni Drakos; Head of the Eastern European Scientific Bureau (EESB) and Professor at Zografou University, Athens.
Ioannis & Eleni Drakos (fl. 2011 – 2020s): High-school physics teacher and university chemistry lecturer in Athens who adopt the displaced Peck in 2011.
Dr Alex White (2004 – ): Theoretical physicist at Zografou University of Science and Technology, Athens, and scientific advisor to the EESB.
Major Boro Grol (2002 – ): Six-foot-four ex-commando wounded in the 2031 North Korea conflict; Senior Investigator for the Eastern European Security and Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Athens.
Nikos (d. August 2042): Night security guard at the Zografou University laboratory.
Flora (b. 2038): Three-year-old laboratory chimpanzee used by Dr Alex White in Tachyon Field Test #155 on New Year’s Eve, 2041.
