by Robert Brown
I saw a rope ladder just within reach of the window. In fact, our entire plane seemed to be hanging from rope ladders. They started above us, dropping into the black abyss below. This left us with a tricky decision, climb up to where the ladder stayed close to the cliff, which seemed to level off, or climb down to where the rope ladder dangled over the black abyss.
Finally, and after a little discussion in the raging rain, we decided that going down was best. This accursed trip was not going to be over until we got “down” from wherever we were so, after a few minutes of struggling to push what was left of the pilot out of our way, down we went.
As we descended, the ladder separated from the side of the “cliff”, and we came to the most baffling scene yet. There was a sailing ship hanging from hundreds of massive ropes in the blackness of the sky. It was made of ornately carved wood, like a classic pirate ship. Copper and brass machinery protruded from huge sections of it, as well as giant glass orbs filled with swirling pink gas that glowed dimly. Networks of glass and copper tubes occasionally shot little lighted capsules through them. At least a dozen weathered figures in long oiled raincoats, leather helmets and massive goggles ran on deck, climbing the ropes in a general panic, looking like enraged ants when you step on their hill.
We clambored over the railing, and I noticed Kristina was shivering. Not from fear, mind you, but from the icy cold, wet and pure exhaustion of the day’s misadventure. I hoisted her with one arm and, unnoticed by the crew, we headed for a large door aft of the ship.
Swinging open the door we found that it led to one of the most beautifully furnished living rooms I have ever been in. Deep leather sofas, chandeliers dangling as the ship swung on its ropes, edged tables filled with glass bottles of all shapes and sizes – now rolling around on a bar, some had fallen and smashed on the floor. A massive winged-back chair lay overturned just behind a huge brass captain’s wheel, and what I guessed was a periscope showed the view out the front of the ship.
Suspended from the ceiling was a very detailed model of what looked like a pirate ship hanging under a zeppelin. The pirate ship was bristling with cannon, surrounded with miniature glass orbs and tubes. Could this be where we stood now: on a flying ship, hanging under a massive zeppelin, some Victorian-Era airship? This certainly accounted for what we seen so far. I could see the “canvas cliff” rope ladder we descended, and the railing we climbed over, and the deck we stumbled across, all in miniature.
The far wall of this room was fitted with ornate stained-glass panels. Gorgeous deep reds, greens and teals, with gilded leading, cut to depict different nautical and aeronautical themes. Just outside the windows, two massive propellers could be seen spinning furiously, and there was a man-sized hole in the glass wall just behind the captain’s overturned chair. Near the hole stood two silhouettes engaged in somber debate, looking quite distressed.
“Well, he was sitting right in his chair, wasn’t he?” asked the tallest silhouette. I would later learn his name was Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul was Creole: huge, black, bald and intimidating, if you didn’t know him. When you got to know him, you knew he was quiet, kind, and always genteelly cheerful. He wore silk harem pants and a mandarin jacket which made him look like a cross between a genie and a South Seas pirate.
“Where is he now? Did he fall through the glass?” asked the silhouette next to him, pointing to the hole in the window. This was Tanner. He wore a plain black bowler, huge boots that came nearly to his knees, and a ragged vest which might at one time have been an army field jacket. Completing his attire was a kilt.
“Yes! It looks like he went right through the window. You’d better tell Daniel what’s happened, and possibly Calgori.” Jean-Paul then turned to leave, and as he did he saw us. “Who are you?”
“I’m Robert, this is Kristina. We are really sorry to be here, but I’m afraid we…” and just in the middle of speaking, the man with the bowler turned, slipped and fell to the floor. As he tried to get up, he slipped again. When he looked at his hands they were covered with blood, as was the floor around him.
INTRODUCTIONS
We were taken to a small cabin, and given some odd looking clothes, hand stitched, dark colors, military but formally cut – not like the baggy fitting chamois of today’s armies. As we sat on the edge of small bunks under itchy, stiff blankets, we were given cups of hot, incredibly strong, bitter tea.
For the first hour, we said nothing. None of it seemed possible, and none of it seemed good. I shivered under my blanket worried that Kristina was under her blanket blaming me for everything that had gone wrong. Blaming me for the crash she warned me about, blaming me for the death of our bandmates, our friends. I feared her opinions of me so much, I didn’t dare start the conversation, so I sat as silent as she.
I felt deep, dark self-loathingly horrible. If only I could take it back, redo the day in a way that didn’t end like this. But is that what I really wanted? Part of me was screaming, “See, you’re not supposed to leave that life of reliable employment.” While another quieter part was whispering excitedly, “This is better, you’re traveling again! You’re off the grid, and on an adventure! This is where you are supposed to be.”
That night a meeting was called to assess damage and form a plan. Kristina and I were invited, since the crew seemed to feel we could add something to the conversation. It turned out they needed us.
We were led down dark wooden corridors, past many round portholes, and through large double doors. The less expendable members of the crew were assembled in the map room which was a very long narrow room with no maps at all. In the center of it was a massive and very complex slide rule, about fifteen feet long, with dozens of shifting scales (the parts of a slide rule that slide). Above this, and in full motion, was a beautiful brass, copper, and pewter orrie.
Let me explain: if a globe is a three dimensional map of the Earth, then think of an orrie as a dimensional map of the solar system. This one was not only in motion, but you could increase or decrease its speed, or reverse its motion using one of the scales of the slide rule in the center of the room.
Another machine about the size of a school desk sat at one end of the room. It was connected both to the orrie and the glass orbs around the ship. The machine was covered with gauges, dials and one very large throw switch, just the kind you might see in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.
The excitement of this scene was pushing the dark feelings of guilt from my mind. It was only a temporary distraction, but one that was welcomed nonetheless.
Tanner was speaking as we entered, “I really don’t think we can ask any more of Dr. Calgori while he’s in his present state. He’s very ill, and I don’t think we should disturb him.”
“Well, he’s not in command,” said a tall, slender, and very “proper military” man “I’m not sure he could help us much anyway. He seems as lost as we are. I had been trying to get our orders out of the Captain over the last few days, but the plans were not very forthcoming. And now the captain is lost. I don’t suppose it would make sense to declare him dead, but he’s certainly not onboard. It would appear in the collision he was knocked from his chair, and fell through the window of his cabin.”
“He didn’t tell you the ‘plan’, Daniel, because he ’ad no plan! Capt’n was stumped!” said a third, whiskery man with a fresh eye patch that he occasionally mopped under with a rag. I was beginning to notice that most of the crew in the room was filthy, wet, and very battered. They obviously had not been having an easy time of things.
Kristina and I had been sitting quietly listening to all of this. Although I felt unexpectedly at home in this strangely ornate and luxurious environment, I’m sure I looked quite out of place, so I kept my mouth shut. At this point it became apparent that nobody here was any more “in their element” then I was. “What exactly is the problem?” I asked.
There was a long pause as it seemed people were working out just how to begin, or who I was, or who was to fill me in on what was going on.<
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Finally Daniel answered, “You are aboard the HMS Ophelia, an experimental vessel designed in 1897 by Dr. Calgori for Her Majesty’s Fleet. It’s a time traveling vessel. The good Doctor’s experiment was funded by the British Empire with the direct goal of correcting the outcome of any historical battle the crown viewed as a failure. When fully functional, our mission will be to travel back in time, and turn the tides of previous military failures to the favor of the English crown. This journey you’ve caught us on was our maiden voyage – it was a test run that seems to have gone awry. We left port on January 8th, 1903, and arrived here two hours later.”
“1903. You’re from 1903?” I asked calmly.
Now, you might think I’m taking this a little too well. That’s not the case. I have a rule in life, when someone presents me with an outrageous story, instead of arguing with them, I let them finish their tale. After I’ve heard their whole story it’s easier to decide how it affects me, and if it hurts me at all to pretend I believe them. Whether or not I actually believe them is irrelevant, and telling them so would interrupt the story. In this case, the tale was too much fun to contend. I wanted to hear the whole story, true or not. Although I wanted this to be true. Besides, the night had already been more than unusual, so this crazy tale didn’t really seem that far out of left field.
“You’re from 1903?” I asked again.
“Yes. Although construction was well funded, the Crown was a bit skeptical as to the ability of Dr. Calgori’s contraption to accurately navigate through time and return. Because of this, we were not particularly well crewed. The British navy didn’t want to risk anyone of value.”
At this there were some protesting grunts and groans from around the room.
“The quality of your poorly articulated dissent proves my point, I think,” Daniel continued in an even more authoritative voice. “Most of the crew was drafted from various prisons around the Empire, including myself. I actually am ‘career military’, just not this military. Still, the number of trained and competent sailors is slim.” At this point I noticed that Daniel’s accent was not English, but American, like my own.
Tanner continued Daniel’s narration, as if to smooth over what he considered too harsh a description of the crew around them, “It’s a fine crew, despite anyone’s prior profession. Everyone is doing their best.”
At “doing their best” Daniel made a disapproving sound. “Anyway, this is the maiden voyage, but instead of returning to the Napoleonic wars, we seem to have found ourselves elsewhere. We have no idea where or when we are. I am hoping you have some idea.”
“The year is 2004,” I said. “You are flying somewhere over Utah, um, in the United States of America.”
“That’s not far from what we were guessing,” said the shaky voice of an old man who was just now hobbling into the room. He was leaning heavily on an ornately carved cane, and the room became reverently silent as he entered. “Although I’m a little surprised that this is only ninety-eight years in the future.”
He was old, and frail and somewhere behind his eyes was a sadness, as infinitely deep as water falling off the edge of a flat world. When he saw me, he startled, far more than anyone should at merely seeing a stranger on board. Was it my punk rock hair? I thought, but that didn’t seem to answer his look. “Goodness, gracious!” he exclaimed. And then he chuckled. “Well, it would appear I have become Merlin. Welcome aboard, Wart!”
“Doctor, you shouldn’t be out of bed!” Tanner said, interrupting what we all thought was a burst of Alzheimer’s. It would be years before I knew what Dr. Calgori meant, but it was not Alzheimer’s.
“Yes, Mum,” Calgori said condescendingly. “I’ll get back to bed as soon as I’m convinced you lot know what you’re doing. We are rid of the captain, so in that way we are better off than when we started…” The crew was silent, no one made a sound but one or two sailors did exchange glances.
Calgori turned back to me. “We need to refuel. The first trip had a surprising effect on our fuel supply, and I’m afraid we can’t get back without refilling our tanks. Since Daniel and I were not sure how people of your time would react to us, we’ve been hiding in this miserable cloud until we had a better idea of where to find fuel, and how to procure it, since our money would be unlikely to still be in use now. Also, we need to make repairs, we have gaping holes in our underside, due to a mountain range we did not expect. Also, from what you are telling me it would appear I made a nearly catastrophic error in my calculations – either that, or the earth spins at an uneven rate.”
“what does the rate of the earth have to do with the fact that instead of going back in time, you went forward in time one hundred years?” Daniel asked.
“Oh, that was no miscalculation. I had no intention of going back in time, regardless of what your people were ordering. I needed some information that I assume is readily available at this time, and would make the rest of our navigation simpler. After procuring that, I planned to head back to our mission.”
Kristina spoke, for the first time this evening. “I don’t mean to spoil the fun, but isn’t time travel impossible? Didn’t I read that by showing how a single photon can not travel faster than the speed of light, scientists have proven time travel is impossible?” She had a bit of her defiant and infinitely skeptical look showing from behind her bedraggled hair.
“Thats nonsense,” Calgori said “All those scientists proved is that they do not understand how it could work, not that it is impossible. Time travel is certainly possible. In fact, its impossible not to time travel! Everything in existence is constantly moving forward in time. Varying the speed at which something moves through time is easy; and easily proven. If you can vary your speed enough, compared with everything else, you can go anywhen!”
“Anyway,” he continued, “we left 1906 off the coast of Wales, and emerged over a mountain range which leads me to believe the earth is spinning at an uneven rate, like the weighted wheels of a train. Voomp Voomp Voomp.” And he made an uneven spinning motion with his hand.
The room was silent. Obviously no one had any idea what he was talking about. He sighed “This vessel can change the time in which it exists. However, the universe is not still. Planets move, not only around the sun, but they spin as they move as well. My first efforts at time travel were effective, because I sent objects forward in time only a few minutes. They would disappear, and reappear at the time I expected, but always a few yards in the direction of the sunset. This is because the earth is constantly twisting toward the sunrise. The object would reappear exactly where it was when it had left, only the earth would be in a different position.”
“When I increased the duration of time I was transporting the object, it would be further away from where it started, and sometimes either very high in the air, or buried in the ground – depending on the time of day. This is because the earth is not only spinning, but rotating around the sun as well.”
Mongrel now looked a touch disgruntled. He was trying to picture this, but the thought was too big for him, and wouldn’t fit his brain. He glanced at Tanner, who was looking at the Doctor with sympathy, so he decided Dr. Calgori must be speaking nonsense. He mumbled a “Poor chap,” and made a pitying frown.
Calgori responded to this with a raised eyebrow, and continued slower, “It became apparent that if I was to send a vessel forward in time, or backward, it would be best to do it far away from anything. As high in the air as possible, to avoid the possibility of it reappearing inside in a solid object. And if it was traveling more than fifteen minutes or so, it was also crucial that the vessel arrived precisely at the same time of year as when it departed, or else the earth would be in a different position in its orbit around the sun, and could end up buried, or more likely, lost forever in the stars.”
Every face in the room but Calgori’s was now wide-eyed, open mouthed, and horrified. It would seem they finally understood what he was getting at. A tin cup fell from someone’s hand and rattled on the
floor.
“Oh, buckup, you ninnies. You’re all still alive. I’ve got you here…now…and I will…” But at that point the doctor flushed and collapsed.
Tanner helped him to a chair and after a brief pause, Daniel continued, “Our mission is now threefold – obtain lumber, make repairs, and possibly make design changes, since it would appear that the last minute changes to the Ophelia are not as structurally sound as we had hoped. Then we need to acquire fuel, and we need food. We’ve been adrift up here for a couple weeks, and I don’t know how much longer before we can return to London, so we need to resupply soon.”.
At this point I recognized why I was here. I said, “I have a proposition to make you. I think we can help with all of these, since we know this time vastly better than any of you. It was smart to keep your presence a secret. Governments in our time don’t like anything unlicensed and free.”
“Is there a time when they do?” Calgori mumbled, glowering.
“You won’t be free for long,” I added “If they catch you. So you need to operate completely undetected as long as we are in this time. I can direct your acquisitions of food, fuel, and what… spare parts? In exchange for my helping you, I want to return with you back in time. We’ll have to figure out when and how we do this, but at some point I’d like to try to do something that prevents our friends from dying today.” I spent the hours since the crash in a mix of emotions. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the ongoing argument - Did I cause the death of my friends by ignoring Kristina’s fears? Did I kill my friends in my own need for a less mundane life? What would I do differently, if I could do it all again? Here I stood being told that I could in fact go back and do it all again. At least, I stuck with this ship, and if the stars all lined up correctly.