Thomas is a time traveler known as the Hombre Variable (“Variable Man”): a repairer by trade, a self-declared double agent and the operator of the flare launcher, who appears scattered across the ages with his toolbox and half of the chronal flare. He traveled in time before the companions did.
| Type | Character |
| Also called | Thomas Code |
| Spanish entry | Thomas |
Description
Nothing is recorded of his body. He carries a hammer, a whetstone, a screwdriver and “a couple of gadgets that could be from one of those carts that fix things”: “simple tools that do not crystallize”, which survive time travel without degrading. He also said: “I became an artist, I even painted.” He refuses a surname: “Because I don’t need a surname, Tomás, and this is not the first time it happens to me.”
History
In Constantinople in 1055 he asked urgently for refuge, like someone pursued. Before the device he “seemed to know something about the matter”: he wound it “to go back as far as possible”, and though “very affected”, “his hands did things automatically”.
He had a chronal refuge in 1830: “Someone used a lever and they pulled me out.” Sent on a rescue mission, he failed: “obviously I failed, now he is dead under the sea.” His remark about the surname suggests such extractions are habitual. He says: “I am double too, yes, I am a spy.”
He is announced to appear in the city, unnamed.
Role
- He winds the flare launcher, choosing how far back to go.
- He teaches its use in person: “Thomas taught us to use the flare, twice, three times.”
- He gathers its components: “I think I already have almost everything needed.”
- He holds the flare’s other half: “when we see Thomas and we have the flare”.
Conflicting accounts
- His origin is given as late-19th-century Nebraska; he had a refuge in 1830; and he says “where I come from, 1913, well, 1901 is the same”. Whether these are successive journeys or an unstable origin is not settled.
Open questions
- Whether Code is a surname, alias or agent designation is not established.
- Who employs him, for which side he is double, and who pulled him out are unknown.
- Who died “under the sea”, where and when, is not recorded.
- Which components the flare lacks, and whether his half works alone, is not stated.
- What crystallizes in travel, and why his tools are spared, is unknown.