Prehistoric Clock

by Robert Appleton

  “Indeed. Lord Embrey’s a rare fellow. I daresay he’s the best of us in a tricky spot. But I’m afraid he hasn’t solved our problem yet. Nor has Captain Champlain. It’s something beyond our understanding…for the time being.”

  “My mam always said lookin’ for t’ simplest answer first were usually t’ best way. She said my dad were always makin’ things complicated when they weren’t really.” The boy’s next throw landed him at the foot of a ladder, taking him up five rows.

  “That’s good advice. Your mother was wise.”

  “Yeah.” Billy sniffled, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. His amusingly sheepish expression suggested he’d often been chided for not using a handkerchief. “My mam taught piano.”

  Taught—past tense. Cecil handed the lad his own handkerchief. “That notion of the simplest explanation is a big one in science, Billy. It’s often the most straightforward connection that…we miss…”

  “Eh? What’s the matter? Cecil? It’s your go.”

  Straightforward connection…simplest explanation…

  The boy tugged at his waistcoat and stared at him as though he wasn’t sure Cecil was still breathing.

  “Billy, can I ask you something important?”

  “I reckon.”

  “It’s about your book.”

  “Yeah? What about it?”

  Let me get this straight in my mind. 1908…the storm…the ice cream vehicle on the embankment…

  “Billy, what were you thinking about when the time jump occurred? At that precise moment when the storm vanished and sunlight appeared.”

  Retrieving his book from the deck behind him, Billy opened to a double-page illustration depicting several dinosaurs in their natural habitat. The coloured pencil sketch was well-drawn but the backdrop appeared somewhat tropical and idealized.

  “It were this picture. I were frightened by all t’ chasin’, an’ I went an’ hid in my dad’s coat. All them bright lights from t’ factory made me think of that comet—you know, that big ’un that killed all t’ dinosaurs off. That were t’ last thing I thought about.”

  “The dinosaurs?”

  “Yeah, I reckon.”

  Could that be the answer? As far-fetched as it sounded, it was frankly the only theory he’d come across even remotely linking 1908 with the Cretaceous Period. And with the advent of the perfect spider web in his factory, this metaphysical can of worms had already been flung open. But what actually, physically linked the two phenomena? Somehow, a boy’s imaginings had veered the most advanced machine ever created millions of years off course?

  How in the name of—

  “So you think I were to blame for all this?” Billy’s inscrutable stare bored deeper and deeper into Cecil’s flimsy reasoning.

  “Not at all, lad. Of course not.” He could never let the boy think that. And this grave line of questioning had lasted long enough. “It’s one of a hundred theories I’ve had that doesn’t hold up. There’s no scientific basis…any more than there is for why your sarsaparilla tastes better here in the time of the dinosaurs than it ever did back home.”

  “Yeah. I always liked that an’ all. Garrett said it were good too. I say.” Billy’s imitation of Embrey’s posh accent was spot on. The deck rocked a little as Cecil laughed. Commotion among the crew at the stern lasted only a moment and then all went silent. A second shimmy sent Kibo dashing across the quarterdeck, and a faint splash in the distance drew telescopes from pockets. But no one appeared unduly alarmed.

  “All right, here we go…” Cecil blew into his fist as he shook the die, “…no more snakes for me. From now on, I’m the snake charmer.” He rolled a five and climbed another ladder to dizzy heights.

  Billy folded his arms and pouted. “See, I told yer it were bloody rigged.”

  Their bubbles columned into the bell’s fading light. Verity tugged hard on her lifeline, signalling she was ready for Djimon to hoist her back up. Still no response. She’d already yanked the line over a dozen times to no avail. But now, with darkness smothering the lake bed, Embrey sensed things were getting desperate.

  Where the hell are you, Djimon?

  She lit another flare and he breathed easier. Though the bell hung a mere several fathoms above them, it might as well be a nautical mile because the weight of their deep sea diving suits anchored them to the bottom. He anticipated her next gesture—to cast off their weights and swim up—as quickly as he feared it. The pressure at this depth was considerable, and without helmets, they would have to exhale as they ascended slowly, to avoid gases building up in the bloodstream. If they didn’t, a potential air embolism might prove fatal.

  He shut his eyes and tried to remain calm.

  Verity jabbed his shoulder to get his attention. Her harsh gaze yanked him back to immediate obedience. She mimed what she was about to do and then raised her eyebrows, as if to ask, do you understand?

  Embrey gave an emphatic nod.

  Oh, God, please let this work.

  First, he clumsily unbuckled his heavy boots. Verity then sliced his ballast weights free with her knife. Finally, he took a deep breath and she unfastened and lifted his helmet. The flood of icy water seized his skull. She pointed up. He began kicking and clawing his way to the bell as though it was the last pocket of life anywhere in existence. He exhaled a few bubbles after every few strokes. The fog of spores and plankton made him think he was lost in a giant pea soup. Progress seemed glacial until he spied a not-quite-circular shape in the gloom. Lines dangled from it like distended veins. One last spurt brought him to within arm’s reach. He gripped the rim and his momentum lifted him into the bell with surprising grace.

  The first thing he noticed in the dim light was a dark stain on the metal floor. God help us. Has Djimon—

  “Here! Take it!”

  While coughing his guts up, he took the kaleidoscope from Verity and then helped her climb in and somehow wrapped her in a blanket. She wound the dynamo handle until all the lights blazed on. Shaking uncontrollably, she spied the pool of blood. The rim of the moon pool, too, had buckled. Something large and powerful had to have broken through, snatching poor Djimon.

  She collapsed onto the floor and stared at the damaged brass rim.

  “I’m sorry, Verity.”

  She brushed his hand away. They sat in stunned silence. The gentle echo-popping sounds of droplets on lapping water, the whir of the dynamo, and Verity’s quiet sniffles conspired to deafen his thoughts. Finally he rose to his knees. “Okay, we did what we set out to do, so where do we go from here?”

  “To hell, I hope.”

  “All right, but then where?”

  “Remind me to kill that pompous bastard when we make it back.” She thumped the copper wall.

  “Who? Reardon?” No reply. “Granted, but how—”

  “How the buggery did you think we were going to get back?” Verity’s shout pierced his already aching ears. “For God’s sake, get out of my way.” She pushed him aside and snatched up what looked like a hollow telephone receiver on the end of a hose. She spoke into it, waited for a reply.

  “And they’ll haul us up?”

  “Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “Shut up and don’t speak to me again.”

  Embrey waited until her face was downturned and then flicked her a mocking salute. He drank a few cupped handfuls of fresh water from the moon pool. It tasted crisp, marvellous.

  Then he recoiled, remembering what swam down there, and what might appear again at any moment…

  Over twenty minutes later, with no reply from the Empress, Verity leapt up and turned her back to him. “Help me off with this thing.”

  Words he’d give anything to hear under any other circumstance.

  “We’re swimming the rest of the way?” he asked.

  “No choice, I’m afraid.”

  The chilling finality hit him. Something had happened on the surface, and if it worried someone like Verity… “We could wait a bit longer, see if they—”

  “No.
We’ve waited long enough,” she said.

  “But what if it’s just a problem with the communication cable? Say something bit through it. They’ll hoist us up after a set time has elapsed without word, surely.”

  Verity’s dripping hair appeared almost gunmetal brown in the dimming light. “Yes, and that time has elapsed.” She wound the dynamo once more. “The auxiliary diver checks in every five minutes. After fifteen without contact, the deck crew automatically begins hoisting. Trust me, Embrey, we are on our own. Whatever happened to Djimon may have happened to the Empress as well. Now get this thing off me.”

  He obeyed, but the thought of finding an empty deck—he’d left Billy and Reardon up there, for Christ’s sake—turned his stomach. Even the sight of Verity in her underwear served only to remind him of how vulnerable they were and how much he needed this ordeal to be over. He wasn’t Garrett Embrey right now—he was simply another creature in the primordial soup, snatching at survival. Nothing else mattered.

  She helped him out of his clingy suit and they both peered into the moon pool.

  “Remember to exhale steadily all the way up.” Her words were soft, distracted.

  “I will.”

  “I’ll take the clock part.”

  “No, the strongest swimmer should carry it.”

  Verity blinked at him, her pink-and-white face elfin and beautiful. “Embrey, I do this for a living.”

  “But I haven’t done a damn thing to help on this dive. At least let me take this risk for you.” He picked up the kaleidoscope and slid into the water, gauging her reaction.

  Verity shook her head slowly.

  He sighed, then handed her the clock part. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

  “Crazy fool. You’d never have made it like that anyway.” She cut a length of rope, tied one end to the gadget and the other to her ankle.

  “Ah.”

  She gently splashed his face. “Don’t look back, omafimbo odula. Whatever happens, kick until you taste home. I’ll be with you all the way.”

  “Promise?”

  After her quick nod, he took three deep breaths and submerged. He kicked away from the bell, confident that he could swim the breadth of an ocean if Verity were beside him. He climbed with a muscular stroke, never doubting, never looking back. The cream umbilical cable stretched forever upward. Lighter hues flickered above him like an emerald stampede on a glass ceiling.

  He finally surfaced, gasping for his life on the starboard side of the Empress. Verity sprang up beside him, equally spent. But no one greeted them from the open hatches across the bulwark or through the porthole windows.

  “Remember, we’ve surfaced far too quickly after such a long dive,” she said. “It’s dangerous. If you should start to feel sickly, use the oxygen canister or drink plenty of—Look! The bow!” She pointed him to a dent in the iron plane, then to several harpoons floating near the stern, still attached to their lines. “They’ve been attacked all right. Ahoy! Kibo! Anyone aboard?”

  Embrey yelled with her but they received no response.

  “Come on.” She urged him to swim after her. “They may have abandoned ship.”

  “Yes, and it must have been for a good reason,” he called after her, but she didn’t stop. “Hey, wait for me.”

  As they climbed aboard, spilling streams as they crept, the empty ship groaned. She set the kaleidoscope down on the quarterdeck. Blood speckled the deck around two of the open starboard hatches and one of the port ones as well. One of the two lifeboats was also missing.

  Embrey noticed a V shape floating off the starboard bow. It appeared heavy, as it didn’t bob with the undulating lake. He glanced at the erect davits that had lifted the lifeboat over the side, then at the V shape again. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

  She gave a deep sigh. “I’m afraid so.”

  “How many would it have held?”

  “All of them, Embrey. God help us, I think we’ve lost them all.”

  Chapter 13

  Prehistoric Campfire

  How a mission could at once be successful and yet fail so utterly tore Verity’s thoughts in two as she wandered B-deck, trying to figure out the chain of events leading to this disaster. For one, the iron rig for the bell winch was bent, which explained why the crew hadn’t been able to hoist them up. But why was it bent? Had the leviathan they’d faced on the lake bed become snagged in the umbilical somehow? Had that same monster attacked the Empress out of spite? Perhaps it had the ability to leap out of the water, as high as the ship’s deck. With the dinosaur’s sixty-foot length, that wasn’t much of a stretch.

  Broken rifles and smashed harpoon launchers described a desperate last stand. The bulwark was damaged around virtually every open hatch, so the leviathan had to have attacked repeatedly on all sides. And poor little Billy. What a horrible nightmare for such a young boy. She should have insisted he and Reardon stay on A-deck with Tangeni.

  A bitter welling in her throat made her swallow hard several times but it was no use.

  This was her fault, her unforgivable blunder.

  Without Reardon, it’s all been for nothing.

  She ran to the nearest open hatch and threw up over the side.

  “How long before Tangeni returns?” Embrey asked.

  “Until we signal. He’ll keep circling until we signal.”

  “I don’t see him.”

  Verity spat the noxious taste from her mouth and wiped her lips. “You will. But it’s all for nothing now.” They would have to survive here until they died, in this prehistoric nether-world, with no hope of seeing home ever again.

  “Nothing we could have done, Verity. It was only a matter of time.” His glistening Adonis physique seemed alien, a mirage. Seeing his full collar-to-hip scar for the first time made her feel a little sorry for him—he’d been through so much and had worked tirelessly to protect the others, and for what? “I daresay fate was set against us the minute we arrived,” he said. “It was a forlorn hope after all.”

  “And a cruel twist. It didn’t have to end like this. We could have—”

  “Garrett! You made it!”

  They both spun toward the engine room at the stern. Men in blue uniform filed out, elated and self-congratulatory, as though part of some obscene April Fool’s prank. It took a moment for Verity to register the change of events. If these crewmen had been here all along, why hadn’t they answered her calls? But then—she hadn’t called since climbing aboard…

  “Garrett!” Young Billy sprinted for his half-naked guardian, and Embrey flung his arms around the boy and lifted him high. Still she couldn’t quite take it in. Had the undersea pressure affected her more than she realised? Yet, seeing Professor Reardon appear at the engine room door, his shirt sleeves rolled up and bloody, plucked her heart and made it thrum.

  Their dive had not been for nought. Djimon’s sacrifice had lasting worth, and she need despair no more. Even Kibo emerged from his engine room, still impeccably dressed, striding like a victorious gambler.

  “Eembu, I knew you’d make it.” He shook her hand. His impressive grin made her puff and exhale with nervous relief. The habit of command dictated she retain a measure of composure at all times, but damn it if she couldn’t cry out with joy. Another crewman—Kwame—draped a windproof jacket over her.

  “Thank you, thank you.” She cleared her throat, oddly embarrassed by all the attention. “Embrey and I achieved our goal, but,” and her high jinks sank, “we lost Djimon, I’m afraid.”

  Kibo winced and looked away to the sunken lifeboat. “Then his spirit joins another three of our number, and Mr. Briory was killed, as well.”

  “No. What happened?”

  “Let us reach shore first, then I will describe our ordeal. Stay clear of the sides, you men.” He scolded two of his engine crew, then led Verity to the buckled bell winch. “I think we should cut the bell loose, Eembu. There is no way to hoist it up, and the only reason I didn’t cast if free and head back to s
hore is because you were still down there.”

  Verity gently squeezed his arm. “You did well, my friend. Grace under pressure, that’s what I like to see.”

  “I am sorry Djimon won’t be with us. The whole crew liked his…affableness—is that the correct word?”

  She smiled. “Close enough, brother. That’s close enough. Now go ahead, get us underway. Have Kwame and MacDonald cut the bell hose.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Meanwhile, Reardon wrapped the brass clockwork in his waistcoat and hurried it back to the safety of the engine room, pausing only to compliment Verity on her “brave show, which may have saved all our necks.”

  “You’re welcome, Profess—” But he was already out of earshot, deep in consternation. After all, there was no guarantee the intricate part hadn’t been damaged beyond repair.

  Billy tugged her jacket down until she matched his height, and then hugged her for the longest time. Such a sweet, affectionate boy—he reached for Embrey’s hand and pulled him down to share the embrace. An extraordinary pang of contentment, fleeting though it was, made her feel…complete somehow. Alive and unguarded. Embrey’s hand nestled on the back of her neck, and her heart began to thump, thump, thump…

  “You jus’ described that exact same ’un what attacked us.” Billy flicked to the appropriate page in his dinosaur book. “Lio-pleu-ro-don—that’s how Cecil says it. Big paddle-like limbs and massive, strong jaws like a crocodile, only it were a lot bigger than what it says in ’ere.”

  “We estimated between fifty and sixty feet, didn’t we?” Verity turned to Embrey. He wasn’t really listening, and instead watched with fascination the re-coupling of A and B decks. Tangeni had begun his descent, and as B-deck was now moored on the lake shore, this promised to be a routine attachment. Verity’s men had already raised the guide spars to catch A-deck’s descending hull. The airship’s link chains dangled ready to be caught and locked into position. Her only concern was that the liopleurodon attacks had bent the bulwarks out of shape—a misalignment of the two decks meant they could not be cranked back into place together. The Empress Matilda might be divorced for good.