'A Rift in Time' (4 Parts) by Roger Price

John and Stephen both share strange dreams of Peter the Time Guardian running through a forest, and showing them a vase. The two of them look through thousands of pictures of vases, eventually finding Peter’s, which is owned by Professor Cawston, and looked after by Professor Garner. Stephen tricks Professor Gamer into bringing the vase to him; he grabs its lid, and jaunts back to the Lab with it. The lid has strange markings which are designs for a Neutron Interton. The Tomorrow People build the device - a small disc. Nothing happens when Chris and Elizabeth pick it up, but when Stephen picks it up he disappears, caught in a time trap. While John attempts to make another Time Disc, Stephen meets a Guardian of Time called Zenon, Peter's grandfather. He frees Stephen and warns him not to build another Time Disc, as its user could be lost in eternity; Peter is trapped in Roman times, and Zenon gives Stephen five Time Discs so that the Tomorrow People can try to rescue him. Stephen arrives in the Lab just in time to stop John using his new Time Disc. Later, Professor Garner tells them that the vase came from a gladiator school in Silchester, run by a ruthless man named Gaius. John, Stephen, Elizabeth and Chris use the Discs return to ancient Roman Britain. They ‘sell’ Stephen to the gladiator school, but then discover that their telepathic abilities have disappeared. Stephen is locked in a dungeon with Peter, who thinks that someone is transmitting a telepathy-inhibiting radiation. After Gaius selects Stephen to be tested by fighting, John, Elizabeth and Chris try to buy him back, but Gaius refuses; Elizabeth thinks Gaius knows they are telepaths. Stephen is defeated in combat, but his life is spared by Gaius. Stephen meets Cotus, another trainee who is due to be killed in horse trials. That night, John, Elizabeth and Chris break into the gladiator school, where they hear a steam engine, sixteen-hundred years before it should have been invented. Peter suspects that Gaius is responsible for the time warp. Chris manages to free Stephen, Peter and Cotus, and Peter attempts to arrest Gaius, but he escapes in a Time Pump. The trainee gladiators are released just before the Time Pump explodes, and the Tomorrow People return to the Twentieth Century. But the Lab is not there, instead, they are in a futuristic base populated by ape-like creatures... Meanwhile, Cotus returns to the gladiator school and begins to repair the steam engine. John thinks that the Earth has been invaded from outer space, but they discover that the Roman Empire never ended - instead the Romans developed advanced technology, enabled them to rule the world, aided by their ape-servants from the planet Trista. John, Stephen Elizabeth and Chris return to ancient Britain, but their conversation has been overheard by Gaius, who follows them to the gladiator school. The Tomorrow People destroy the remains of the steam engine, but they and Cotus are all captured by Gaius. Cotus tries to stop the Tomorrow People being killed, and is knocked-out by one of Gaius' guards. Cotus loses his memory, and Gaius and his guards all disappeared - time has been restored to its correct path.



Nicholas Young (John), Elizabeth Adare (Liz), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Richard Speight (Peter), Christopher Chittell (Chris Harding, Sylvia Coleridge (Professor Sylvia Garner), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Leonard Pieroni (Lothar), Brian Stanion (Professor Cawston), Sammie Winmill (Carol), Stephen Jack (Zenon), Mike Lee Lane (Guthron), Peter Duncan (Cotus), Leonard Gregory (Trystan)

Directed by Darrol Blake

TX:
'Vase of Mystery' - 11th March 1974
'Turn of the Thumb' - 18th March 1974
'From Little Acorns...' - 25th March 1974
'Rise of the Roman Empire ' - 1st April 1974

Notes:
*Featuring John, Elizabeth, Stephen, Tim, Chris and Peter

*This story features first appearance of Professor Cawston