Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

Dr. Clef was standing in the midst of all this with his back to Alice. He seemed to be scratching something in a notebook. Click leaped down from the rim of a porthole and hurried over to her, purring loudly. Alice scooped him up. His skin was cool and smooth.

“Click,” she said. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

Dr. Clef turned and pushed his goggles up. “Alice! When did you come back, my dear? I have not seen you in weeks.”

“Weeks?” Alice stroked Click’s brass back. “Doctor, it’s been only two days.”

“Oh. Are you sure?” He glanced at the clocks. “How interesting. Did you know that gravity affects a clock?”

“Er… no.”

“Look at these.” He pointed at the ones closest to the ceiling. “They are moving at a slightly different rate than the ones down there at the floor. It gets more noticeable when I put them on top of the ship’s envelope. It is because they are farther away from Earth’s gravity.”

“They look the same to me, Dr. Clef.”

Dr. Clef shrugged. “They are not.”

“Are you trying to re-create your Impossible Cube, Doctor?” she asked.

“With difficulty.” He pointed at a small cable spool on the worktable. It was wound with fat, stiff-looking wire. “I have managed to reforge some of my special alloy using nails and other scraps from the barn, but I do not think I can re-create the Cube itself. And I do miss it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It is-was-unique in all time and space.” Dr. Clef sighed. “I am beginning to think it cannot be re-created, for that would violate the basic nature of its uniqueness. But look at what I have learned while I am trying.” He held up a notebook with a number of formulae scribbled in it. “When you measure certain events, you change them. You can, for example, discover how fast a certain piece of… of matter is moving or you can learn its location, but you can’t pin down both. It is very odd.”

“Ridiculous.” Alice waved her free hand. “There. You can see how fast my hand is moving and you can see exactly where it is.”

“Nonetheless. It is especially true for things so tiny, they cannot be seen and who move so fast, they cannot be captured.”

“Then how do you know they exist?”

“The numbers prove it,” he said, brandishing the notebook again. “It all related to my poor Impossible Cube. I miss it so. The beauty. The symmetry. The way it twisted the universe about itself. Everything about it was perfect.”

“Perhaps you can still rebuild it.”

“As I said, I am beginning to think this is not possible. Can you tell me any more about the way it was destroyed?”

Alice remembered watching Gavin holding the Impossible Cube beneath the Third Ward as he sang a single crystal note that shattered everything around him. Everything but her. Then he dropped the Cube, which fell through every color of the spectrum and vanished in a white flash the moment it touched the floor.

“Only what I’ve told you already,” she said. “Nothing new. Doctor, the way the Cube twists itself-”

“It does no such thing,” Dr. Clef interrupted, agitated. “The Cube is a constant. It twists the universe , but since we are in the universe, we think the Cube is twisted.”

“Of course, of course,” Alice reassured him, though she had no idea what he was talking about. “But I meant that it might be better if you left the Cube alone. Perhaps it isn’t meant to be re-created at all.”

An odd light came into his eyes. “Do you think so?”

“Quite.”

“Hmmm. Maybe I should leave it alone, then. Did you bring back any raspberry jam? I have not had any in quite some time.”

“Oh!” Alice jolted back to the nonscientific world. “We did bring more food, but no jam, I’m sorry to say. Gavin and Feng are down in the barn. We think we have a way to move the ship, and we’ll need your help.”

Dr. Clef rubbed his hands together. “A project! I will be pleased to take part.”

“Madam?” The door to Alice’s stateroom opened and Kemp poked his head into the corridor. “Is that you?”

“Of course it is, Kemp.”

“Thank heavens!” He bustled into the corridor. “I’ve been having a dreadful time keeping the little automatons under control, and I finally had to lock them up. We’re completely out of food, and-”

“Yes, Kemp. You’ve done an admirable job and we couldn’t have survived without you. Now, come down, both of you.”

Kemp managed to look pleased despite his lack of facial features. “Madam.”

On deck, they filed past the little generator, which had only recently been switched back on. It contentedly puffed steam and paraffin oil smoke, a shockingly daring woman smoking a cigarette. Above them, ropes creaked and the envelope’s lacy endoskeleton glowed blue, indicating that it was receiving power and lifting the hull. They all climbed down to the barn floor. At the entrance of the barn was Gavin, who had abandoned his black clothes for an ordinary work shirt, brown trousers, and a cloth cap. He looked like a handsome young farmer. With him was Nathan Storm, his own cap barely concealing his sunset hair, and a team of four horses pulling a wagon, which carried a pile of material covered in canvas.

“What’s this? What’s this?” Dr. Clef asked, and Alice made introductions. Dr. Clef clapped his hands in glee. “The circus! A perfect place to hide ourselves, then. But how will we hide the ship?”

“With this.” Gavin pulled the canvas off the wagon, revealing a pile of wheels and axles.

Dr. Clef clapped his hands again. “Of course, of course. I should have seen. Shall we work now?”

“I told you he would understand quickly,” Gavin said to Nathan, who only lit his pipe. They hauled the Lady out of the barn and tethered her a few feet above the ground so they could set to work. The endoskeleton continued to glow its lacy blue, and Alice felt nervous and exposed, like a fat rabbit on a meadow with hawks cruising overhead, but there was nothing for it.

“Alice,” Gavin said, “could you bring down your little automatons to assist? And then…”

She cocked her head. “And then what?”

“Uh… maybe you could go for a walk? Or just stay out of sight behind the barn. This shouldn’t take long.”

Her ire escalated. “Because you don’t think I’m qualified to help? How can you possibly think-”

“No, no.” He held his hands up. “I just don’t think you should see this.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her voice rose and her metal fist clenched. “I’m too ladylike, is that it?”

“Not at all.”

“Uh-oh,” Nathan said.

“So I’m not a lady, then?” Alice said.

“What? No! I just… Alice, you’ve never seen a clockworker in a full work fugue before, have you?”

“And it’s not appropriate to me because I’m a lady.” She folded her arms. “It’s foolish to give up a pair of hands because of some misguided principles. I’m helping, and the sooner we get started, the better.”

Gavin closed his eyes. “All right. Let’s get started, then.”

They had to work quickly, before they were spotted and word filtered back to Phipps, wherever she was. Alice was no slouch at mechanical work, but even she was amazed at Gavin and Dr. Clef. They both circled the pile of parts and tools for some time, studying them, with her little automatons hovering and skittering nearby. Kemp and Click also awaited orders. A blank look came over first Gavin’s eyes, then Dr. Clef’s. They dove into the parts with great glee and rushed with them toward the Lady , barking orders to the automatons as they went. Alice followed along, and was startled when Gavin thrust an axle into her hands.