And that someone would not be under Isi’s influence.
“Okay, Henry, if you think back over what you just said, you might realize that you already know the answer,” Isi said. “You were very clear about the problems with the gasoline engine, and the issues with the battery powered carriage, but you were not so specific about what problems make the steam engine an impossibility. Your mind sees an opening there, follow it through.
“It’s a waste of time,” Henry said. “I’ve been over it, and over it, in my head. The amount of water needed to produce enough steam to power the engine would not be feasible. Steam engines power steamboats and trains, neither of which are hardly as compact as I hope my horseless carriage to be. No, Isidora, I’m afraid I need to give up, for now. If gasoline becomes more readily available in the future, I’ll come back to it. Gasoline power is how this will work – eventually.”
“But what if you trapped the steam vapor, wouldn’t the condensation turn back into water? You wouldn’t have to carry so much, if you could reuse it, right?” Isi said.
“Isidora, that’s … well, that’s just fantastic is what that is,” Henry said. “I’ve seen just that very thing before, on farm equipment. A condenser!”
Henry grabbed Isi by the shoulders proudly, and said again, “A condenser,” with a look of wonder in his eyes. “Beautiful woman, where have you been all of my life?” he said, and kissed Isi quickly, but powerfully.
Henry turned from her, and raced to the other side of his workshop. He grabbed one end of a wooden cart and pulled it over to where Isi was standing.
“Okay, so this is the beast that we have to contend with, Isidora. We need to design a condenser powerful enough to trap the steam produced by this,” Henry said, and pointed to the steam engine on the wooden cart.
“So, you believe it’s possible now, Henry?” Isi said.
“Yes, my love, yes! We just need to adapt the original plan, install a condenser, and make sure that the whole enterprise doesn’t weigh a ton. It’s still got to have some speed to it, so it can’t get too large,” Henry said, “but yes, yes Isidora, it’s possible.”
Isi chewed on her bottom lip, and worried the sleeves of her dress with her fingers. “Is it just the horseless carriage that’s possible now, Henry, or could something else work as well?”
“What do you mean, Isidora? Surely you can’t have just talked me into a steam engine, only to turn around and suggest another type of engine?” Henry said, and smiled at her. “Oh come on, lighten up, this is a wondrous day.”
“Henry, have you no idea of what you just said to me? It wasn’t just the steam powered carriage that you thought to be impossible, only a few moments ago, but now you call me your love, and you ask me where I have been all of your life, as if you hadn’t just said that we couldn’t work, that you and I being together was as impossible as your dream of a horseless carriage,” Isi said, and started toward the door to Henry’s workshop.
“Wait, Isidora, please wait,” Henry said. “Don’t you see that you have become irreplaceable to me? In a few minutes, you were able to give me a solution to a problem that’s been plaguing my work for months.”
“Glad to be of service, Henry. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Isi said, and opened the door. She had no intention of leaving, but Isi wanted Henry to chase her, to stop her from walking out the door, to choose her – at least, for this one moment, to invest enough of himself to risk looking like a fool.
“You are irreplaceable to me,” Henry almost shouted. “I cannot articulate it the way that other men might, I can’t find some sloppy metaphor in nature to compare your beauty to, I can’t tell you that your eyes are the color of the ocean in the light cast by the break of day … the specific luminous light that follows a storm at sea. I’m not that man Isidora. You are irreplaceable to me because you make me better at the one thing that was irreplaceable to me before you – you make me a better scientist. Not just the way our minds meet, the way we connect and draw out ideas from each other, ideas that would have lain dormant, without our spark. No, it is more. It’s that indescribable way that you look at me when an idea crosses my lips that had been germinating in your mind, silently. That look makes me want, more than anything in this world, to come up with idea after idea that pleases you. Everything I have ever wanted to be, every dream, every desire, is reflected in your eyes. You, Isidora Solovyov, you are irreplaceable to me.”
Isi had been standing in the doorway with her back to Henry. At his last words, she turned around to face him. Love had not been a part of her plan, but if Isi walked away now, before the steam car was up and running, it would all have been for naught.
She would be practical about this. The whole reason that she had traveled to the past was coming to fruition, right in front of her. She couldn’t let this moment pass without cementing her connection to Henry Ford, despite how awful she felt.
For the first time in her affair with Henry, Isi really felt like she was cheating on Afon. Her physical connection with Ford had been, until now, just that … physical, and nothing else. Isi had deliberately pushed and pulled at Henry Ford to make him give chase to her, to make herself into a rare thing that he could never fully have, but she had played the game far too well. Now he was in love with her, which was exactly what Isi had wanted, all along. If he loved her, she had power over him, power enough to convince him to build, and mass-produce, a clean version of the environment-destroying automobile he would have made without her intervention. But, if she began to love him too – what then?
Isi walked over to Henry, who was standing in the middle of the workshop with a stricken look. His mouth was open, and his hands trembled as he raised them to cover it, trying to somehow force back inside the reckless words that he had already spoken.
“I am so sorry, Isidora. Please forgive me. I did not mean to frighten you with my exuberance. Forgive me; I was carried away by the moment. I could not let you think that you are meaningless to me, but now, from the look on your face, it appears that I have given this, us, too much meaning.”
Isi stood in front of Henry, her look unreadable, until a spark lit in the back of her eyes, her lower lip pulled under her teeth, and, finally, a smile lifted her lips.
Henry put his hand out to cup Isi’s face, but she grabbed it in midair and brought his fingers to her lips.
“Not too much meaning, Henry. Precisely, exactly, absolutely, perfectly, enough meaning,” Isi said, and kissed each one of Henry’s long fingers on his right hand.
TWENTY THREE
September 2112
Thule Airbase, Greenland
“What is it chap, a bit of seasickness from the travel? Same thing will be happening to me, I take it,” Harland Fergusson said, and looked at the crouching figure of Afon, huddled over, and grabbing at his heart.
Nanook was ahead of them, about twenty feet away, moving slowly and silently through the woods surrounding the airbase, scouting out the best place for them to take their shot at Ignis Mortterra. He could still hear the chatter of his comrades though, and rushed back to see what was wrong with Afon.
“Are you okay, brother?” Nanook said, and put a hand on Afon’s shoulder.
“Something’s wrong with her, I can feel it,” Afon said, clutching at his chest like a mortal man having a heart attack. “God, it hurts – it’s like the worst muscle cramp I’ve ever had, like I used to have. I’ve not experienced pain like this in five years, not since I was made an Immortal.”
“Something’s wrong with her? With Isi?” Nanook said. “What is it Afon? Should we go back and help her? We can be there quickly, just say the word and we’ll come back for Mortterra another time.”
“No, she’s physically fine, she’s not injured. We can stay,” Afon said, curtly, and stood up, shook his head like a dog whose ears were full of water, and tried to clear the image that had entered his mind.
“Ah, I understand brother,” Nanook said. “Just try to stay present, with us, here, and
your mind will let go of her, there.”
Afon nodded and said, “Can I switch positions with you, Nanook? You’re right, but I need something to focus on, other than her. Scouting out a good position for our shot could help to keep me in the here and now.”
“No, I don’t mind at all, brother. I’ll stay behind with Harland, and we’ll watch your back,” Nanook said. “Remember, we want to find a place where we can set up a good crossfire – and it has to be somewhere that we can count on Mortterra to be. We want to set up our position at least a few hours in advance.”
“Got it. See you two soon, and be safe brothers,” Afon said, deliberately including Harland in his farewell. Then he crouched down, hands stretched out in front of him like a sprinter, and leapt off of the ground and into the air, disappearing into the forest canopy.
“What’s the matter with him then? I gather it’s something to do with the Countess Solovyov, Isi, I mean, but I don’t understand how he knows anything of what she’s doing,” Harland said. “We’re a couple of hundred years ahead of her, at least so as you tell me, but all I’ve seen of the future, so far, is a bunch of trees and a big building on the other side of those trees. Not very impressive, if this is the future, not very impressive at all.”
“Afon and Isi have some way of being with each other, even when they’re not really there,” Nanook said. “It’s hard to explain, Harland. And yes, something happened just now, with her that upset him. Technically, whatever it was happened two hundred years ago, but they are so connected that Afon felt it in his heart when it happened.”
“What was it? Is the Countess okay?”
“She is fine, whatever it was is between the two of them. Let’s just focus on what we’re here to do,” Nanook said. “You keep an eye ahead of us, on Afon, and I’ll watch behind us, okay?”
Harland nodded, and they walked together in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the crunching of their feet on the freshly fallen leaves. There was no birdsong, no twittering of squirrels taking note of the coming change in seasons, not even a silent last flight of insects, before the cold weather stilled their wings – no sound of life at all.
It’s happening, Nanook thought. We’ve only been gone for five months, but the Earth is dying here in Greenland now, too, her last spot of refuge. Isi was right. The first summer on Earth without bees has now come and gone, which means this winter …
Nanook bit his lip, coughed, and tried not to envision the painful death from starvation that would be the fate of everyone still left alive. A few hardy souls might make it through this winter, maybe a hundred human beings, at best, and those who survived this year, would not be lucky enough to live through a second one.
We don’t have much time. Fuck, we don’t have any time, Nanook thought.
Harland cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Nanook, I don’t mean to belabor the issue, and I certainly don’t want to violate the privacy of my dear friends, Afon and Isi, but I find myself compelled to ask, again, what just happened back there? I mean, are we all capable of that kind of distant communication, that telepathy?”
“God, Harland, focus,” Nanook said, “Are you still watching Afon?”
“Yes, yes, he’s fine,” Harland said, “You can’t blame me for being curious, Nanook. This is all new to me, you know.”
“Fine, Harland,” Nanook said, and scanned the forest around them once more, before he took a minute to answer him. “No, we don’t all have telepathy. If we did, you wouldn’t have to ask me the question, would you?”
“Ha ha, spot on chap,” Harland chuckled, “but if we can’t read minds, how did Afon know what was going on with Isi, when she’s so far away?”
“I’m honestly not sure, Harland, it’s just something that they do,” Nanook said. It might be her power at work, more than Afon’s – or it might be some kind of special thing that’s only between the two of them, I honestly don’t know.”
“What do you mean, her power? I thought that the Countess … Isi, I mean, I thought that she invented those little doctor robots, I had no idea that she had injected herself with them as well,” Harland said. “Unless – don’t tell me that one of you scoundrels bit her?”
“No, no, Harland, it’s nothing like that,” Nanook said. “I’m not even sure if she’s aware of it. It’s just that sometimes she’s able to do things that humans can’t normally do. In my tribe, growing up, there were revered elders that had gone through an initiation that introduced them to their helper spirits; spirits that embodied the element that the elder now had a connection with: fire, air, water, or earth. It was said that, in the beginning, the wise women of our tribe were able to control more than one element, giving them great power. But then a time of darkness came, a time when man stripped woman of all of her power, and even tried to declare themselves the owners of the Earth. They bought and sold the land, as if it was theirs, and they barred women from the initiation rites.
“From that moment, over two thousand years ago, there have been no more wise women, only men – but they were not truly wise. When my tribe was still alive, there was only one authentic shaman left, and even he did not control any of the elements. He was able to heal members of the tribe, sometimes, by laying his hands on the body of the ailing person, and calling on the spirits of our ancestors for help. He had to ask our dead, our spirits from thousands of years ago, for help, because no one has had the power to call on the elements, to call on Gaia herself, since women were barred from the shamanistic rites.
“But Isi,” Nanook continued, “I don’t know, Harland, I’ve seen her do quite a few things that would be impossible, unless she is in touch with all four of the elements. Her power is formidable, I think she may even be from the bloodline of the founders, but she has no idea of her own capabilities.”
“Oh, I just knew there was something special about the Countess. Do tell me Nanook, tell me the marvelous things that you have seen her do.”
“Perhaps some other time, Harland, I’ve talked for too long as it is. We’ve got a few more important things to focus on, right now. I shouldn’t have piqued your curiosity, I just couldn’t help commenting on what happened with Afon, but this shouldn’t be fuel for idle gossip. I’ve never spoken to Isi about it, and Afon and I have only discussed it a handful of times. He’s been trying to figure out a way to broach the subject with her, and I suspect that this will do it. Any woman that can drop a man to his knees from thousands of miles, and hundreds of years, away has some explaining to do.”
“He should really just ask her, straight out, how she is doing such things,” Harland said. “The Countess strikes me as a very direct woman, and I’m quite sure that she would respond favorably to directness from others.”
“Sure Harland, as soon as we’re done here, I’m pretty sure that talking to Isi will be the first thing on Afon’s mind,” Nanook said. “Speaking of which, he seems to have come to a stop up ahead. We should catch up to him, and see what’s going on. Do you think that you’ve got enough control over your new and improved muscles, to make a well-directed leap with me?”
During their brief time in London, Afon and Nanook had attempted to school Harland in the use of his Immortal, and newly perfected, body. It had been very rough going. Every time that Harland had tried something even as simple as opening a jar, he had over-exerted himself. Broken jars were the least of Nanook’s concerns now. He had seen Harland jump before and, while overshooting his mark had previously landed Harland hundreds of miles inside France (instead of on the banks of the English channel he had meant to leap), a badly aimed, over-exuberant jump, at this moment, could land Harland smack in the middle of Thule Airbase. Harland could wind up being taken prisoner by the AmEur Alliance or, at the very least, such a misstep could expose their mission, and put Ignis Mortterra on guard.
“I think I’ve got all the kinks worked out,” Harland said. “I’m pretty sure that I’ll land on target.”
“Pretty sure?” Nanook said. “Can you see Afon
from here?”
“Yes,” Harland said.
Nanook turned and faced in the same direction as Harland.
“About how far away would you say he is?” Nanook said.
Harland squinted into the distance, “A mile and a half from us – right at the edge of the tree line.”
“And you’re confident that you can land, right next to him, as gentle as a hummingbird on the slenderest branch?”
Harland stared ahead into the forest, and his left foot twitched.
“Now that you mention it, Nanook, I’m not so sure as that I’d bet on it,” Harland said. “I mean, don’t mistake me chap, I’m sure I can get there … well, close to there, at any rate. I’m just honestly not sure exactly how quiet I will be when I land. The grace of the hummingbird still eludes me, but I might make a landing worthy of one of your elephants, brother K’eyush.”
“Oh Jesus, Harland, that again?” Nanook said. “There are no goddamn elephants in Greenland, which is where I am from, not India. Greenland is where we are right now, Harland, right below your precious little feet is my Greenland. Do you see any elephants?”
“I am quite sorry, Nanook, I sincerely meant no offense,” Harland said. “You do resemble the native people of India, and since I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting someone from Greenland before, I can’t help it if my mind naturally goes to India, as a reference point. I really do mean no harm chap, no insult at all. India is, by far, my most favorite of colonies.”
Nanook stewed and bit his lip. You can bring a man to the future, but you cannot take the past out of him.
Nanook sighed, “In any event, the point really is that you can’t catch up to Afon, without waking up the whole airbase, am I right?”
Harland nodded, and wisely kept his mouth shut.
“Okay then,” Nanook said, “we’ll get there, quietly, we’ll just have to hold hands.”
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