The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  “What do you think?” Sangfroid asked Gallo, who took a huge gulp of whiskey and glared from one Millicent to the other.

  “I can tell you this ain’t medicinal anymore.” She indicated her glass. “Seeing two of them makes me queasy. Prof, does this mean there’ll be other versions of us popping up all over the place? Because that would be as much fun as an asteroid up the Vestals.”

  “It shouldn’t happen, but obviously does, and usually with careful planning,” Hubert said. “On this occasion, Millicent,” he indicated the newcomer, “has made a concerted effort to meet you. She has been so kind as to help me out with my algorithms. It is because of her intervention I eventually found you.”

  “Must you call her Millicent? I mean it’s all so confusing,” Millicent said, aware of the whine in her voice but unable to stop it. “I cannot believe she is not some sort of enhanced automaton.” She shot the new Millicent a sharp look that easily slid off the over-curved surfaces.

  “I assure you I am you,” the other Millicent answered, a little too smoothly. “But should you wish to test me, I can reveal some of our darkest secrets as proof, like the time you unpicked the seams in your underdraw—”

  “I do not need to test you!” Millicent interrupted hurriedly. “I accept you are nothing more than a timeline anomaly.” This was offered rather grumpily. “Furthermore, I suggest you be referred to as Millicent number two until all this is over. It will make life, if not easier, at least a little more accountable.”

  “I think you’ll find, in this timeline, I am nearer to the original.” The other Millicent looked equally mulish. The Millicents squared up to each other, and the temperature in the laboratory seemed to rise by a few degrees.

  “Hubert,” they said simultaneously and turned on him with alarming synchronicity. He stepped back, startled.

  “Um…Um,” he said, stuttering into his diplomacy mode. “Er. I…I think the earlier Millicent may have a harder time adjusting. Would it really hurt to differentiate in such a way?” He pleaded with his swishier sister.

  “Very well,” the new Millicent said graciously after a short contemplation. “I concede to being Millicent the second for as long as this visit lasts.” She gave an ingratiating smile at her counterpart that somehow managed to remove any sense of victory the other may have assumed.

  “You were about to share your adventures with Weena, Hubert.” Millicent2 seamlessly moved on to other business. “I’m sure our guests will be very interested in your findings.”

  Hubert’s face grew grim, and he moved back to the hearth and took a seat. The others followed likewise.

  “Millicent.” He took care to look directly at the original, grubby version of his sister. “Have you ever thought that if we were to fix Sophia’s mess, Sangfroid and Gallo may no longer exist?” he said. “In fact, might never have existed.”

  Millicent was surprised. “Of course they would exist. They would exist in their own timeline. Granted, it may not be as technologically sophisticated as before. If Sophia had not interfered, then surely that other timeline would have more or less evolved at the same rate as our own, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re assuming these timelines run parallel,” Hubert said.

  “Yes, I suppose I am. But why do you say Sangfroid and Gallo might not exist?” The thought was disconcerting.

  “Yeah, why?” Sangfroid asked. Neither she nor Gallo looked happy at the idea. “Constantly killing me is one thing, but not ever existing is a whole new dice game.”

  “We’re assuming that Sophia somehow projected the ancient Romans onto an advanced technological path that made them capable of deep space exploration by, in our calendar, as early as 1957. Far sooner than we could reasonably expect mankind to travel into space.”

  “Just because you can’t do it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t,” Sangfroid said.

  “Please, let me explain,” Hubert said. “This is not a competition between our cultures. The problem is this, if Sophia went back to a predetermined point in time, and if she then accidentally introduced a new technology to your ancestors, there is a probability that she split off from one timeline and took you all off in an unnatural direction. Like grafting a new branch onto another plant.” He looked to see that they all understood.

  “Okay,” Sangfroid conceded. “So maybe we’re from the same plant, and maybe we grew off in different directions, but our branch is nearer the top, so we should take it as the norm.”

  “Why do you say that?” Millicent demanded.

  “Because we’re the more advanced civilization.”

  “You are not. We barely survived your bloodthirsty world. Anything capable of killing, they put a steam engine in it and let it loose,” she told Hubert.

  “Please listen.” Hubert ignored their bickering. “If Sophia did interfere, we cannot deny that the changes she wrought produced an even more powerful and successful Roman Empire. If we change anything, we cannot ensure how the future would unfold for that other timeline, and whether the conditions that brought Gallo and Sangfroid into existence would prevail. Why, their timeline might never have come into being at all.”

  Millicent sat very still. She did not like Hubert’s prognosis. Her mind immediately flew to Sangfroid. She did not like the idea that this woman she had gone through so much to save might eventually not exist anywhere in the universe at all. How fruitless the struggle would have been. How empty she would feel. Her thoughts drifted of their own accord to the kiss they’d shared in the arena. The dry tang of Sangfroid’s mouth on her own and the divinely inappropriate flutterings and murmurings of her body in response—She broke away from the thought, fighting against the blush she knew flooded her face, and corralled her mind back into order.

  “Then why can’t we let that timeline be? Let it stand as Sophia left it and simply return Sangfroid and Gallo to where they belong?” Any world where Sangfroid was safe was a welcome compromise, despite the madness outside the window. Let that cruelty remain a part of Sangfroid’s history, as long as she was in its future. That was all that mattered to Millicent. “Can we leave them back far enough so they’d be safe? Back on their troop ship, before the Amoebas was attacked, and the whole rigmarole with our timeline began?”

  “Ah, the Quintus Prime.” Gallo sighed, dreamy-eyed at the mention of the troop ship. “She may be a rusty old turd tub, but she’s home. To the Quintus!”

  “The Quintus!” Sangfroid joined her in a toast.

  “I knew you’d come to that conclusion,” Hubert said, continuing his conversation with Millicent as if the other two hadn’t spoken. “Previously, I would have agreed. Until Weena took me back to the Amoebas, and I saw the outcome of the battle for myself.”

  “Did we win?” Sangfroid asked eagerly.

  “’Course we did.” Gallo gave a confident smile. “We always win. It’s getting boring.”

  “As we now know, two organisms can exist simultaneously in the same timeline as long as they constitute separate entities coming from separate temporal states,” Hubert continued.

  “Huh?” Sangfroid said.

  “He means an entity can exist in duplication within a singular modal of existence,” Millicent explained.

  “Huh?”

  “You can be two people in one place at the same time.” Millicent2 put it more succinctly.

  “Ah.” Sangfroid went back to her whiskey.

  “This meant that Weena and I could hide in the nearby gas fields and wait until the battle for the Amoebas reached its conclusion. Despite the fact that Weena, in infant form, was already onboard and trapped in the Beta labs.”

  “Just as I saw myself in duplicate in the same laboratory,” Millicent said. “We already know this can happen.”

  “That is not my point,” Hubert said, quietly. “It’s not a nice thing to return to a place where you know something awful happened.”


  They sat silently as the embers settled in the hearth and waited for Hubert to begin his story—

  He was with Weena, and she was sliding gracefully through space. Her body rippled softly. Her long, tendrilous arms delicately wove the interstellar propulsion that drew them steadily closer to a distant metallic dot. The dull, pewter sheen only caught his eye after they had travelled towards it for some time. He knew it had to be the Amoebas.

  To their right, a huge shoal of space squid undulated away from the ship towards a vaporous mass on the southern edges of the nebula. Weena adjusted her route to outflank them, then homed in by a circuitous path on the abandoned ship. Through the thin skin membrane of her pouch, Hubert could now clearly see the research ship. It spun listlessly in space like a broken Christmas ornament, dangling at an obscene angle, all sense of convention and order stripped away. As they approached, the magnitude of the destruction became apparent. The hull was blackened and scorched. Large sections of metal casing had melted or were completely blasted away. From out of these gaping holes, the ship’s contents haemorrhaged into the vacuum around it. Fragments of everyday life hung around the breach, spinning aimlessly within the stir of escaping oxygen. A micro-turbine, a chair, a bottle, and unsettlingly, a shoe, drifted past them before disappearing into the void.

  The ship was a wreck. There could be no survivors left onboard. He could only hope the majority of the crew had managed to evacuate safely. Weena manoeuvred carefully through a jagged tear on the port side, slithering past the debris cluttering the opening. She was not fully adult yet and could still fold herself into the smaller fissures. The ship was slung sideways making navigating the corridors disorientating for Hubert, but Weena flowed through them easily, bringing them directly to Beta hangar where the main battle had taken place.

  Hundreds of bodies floated freely in the cathedral heights, angelic in their loose, splay-limbed flight. Below, others lay glued to the floor, hunched and twisted like melted gargoyles. Hubert was desolated by the many souls so casually surrendered to this echoing, airless chamber. He hated the futility of this kind of bloodshed and could not understand why Weena wished him to see this horrifying aftermath. Mankind had always waged wars, and the outcome was always monstrous and wasteful. And then a particular body caught his eye. It was a woman, large formed with corn-coloured hair. The emergency lights played across the brass of her uniform. She drifted quietly past on her back, a huge gash across her chest exposing the snapped ribs and a tatter of lungs. Sangfroid’s lifeless eyes stared blankly up at the hangar ceiling. Hubert’s throat tightened with a strangled sob as Sangfroid’s body grazed against another poor soul, and slowly spun away.

  “Why are we here?” He gasped. “What is all this for?” His eyes were wet, and he was not ashamed. In answer, Weena rippled against him in empathetic gentleness and softly swam away to the far side of the hanger. There, in the farthest corner and far from any exit, he saw Gallo. She was unmistakable to him. Tightly hunkered against the wall, her head turned aside and eyes closed as if sleeping. From the chest down she was covered with a thick black liquid. Squid ink. It had glued her into the corner, and he could only imagine the fumes had asphyxiated her. His heart weighed heavy. Neither of his friends had escaped the carnage. The futility of it cast him further into despair.

  Weena took him away from the hangar and down a darkened corridor to the Beta labs. She went directly to the small lab annex where they had first met and showed him, stretched out and seared to the table, the charred skeletal remains of her infant self. She had not survived either—

  Millicent’s stifled sob brought Hubert out of his dark tale.

  “Are you saying we all died?” Sangfroid said, flatly. “No one got out? Not even Weena?”

  “No one.” Hubert shook his head. “It was a terrible thing to see.”

  “I’ll bet.” Sangfroid was not amused.

  “So basically, left to their own devices, Gallo and Sangfroid die, and the squid don’t manage to save Weena.” Millicent scrabbled about her person for a handkerchief. A rose scented hankie was thrust into her hand. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose fiercely, then stiffened on realizing Millicent2 had provided the exquisitely tatted square of lace. She composed herself quickly, and with a murmur that was almost a thank you but not quite, she tucked the stained scrap into her rope belt to launder later.

  “Are you suggesting they only survive if we intervene?” She turned to Hubert.

  “I’m suggesting they may only exist because Sophia intervened,” he said.

  “Note how it’s always about them and what they do,” Sangfroid told Gallo. “They have to be at the centre of everything.”

  “I remember drawing fire into the far corner to let Travis get the techies out.” Gallo offered. “It was stupid thing to do. Makes sense I didn’t make it.” She shrugged. “What were you doing before Millicent arrived?”

  “I was gonna make a run for the Kappa exit,” Sangfroid said.

  “And as I pointed out at the time, a huge squid was guarding it. I made her climb around it using the bulwarks,” Millicent said. “I told her she wouldn’t stand a chance running for the exit. And obviously you didn’t.” Millicent addressed this final part to Sangfroid, satisfied with this proof that her logic had been flawless. “Once I arrived, you both survived long past the point where you got yourselves killed through ridiculous decision making.”

  “When she came,” Sangfroid nodded towards Millicent, “we got out of the hanger and found you in the corridor checking out weapons.”

  “Yeah. I ran too, after my gun jammed,” she said. “There was a helluva commotion on the far side of the hanger. It took the squid’s attention was off me, and I got the hell out.”

  “How serendipitous. I wonder what caused that diversion.” Millicent2’s dulcet tones glued Sangfroid’s attention to her.

  Millicent seethed.

  “I suspect there are optimum time points for interacting with another timeline,” Millicent2 continued. “And, as you found out in Rome, others when it’s downright dangerous.”

  “Precisely,” said Hubert. He seemed pleased with this conclusion. “Optimum time points where we can skew probable outcomes into a more favourable direction.” Anticipating the question already forming on Sangfroid’s lips, he added, “In other words, places where we can fix the odds.” His face darkened in warning. “Extremely dangerous places. And that’s where I’m sending you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The door opened, and Edna entered. The lamplight bounced off the high curve of her bronzed forehead.

  “Supper is served.” She creaked into an ungraceful curtsey.

  “I was unsure if you’d have an appetite after your adventures, but I had Cook coddle some eggs and set out a selection of cold cuts just in case,” Hubert explained.

  Sangfroid and Gallo were out the door in an instant, almost knocking the Edna machine sideways in their haste.

  “Are you sure you aren’t in some way responsible for these household automatons, Hubert?” Millicent asked as she and her brother followed more sedately. “It would be so like you.”

  “No. Not at all,” he answered. “It is a normal convention for this era. I find it fascinating, though. Granted, I did take Edna apart for a good look. Cook, too. It was most interesting.”

  “Hubert. I forbid you to dissemble the servants,” Millicent scolded. “It’s unsavoury.”

  “But the research has to be done,” Millicent2 said in Hubert’s defence. “We need to ascertain what has happened here and how these creatures operate.”

  They followed Sangfroid and Gallo into the dining room where the sideboard was laid out with a light buffet.

  “Our servants are safe. They are fully automated.” Hubert warmed to his theme. “In that they are all machine with no living parts. But the cities working populous,” he indicated the nightmarish world beyond
the house, “are part human, part mechanical. I suspect the fully automated servant is a luxury and the steam powered worker, or hybrid as Gallo puts it, are the common-place industrial models.”

  “You should be safe enough.” Gallo bit into a chicken thigh, then continued with a full mouth. “But I can’t speak for the rest of the city. There’s a possible meltdown situation here.”

  Millicent2 moved to where Millicent stood by the buffet and murmured, “I need to talk to you. Perhaps later, in private.” She helped herself to several cold cuts, a slice of quiche, and a hefty spoonful of piccalilli.

  Millicent studied the generous helping on her companion’s plate. “My, what a robust appetite you have.” She picked out a few morsels for her own plate. “Are there food shortages in your time?” she asked with fabricated concern.

  “No. I just enjoy my food,” Millicent2 answered with a smile. “It must be reassuring for you to realize you finally fill out.” She spread Ardennes pâté on a finger of bread and butter and paused to say, “Oh, and don’t worry, you get hips, too,” before popping the lot into her mouth. She picked up her plate and glided away like a well-oiled serpent. Millicent’s hard stare bore holes in her counterpart’s back, but to no discernible effect.

  “Hey.” Sangfroid ambled over, a cheery smile on her face and an over-filled plate in her hand. “Glad to see you two getting along.” She glanced down at Millicent’s modest supper plate. “You’ll need more than that to keep your strength up.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Millicent stomped off to eat alone.

  “So, Prof, what’s the plan to get Sophia back?” Gallo asked anxiously. “We’ll need to get going soon. She’s been on her own too long. It could be dangerous, even if she is a goddess.” She was filling her pockets with bread rolls and drumsticks. A bottle of wine disappeared into the copious inner pocket of her uniform jacket.