Nick of Time
Page 13
“Why, you’ve found a time engine, you have, Nicholas McIver!” Lord Hawke said, in a jubilant whisper. “You’ve brought me Leonardo da Vinci’s miracle time machine.”
CHAPTER XVI
The Tempus Machina
· 6 June 1939 ·
HAWKE CASTLE
The sun was rapidly fleeing from the sky, leaving towering piles of purple clouds tinged with gold on the distant horizon. Most of the light inside the castle now came from the masses of chandelier candles above, and countless other candles on tall stands around Lord Hawke’s tower room, all adding to the dreamlike quality of the moment.
The hasp of the padlock suddenly opened with a soft pop.
The lid of the chest was open! It seemed to rise a fraction, all on its own accord. There was a tiny noise of escaping air. Nick thought he might observe wisps of smoke or something seeping out around the edges, but there was nothing escaping from the box that Nick could see.
“Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness,” Kate was whispering at Nick’s side, and then she jumped behind her brother, peeking out from around him with eyes wide as Wedgwood saucers. Nick, too, felt himself taking rapid, shallow breaths, his heart pounding.
The lid of the chest rose another half inch.
“Leonardo da Vinci himself designed the wondrous instrument inside this chest, Nick,” Hobbes said, bending to peer closely under the lid. “Herein, children, lies the culmination of mankind’s ingenuity, realized almost half a millennium ago by the greatest mind the world has ever seen. A mind able to pierce the vale of time, the closest we’ve come to the mind of God, my dear children! The miracle of time itself lies within the simple machine inside this box!”
Hobbes gingerly lifted the lid of the sea chest. Hawke couldn’t bear the suspense. He strode over to the window and gazed out at the sea.
They all leaned forward to peer inside in wide-eyed wonder, half expecting bolts of lightning or plumes of fire to blaze from the chest. Nick gasped. Gunner emitted a choked snort of some kind. Kate stood on tiptoes to get a better view.
The chest was full, near to the top, with water! No wonder it had been so heavy for its size, Nick thought.
“Ordinary seawater, I believe,” Hobbes said, matter-of-factly, swirling the water with his index finger and then touching the finger to his tongue. “Yes, seawater. Hydrogen, oxygen, and an abundance of sodium. The only physical environment that will sustain the machine over a long period. The source of its power, too. Seawater, the very cradle of life, is the cradle of time as well! Splendid, isn’t it?”
“Hobbes!” Lord Hawke barked in frustration, his face still to the window. “Do we have the machine, or do we not have the machine? ”
“Sorry, m’lord,” Hobbes said, rolling up his sleeves. He leaned right over the chest, peered into the murky water, and plunged one arm up to the elbow with a small splash, fishing around with a worried look on his face. “That’s odd, I think it’s not—wait a minute, here’s something—I think it’s just a, yes, that’s it!” His face was lit with a huge smile as he plunged his other hand into the water.
And then he pulled a gleaming golden ball—a small globe, really—from the water, an orb that dazzled the entire room with its brilliance. Hobbes cradled it with both hands, lifting it up so that it caught all of the candlelight from the chandeliers above.
Nick couldn’t tell if the ball was radiating light from within, or if its polished roundness was magnifying the many candles in the room, multiplying the candlepower a thousand-fold.
Kate squeezed his hand and whispered softly, “It’s beautiful, Nicky, the most beautiful jewel in the whole wide world!”
“We have it at last, your lordship!” Hobbes exulted. “Leonardo da Vinci’s ultimate triumph, the Tempus Machina! ”
Hawke spun round and fixed his eyes on the brilliant golden orb.
“We have it, Hobbes,” Hawke said, gazing at the shining thing with a look akin to reverence. “We have it indeed.” He strode rapidly over to Hobbes and placed his hand on the shining ball.
“We have the Tempus Machina!” Hawke roared, throwing his head back and letting his full voice ascend into the dark reaches of the castle rooftop. His eyes were aglow and his whole body seemed to tremble. He looked to Nick like a man going instantly from darkness to light, his very soul lit by the gleam of the golden orb.
“Give you joy of the day, sir,” Hobbes said. “It’s been five very long years, your lordship.”
Hawke nodded and reached out again to touch the still-dripping object in Hobbes’s hands. It was as if he wanted to keep confirming with his fingers what his eyes told him was finally in his possession at last, Leonardo’s triumphant victory over time itself.
“So, how does this thing work?” Nick asked, trying to get some normality back in his life by asking the only normal question he could think of.
Hobbes smiled. “Believe it or not, it is a masterpiece of simplicity, Nick. I’ll show you in due time, but first I need to carefully examine the sphere’s exterior to determine how it survived the voyage.” Hobbes had put the machine on a velvet pillow and, with a large magnifying glass, was examining every facet of the globe.
“Voyage from where?” Nick asked.
“Why, from either the past or the future, Nick. We don’t know yet. From the looks of the shipping container, though, I’d say the past,” Hobbes replied, looking at the globe from a lower angle. “If you’ll look closely inside the sea chest the globe arrived in, you’ll see that it’s lead-lined, with an inner lining of glass. A technique quite common one hundred and fifty years ago. And, as Lord Hawke has already pointed out, it’s an early nineteenth-century naval officer’s chest. I would imagine it was sent to you by just such a person, wouldn’t you agree, your lordship?”
Lord Hawke was watching Hobbes’s inspection, puffing thoughtfully on his cigar. Now that he possessed the globe, he appeared to have not a care in the world.
“Quite right, Hobbes. This Captain McIver of the H.M.S. Merlin, Edinburgh, as it reads on his chest, is very possibly a
The Tempus Machina
distant ancestor of yours, Nick. Has some reason to contact you, perhaps. From the looks of the carvings and insignia on the chest, he would appear to be someone serving Lord Nelson in actions against the French fleet. The Napoleonic Wars, as we refer to them now. Many a famous encounter with the French took place in these very waters, as you may know. Some brilliant actions were fought not two miles from this shore.” Hawke pointed his cigar to the west. “Right out there,” he said.
“Yes,” Nick said, turning to look out the window to the sea, “I know.”
And, at that exact moment, a gleaming black periscope silently broke the surface of the moonlit sea, not two miles from the entrance to Hawke Lagoon. Its hooded eye rotated left, then right, forty-five degrees. Below, another eye, a human eye, was watching, fixated on the blazing lights coming from the tower soaring above Castle Hawke!
“You think the chest was sent to me?” Nick asked, incredulously, and Hobbes smiled.
“I think it’s the most likely possibility, yes. Kate told me, I believe, that you and Kate liked to sail or play along that particular stretch of coast almost every day. So, the odds of you personally discovering it were almost one hundred percent. A rather ideal place to send it, too, for someone calculating the odds. Hidden, accessible only by sea, and deserted most of the time, except for you and your sister.” Hobbes had a faraway look in his eyes, and Nick could sense him working it out in his mind. “Yes, Nick, I think it was deliberately sent to you personally.”
“Jip is really the one that found it,” said Katie. “While he was chasing that mean old parrot.”
“Jip,” Nick said, looking suddenly at his sister, his face going pale in the candlelight.
Jip.
“What time is it?” Nick asked, a rising note of panic in his voice.
I suggest we meet at the deserted shanty down by the old wharf at six this evening.
“About half past seven, I imagine,” said Hawke taking a puff. “Why?”
“Half past seven!” Nick cried desperately. In all the excitement, he had somehow lost track of time and his appointment with Billy Blood. How stupid could he be? “Blood said to meet him near the wharf by six if I ever wanted to see Jipper again! He’ll kill ’im, I know he will! Six o’clock! We’ll be lucky to get there by nine! How could I have been so stupid? Poor Jipper, he probably thought I didn’t care about him, he thought—”
“It’s all right, lad. Calm down,” Hobbes said, chuckling softly. “I wouldn’t worry about it, now.”
Nick’s face reddened with anger.
“Of course, you wouldn’t worry about it!” Nick cried. “He’s not your dog!” Nick lowered his eyes, not wanting them to see his pain and anger. Hawke put his hand on Nick’s shoulder, and after a moment, Nick looked up at him. “Sorry, sir.”
“That’s not what Hobbes meant, Nick,” Hawke said, pointing his cigar at the golden ball sparkling in the candlelight. “Time simply has a different meaning for you now. Instead of you being a slave to it, time is now a slave to you. It’s on your side now, lad. Time is on your side.” Hawke patted his shoulder and walked back to the window to puff his cigar.
“You’ve got all the time in the world now, Nick,” Hobbes said. “All the time in the world. You need never be late, or early, for anything again.”
“My mum would like that,” Nick said with a shy smile.
Perhaps this strange machine might come in handy after all. He felt a sharp pang at this thought of his mother. His parents were nearing London by now, in a desperate bid to save their dear old lighthouse home.
The boy sighed, and returned his attention to the object. He had problems of his own, of a more immediate nature. But, if Hobbes was right, and the “tempus machine” or, whatever they called it, really did work, why, then, he still just might be able to rescue his dog. He still had time, they said.
All the time in the world.
“I’m sorry, Hobbes,” Nick said quietly. “I didn’t mean to get angry and shout at you. I’m just so worried about that old dog. He’s a sweet old dog, really, hasn’t got a mean bone in his body. And I think Billy Blood is capable of anything, anything at all!”
Hobbes sat beside the boy and put his arm round his shoulder, speaking gently into his ear.
“That he is, lad, that he is. But don’t you see, now that we have the machine, so are we. Capable of anything! We’ll get Jip back for you, lad. Don’t you worry,” Hobbes said. “We’ll rescue Jip, and we’ll rescue little Annabel and Alexander, too. Don’t you worry, lad.”
Nick looked up at him.
“Annabel and Alexander? Who are they, Hobbes?”
Hobbes looked at him, searching his eyes. He glanced over at Lord Hawke, smoking by the window, and lowered his voice even more. “You don’t know?”
“No,” whispered Nick. “Can you tell me?”
“It’s the worst possible tragedy, lad,” Hobbes whispered. “And it’s the reason his lordship and I have secluded ourselves from the world for all these many years, working in absolute secrecy, and with all the scientific knowledge we can muster, to solve the mystery. The one mystery his lordship has never been able to solve. And the most tragic.”
“What mystery, Hobbes?” Nick whispered. “What happened?” He’d heard all of Gunner’s stories of mysterious disappearances at Hawke Castle, but had always chalked them up to idle rumors and gossip, gossip being the only thing on his island more plentiful than cows.
“The disappearance of Lord Hawke’s two young children, lad. The abduction of little Annabel and Alexander. It accounts for all the gloom of sadness that lies over this poor house.”
Nick gasped. “But that’s terrible! There’ve been no end of rumors, of course, but please tell me what really happened, sir.”
“It happened one night just outside this very room. Over five long years ago, now, right out there on that terrace overlooking the sea. It was a stormy night, terrible wind and rain were whipping across the sea, and his lordship had taken the children out on the terrace to watch the storm come up the channel. Little Alexander, he loved lightning, loved to see it, wasn’t afraid of it like most children, and he—” Hobbes stopped, choking back his emotion. “I’m sorry, lad. Anyway, I called his lordship in from the terrace to read an important telex just in over the wire from London. The children pleaded with their father to stay outside and watch the storm. He agreed. When he went back outside to rejoin them, well, they were gone. Gone in a heartbeat.”
“Hobbes, I’m so sorry,” Nick said, his voice trembling. “I had no idea.”
“So we searched the rocks below for days, and the sea, too, thinking they’d somehow climbed up over the rail and—but we never found them, lad, not a trace. One instant they were there, laughing and playing, the next instant—well, we never found them.”
“Hobbes, I feel terrible. Here we’ve invaded Lord Hawke’s privacy and reminded him of—”
“Lad, listen to me. Don’t you understand what’s going on here tonight? Why do you think his lordship is so jubilant? You have brought him hope, Nick! Hope that he can find his children and bring them safely home! He’s been waiting for this moment for five long years, lad! With your machine, he finally has a chance!”
“With the machine, you say? So you think the children are—” Nick furrowed his brow, trying to accept all that he was hearing. “You think the children are lost in time, Hobbes.”
Hobbes looked at him, his eyes alight.
“Not lost, lad. But, they are somewhere in time all right. We think Billy Blood has them!” Hobbes looked up to see if Lord Hawke had overheard his conversation, but Hawke remained at the window, hands clasped behind his back, content.
Nick understood, and lowered his voice. “But, why, Hobbes, why? Why would Blood travel all the way to the future to kidnap Lord Hawke’s children?”
“Past, future, makes no difference to him. And it’s the oldest motive of all, I’m afraid,” Hobbes whispered. “Money. Ransom money. Lord Hawke is sole heir to one of the last great fortunes in England. Billy roams the earth, amassing riches and power wherever he finds them. He finances all of his evil schemes with the enormous ransoms he demands for kidnapped children. Since time is no object to him, obviously, he saw a way to get at the Hawke fortune by coming to the future and kidnapping his lordship’s children.”
“He’s still holding them for ransom?”
“The ransom was paid, many times over,” Hobbes said darkly. “In full. The children were never returned. Billy holds them captive in the past. He will keep raising the ransom until the Hawke fortune is completely depleted. That’s why we have got to find them first! It’s the reason his lordship and I have dedicated most of the last five years of our lives to solving the riddle of time travel. It’s a race against time, lad. We’ve vowed to rescue Annabel and Alexander and destroy their infamous kidnapper before his lordship’s money runs out. We were getting close, too, and then you appeared with that miraculous sea chest—” Hobbes was startled by Lord Hawke’s hand on his shoulder.
“I say, Hobbes, take a look at this!” Hawke had noticed something they’d missed in the excitement of opening the chest. Fastened inside the lid of the chest was a small parcel, wrapped in what appeared to be oilskin, and tied with a bright purple ribbon. He removed it and handed it to Hobbes.
Hobbes untied the outer ribbon and carefully removed the oilskin covering. Inside was a long sheet of heavy foolscap, all rolled up and tied with a scarlet ribbon. Hobbes untied the ribbon and spread the paper on the table next to the golden globe. Nick saw that there were hurried scrawls of ink down the length of the thing. Hobbes took the magnifying glass and began to examine them.
“What is it, Hobbes?” Hawke asked, leaning over to get a better look.
“Why, it’s a letter, your lordship!” Hobbes said. “It’s dated 3rd October, 1805, and was written at sea!”
Hobbes regarded him with a smile.
“I should say so, lad. It’s addressed to you.” Hobbes handed the magnifying glass to Nick, who bent to see if this could possibly be so. It was. The letter, to Nick’s astonishment, was addressed MASTER NICHOLAS MCIVER, GREYBEARD ISLAND.
From above, in the darkness high above the flickering candles, came a fluttering sound, a sound of large wings beating against air. They all looked up, and saw nothing. But they heard something. A sound that chilled them all to the bone.
A human voice, issuing from the throat of a bird: Letter for Nick—squawk—letter for Nick—squawk.
And with a great flapping of wings the bird escaped through the open window of the castle’s observatory at the top of the turret.
“Bones,” Hawke said. “Damn his eyes. He knows we’ve got the Tempus Machina!”
“Winging his way to tell Blood even now,” Hobbes said, watching the dark shadow flapping over the shining sea.
CHAPTER XVII
Captain McIver’s Letter
· 3 October 1805 ·
AT SEA
Nicholas,
I write in great haste with much to say and beg your forgiveness for the informality of this message. My command, Merlin, forty-eight-gun English man-of-war, is gravely threatened. We are afire and sinking. If we do not reach England two days hence, the future of Admiral Lord Nelson’s entire fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line is in gravest jeopardy.
Merlin was badly holed below the waterline this morning in an engagement with the French frigate, Bellemère, under the command of Admiral Rambouillet. We are pumping furiously but the sea is winning this battle. We have lost many hands, our fore topsails and mizzen topsails were blown away. Half our cannons are gone or unfireable and there is fire in the forward powder hold. The second officer believes he can extinguish the fire before she blows, that is, if we don’t sink first!