Uchronie

  ‘How so, my dear?’ asked DeBlanc, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘Well, for example.’ said Lolly, taking hold of Ginger‘s hand. ‘An angel came to Joseph in a dream to tell him of the forthcoming birth and later returned to warn that Herod was going to kill the child.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know the narrative my dear.’ said DeBlanc. ‘But Ginger is not an angel.’

  ‘He flies.’ said Lolly, stroking Ginger’s back.

  ‘Ginger is an anachronaut.’ said Commander DeBlanc. ‘He flies with his heart, his brains and his entire being. He is a Bushwhacker, a cunning devious pilot who is in complete empathy with his machine. The steamchavs say he tried to repair his triplane while he was trapped in limbo.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘And I believe that Ginger’s attempts to repair his plane with primitive tools represent his mind’s attempts to repair itself and return to normality. What Ginger does in his dream world is critical to whether he will awake safely in the real world.’

  ‘The harder he tried to escape the more the clockwork return mechanism would have overheated.’ said Corporal Price.’

  ‘The steamchavs have found no evidence that the return mechanism has been used at all.’ said Doctor Mentor.

  ‘Hmm.’ said DeBlanc. ‘But Ginger would not have given up... surely he would have tried to…’

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  So they argued, discussed and speculated about what had happened to Ginger for several more hours. Wayne arrived to help them but no one was able to confirm what had actually happened until the sleeper awoke.

  Although his body had returned at Saturday nights St Arwar’s Ball, Ginger’s consciousness did not return until two days later, at the very moment that Monday May 3 became Tuesday May 4... St Arwar’s day. At the stroke of midnight, as the fourth and final hour of Jupiter on Monday became the first hour of Mars on Tuesday, Ginger woke up.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked, putting his hands over his eyes to block out the bright lights that surrounded him.

  ‘You’re aboard the Uchronie.’ said Lolly, soothingly.

  ‘I know that I haven’t just overslept.’ said Ginger, trying to shake off the shadows of a long unpleasant dream that still blurred the edges of his mind. ‘What is wrong with my ceiling… and what are all these wires and pipes that I’m connected too?’

  ‘Do not concern yourself about them.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘You are in the medical quarters.’

  ‘I would offer a diamond mine for a glass of water.’ croaked Ginger, as Lolly clasped his hand. ‘What happened? How long have I been in this state of abstraction?’

  ‘You collapsed the moment you came aboard.’ said Lolly, handing him Doctor Mentor’s glass of water. ‘You've been out for two days.’

  ‘Two days! You… did you say… TWO days?!’ groaned Ginger, breathing irregularly as he tried to sit up. ‘This is a disaster! I have urgent news.’

  'Oh dear.’ sighed Lolly, turning to Doctor Mentor. ‘I seem to have upset him. Should I have told him it was only two hours?’

  ‘No! Don’t confuse him, my dear.’ said Commander DeBlanc, sitting down beside her. ‘Ginger, everyone is overjoyed that you have returned. The steamchavs still talk about your flying skills as you navigated through that squadron of enemy planes. Can you tell us what happened to you?’

  ‘Something hit me while I was time travelling.’ said Ginger, trying to focus on the blurry figures around him. ‘I was thrown into a dream world. Nothing was solid or real… but I was trapped as securely as if I had been thrown into a jail cell with iron bars. I did not know how long I could survive there, but I was determined that I would not die there.’

  ‘How long do you think you were there?’ asked Doctor Mentor, frantically scribbling notes.

  ‘I slept in my cockpit for seven nights.’ said Ginger, grimacing and covering his face again. ‘If indeed the darkness’s I experienced were nights…and each night I dreamt that I was a butterfly… a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, happy with myself, doing as I pleased until I tried to fly away and discovered that I couldn’t.’

  ‘You poor dear.’ said Lolly, passionately ‘You were trying to get to me. I am your flower. We need each other.’

  ‘I battled to escape but each attempt weakened me.’ said Ginger, focusing on Doctor Mentor. ‘Then one day I awoke to find my cockpit covered in diagrams and notes. I had concocted a dream plan, drastic measures that I would use to escape from my limbo. For seven hours I jammed myself, molecule by molecule, atom by atom, into whatever lay in my way until it caused a profound chemical reaction. A detonation that blew me out of my lost dimension and returned me to the Uchronie.’

  ‘Yes, we thought there had been an explosion.’ said Doctor Mentor, rather smugly.

  ‘When I found myself aboard the Uchronie at the St Arwar’s Ball, burnt and injured,’ said Ginger, rubbing his moustache with his fingers, ‘I still believed I was flying, fluttering… escaping through an exit door. Suddenly I regained consciousness and there I was… solid and unmistakably myself. I fell to the floor not knowing if I had dreamt I was a butterfly, or if I was a butterfly dreaming that I was attending a… fancy dress ball…. aboard a steam…. powered, time travelling…. air… ship.’

  Ginger stopped and sighed.

  ‘Ginger has overextended himself and passed out.’ whispered Doctor Mentor. ‘I could see that he was experiencing blurriness and overly-bright lights. He must have been pleased that the first thing he saw was his beloved Lolly.’

  ‘At least ‘e didn’t fink ‘e were dead or in ’eaven.’ said Wayne, taking off his Burberry baseball cap.

  ‘Wayne.’ gasped Ginger, pulling himself upright as soon as he heard the sound of the steamchav’s voice. ‘Wayne…I have news… urgent news… for the observer I brought to you… Nate! Where is he?’

  ‘He’s not here.’ said Commander DeBlanc. ‘Don’t worry. We know that he did something aboard the Hindenburg that changed the main course of history so we are keeping him well out of the way. The time streams are slowly returning to normal.’

  ‘NO!’ said Ginger. ‘No… there’s more… in 1926... on… racecar, no… on……’

  Ginger closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

  ‘Can you tell us more?’ asked Commander DeBlanc, turning to Doctor Mentor. ‘Can he still speak?’

  ‘Ginger needs to rest.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘We are over-exerting him. He has had a bad trip.’

  That then is how Ginger broke through the fourth wall that had been holding him back for so long. What do you think? Would such a maneuver be possible? Surely it is simply a question of suspending your disbelief and accepting the fact that Ginger has now returned safely to the Uchronie.

  In fact, Ginger’s story could end here quite happily... if we assume he makes a full recovery. There is no need to read the next episode at all… unless you want to find out more about Nate.

  Next Episode: Aftermath.

  Aftermath

  In which Nate discovers he has a mysterious helper and Commander DeBlanc declines to change course as the Uchronie sets off in pursuit of the Hindenburg.

  At the fourth hour of Mars on Tuesday, as the sun set over the lake at Bechtsgaden, I sat in my shadowy cell wondering what was going to become of me.

  In the aftermath of Wayne’s self absorbed escape I feared that I was now doomed to spend the rest of my life in the past. Eleven years before my rightful time.

  When the black uniformed soldiers witnessed Wayne disappearing from inside his cell in that flash of blinding, rainbow, light, they had run away in a blind terror. They had never seen anything like it in their lives and none of them could even begin to explain what they had just seen.

  When the practical Captain of the Guard came to find out what all the commotion was, he refused to believe their story that Wayne had, somehow, vanished into thin air.

  ‘Such a thing is not possible.’ he had said, loudly and confidently, to reassure his bewildered
militia. ‘Now go and search the lakeside and bring him to me.’

  When they had all gone on their fruitless search he had come inside to question me.

  ‘So… airman. What ship did you fly with?’ he asked, still uncertain about my loyalty. ‘I’ve never seen a uniform like yours before and you seem rather young to be a fully fledged airman.’

  I knew that I couldn’t tell him that I’d flown on the Hindenburg because, in 1926, the Hindenburg didn’t exist. I wracked my brains, trying to remember the history of early German airships.

  ‘I was aboard the LZ126.’ I said.

  This wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t strictly true either. I had been aboard the LZ126... once, on the ground, in America, when I was a teenage air force cadet.

  ‘When was that?’ snapped the Captain of the Guard, taking notes.

  ‘I flew her across the Atlantic in 1924.’ I lied, ‘When she was surrendered to America as part of the reparations for the First World War.’

  ‘Hmm.’ said the Captain, studying my face. ‘Did you stay with the LZ126 in America?’

  ‘No.’ I said, making up a story as I went along. ‘I returned to Europe after the Americans changed her lifting gas to helium. I prefer the faster hydrogen airships.’

  ‘You are certainly a fast thinker.’ said the Captain of the Guard, with a glint in his eye. ‘Who was your last commander?’

  ‘Commander T. DeBlanc.’ I said, quickly. I couldn’t think of any other commander’s name.

  ‘Double Duke Tirant DeDeBlanc!’ scoffed the Captain. ‘Oh ho! I have heard of him. Dippy Duke DeBlanc… the crazy commander. He was taken off to the asylum. He was telling everyone he was going to be in charge of some crazy, steam powered airship that was as big as the city of Berlin.’

  ‘Yes. He is a tad eccentric.’ I said, weakly.

  ‘He is… a lunatic.’ said the Captain of the Guard, standing up and snapping his notebook shut. ‘And now I’m going to find out what you are. I shall phone Berlin and check your story with the Luftwaffe records office. Then we’ll find out which side you are actually on.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to getting out of here then.’ I said, feigning over confidence, as I sat back on my hard wooden bed.

  ‘We shall see.’ he said, locking my cell door as he left. ‘We shall see.’

  As I watched him walk away across the walled courtyard I knew that I would be in even more trouble when he returned. There would be no trace of a Nate Drywood flying German airships in 1926.

  I sat and dozed in the gathering darkness until I thought I had begun to hear voices again.

  Then I realised that someone was speaking to me through the grill beneath my cell window.

  ‘Air - man - Dry - wood.’ whispered the voice. ‘You - need - to - get - out - of - here.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ I whispered into the darkness.

  ‘I - know - all - about - Nate - Dry - wood.’ said the tinny voice, resonating in the metal grill. ‘You - need - to - retrieve - your - bag - and - a - mech - anical - hand.’

  ‘How am I supposed to do that?’ I hissed. ‘I’m locked in here!’

  ‘The - guards - are - gone.’ said the voice. ‘They - are - also - search - ing - for - the - gun - that - was - fired - at - their - leader.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘And how do you know so much about what’s going on?’

  ‘Your - Commander - has - sent - me - here.’ said the buzzing voice. ‘You - have - to retrieve - your - Wave - gun.’

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Meanwhile, high above and eleven years in the future, Commander DeBlanc was talking about Nate as the Uchronie followed the HIndenburg out across the Atlantic.

  ‘Nate will have to pull himself up by his bootstraps.’ he said, watching Doctor Mentor tend to the comatose Ginger. ‘The Hindenburg has already sailed for America and our prime objective is to follow her and ensure that the main timeline of history goes back on track.’

  ‘You can’t just leave Nate in 1926.’ gasped Lolly. ‘You said he had been very useful back there, once you sorted out your timelines and realized what had actually happened.’

  ‘Well… we CAN just leave him there.’ said DeBlanc, eyebrows bristling. ‘But, you’re right; we probably shouldn’t… because, as you say, he has been rather useful to us.’

  ‘We should collect him before he reveals any secrets about the Uchronie.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘And what about his Wave gun?’

  ‘That’s exactly why Nate was so useful to us.’ said DeBlanc, haughtily. ‘As I said before, I previously detected a Wave signal in 1926 and sent Ginger to investigate. It’s just as well he didn’t find it because firing Nate’s pistol at Hitler has changed everything.’

  ‘It were me wot used it.’ said Wayne, pulling at his Burberry baseball cap. ‘But it didn’t fire.’

  ‘I now, but you did well.’ said DeBlanc. ‘Very well. Considering it wasn’t your pistol.’

  ‘But it didn’t do nuffink.’ complained Wayne. ‘I wanted to pop ‘im, an’ I botched it.’

  ‘Ah! That’s where you’re wrong.’ said DeBlanc. ‘The very fact that you fired at Hitler, and he survived, has added to the Fuehrer’s belief in his own invincibility and fuelled his conviction that he is on a righteous mission to clean up Europe. This megalomania will cause him to make irrational choices. So... your shot from the Wave pistol will eventually make him lose the war.’

  ‘We can’t leave that gun lying around in Bechtsgaden.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘Anyone that finds it will have access to our advanced vapor technology and may turn history in yet another direction.’

  ‘Icon easy get fix on gun, n‘that.’ said Biffo, from the shadows. ‘S’easy… but.’

  ‘We should send someone to 1926 to collect it, provided we don’t cause another paradox.’ said Doctor Mentor, holding his damaged arm.. ‘And I would quite like my hand back as well... I’d grown rather attached to it.’

  ‘Very well then.’ said DeBlanc. ‘Now we have three very good reasons to return to Bechtsgaden in 1926 but, unfortunately, I have already laid in a course for Lakehurst aerodrome, New Jersey in 1937.’

  ‘We could still send someone to 1926 through the Wells Tippler cylinder.’ offered Corporal Price. ‘We’re not that far away from Bechtsgaden.’

  ‘We are already a hundred miles away.’ said DeBlanc, checking his hand held tachyscreen. ‘Besides, we can’t risk losing another One Time Pad …Wayne nearly lost one already.’

  ‘I brung it back.’ protested Wayne.

  ‘Yes you did.’ yawned DeBlanc, stretching his arms wide. ‘But we are on a mission and I don’t have any crew to spare. Is Ginger’s triplane repaired?’

  ‘Sir! Yes, sir.’ said Corporal Price. ‘The steamchavs started putting it back together on Sunday or erm… well… whenever it was. The plane is fully repaired.’

  ‘Good.’ said DeBlanc. ‘Get Ginger’s triplane ready to launch and fit her with a long range fuel tank. We shall send it back to 1926 while we continue to shadow the Hindenburg in 1937.’

  ‘Who is going to fly it, daddy?’ asked Lolly, stroking the comatose Ginger‘s brow.

  ‘We shall send it by remote control.’ said DeBlanc, blinking so rapidly that his gold monocle fell out. ‘The plane knows the way. It’s been there and back once already.’

  Biffo appeared from the shadows grinning broadly.

  ‘I thought you‘d relish the prospect.’ said DeBlanc. ‘You’ll be able to try out your reconstructed robot.’

  ‘Osky, n‘that.’ said Biffo. ‘Brit’s broke, but...’

  ‘Biffo has assembled a new, man sized, robot from the remains of Osky and Brit.’ said Commander DeBlanc. ‘What did you call it, Biff?’

  ‘Asim.’ said Biffo.

  ‘Biffo assures me that Asim can be programmed to fly Ginger’s triplane.’ said DeBlanc.

  ‘Wonder, ‘ow long it’ll last this time.’ muttered Wayne.

 
‘Asim will last long enough.’ said DeBlanc, giving Wayne a reproachful look. ‘Nate can fly the plane back… after collecting his Wave gun, Doctor Mentor’s hand and anything else that needs cleared up in 1926. There, we’ve killed three birds with one stone and made Biffo‘s day.’

  ‘But Nate is locked in a prison cell.’ said Lolly.

  ‘I‘m well aware of that.’ said Commander DeBlanc. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I will deal with that.’

  ‘You’ll have to be careful you don’t cause another temporal paradox.’ said Doctor Mentor. ‘We’ve caused enough ripples in the time stream recently.’

  ‘The ripples are all smoothing out.’ said DeBlanc, confidently. ‘And you should calm yourself as well Doctor! My plan will return the status quo.’