by Edward Aubry
The captain's cabin was luxurious. It was a perk of command that Harrison relished. The room was enormous, fully furnished with beautiful, antique-looking pieces. He shared the cabin with Apryl, although they were (for the time being) still sleeping in separate beds. This was Harrison's first shot at what he hoped would be a serious relationship, and they agreed that they were in no hurry to push it too far, too fast.
He opened an ornate chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out his gravity resistant backpack. Rummaging through it, he produced one of his many gadgets and took it back to the upper deck.
Apryl, Claudia, Glimmer and Jake were waiting for him, quiet and curious.
"Glimmer," said Harrison. "Why doesn't magic work on technology?"
She sighed. "Haven't I explained this over and over again?"
"Actually, no, you haven't," he said.
She crossed her arms. "I'm sure I have."
"Explain it again."
She tapped her foot on the table. "It just doesn't."
He held out the gadget and thumbed a switch.
"Like I would know?" the pixie asked. She was wearing gym shorts and a white T-shirt that said Jell-O in red letters across the front. Her elbows and knees had pads strapped to them, and she was wearing a helmet. Her wings were a deeper shade of purple than Harrison had observed just a little while earlier. The image flickered. "Like I would know?" she repeated.
The real Glimmer stared at this electronic effigy of herself as though she had never seen anything like it. She had seen it before, of course, but had somehow missed a crucial detail. That it was visible made perfect sense. But it should not have been audible.
"Mother pus bucket," she whispered. Her image continued to speak the same phrase, over and over.
"What happens when you try to use magic on a machine?" he asked her. She was mesmerized by the recording. He shut it off and asked her again. "What happens when you try to use magic on a machine?"
"Nothing," she said. She stared at the empty space where the recording had been. "I guess. I've never tried to."
"Never?" he asked. She shook her head. "Has anyone ever tried to?" She shook her head again. "Then how do you know it doesn't work? What kind of experiments did you run back at Esoteric to explore this?"
"We …" she began, then stopped. She thought for a moment. "Shit. I don't remember. We must have done something, though."
"I don't think you did," said Harrison. "You know what I think? I think it's a mental block. A mass mental block. I think something has made every person and creature in the world believe that. When it isn't really true."
"Are you saying if we think it works, it will work?" Claudia asked.
"Maybe," Harrison said.
"But that's cartoon physics!" she said. "The coyote doesn't fall because he can't see that his feet aren't on solid ground anymore. Then he looks down, and that's all she wrote. Do you hear what you're saying?"
He thumbed the switch in response. "Like I would know?" the faux Glimmer asked once more. The real Glimmer was holding her head.
Harrison shut it off. He picked up the Dictaphone and pressed record. He let it spin for a second or two, then said, "Glimmer recording experiment, take two." He paused for another few seconds, then said, "To be …"
He held the recorder out to Glimmer. She stared at it hatefully. After a very long pause, she said, "Or not to be." He waited for more, but she was done. He stopped and rewound.
He pressed play, and a voice came from the little speaker. "-periment, take two." It paused, then added, "To be."
Then followed silence. They waited, but no one was sure for what. The silence dragged on. Finally, Harrison shook his head. How could he express his theory in the light of this nonevidence?
"Or not to be," came a voice from the Dictaphone.
Harrison pressed stop. No one spoke. At length, he said, "Jake? Would you please find Mr. Baker and Dr. Tucker and Dr. Lee, and ask them to join us on deck? I think a staff meeting is in order."
Chapter Thirty-Seven:
Midnight Oil
The meeting was short. Harrison repeated his demonstration. The conclusions were foregone. Something had cursed every sentient being on the planet to believe without doubt that magic and science were forever irreconcilable. Their speculation as to the source of that curse was unanimous. That they had found a clue strong enough to break this curse could not be a coincidence. It had been a gift from their silent ally, the one who had already gifted them with special powers and astonishingly useful (and easy to operate) inventions. Most importantly, they must have been cursed, kept in the dark, for a reason.
Evil had a weakness.
As much as this revelation excited them, Hadley in particular, it also opened them to a new world of fear. They had been proceeding with a plan that seemed workable on its face. Now they knew that an opportunity existed and that their plan had nothing to do with it. That might well mean that their plan was the wrong approach. Or was simply doomed. They had no idea how to turn this to their advantage. As he saw frustration slowly transforming into despair, Harrison ended the discussion, reminded them all that this new information was good news, and adjourned. They would have plenty of transit time to create a strategy, and they would have a better time of it once they had assimilated what they were learning.
* * *
The desk in the captain's quarters was the size of a dining room table. When Harrison moved in, he had found a chart of the Atlantic Ocean spread out on it. Like so many things on the Ptolemy, this had likely been far more for show than function. The much larger chart mounted on the wall in the bridge was capable of showing any location on Earth, at any scale desirable. He had left the paper chart on the desk. It added to the charm of the room.
That chart was now rolled up and tucked away with several dozen others in a cabinet. Arranged on the desk was every futuristic gadget Harrison had accumulated on his haphazard trek across the wilderness. The gizmos were lined up in neat rows, and alternating columns, like checkers on a board. Harrison stared at them. He imagined that by imposing order on them he would grasp their mystery.
"Hey," said Apryl. She was standing in the door. Harrison had left it open while he worked to keep the air in his room circulating. The further south they went, the warmer the weather got, and Harrison liked it cold. Another effect as they got closer to the equator was that the long summer days were growing shorter. It was well after dark at this point, but the air was still too warm for his taste. He reminded himself daily that where they were going was currently in the middle of winter. On nights like this, that thought comforted him.
"I thought you went to bed."
He looked up. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, no doubt to keep the heat off of her face, but he could still see perspiration beading on her forehead. "I was restless," he said.
She took in the scene before her. He could guess what he must look like. He had just been clutching his hair, and it felt like at least some of it was standing on end. His eyes had that tingle, just on the edge of burning, that he presumed translated into bloodshot.
"What are you doing?" she asked cautiously.
He sighed. "This thing with the camera really bugs me," he said. "I've been sitting on it for almost a year, and I only figured it out today. I can't help but think there must be more clues in here somewhere. If I can just crack them."
She came over to his side and looked at the display on the desk. "Where did you get all this stuff?"
"I've had it all since, like, September. And before that. Most of it, I don't even know what it is." He picked up a small rod. "Some of it I do, though. Here." He tossed the rod to an open spot on the floor a few feet from the desk. It sprang open as it hit and configured itself into a chair before Apryl's eyes. It also carved a glaring scratch into the beautiful hardwood floor. "Aw, shit," said Harrison. He got up, went to the floor, knelt down, and buffed the scratch with his thumb, to no avail. Apryl sat on the floor next to him and
put her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her. "I wanted to show you my cool chair," he said.
"That's a pretty cool chair," she agreed.
"C'mere," he said. He got up, and offered her the chair he had been sitting in. It was upholstered, with carved wooden armrests. She sat, and he pulled the expanded field chair to the table. "This is stuff I picked up on the way to New Chicago. I kept it all in my backpack, thinking I would find a use for most of it, if I could just figure out what it did. I only ever identified about a quarter of it, and then when I got to Chicago, I didn't need extra stuff, so I packed it all away. When I was assigned to the New York expedition, I brought the pack with me. On a lark." He tapped on one of his unidentified treasures with a pencil. "I kind of figured that one of these babies would somehow save the day at just the right minute. And then everyone would praise me for my foresight." He grunted. "The opportunity never quite presented itself."
She took his hand in hers, meshing their fingers. "So, instead, you had to settle for earning our respect. Poor baby."
He leaned over and kissed her. "Mm," he said. "Yeah. Sucks to be me."
She turned her attention back to his collection. "We had a room full of stuff like this back in New York," she said. "We had a bunch of stuff we thought might be magical, too. Most of it wasn't, though. We had a couple little things that were. My favorite was a stone that purified water. You could drop it in a mud puddle and actually watch it go to work."
Harrison was shocked. "Why didn't you bring it?" he said.
"I did. We haven't needed it yet."
This was true. The transport had a water purification system (again, despite its lack of any kind of weapons, leading Harrison to believe its original purpose was military), and the galley had a spigot fed by a desalination system mounted inside the keel. He supposed that if the water system ever broke down, they might be able to use her stone to purify seawater. He contemplated the possible effect of throwing it directly into the ocean. Maybe she should have left it back home, after all.
He changed the subject. "I remember that room," he said. "Jake showed it to me on the nickel tour. He seemed very disappointed to hear Glimmer's magical appraisal of the junk you had down there."
"Hey, speaking of my stuff, where's the gizmo you took from me?" She was scanning the table, looking for something.
"Which gizmo?"
She gave him a contemptuous look. "Come on. The little thing with the buttons and lights? I don't see it here."
"Oh!" he said. "It's right here." He produced it from his pocket.
She took it from him and looked it over. "Why didn't you have it out with all the others?"
He shrugged. "It didn't occur to me. It seemed like it was in a totally different category from this stuff. I was hoping I could find another example of technology that doesn't behave the way it should. So far, that thing hasn't done anything suspect."
"What's this?" she asked. She had been turning the object over in her hands and was now tapping the circular rubber cap on its top.
"Not sure," he said. "It covers some sort of port. At first I thought it might be for a power cord, but then you got it going, so now I have no clue. Maybe it supports some kind of cable to link it to other little whatevers."
She popped the cap off with a fingernail and looked down the hole it had covered. "Seems kind of wide for a cable jack. Can I borrow your pencil?" He handed it to her, and she probed the opening with it. When she let go of the pencil, it disappeared completely. "Kind of deep, too."
This surprised Harrison. The hole went all the way down the machine. It seemed unlikely that any cable would require a jack that long. "Can I see that?" She handed it back to him. He turned it over, and the pencil dropped back out. "Whoa," he said. "This …" He stared at it for a another minute. "I think I just figured this out."
Apryl waited. Harrison did not elucidate. Either he was unsure about his discovery, or he had just forgotten he was talking. "What?" she prompted.
Harrison reached down and pulled the wand from its holster on his belt. He held it over the opening on the remote. The emerald sphere at the tip of the wand began to glow as it got nearer to the device, and soon it was light enough for Harrison to see part of the way down the hole. Nervously, he touched the hole with the glowing green marble.
It was slightly wider than the opening.
"Crap," he said. "Now I feel like an idiot. I thought maybe these two things were meant to work together." He looked at Apryl, mild resignation on his face, but she was examining the wand.
"Turn it around," she said.
He did so. Then he saw it. Etched into the flat part of the metal cap, so fine it may well have been carved with a pin, was a symbol. It was a straight line, connected to a curve.
"Oh my God," he whispered.
Setting the end with the metal cap against the hole. He loosened his grip on the wand. It slid straight down. There was no visible gap between it and the sides of the hole. He gave it a slight push to make sure it had gone the whole way, and they heard it snap into place. With the wand protruding out of it, the little machine looked like a portable phone or a walkie-talkie, with a wand in place of an antenna.
They stared at it.
"Well," Harrison whispered, "I wonder what it does now."
Instantly, the entire device began to glow pale green. He almost dropped it. The icons he had seen before appeared, along with many others that bore no resemblance to anything he recognized. They hovered above the device, spinning in the air, changing shape, growing, shrinking. The device was offering information in symbolic form, faster than Harrison could hope to follow. But he had a pretty good idea what that information was.
It was explaining what it could do now.
Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Heave To
"What else does it do?" asked Alec. He was holding the remote, feeling its weight. "Can it be used as a weapon?"
Harrison, Alec, and Hadley were standing on the deck of the Ptolemy. It was shortly after dawn. Harrison had awoken early, eager to get to work, and had asked the spy and the scientist to get up with him. Alec was already awake when Harrison came knocking, but Hadley was not expecting reveille.
"Not sure," said Harrison. "Probably." He took it back. "I hadn't explored that possibility." He didn't much want to explore it then, either. He wanted to be annoyed at Alec for spoiling his joy by trying to make his object of wonder into an object of violence. The truth was, he was a little annoyed at himself for not thinking of it first. He and Hadley had spent the previous day testing and analyzing the device, but neither of them had asked that question even once. As much as it bothered him (which it did, right to the core), he had to admit that their situation was such that defense was a major consideration. This was why he needed Alec.
In point of fact, he still hadn't been able to ascertain a great deal about this thing's new capabilities. It had helpfully given him a roster of tasks it could perform, but the list consisted of symbols. It was also far too long for him to absorb in one sitting. He and Hadley had spent hours trying to identify each icon, but they weren't able to understand more than a small fraction of them. Some of the images looked like the visual equivalent of technical jargon, but most of them looked completely made up. He planned to ask Glimmer to translate anything she could.
"I'd be surprised, frankly," said Hadley. "It still appears to influence technology. Since there are no technological weapons left, I consider it unlikely that this would be one."
"Yes," said Alec, "but now it has magical capabilities as well. And the two aspects seem to be enhancing each other." He looked at Harrison. "With your permission, I'd like to run some field tests on it. I may stumble across some application we could put to use in a fight."
Harrison thumbed a pad on the device and it glowed green for a moment. "Okay," he said. "Take it." He did not hold it out. Hadley was smirking.
Alec took the bait. He reached for the little machine, and suddenly his arm flew out perpendicular
to his body. "Bloody hell!" he said, rubbing his shoulder. "It has teeth, after all. What was that?"
"Catch," said Harrison, and tossed it to him. Alec reflexively reached for it with both hands, but as they closed around it, it shot straight up like wet soap, arcing gracefully back to Harrison's open palm. "I should have warned you. He doesn't like to be held by anyone but me." He grinned, stroking the machine. "Good boy, Gizmo."
"Gizmo?" said Alec.
Harrison shrugged. "I gave it a name. I'm sentimental like that."
"Nice," said Alec. "Is that a setting, or does it just do that for you?"
"It's a setting. I'm going to program it to accept everyone in the crew. That'll keep it out of enemy hands, but we'll still be able to use it if something happens to one of us."
Alec nodded. "What if we fall into enemy hands?"
He was talking about torture. If he or anyone else were taken prisoner with this object in hand, they could be made to do all sorts of wonderful things with it. For somebody else. Harrison had already considered this. Not long ago, such an idea would have frightened him into incoherence, but now part of his responsibility was to foresee this sort of thing. He knew he was up to the job, and his ego had shifted accordingly. Still, somewhere, there was a lost innocence that he secretly mourned.
He held the machine up in front of his face. "Go," he said. It went.
Alec raised his eyebrows. Harrison thought it was nice to know that he could still be surprised, even if only a little. "Is it somewhere safe?" the spy asked.
"Lunar orbit," said Hadley.
Alec replied with silence. Eventually he said, "Seriously."
"Seriously," said Harrison. "Orbiting the moon. Two hundred forty thousand miles. In the blink of an eye."
All three men looked up. They could make out the waxing crescent in the early morning sky. "Right," said Alec. "I see it now." They all laughed.
"The orbit is low," said Hadley. "And unstable. So we can't leave it there for more than about ten years."