“Hey, it’s not a picnic.” Sangfroid frowned at Gallo’s squirreling of food.
“You saw the muck we had to eat last time.” Gallo’s brow darkened.
Sangfroid hesitated, then began to fill her own pockets. “At least you got muck. I was as starved as that elephant.”
“Poor Aphrodite.” Millicent re-joined them, scowling at their bulging pockets.
“Yeah. I wonder what happened to her,” Sangfroid said.
“Chow for the big cats,” Gallo said bluntly. “Not that she had much on her in the first case. More like a bag o’ bones, poor old cow.”
“I can reset the time machine to let you travel to Sophia’s expected co-ordinates.” Hubert brought the conversation back on track. “And recalibrate to within a few days either side.”
“A few days,” Sangfroid exclaimed.
“It’s the best I can do given I wasn’t there at the outset to take accurate notes,” Hubert replied. “And I have a suspicion that time has a different acceleration rate in other timelines than it does here. You said you spent a full night in the arena cells but in reality you were gone for several weeks.”
“You said you had her co-ordinates?” Millicent was anxious. “How far into the past did she go to build a religious cult?”
“Very far. Hers was the original destination in the machine. You all piled in afterwards and missed her drop off point by a several hundred years,” Hubert explained.
“How careless of us.” Millicent knew she was being snide, but really, Sophia was more than a nuisance. A sudden thought occurred. “Where is Weena? The house seems empty without a gargantuan tentacle coiled around it.”
“Weena is safe. This is not a good timeline for her to be in. What if someone were to find her and tinker with her biology? I have no wish to see a semi-automated Colossal space squid,” Hubert answered.
“A semi-automated Colossal space squid as opposed to a wholly organic one,” Millicent said dryly. “It bears no thinking about. But where is she now?”
“She’s in our original timeline of 1862. In Loch Ness, no less,” Hubert said, smugly.
“Oh Hubert, what a brilliant place to hide her.” Millicent’s congratulations made him smile broadly. “She shall become a cryptid! It is all too clever.”
“Yeah. Great fun. Can we rescue Sophia now?” Gallo’s impatience was growing.
“I was never happy leaving her behind,” Sangfroid said, morosely.
“We never leave a soldier down,” Gallo confirmed their space marine creed. “Unless she’s dead, then nobody wants her anyway. And we don’t know she’s dead yet,” she added a little anxiously.
“No, we damned well don’t!” Sangfroid sounded determined.
“I hope she’s not dead.” Millicent felt guilty. She had not been as worried for her soon to be sister-in-law as she should have. She had assumed godhood would provide Sophia with protection, but that assumption could be wrong. After all, many ancient peoples sacrificed their gods, and who was to say Sophia hadn’t manifested herself to one of those tribes? She could even now be neck deep in some huge cannibal cooking pot. Millicent’s guilt bubbled to the surface along with the imagined stew.
“I hope she’s still out there trumpeting away angrily.” Sangfroid had a distant look in her eyes.
“I’d like to think she is,” Millicent reassured her, then after the faintest hesitation said crossly. “You’re talking about that elephant, aren’t you.”
Sangfroid looked at her in surprise as if she would be talking about anything other than Aphrodite.
Gallo glared. “Hey!” she said. “I was manacled to your frock, and I looked out for her, even when an entire automated zoo was trying to eat her face off. The least you can do is help me find Sophia.”
“I am not a frock.” Millicent ground her teeth. “I am more than a frock.”
“I should hope so.” Millicent2 regarded the grimy tunic Millicent was wearing. “More than that frock at least, but I suppose this rag is fitting for the destination.”
“So, let us begin our rescue.” Again Hubert tried to herd everybody back onto the topic. “Follow me, please.” He took command and made his way back to the laboratory. “No time like the present,” he joked over his shoulder. “Depending, of course, on where the present happens to be.” And his smile dropped away.
CHAPTER 28
Millicent2 turned towards her study rather than Hubert’s laboratory. Sangfroid hung back, then followed her.
“You’re not going with us?” She hesitated at the study doorway.
“No. It’s not my place to go. I belong elsewhere and need to get back,” Millicent2 answered.
“Exactly how far into the future do you belong?”
She smiled. “What a curious question. What thought is behind it?”
Sangfroid came farther into the room, and trying to look casual, picked up a geological knick-knack from a side table. “Just interested.” She shrugged, and idly tossed the weighty rock from hand to hand. “What’s this?” she asked pausing to examine the odd shaped stone.
“Fossilized mammoth dung.” Millicent2 gently removed the rare specimen. “A Christmas gift from Hubert.” She set it safely on the mantelpiece. “Tell me, what are you worried about?”
“It’s just that…it’s just…” She composed her thoughts. “Am I dead or alive where you come from?” she demanded. “I’m getting bored with this being killed then not killed then killed again thing. It sort of…well, sort of…”
“Kills the romance?” she proffered.
“I’m not sure if the romance is alive and kicking in the first place.” Sangfroid grew sullen. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“Do you want to go home?”
Sangfroid’s broodiness intensified. “What’s home?” She snorted. “If it’s the Quintus Prime and the Space Corps, then it looks like I’m toast anyway.” She rounded on Millicent2. “Look, it’s hard to be romantic when you’ve been told you’re dead. It’s not much of a future to offer a girl.”
“Oh, Sangfroid.” She reached to cup her flushed cheek in her cool palm. “There will always be a small corner of time for us.”
“For us?” Sangfroid echoed. “There’s an us?” They stood looking at each other for a moment. “I knew you were going to say that. Everything about you is so déjà vu,” Sangfroid murmured. “All this time-jumping has pulverized my head. It’s hard to know what’s real anymore, so I try to follow my gut, but that only confuses things more.”
“If you feel it, then it is probably real. Trust your gut.”
“Am I going to lose you?” she asked bluntly. “That’s what scares me most. And I’m a frontline marine, so not many things do.”
“I can’t tell you that. Time is fluid, things change, and there’s much I don’t understand either,” she said. “I can only suggest you do what I do, and go with your feelings. Like this.” And she stood on tiptoe and kissed Sangfroid full on the mouth.
Sangfroid started as if lazered, then sank into the kiss as if it was the most natural thing in the world to taste the plump softness of Millicent’s lips and to feel the delicious yield of her body against her own. Sangfroid tightened her arms around her, drowning in the intoxication, and would have inadvertently squeezed the last ounce of breath out of her but for Millicent2 gently pushing her away. Reluctantly, she broke the kiss but kept her hands clamped on Millicent2’s waist. She couldn’t let her go, sure the loss of connection would break her into little pieces.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, “but I’ve missed you so much.”
“Missed me? So I’m with you in your own timeline?” Sangfroid was delighted. She lowered her head and breathed in the scent of Millicent2’s hair.
“Until I get back there, I really have no idea.” Millicent2’s answer was cryptic, and before Sangfroid could
question her further, Gallo’s bellow came rolling down the hall.
“Sangfroid! Move it! We’re all ready to go here.”
“You’d better go before Gallo explodes like the mother of Vesuvius all over Hubert’s laboratory.” She stepped out of Sangfroid’s clasp. “Everything is so fragile at the moment.” She pressed her fingers to Sangfroid’s lips, staunching the flood of questions. “Time has run out for me here. You’ll have to trust me; we are meant to be together. I can tell you no more than that.”
“But we’re together now, right?” she asked again. “Somewhere, somehow?”
Millicent2 tapped the breastbone over Sangfroid’s heart, and smiled. “Always. Time is merely an inconvenient circumstance.”
“Where the hell has Millicent gone now?” Gallo’s voice thundered. “Anyone would think this was a spa day and not a bleedin’ rescue mission.”
“Go. If you don’t, then there will be no future to squabble over.” Millicent2 shooed her away.
“On my way,” Sangfroid called to Gallo, and with a lingering look, allowed herself to be ushered out of the room. The door swung shut behind her, only to swing slowly back open a moment later. Millicent stood in the doorway quivering with indignation.
“I saw your embrace,” she said coldly to Millicent2.
“Delectable wasn’t it.”
Millicent coloured brightly. “You knew very well I could see you, yet you deliberately continued your vile seduction. You are a brazen, heartless, hussy.”
“That is going in the book.” Millicent2 promptly pulled a small, well-used notebook from her reticule and proceeded to scribble in it while Millicent looked on in outrage.
“But I jest.” Millicent2 stopped scribbling and riffled the pages of the notebook. “I keep calibrations in mine, not other people’s profanities. This book holds the three-dimensional waypoints of every place I have ever visited. Latitude, longitude, and time-span disparity.”
Millicent looked blankly at the book, then said, “You kissed her.”
“Of course I did.” Millicent2 gave a well-worn sigh. “She’s a big, kissable brute.”
Millicent glowered. “You had no right. You can’t go leaping about in time kissing…people.”
“Kissing your people, I think you mean?” Millicent2 raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that better than leaping about in time and killing them?” Then she added, “It’s just so hard to resist, especially when she’s all brand new and squeaky clean.” A dreamy look came to her eye that Millicent didn’t like at all. She gathered herself into a ball of seething hauteur and scrabbled for the moral high ground.
“You better not have filled her head with romantic twaddle and…and all that kissing nonsense. She’s hard enough to handle.”
“Surely you can’t blame me for making the most of it,” Millicent2 drawled. “Soon she may not even exist.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sangfroid and Gallo are destined to die in their own timeline, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you know you can’t stop it. And neither do they belong here. They exist because of an anomaly that you created when you first started Hubert’s machine. You, my dear, are like the chicken and the egg.” Millicent2 stared intently at her. “So now they are going back to rescue Sophia and, in doing so, ultimately seal their fate and the fate of their great race. No deity, no steam power, no future.” She let Millicent absorb this for a moment, before continuing, “If Sophia’s influence on the ancient world succeeds, then they die in battle on the Amoebas. You cannot change that. And if there is no Goddess Looselea, then they may not even exist at all. Did you not think of that? How damned brave they are?”
“Yes. Of course I have considered it,” Millicent said quietly. She was at a loss as to what to do. “What I am also considering is your place in all of this. What have you to offer asides from excessive confusion and loose lips?”
“Why, have you not realised? I am here to help you. You have to find out how all this started. How did you end up in the time machine in the first place?”
“I was trying to dis-embroil my parasol from the mechanism. Hubert was very free with my summer accessories.”
“No. Think back. The machine was in gear, the great disc was spinning and steam filled the air, what happen next?”
“I was pushed!” Millicent said, with equal measures of anger and puzzlement.
“Exactly. And you need to find out who and why. You are approaching a pivotal point in time, my dear. A dangerous waypoint. A crossroads where entire destinies can fly off into multiple directions. One false step and you can create conditions where you yourself could fail to exist. Someone forced you into that first false step. I came here to direct you, you must trust me. I am you, I am your future, your destination.”
“I’d as soon crawl through the sewers of London in a perpetual loop if you are my destination.” Millicent was affronted. “You are loose and abandoned and far too flirtatious for your own good. I mean, kissing at a time like this. I could never be you. I have no idea what bizarre future you hail from, but looking out these windows, I can believe a suitable aberration exists somewhere for a woman like you.”
Millicent2 looked her squarely in the eye. “You can stop this self-deprecation right now,” she said. “You are going on a very dangerous journey, so I advise you to listen to me, carefully, as I’ve not much time left.”
Millicent gawped. Before her stood a cold, iron-willed woman, with determination wrapped around her like steel bands. The light dimmed in the little study room until there was nothing but gloom, and they were haloed in the centre of it.
“When you find Sophia, an event will happen that will fundamentally change everyone’s lives,” Millicent2 said. “You will have to make a decision then and there, and you will have to be brave.” The room sparked with energy. It fizzed along Millicent’s skin, raising the fine hair on her forearms. She knew what this was. A time portal opening up around them.
“Millicent.” Sangfroid was calling. Her voice rang up the hallway.
“If Sophia starts her religion there is no turning back.” Millicent2 was speaking rapidly, but her voice sounded faint and percussive, as if she spoke from far away. “When you see the tea, you’ll know.” The air began to stir, brushing across their faces, ruffling tendrils of hair. Sangfroid’s footsteps drew closer.
“What tea? What are you talking about?” Millicent said. Her throat felt tight. She had to force the words out. Millicent2 oscillated before her eyes, weaving in and out of focus.
“The decision is yours,” Millicent2 said. “Only yours.”
“Millicent.” Sangfroid stepped into the study. “What the Hades are you doing? We have to go.”
“I was just…” Her words trailed away. She was alone. Millicent2 had gone.
Wordlessly, she followed Sangfroid out into the hallway, churning over Millicent2’s last words before any could be forgotten. A pivotal time point. A dangerous crossroads. Only your decision. Anxiety clawed at her. She had no idea what Millicent2 had meant. She was obviously referring to Sophia and the tea religion. That was the anomaly they were heading straight for.
The churning drone of the time machine came down the hall towards her. The gas wall-lights spluttered in the draught stirred up by the whir of the huge disc. Light shone from Hubert’s open laboratory door and laid an oblong of yellow across the parquet flooring. She followed Sangfroid towards it as if in a dream. None of it felt welcoming.
CHAPTER 29
Loose shale shifted under Millicent’s sandals. She lurched forward and would have fallen if not for Sangfroid who grabbed her elbow to keep her upright. They were standing on an incline high above a wide valley floor. The hillside was windswept and barren and dry, crumbling earth eddied around their feet like tidal water. This high up the valley, the landscape as strewn with boulders and drought-hardened, scrubby plants.
It was hot and desolate, but below them the valley looked as lush and green as any Eden.
Olive groves shimmered a soft silver in the afternoon light. Dirt tracks criss-crossed the fields and followed riverbanks, knitting together the clusters of farm buildings and vineyards that dotted the valley. Wisps of blue smoke spiralled upwards from thatched roofs, and across the tops of the trees came the distant clang of herd bells. Towards the top end of the valley a group of sprawling buildings sat centred around a larger structure. The smoke over these buildings was dense and rose high before drifting away. All the meandering valley tracks eventually converged and headed towards this focal point.
“Let’s head for that village,” Sangfroid said. She pointed to the olive terraces, fifty feet or so below them. “There’s a track down there. We’ll follow it.” She offered her hand to Millicent as they began the slippery descent.
They reached the lower slopes quickly. The terrain was now less hazardous, and they could move faster. The greenery grew thicker, and insects droned contently in the clumps of wild lavender. The occasional bleat of livestock drifted up from the fields below.
“We’re not alone,” Gallo said quietly, staring straight ahead.
“Where?” Sangfroid kept walking, her gaze fixed ahead of her.
“Half a klick west.”
“What?” Millicent swept the hair from her damp brow and looked all around her. “What is clicking?”
“It’s a measure of distance. Be discreet.” Gallo nodded towards the rim of the valley. Millicent squinted into the late afternoon sun, seeing nothing but sunspots and dust motes. Then she saw him—a scruffy old man leaning on a shepherd’s crook. A few goats milled around him, and he had a look of abject horror on his face. He stared at them open mouthed.
“Hey. You,” Sangfroid called out. The old man turned heel and shot off down the hill.
The Tea Machine Page 28