Prehistoric Clock

by Robert Appleton

  Miss Polperro sat up. “Yes, I am certain of it. By whatever means, I believe those elements of time and fate will reconvene for us. You’ll see.”

  “I wish I knew, friend.” Reardon glanced at Kibo, then looked gravely at the carpet. “I wish I knew.”

  It was a hard truth to take, but even Reardon had had to concede that, when it came to time, they were all at sea.

  Sunrise on the last day crept up on Verity as she lay wide awake in her bed, planning, hoping, dreading. In her years as a Gannet officer she’d grown accustomed to the wind’s caprice, to the sea’s insidious nature. But she’d always had precedent and knowledge to bear her out, mankind’s millennia of experience lending her vital intuition. Here, Reardon had baited a new, unquantifiable beast. He knew as little about time travel as the first homo sapiens who jumped off a cliff, copying the birds, did about flying. And she was along for the next leap!

  Freezing fog and a dank half-light stilled the deck while she wandered out for a stroll. Sleet and rain had washed the snow away overnight. A vague smell of cooked meat, quite pleasant, still clung to the Empress. Though she’d insisted the unused parts of the dinosaur carcasses be buried to remove the scent of blood from the air, predators often had extraordinary senses of smell. Billy’s book concurred. Dinosaurs could probably sniff out a feast miles away. Which way had the winds blown during the night?

  Embrey waved to her from the poop deck. He wore an oversized blue slicker and a sou’wester. They were wet. How long had he been standing there?

  “Odd, is it not?” He pointed to the vague shape of Big Ben. The hands on its clock face were barely visible. Five past eight. “How time has stopped and carried on? What do you suppose the world made of our disappearance? A great chunk of Westminster obliterated, leaving no evidence.”

  “The night-lights will be burning in the Leviacrum for quite some time, I imagine.”

  Embrey hmmed, turned to her. “May I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.” She pinched the ends of the blanket together under her chin.

  “Am I all right in your book?”

  “Excuse me?” To frown dutifully or give nothing away and inhale his sweet, unexpected surrender—she lost her bearings for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…is there a chance…could you possibly conceive of…with all that we… Oh, Good Lord, spit it out, Garrett!” He gave a deep, self-berating growl. “What I mean to say is, do you still hold me in contempt?”

  No outward smile, but her satisfaction lightened her inside like a fresh ballonet. Then of a sudden it fell, and she recalled Bernie’s graveside funeral—the blacks and greys billowing austerely, the droning preacher reciting secondhand testimonies from friends and family, the passing of simple joy from her young world. It seemed only yesterday. So much had happened since then, but in Verity’s eyes, no one had yet atoned for Bernie’s needless death in the Benguela fire.

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “Were it on personal regard alone, I should not hesitate in esteeming you very highly, Embrey, but—”

  “Of course. The dreaded small print.”

  “Don’t try and belittle it, damn you! For all I know, you and you father and uncle are the liars, and the Council acted appropriately. Ah, ah, not so fast.” She stilled his vicious temper in mid-huff. “You asked the question, knowing how sensitive this topic is for both of us. So don’t send for your second just yet. Let me finish. What I was trying to say was…inasmuch as your father’s and your uncle’s complicity in the rebel attack that killed my sister, I simply cannot take your word for their innocence. But nor shall I take their guilt for granted either, based on the findings of a court whose veracity is now in question. I’m therefore reserving judgment on the Embrey family name.”

  His gaze softened, glazed. He looked away, cleared his throat—his manly pride at stake. “Which leaves your personal regard for me?”

  “Aye. And yours for me.” She widened her eyes, batted her lashes. “Tell me, am I all right in your book, Embrey?” Turning to give him a look at her side profile empowered her a little—other men had remarked on how striking it was.

  He fidgeted, as though he were struggling to come up with the perfect response. “I say, fluky weather we’re having.”

  “Very.” And fluky conversation.

  “Tell me. As a Gannet officer, at what point would you disobey an order from the powers-that-be?” he asked.

  Again a moment of disorientation. His mercurial questions were really making her dizzy. “Pray clarify.”

  “It’s just that, given the sheer ambition of the Council, as we’ve witnessed here—” he roved his hand over the mist in unison with his carefully chosen words, “—do you still consider yourself subject to its corrupt commands? Morally speaking?” He chewed his lip.

  “I think I know what you’re getting at, Embrey, and the answer is…probably not, no.” If father could hear me now! “Before Bernie died, I daresay I would have followed any order to any end without thinking twice. That was what my father preached. The might of the empire was a force for good in the world, bringing light to the dark continent, etcetera. But when Bernie died, I did start to question why we were being asked to throw our lives away in countries so far from England we could barely find them on the map. I followed orders, yes, but something changed inside me. I can’t explain it. It was on the bottom of the English Channel when I finally felt—how can I put it?—expendable? Futile?”

  “You’d surrendered yourself to a cause you no longer understood?”

  “Yes, exactly. How did you—”

  He nodded over the taffrail. “That was what my father said. He served in the colonial forces for years before his arrest. And in that one moment, despite his years of blind loyalty to a greater cause, he realized that devotion was not mutual. The empire cared nothing for those who truly sustained it—the workers, the troops, those who sacrificed the most and reaped the fewest rewards. He never profited a penny from those overseas ventures, and it didn’t matter. They scapegoated him all the same.”

  “I don’t care about rewards,” she replied, “but I’d rather the Council explain exactly what it is they’re up to building these towers around the world. It costs too many lives to sustain them. That’s where they and I part company.”

  “Indeed. I’m glad.”

  “And after everything you and Professor Reardon have told me about the Council, I must admit it has shaken my trust somewhat.”

  She fidgeted, and found the seditious conversation curiously exciting. But why was her admission of mistrust so empowering? Father had always maintained the opposite was true—fighting for one’s country was the ultimate source of pride.

  “And what of you?” She determined the interrogation wasn’t going to be completely one-sided. And she didn’t want to expose too much of her newfound rebelliousness in case he made her say something she’d regret. “What have you learned through all this, Embrey?”

  “All this?”

  “Hobnobbing with aeronauts, seeing life outside your fancy circles.”

  “What a bloody impertinent thing to say,” he snapped.

  She sighed. Why can’t I last two minutes without antagonising him?

  “But I tell you what I have learned.” He demonstrated his freezing breath with a prolonged exhale.

  “And that is?”

  “That things happen for a reason. Take my daughter for instance. She inherits everything in the event of my disappearance.”

  Wait—what? How could he—“I—I didn’t know you were married.”

  “I’m not. Never was. I knew Susan’s mother only briefly in India before I returned home. When I found out she was with child, I offered to bring her to England and marry her, but she refused. Said she’d rather die than leave India. So I’ve provided for them both ever since. Funny how things work out, though, is it not? As soon as I’m declared extinct, little Susan will inherit one of the largest estates in England. It’s in my wi
ll, and even if we make it back, I shan’t lift a finger to stop it. With or without me, she ought to have my fortune. She barely knows me but…I’d dearly love to see her one last time.”

  “You’re an honest fellow, Embrey.”

  He cleared his throat. “Speaking of which…and don’t take this the wrong way, but…are you attached at all? In Africa, perhaps?”

  “No.” She shuddered through a sharp vision of Amyn lying weak in her arms, the poison squeezing the last drops of life from him. Strange, she hadn’t thought of him for days, and he’d chosen this moment to distract her. She recoiled. “I believe we have more pressing concerns.”

  “Yes, indeed…like what’s going to happen when we return.” He rested his hands on the taffrail and then glimpsed her from the corner of his eye. “Forgive my impertinence—I realise this may be the farthest thing from your mind right now, given what we’re about to attempt—but I’ll not have it go unsaid any longer. We simply don’t have time.” He gazed wistfully out into the mist, then cleared his throat again. “Verity, when we return, would you consider accompanying me to Europe?”

  “I would—” she answered without thinking, “—I mean what? Why? In what capacity?” Could he be any vaguer? What does he want? A chaperone? Someone to sail him there and leave him? Another mistress? A harlot?

  “You know…to come with me,” he replied evasively. “So we don’t have to be apart.”

  “I see. And would I be playing the steamer trunk or the frock coat in this little pantomime?”

  “Verity, I—”

  She pressed a finger against his cold lips. “Unless you intend to court me, Embrey, don’t speak another word. Not one more. I don’t think I could take any more confounded uncertainty. Not here. Not now.” A gap in the roving mist uncovered the hill of rubble outside Reardon’s factory. She let herself sink into Embrey’s gentle embrace, the crinkling sound of his coat nestling against her both warm and sweet. A hint of tobacco enwrapped her.

  “I intend to never let you go,” he whispered.

  She closed her eyes, rested her head on his shoulder, and felt the tension between them finally evaporate like the last icy dew of the Spring thaw. She opened her eyes. Through the fog, the sun tried to auger in a brilliant day but managed only a flaxen-silver glow. For the time being, all she had was hope, but it was enough.

  “So you will go with me?”

  “I will.”

  “Whatever happens?”

  “Whatever happens,” she promised.

  Chapter 17

  Harrison’s Fourth Clock

  First the smell of burning wood, then his favourite sensation, the warm steam wafting into his face, signalled Cecil’s machine was ready to begin its cycle. He’d calibrated the Harrison clock and its sensitive psammeticum receptor—the Cavendish—as accurately as anything he’d ever measured. If the time jump didn’t work, it would be through no fault of his own.

  “You’re sure we’re standing close enough, Professor?” Verity Champlain shepherded her crewmen and women into a tighter group no more than fifteen feet from the brass clock. Tangeni and Embrey stood behind her, flanking young Billy Ransdell, who was without his dinosaur book for the first time in prehistory. Miss Polperro had insisted it be confiscated—a prudent move, even if it did make her seem even more like a horrid schoolmarm.

  “Professor?” Verity asked.

  “Yes, yes. Quite close enough.”

  “You said the original reaction was only supposed to send—what was it?—a plant pot a week into the future?”

  Cecil patted her shoulder. “Yes, a potted plant, one week into the future. The reaction was meant to be localised, no more than a three foot radius. But I know now what enlarged the time bubble—moisture, first the steam inside the factory, then the rain outside. It acted as a conductor.”

  “So the whole factory’s coming with us?”

  “More than likely.”

  She raised an eyebrow, looked up, and then hurriedly put on her pith helmet for protection. “Well I have to hand it to you, Professor—you certainly don’t do anything by half.”

  Cecil pretended he hadn’t heard that, instead turned to watch the giant pistons drive the gears and cogs into that steady, almost pulse-like, thumping rhythm. “You can shove the rest of the coal in,” he shouted to Kibo in the furnace room. “Then make sure you close the door. The boiler isn’t quite at full steam.”

  “Understood.”

  A minute later, the engine man jogged back into the group. He received handshakes and back-slaps from his fellow aeronauts, then took his place behind the boy. A palpable anxiety etched itself on the faces of all gathered—lip-biting, worry lines deep and damp, gazes boring into Cecil at every hiss of steam from the juddery valves. These people expected. They demanded. This was to be his atonement.

  He bowed his head and thought of poor Billy, orphaned by that first reckless attempt to conquer time; of the many Whitehall ministers and gentlemen of social standing he’d condemned to unspeakable deaths; of the brave African aeronauts who would never see home again; and mostly of his new friends, without whom he would not be standing here now, challenging God for a second time.

  He looked up to the rickety old walkway shrouded in steam. The chair upon which he’d whiled away so many years was now empty and uninviting, like the hub of a long-abandoned, musty web. Lisa and Edmond were no longer up there, frozen in a still image, but with him instead, willing him to succeed. He had been selfish the first time, spiting fate without regard for the world around him. But the toils of many brave men and women had wrought this, his chance to make amends. This time jump was not for personal gain. It bore the blood of friends.

  “Whatever happens, I’d like you all to know,” he said, “I consider this my—”

  Crack!

  Blood peppered his face. Embrey careened into him and then slumped onto a secondary pipe. Before Cecil knew what had happened, he felt the hard muzzle of a rifle press against his temple.

  “Don’t move, Professor! Everything is going fine.” The bastard’s voice belonged to Carswell, Miss Polperro’s number one crony. But what on earth was he playing at?

  “Embrey!” Cecil reached for his friend but received a sharp kick to the back of his knee. He fell in a heap, the pain splintering up and down his leg. Verity and Tangeni backed away from Miss Polperro, whose crooked right arm appeared to point at something low in front of her. Three aeronauts lowering their rifles obstructed Cecil’s view. He quickly scanned the throng.

  “Where’s Billy?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry, Professor. She won’t shoot,” Verity replied.

  “Shoot? What is this?”

  The aeronauts stepped aside to let him see…

  Billy’s tears streamed around the barrel of Miss Polperro’s revolver pressed to his cheek. She wiped the steam from her spectacles. “Drop your weapons, aeronauts! I’ll not ask again.”

  How in God’s name did she get hold of him?

  The crew turned to Verity, who widened her stance and placed her fists on her hips. “You’ll do no such thing, men. Keep those rifles trained on the bitch’s face. The boy ain’t no bargaining chip.”

  “Eembu,” Tangeni stepped forward, “maybe we’d better—”

  “Shut up. Step away. I’ll take her out myself if I have to.” Verity’s glare intensified.

  A wry curl of Agnes Polperro’s lips signified her resolve. “By my reckoning we have less than five minutes before the machine has collected enough psammeticum to start refracting. At that point, the acceleration process is quick and exponential. So make up your minds. We either leave the boy behind as I suggested, or he dies. I’ll not have his wayward fancies governing my destination. Now,” she cocked the handgun, “decide among yourselves who stays with him. I care not.”

  Verity’s furious glances appeared to take in the entire tableau in a matter of moments. She withdrew and crouched beside Embrey, whose side bled profusely. He would soon pass out.


  “So you’ve thrown in with them, Kibo?” she said, sparking frantic chatter among the other aeronauts. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  What? The engine man too? Cecil’s jaw slackened when the well-dressed driver stepped forward, buttoning up his waistcoat. Had he snatched Billy for Polperro’s posse? Had he armed the Whitehall gang?

  “I’m sorry, Eembu, but she’s right,” Kibo said.

  Tangeni aimed his scolding glare and forefinger at the traitor. “You’re a dead man.”

  “You’re wrong, brother. You’re all wrong,” the engine man replied. “Billy doesn’t deserve this but you have to think of the greater good. We have enough uncertainties as it is without a boy’s fancies dictating where we end up. We can all close our eyes, picture London and leave no doubt. But the boy is not to be trusted. The consequences are too dire to simply trust in him. You wouldn’t see reason before, when this action could have been avoided, so you’ll have to decide now instead. We’ve no time.”

  Cecil slapped Carswell’s rifle away from his face and began crawling toward the Harrison clock. “I’m stopping it,” he said. “Go ahead, shoot me instead. I dare you.”

  He hadn’t traversed the first pipe when Carswell yanked him back by his sore leg. “You’ll pay for that.” Cecil pulled himself the few feet along the secondary brass pipe until he reached Embrey. The butt of a steam-pistol peeked out from the young man’s jacket. Verity saw that Cecil had seen and gave him a quick wink.

  Yes. Everything in our power. Let them stop us if they must.

  He snatched one steam-pistol from Embrey’s belt and Verity snatched the other. Cecil spun and shot up repeatedly at Carswell, each bullet piercing his torso until the bushy-eyebrowed swine spat blood. All hell broke loose in the shadow of the machine. Verity spent most of her bullets trying to hit Kibo, but the engine man darted for cover behind old Kincaid, using him as a human shield. The elder statesman, shot through the heart, slumped lifeless.