Robert Appleton - Prehistoric Clock

“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.

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.”