The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  “No. It is not a clock, though perhaps it could be called a time piece of sorts.” Hubert looked pleased. He loved to make riddles, but Millicent wasn’t in the mood.

  “Forgive my ignorance. At the moment it looks like a sleigh with half our furniture piled upon it, as if we were refugees in a snowstorm. How is it a timepiece of any description?”

  “Because it can take you to any piece of time.”

  “Pardon?” His riddling was growing tiresome. She moved the plate of scones out of reach and fixed him with a steely glance. Hubert stopped his games at once.

  “It’s a time machine, Millicent. Imagine it! A machine capable of transporting a man to any pre-selected moment in history.” His voice rang with enthusiasm. “Well, almost. I still need to work out how to power it. If my algorithms are correct there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.” He settled in his seat, brows furrowed, considering his problem.

  “What powers the engine?” Millicent asked. She was curious, now she understood what he was working on. Hubert always had some interesting invention at some stage of development sitting around his laboratory. This one was more thought provoking than usual.

  “That’s the problem; what fuel type to use. Gas delivers such an unstable current. I’ve tried pressurizing it to a higher ratio but it doesn’t work very well, and it smells dreadful.”

  “I know. Cook was complaining. What are your alternatives?”

  “Coal?”

  “No, Hubert. I will not have it. Last time you experimented with combustion, we had coal coming out of our ears and the heat was unbearable.”

  Hubert strolled over to the windows overlooking the Mews. “I do have another idea,” he said. “But it is very radical.” He paced back and forth before the window until Millicent found she was squinting at the sunlight that haloed him.

  “Do come away from the window, Hubert, the light is too bright.” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “Whatever do you mean by radical?”

  “I mean radical as in harnessing the power of the cosmos!” He turned and tugged on the cord to close the window drapes. The heavy velvet swung shut like the curtains in a theatre production. The room was plunged into cool shade. “Solar power will fuel my machine, Millicent. Even as it powers the earth on which we stand,” he said.

  “Solar power? How ingenious. And how will you manage that?”

  “Copper. Huge copper plates.” He indicated the wooden disc already mounted on his time machine. “And a water tank.” He showed her a cistern hidden behind the driving seat. It had multiple funnels with copper piping running to the cylindrical pistons at the front of the machine in what Millicent had imagined as the engine bay. “The water is heated by the condensed rays of the sun on the copper disc, and steam is carried thus to the pistons.” Millicent could see how the piping fitted in with his scheme.

  “The water would eventually evaporate and the tank run dry.” She pointed out. “And whereas I can understand how the pistons could derive motion, however short lived, I cannot see how this will propel a machine of this size through time?”

  “In answer to your first question, the disc will spin and, in doing so, will circulate the water as it enters the pipes and pistons. Only a fractional amount of water will be lost as the circulatory system harvests any run off.” Hubert was rocking on his heels, enjoying the conversation. “And secondly, I cannot prove—”

  “Okay, okay.” Sangfroid broke her promise and interrupted the story. “So the guy’s a genius. Do we really need all this scientific boo-yah?”

  “I knew you would interrupt. You are very inconsiderate.” Millicent puffed in frustration. “You need to know some of the boo-yah in order to understand what I’m telling you.”

  Millicent’s annoyance curiously didn’t feel unusual. Whatever their connection, on some level Sangfroid was clearly used to being the object of her exasperation.

  “May I continue?” Millicent asked, waspishly.

  “Please do,” Sangfroid conceded with an overly charming smile. Millicent gave her a sharp look, cleared her throat, and resumed her story.

  “I shall leave you with your conundrum, Hubert.” Millicent gathered the cups and saucers onto the tray.

  “What are you doing today?” he asked. Millicent heard the real request in his voice.

  “What do you need me to do?” she sighed.

  He produced a thick binder and waved it vaguely in her direction. “It’s just that I could do with your opinion on my latest thesis. It may shed some light on this.” He nodded towards his machine. “It deals with curved time waves.”

  “So, you are really considering travelling through time as opposed to space?”

  “Let’s call it space-time, shall we, and consider it an abstract? And then, let’s assume our destination, as well as our current locale, is both a temporal and a spatial point. Now, what would happen if we applied velocity? That is all I am asking you to consider.” He tapped the binder. “My outline is in here.”

  Millicent took it from him. “I will look at it, but only after I finish my needlepoint.” She warned and tucked it under her arm. “I look forward to seeing how you deal with gravitational fields. That should dampen any supposed velocity.”

  “Ah ha. Already I can see you are smitten.” He gallantly opened the door for her to exit.

  “I am not smitten. I am curious, Hubert, merely curious. However, any hypothesis that prevents you from buying coal by the tonnage will always deserve my inquiry.” Then she—

  Sangfroid lunged to her feet. The Chesterfield creaked like an old whaling ship but she didn’t care. She was tired of resting. Tired of listening. Tired of nothing making any sense. “You can’t expect me to believe you and your brother have built a time machi—”

  “That does it. I refuse to tell you anymore.” Millicent slapped her hands on her lap. “And it is obvious you will not be satisfied until you’ve broken my mother’s furniture to matchsticks.”

  “I am not sitting here and listening to this…this babble. It’s nonsense. A time machine built out of a table. And what’s all this temporal velocity thingy? What’s that about?”

  Millicent sighed and raised a hand to her temple. “I knew I should have bypassed the theory. You never were very good at it. And now I’ve got a headache.”

  “Stop talking as if you know me. This is some sort of trick. You’re working for the enemy.”

  “Sit down, Sangfroid. You asked for the story, now please bear me the courtesy of listening to it.”

  Sangfroid glared at her resentfully. Millicent looked very pale, and she did believe she had a headache. Perhaps she was pushing her too hard? She shouldn’t do that. After all, she was coming from a position of zero intelligence. She winced, the phrase was a little too close to the mark, especially in this house. She was coming from a position of zero information, she amended, and if this was an enemy trick, she’d only find out by keeping calm and letting this bizarre game play out.

  She went to the small sideboard and poured a glass of red wine from a cut-glass decanter that felt satisfyingly heavy in her hand.

  “Here. See if this helps.” It was a peace offering, and Millicent accepted the glass with a polite thank you. Sangfroid poured a second, larger dose for herself. Ye gods, she needed it. Carefully, she sat back down and tried to look composed though she seethed with a hundred questions she could barely formulate because they ran so quickly through her mind.

  “Are you ready?” Millicent asked. “I need to tell you about last Friday.”

  “What about last Friday?”

  “You are becoming anxious, so I will move on to last Friday; that is the crux of my story.”

  “There’s a crux?”

  Millicent looked offended. “Of course there’s a crux. There’s always a crux. Now sit still and listen and maybe you can identify it.”

  CHAP
TER 5

  Last Friday, London 1862.

  The laboratory was empty when Millicent arrived, tea tray in hand. There was no answer to her polite toe tap. It was then she realized Hubert had to give a lecture that day, and she’d forgotten all about it. Frustrated by her own oversight, she entered the laboratory and settled into her favourite chair. The tea was made and the scones warmed, so she may as well enjoy them, though she would have preferred Hubert’s company. She had listed several questions on gravitational fields for discussion and was crestfallen he was not present to hear them. Disappointed, she poured a cup of Earl Grey. The curtains were open and dust motes danced in the bright light. Although it was still not midday, the heat was building up to intolerable levels for the afternoon. Poor Hubert, he’d be sitting in the dark again.

  Idly, she rose and wandered around the room. She sipped her tea and perused her brother’s bookshelves to see if he had any new acquisitions but found nothing of interest. She drifted over to his time machine. It was hard to ignore, so huge and unwieldy in the middle of the floor. Thoughtfully, she examined it from all angles. A copper disc now replaced the tabletop. Copper piping fed from the disc to the cistern and from there to several gleaming brass pistons. Papa’s chair did look elegant nestled in the centre of it all; its red velvet offset the burnished instrumentation beautifully, though she still resented its dwarvened state. Something twinkled at her from the heart of the machine. She moved closer and gasped. The handle of her best Sunday parasol protruded from the instrument panel! Sunlight gleamed off its golden bevel. Her cup clattered against its saucer. Hubert, the magpie, had adapted it into some sort of lever and embedded it in the brass control panel. Oh, how he would rue the day!

  What else of hers had he purloined for his Frankensteinian creation? Millicent was outraged. She reached across and yanked on the handle to try and free it from the instrument panel. It slid down a level until it notched into a new position with a satisfying clunk. The copper disc slowly began to rotate. Sunlight glanced off the whirring face and bounced back through the window, throwing rainbow prisms around the room.

  Oh dear. Millicent pulled the lever back up to what she thought was its original position. The handle rose easily and clunked into a slot higher than she intended it to go. The copper piping began to hum as hot water flushed into the pistons, and with a sharp hiss, they began to rise and fall, slowly at first, but with gathering momentum. Oh dear me. She forced the handle back down a notch. Everything sped up. Millicent let go of the lever. What a pickle. Hubert would scold her terribly if he knew she had meddled with his machinery; but really, it was her best parasol. Whatever was he thinking?

  The disc spun faster, and the pistons fell into a galloping rhythm. She had to admit she was impressed. It all looked so precise and purposeful. Hubert must feel very proud of his invention—

  The machine lurched. Or was it the room?

  Millicent suddenly felt quite queasy. She tightened her grip on her cup and saucer. The room was spinning, and the copper disc shot out shards of strong light that blazed into every corner of the room, then swirled away to another area as if she were sitting inside a lighthouse. She closed her eyes against the glare and dizziness. The pistons hissed, and the pipes hummed. Her head throbbed in time with it all. She was overheated, nauseated, and distressed. She took a step back on weak, shaking legs, and felt a hand on her lower back. With a distinct push, she was propelled forward into the machine with great force. Her head hit the plush seat of the chair, her thigh scraped against a brass curlicue. The air was forced out of her lungs then whooshed back in with a violent, sickening surge. Only this was a clingy, sour, malodorous air not the dusty warmth of Hubert’s laboratory.

  “Aim for the head.” Someone roared in her ear. Thunderous noise overwhelmed her. The wails and screams of human voices. The banging of a hundred drums. Her head rang with it. Her body shook with the force of it. Millicent opened her eyes and—

  “I think I know what happens next.” Sangfroid leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “This is when we make a run for the pods.”

  “No, that was later. Much, much later. We’ve been through this many times. You only ever remember the last attempt. Now, please hush and let me continue.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Millicent opened her eyes in time to see a huge blue-grey tentacle flash past, inches from her face. She ducked, partly out of instinct and partly because her knees gave way under her, and landed heavily on her bottom behind a metal bulwark. Beside her­— looking on with a mixture of horror and dismay—crouched a soldier. His face was ashen. He had lost his helmet and his filthy blond hair stuck to a bloody gash across his forehead. He had that wild-eyed look Millicent had often seen in the men returned from the Crimea. His uniform hung tattered and bloodied from his broad shoulders. A tiny curl of blue vapour rose between their startled faces from the odd looking handgun he pointed at her.

  Millicent recoiled and dropped her cup and saucer. The crash of breaking porcelain shook him out of his stupor.

  “Where the bloody hell did you come from?” He barked at her.

  “The laboratory,” she answered, flustered at his rudeness. There was no need for the H word. Or the B one, come to that.

  “But you…” He seemed confused and very unfocused. He stared at her dress and then at the broken crockery. He looked deranged and incapable of stringing more than two thoughts together. “Why aren’t you at the pods?” he finally demanded in a very accusatory manner.

  “To what pods you are referring?” she said. “I was in the laboratory when—”

  “Decanus. We’re getting decimated over here.” A voice crackled from somewhere near his ear. He shouted to no one in particular that she could see, “Get the hell out, Gallo. Kappa sector, now!”

  Yet again he proved incapable of polite conversation or volume control, even when talking to himself. He yelled all the time and grossly overused the H word. He was, all in all, very unsavoury.

  A tentacle thundered to the floor beside them, making the whole room shudder and creak. The noise was deafening. The metal floor under them vibrated violently long after the tentacle had reared up and away. That caught her attention completely.

  “Goodness. That is an extremely large mollusc.” Her blood raced in a healthy mixture of fear and excitement. How often did one witness such a creature up close! Well, maybe too close. “Can I assume it’s a member of the genus Architeuthis?”

  The soldier glared at her and, in answer, let off another loud volley of gunfire towards the tentacle which only seemed to infuriate it further.

  “You can assume it wants to kill you.” The retort was brusque to the point of rudeness. It was then that Millicent noticed something else. With a blink of surprise, she realized this big, burly bear of a soldier was a woman! A cussing, fighting, very angry woman! There was no time for conjecture as a vast shadow reared over them and more clubbed arms thundered to the floor drumming out an unholy tattoo. Every fibre of Millicent’s body protested at the vibration pouring through it. She felt shaken to bits. It was obvious she had materialized into a brouhaha involving a sea monster of some sort. She was flabbergasted. Hubert’s devilish machine had landed her in the middle of a battlefield! All around her, weaponry fired and men screamed. It was brutality of the greatest order.

  “How the hell did we miss you in the first sweep.” It was not a question. The soldier seemed quite upset. “You’re not exactly missable.” This statement was accompanied by a disapproving glance at her dress.

  Millicent self-consciously smoothed the fabric; it was already grimy from the torrid battle conditions. The soldier’s uniform wasn’t much better. It was a bizarre costume, with trousers of all things! Navy trousers—with a rather nice maroon strip down the outside of the leg that matched her tunic top—which covered her very long legs and disappeared into boots; boots that were slick and shiny with all sorts of glutinous muck. Millicent a
ppreciated the fashionable co-ordination of the uniform, if not the over-all bloodiness of it. Maroon was a good, sensible colour, given the amount of gore splattered across the woman’s chest. The epaulets, however, were a catastrophe; one was missing and the other partially torn away.

  She was about to counter with a scathing comment on this when she was grabbed by her upper arm and dragged away. This manhandling was just too much! She tried to shrug the soldier off, but she tightened her grip. She clearly had no intention of letting Millicent go.

  “Will you stop dragging me about,” she snapped. “I am capable of animating my own limbs.”

  The soldier glared at her. “When I give the word, you animate for the exit. Got it?” She waved vaguely to the left. Millicent could see nothing but a wall of thick smoke.

  “Okay. Go.” The soldier lurched upright and blood seeped from her leg wound as she limped heavily forward, pulling Millicent along with her. Millicent froze. She was in a huge metal hanger. No wonder the banging was deafening as drums; she was as good as inside one. The floor was littered with the bodies of soldiers. Men and women. They lay before her, banked up three or four deep, broken, dismembered, and lifeless, in pools of a thick, viscous liquid that stank with a sulphuric sourness. It stung her eyes and caught at the back of her throat. The bodies lying directly in the liquid were dissolving into one big, misshapen lump of bone and tissue. Knots of massive serpentine tentacles coiled across the walls and ceiling, groping blindly for the living.

  A soldier sprinted past them. He was bolting for a distant doorway when a barbed tentacle snared the back of his uniform and flung him in the air. He landed in the seething nest of tentacles and was instantly torn limb from limb. Millicent gagged. Her legs refused to work, and she slumped back onto the floor, pulling the unbalanced soldier down with her.