The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  “Hubert, you naughty boy,” she murmured and entered the room feeling fully justified in doing so given Hubert’s indiscretions. “What else have you got squirreled away here, ’eh?”

  It was a large room, bigger than Sangfroid’s entire living quarters on the Quintus Prime. She wondered momentarily if she was now classified MIA and if her quarters had already been re-allocated to the next boob to fill her Decanus boots. She hoped Gallo was still around to collect her things. She’d get some good gear, and Gallo would no doubt sell or gamble away the rest of her crap. Gallo was practical like that. She’d raise a beer to Sangfroid’s memory, then sell her spare pants.

  She gave Hubert’s room a 360-degree examination and approved. Good solid, no-nonsense furniture. The bed was old and mahogany and nearly six foot wide. If it were hers, she’d fill it with all the floozies she could buy. She’d be hard put to break a fine bed like that with a tumble or two, but she’d love to try. Beside the bed stood a dresser, its top littered with coins, fossils, lumps of curious rock, and all sorts of other boyish things. Hubert had never outgrown collecting what Sangfroid classified as junk.

  There was a huge armoire stuffed with tweed suits in an exciting palette of brown. Next to the tweeds hung rows of white cotton shirts, and to the left of those, trays of starched collars, bow ties, and cuff and collar studs. She was amazed that all this gear was Hubert’s alone. All Sangfroid had to her name was two uniforms and a ceremonial toga for feast days.

  Life onboard the Quintus Prime was frugal. It was a dilapidated old turd tub of a ship. A small city rattling around in space with all the beauty and grace of an iron lung. It wheezed along, dragging over one million troops and support staff to wherever they had to go in order to kill things. It had shops, bars, casinos, and brothels. It had sports arenas and circuses. It also had hospitals and crematoriums, as well as a vast fleet of assault craft to help fill both up as fast as possible. But it was home, her home, and had been since she was a child soldier.

  Am I really dead?

  She remembered that last night at the casino tables. Gallo had been on a mean streak with the dice and treated them all to gallons of plasma ale with her winnings. According to Sangfroid’s fading memories, they’d been drinking when the mayday from the Amoebas had come through. Suddenly they were sober, grabbing their gear, and running for the assault ships that would carry them into battle.

  She perched on the edge of Hubert’s bed. Sangfroid didn’t understand these timeline thingies. How could a person be in one place at one time and die only to pop up in another place and time hale and hearty? If it were truly possible why did anybody have to die? We could all live forever, right? Maybe that’s why the gods keep these timelines apart? This time travel science had the stench of disaster all over it. She hoped Millicent and Hubert knew what they were doing. It took a big pair of centaur balls to mess with the gods.

  The soft splash of water drew her attention to a separate door leading from Hubert’s bedroom. She guessed a bathroom lay beyond, and Hubert had left the water running. Sangfroid gave the door handle a rattle. It was locked. The splashing on the other side ceased. Sangfroid frowned. Water taps did not turn themselves off.

  Now, where would a brainiac like Hubert leave the key? A nearby chair had the impression of two shoe soles on the cushioned seat cover. Sangfroid smiled and reached for the top of the doorframe and found Hubert’s hiding place. She slotted the key into the lock and carefully opened the door. All was silent, no more watery splashes, not even a drip. Sangfroid stood blinking at a single blue eye that blinked back at her.

  A pink squid sat in a copper bathtub surrounded by various apparatus from the Amoebas lab. The sunlight shone through the open window, and a light breeze danced along the healthily glowing pink flesh. The squid was content and happy, though Sangfroid had no idea why she should think that? And she was huge!

  Sangfroid thundered downstairs taking three steps at a time, flew past Edna and startled her into dropping a duster, and burst into the breakfast room where Millicent and Hubert were eating in silence. The atmosphere was frigid. Millicent looked murderous, and Hubert woebegone. Sangfroid had no time for the Aberly’s domestic drama. She needed answers. She needed information. She needed the Fates to weave her a new life, one where she’d never met these two.

  “Right, you,” she shouted, pointing at Hubert. “What in Hades do you think you’re doing?”

  Millicent’s fork clattered to her plate, while Hubert’s sat suspended with a piece of sausage on it, inches from his open mouth. Millicent recovered first.

  “Has something interesting happened in the Urals, Decanus Sangfroid?” she said frostily. “Perhaps they’ve invented a new dance?”

  “Something interesting is happening in Hubert’s dressing room,” she returned just as coldly.

  Hubert went white.

  “Did you really think you could hide her? This is insanity. Don’t you understand what she could do to your planet?” she bellowed.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Millicent looked alarmed. “Who is in Hubert’s dressing room?” Her confusion told Sangfroid that she had no part in this…this squid abduction, and that gave her some relief. At least one of them was possibly sane. She turned her withering gaze upon the sole culprit. Hubert stared back, wide-eyed and ashen.

  “Weena is upstairs,” Sangfroid said.

  “Who on earth is—Weena!” Millicent was on her feet immediately. “Weena? The little pink squid.” She looked at her brother in horror as he wilted in his seat.

  “Little pink squid my a—” Sangfroid caught her angry glare and changed tack mid sentence, “atoms! She nearly fills the room. She’s a Colossal, for Jupiter’s sake. A Colossal, not a miniature squid. They don’t come in miniature. A Colossal! She’ll soon be as big as this house. Colossal!” She knew her voice was borderline hysterical, but she had to get it through to them. “Big-As-A-House!” And she widened her arm span as far as she could stretch to underscore her point.

  “Hubert.” Millicent turned to her brother. “Is this true? Is there a Colossal space squid in this house?”

  Hubert hung his head. “I couldn’t leave her there. They were hurting her.”

  “How could this have happened? I was there with you, and you most certainly did not have Weena with you when we returned.”

  Hubert did not reply.

  “Hubert, I demand an answer,” Millicent said sternly. “Were you secreting space squid?”

  Sangfroid knew the answer but waited for Hubert to confess; better it came from him.

  “I went back and got her later,” Hubert admitted wearily.

  “You what?” Millicent was flabbergasted and sank into her chair. “You went back without me?” Her eyes held so much hurt Sangfroid actually flinched. She did not like to see her upset. Deflated after her initial announcement, Sangfroid sat down at the table and listened to Hubert’s leaden-voiced confession.

  “I went back many times, Millicent. At first I wanted to explore the laboratory and to do that I needed to converse with Weena. She helped me understand things. Over time I became more aware of her plight; those experiments were pitiless, and…and I began to worry and care for her.” Hubert looked wretched. Millicent reached for his hand. It was obvious she understood what he was really saying. “I couldn’t leave her there,” he said softly. “She asked me to bring her here, to this timeline. So I did.”

  “They’re planning an invasion.” Sangfroid dropped her head onto the table. The crisp linen tablecloth was clean and cool against her overheated brow.

  “Why do you think that?” Hubert asked. “Squid are peaceful creatures. Your Roman Empire attacked them first.” His voice gained an edge Sangfroid didn’t appreciate.

  She looked up. “We did not. They came after our ships.” She straightened in her seat. Truth was she had no idea of the political reasoning behind the wars Ro
me waged. Insight wasn’t something the common soldier was entrusted with.

  “And where were your ships?” Hubert asked.

  “In Scorpius Major.”

  “That is the squid’s home galaxy. It’s a huge gas system. The Empire just came forging through without so much as a by your leave.” Hubert was beginning to sound indignant. Millicent stepped in.

  “Why were you in Scorpius Major, Sangfroid?” she asked. “Usually one warring faction invades the other to acquire resources of some sort or to advance its civilization in some way. What exactly did Rome require from a gaseous galaxy?” She was genuinely interested, and Sangfroid genuinely had no answers.

  “To get to the other side,” she said with a shrug. “If we see it, we take it, and move on to the next offensive. It’s Rome’s way. Veni, vidi, vicious.”

  Millicent looked aghast while Hubert nodded knowingly. “Tell me, Sangfroid, given that you are possibly a trillion light years from Earth, have you even seen the eternal city you fight for so valiantly?” he asked.

  Sangfroid knew she had a blank look on her face. A few hours hanging out with the Aberly’s, and she was beginning to recognize the facial muscle set, but this time the question was really hard.

  “What’s an earth?” she asked, determined not to feel stupid. Now it was Hubert’s turn to look blank. Sangfroid would have felt smug if she’d understood how exactly her question had confounded him.

  “You don’t come from Earth?” Millicent asked, obviously confused.

  “I was born on moon base Alpha Zeta IV.”

  “Yes, you told me that before.” Millicent was impatient now. “But what planet does that moon orbit? I had assumed it was our own.”

  “It’s Rome’s moon,” she said.

  “You mean Rome is actually a planet?” Hubert looked confounded.

  “Yes. Of course it is.” These two never failed to surprise her. “Rome is the home planet. Every citizen is allowed to see Rome once before they die, if at all possible. We do tend to die young. But no matter where you were born in the Empire, you’re expected to get to Rome at least once before you pay the ferryman,” she said proudly. “Rome conquers all and is all,” she quoted the mission statement.

  “You mean to tell me there is no planet Earth, only a planet called Rome?” Millicent looked to her brother. “Of all the puffed up, arrogant… Words fail me.”

  Sangfroid squinted at her suspiciously. Words failing Millicent was probably a bad thing.

  “I have no idea what has happened to your timeline,” Hubert shook his head in wonder. “I only know the squid will stop Rome. You will throw all your resources into this war and lose, and then you will fall into decline. It will take centuries but it will happen.”

  “It will not.”

  “It will so.”

  “It will not.”

  “It will so.”

  “It w—”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Millicent interrupted. “We have a Colossal squid upstairs, perhaps we need to address that first and then you can continue your playground squabble?”

  Hubert removed his napkin from his collar and rose wearily to his feet. “I’ll take her back.”

  “And I’m going with you in case something else adheres to your jacket, like a lab bench or a refrigeration unit.” Sangfroid huffed. Hubert was not her friend anymore. He had decried the Roman Empire, so now Sangfroid didn’t give a monkey’s anal gland about dropping him in it with his sister.

  “What does she mean, Hubert?” Millicent, as usual, missed nothing.

  “She’s alluding to the fact I had to bring some equipment back with me for Weena’s welfare.” Hubert shot Sangfroid a hard look that made her momentarily reconsider the wisdom of upsetting her host, a man a million times smarter than herself. Then she reverted to not giving a monkey’s anal gland and sat back smugly. Hubert would get his good and proper, his harpy-tongued sister would see to that.

  “Hubert.” Millicent stood on cue.

  Here it comes. Sangfroid readied herself. Glad someone else was in Millicent’s bad books. Hopefully her turn was over and Hubert’s about to begin. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  “I want a word with you in my study. In private.” Millicent turned on her heel and marched out of the breakfast room leaving Sangfroid feeling a little cheated. Why was the flamethrower tongue for her only?

  “When you come begging me for my sister’s hand in marriage, and believe me you will, I shall laugh in your face,” Hubert hissed as he passed Sangfroid’s seat. “And I shall say ‘No.’” He bent close to Sangfroid’s ear and whispered, “Nooooooo.”

  Sangfroid sat bolt upright. “Wait!” she said. “Why would I ask you?” Not that she was ever going to ask for Millicent Aberly’s hand. Sangfroid was a frontline soldier, and frontliners never married. She was too hard-nosed to settle down in a nice little villa with a vineyard by the sea as her parents had dreamed of on their moon-dirt farm.

  “Ask?” Hubert was bitter. “Ask? You will have to beg me and hope that I am kinder than you. And you had better believe I shall not be!” And with that Hubert slammed out of the room.

  CHAPTER 12

  Millicent awaited Hubert in her study. It was unusual for him to visit her here, but there had been those rare occasions when he had outstripped the mark with some experiment or other. Then she would haul him in to stand fidgeting on her Persian rug before a blazing fire and an equally blazing sister. This was one such occasion, and she could hear his footsteps dragging along the hall to her study door. She sat on the edge of her chair as he entered. He looked miserable and defeated, and she was annoyed that Sangfroid had not been more circumspect with her disclosures.

  “Hubert,” she said when he at last stood before her. “I do not think it is proper for you to love a squid.”

  He started, his eyes alight with defiance and a little shame.

  Millicent immediately softened her tone as his pain was all too apparent. “It is obvious you care very deeply for Weena,” she said.

  As expected, he came back with the only argument open to him—the one that wounded her the most, though she refused to show it.

  “And is it proper for you to love a soldier from the future? And furthermore, one who soldiers for a tyrannical war machine,” he cried. “And has died at least a dozen times? Why, the woman is as good a ghost.”

  He was justifiably angry at what he reasoned to be Sangfroid’s betrayal, but Millicent knew this was more than a simple fall out of friends over inter-species galactic warfare. This argument was really about the heart and how Hubert had to abandon Weena to a cruel fate in dangerous and uncertain circumstances.

  “No, it is not proper for me either,” she agreed. “I am a pacifist, and you had only to rest at the word soldier for it to be improper. The word woman is also quite conflagratory, but the less said about the Sapphic elephant in the room, the better.” Her answer directed him to the core of his upset—the impropriety of the human heart. He sank onto the Chesterfield with his head in his hands.

  “Forgive me, Millicent,” he said. “That was cruel. I do like the big gal tremendously, you know. She sort of grows on you.”

  “And I like and respect what little I know of Weena. But our hearts are silly creatures,” she continued, kindly. “They see things simplistically, always looking into the mire of everyday life and trying to magnify any small thing that will make us happy, and in doing so, our logic becomes distorted.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Not because I brought Weena here; I’ve always known she’d have to go back. But not to that laboratory,” he added quickly. “I’ve been trying to surmise the best location to return her to, where she would be safest. Rather…” and here his shame clearly showed on his face. “Rather, I’m sorry that this whole damned time travel adventure has turned our lives upside down and set both of us adrift on emotional seas
we are barely able to navigate.” He looked at her with anguish in his eyes. “You and I are intelligent, rational creatures, Millicent. And now our safe, little, orderly life here at Christie Mews will never be the same again. We have crossed our Rubicon.”

  She took his hands in hers. “And we crossed it shoulder to shoulder as we always do and always will. Now, take me to see Weena. As lady of the house, I should like to welcome her to our home,” she said. “Has she really grown that much?” They linked arms and moved together into the hallway.

  “Don’t believe Sangfroid. She is nowhere near as big as a house. She fills Papa’s old bathtub; that is all.” He smiled at her in weary relief, and she was glad they had not fought.

  “Sangfroid is an idiot,” she reassured him. “Squid terrify her.”

  “Hey, I heard that.” Sangfroid joined them as they passed by the breakfast room.

  “Is it not true?” Millicent teased her in an effort to dispel any residual awkwardness between her and Hubert.

  “It is true.” She conceded with good nature. “But I didn’t survive in the frontline as long as I have by not having a healthy terror for them.” She caught Hubert’s eye, and the look they swapped convinced Millicent all would be well. Soldier and scholar, each stood by their own experience and formed as honest an opinion of their separate worlds as possible. And that was that. They were far too good of friends to fall out for long.

  “We are going upstairs to see Weena,” Hubert said. “And discuss with her what is to be done next.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Would you care to join us?”

  Millicent was proud of his quick forgiveness. Hubert arose from his earlier shame on wings of white—a man of vigour, prepared to grasp the stinging nettle and set things right. Sangfroid was just as quick to let bygones be bygones and slapped Hubert on the shoulder in a stout, friendly fashion.