Time’s Cruel Geometry
by Mark Onspaugh
“At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for The Time Traveler; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveler vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.”
—H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
T |
he Time Traveler saw his friend enter the laboratory and stare where the Time Machine had entered its state of flux, rendering both conveyance and passenger a spectral blur. The Time Traveler made to wave to his friend, but by the then all was growing dark and then rapidly light as the traversing of the time stream gathered momentum and day and night alternated with sickening speed.
Again he saw the laboratory disappear; leaving only the small green hill that had been its location. Other buildings and structures were built, occupied and crumbled as he sat watching, and then there was a violent shaking and he was surrounded by a cataclysmic whirlpool of swirling colors and what might be sparks or suns coming quickly to life and just as quickly dying out.
The Time Machine plunged down the center of the whirlpool, like Alice down the rabbit hole, though he suspected there were dangers and oddities to be found in the time stream never dreamt of in Wonderland.
It had been his intention to journey to the past and collect various artifacts and photos as evidence he had been there, then perhaps travel to the future to retrieve some scientific wonder, perhaps a bladeless scalpel or an apparatus that defied the laws of gravity.
The Time Traveler felt a tremendous jolt, as if the Time Machine had struck an enormous swell and then had plummeted several feet before finding its “footing” again.
Worried that something might be wrong with the delicate central mechanism, he moved to slow the Time Machine to a halt when it suddenly pitched sideways and he was thrown from the saddle. The Time Traveler struck his head on one of the brass rails and his vision blurred and filled with stars. The pain combined with the nausea peculiar to time travel made him retch, and he was glad he had foregone Mrs. Watchett’s offer of lunch before he had made this journey.
Shaking, his head pounding, The Time Traveler grabbed the saddle and hoisted himself up, careful not to misalign the controls.
The machine stopped with a lurch and he saw with mounting horror that he was sinking in one of the shallow seas that had once covered much of Britain. The base of the Time Machine gave it a temporary buoyancy, but The Time Traveler knew it would be taking on water and he would die either by drowning or as a refugee of time in this hostile place.
Water began to lap over the floor of the machine, and he worked quickly to remove the brass housing protecting the crystalline heart of the Time Machine. Though every instinct was urging him to panic, he willed himself to be calm, to proceed with deliberation and scientific detachment.
He saw now that the housing was bent, and that two of the screws had been stripped, as if someone had tried to pry off the housing and then bent it back into place.
Morlocks.
Obviously they had examined the machine while it had been in their possession, but had been unable to discern either its purpose or the manner in which it operated.
Thanking the fates the creatures had not breached its casing; The Time Traveler removed the remaining screws.
Beneath the cylindrical brass shield was an emerald, nearly fifteen centimeters in length and precision-cut into an orthorhombic dipyramidal crystal. It was this shape, combined with the high-energy potentiality of this particular variant of beryl that made time travel possible. It had taken him ten years and most of his inheritance to find and modify the emerald.
He saw now that the network of gold rods that held the emerald in place were bent, just enough that the emerald had become misaligned. It was further evidence that the Morlocks had tried to remove the crystal, their crude investigation resulting in damage to the delicate mechanisms.
The gold rods formed a sort of Chinese puzzle box, both holding the emerald in place and preventing its removal by anyone who did not possess the knowledge of the pattern of its release.
The Time Machine began to sink in the sea covering what would one day be London, and The Time Traveler’s pants became soaked with cold sea water.
With the deliberation of practice he carefully slid the rods in sequence and removed the crystal. He placed it in his coat pocket with care, not daring to think of his fate should it drop to the bottom of the primordial sea. Thinking of Weena calmed him, and he bent the damaged rods back into true, taking care not to damage either the amber lens or the obsidian mirror.
The water was up to The Time Traveler’s waist now, and the great bubbling disturbance the machine caused in sinking was attracting the attention of the large marine predators that were indigenous to the period.
A creature looking much like a cross between and crocodile and an eel leaped into the open air dolphin-like, one horrible red eye focused on him, its teeth plentiful and razor-sharp. It was a mosasaur, if his memory of paleontology was accurate. Another of the creatures was trying to gain access through the portion of the machine now submerged, but the narrower apertures available at the poles of the spherical machine denied it access. Once the mid-section was submerged, however, The Time Traveler would be at the mercy of the creature.
The machine suddenly sunk like a stone, its swift descent causing one of the charging mosasaurs to miss the Time Machine by inches. The creature was terribly fast, though, and it was circling him, looking for its most advantageous avenue of attack.
Now holding his breath, The Time Traveler reseated the emerald and slid the gold rods back into position.
As two smaller mosasaurs feinted at the Time Machine, The Traveler set the controls for his laboratory and engaged the machine.
The machine vibrated slowly, then more rapidly, inducing an unpleasant buzzing in his head and the profound nausea he had come to dread. Now that he was submerged, holding his breath in agony, the departure of the Time Machine seemed to take minutes rather than seconds. As day and night alternated with greater and greater speed, his chest burned and spasmed with a pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. The largest mosasaur was speeding toward him. It stuck its scaly head into the largest aperture and snapped at his face. The Time Traveler screamed as he threw up his hands, and felt a sharp pain in his left forearm, then the ocean and its denizens were no more.
The Time Machine again stopped with a lurch, then rolled slightly, settling into a depression atop a grassy knoll. The Time Traveler recognized the countryside immediately. He was sitting in the spot where either his laboratory had been or would be.
There was an Army issue medical bag stowed in the storage compartment, a souvenir of his grandfather’s stint as a doctor in the Crimean War. The Traveler rolled up his tattered sleeve to see the mosasaur had left two gashes in his arm, each approximately three inches long and bleeding freely.
If the machine had tarried in that primordial sea one second longer he would have lost the arm and probably bled to death before reaching his destination.
Fearing sepsis, he cleaned the wound with water and then carbolic acid, hissing through gritted teeth as it burned his skin. He then bandaged the wounds as efficiently as he could and tied them off. Exhausted from his experience, he slumped to the floor of the machine in exhaustion and caught his breath.
He knew he could not tarry, he had no idea just when he was.
After his encounter with the Morlocks, he was loathe to leave his machine unattended for any length of time. He had tried to return to his own time, but that clearly was not the case.
It was early morning, judging by the sun’s position, and he spent an anxious thirty minutes examining the emerald, its housing and the controls of the Time Machine. Nothing seemed amiss, and he concluded that the delicate workings of the device had been affected by exposure to salt water. It was reasonable to assume that cleaning the parts and drying them would allow the machine to return to its former peak efficiency.
There was a small stream just beyond the knoll, something that had existed in his time, albeit not as active or as cold as this one. He filled a canteen with water and returned to his machine.
There was a notable lack of sound here, and he realized he had not heard any birds or insects. The air was fresh and clear, but the only life seemed to be vegetation.
Examining the main panel he saw that the controls for determining the temporal destination of the machine had slipped, and that he was some fifty thousand years beyond the time of the Eloi and the Morlocks.
The seclusion of the place obviated his need for modesty, and he stripped and laid his clothes out to dry in the soft grass.
The Time Traveler then laid the components of the control panel out to dry on his coat. Having nothing to do but wait, and still feeling self-conscious about his nakedness, The Traveler sat with his back against the base of the machine and luxuriated in the sun’s warmth. As he did, he thought of Weena and how she had been lost in the fire he had set to escape the Morlocks.
It was curious. He had initially thought of her as nothing more than a child, but Weena had shown a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge that rivaled his own. He found he missed her lilting laugh, and the way her hair shone in the bright sunlight.
“Careful, old boy,’ he chided himself, “you sound like a man in love.”
But was it such a ridiculous notion? She was no child, that had been his own intellectual bigotry talking, not an honest assessment of her. He wished now he had had more time with her, even if just to hear her delight in discovering and learning new things.
She’s dead, he thought sadly.
But you have a Time Machine.
Of course! He could go back just before she was lost and rescue her.
It was obvious they couldn’t stay in her time. The Morlocks would never give them a moment’s peace. His own time was also out of the question. How would he explain her? How would she adjust to such a radically different world?
There was a mountain to the south that would give him a splendid view of the terrain. Once the machine was reassembled and hidden under some brush, he took a canteen and field glasses and made the climb.
His hike was eerily silent, with only the occasional breeze through trees or a burbling stream to break the silence. Were he not more disciplined, he might have talked to himself, just to hear something.
Climbing the peak took half a day, the way always more difficult and treacherous than it looked from the ground. Fortunately he was in excellent shape and soon stood astride a large flat rock on the summit.
As near as he could determine, this region of Britain was currently uninhabited. Further, as night drew on he saw no signs of light or campfires. He returned to the place by the river and slept fitfully, anxious to be on his way but knowing that he was in need of rest.
He knew there was no place for Weena in his world, or for either of them in hers.
But here, here they might find peace, a peace The Time Traveler realized he had been longing for. He knew what lay at both ends of time for the Earth, and now thought he might devote his days to developing some sort of ethical philosophy for the uses of his device. Once this was complete, he could present it to the Royal Academy. With the machine he could make the trip and arrive back before Weena even realized he was gone.
He made a list of supplies they would need and journeyed back to his laboratory.
It took him ten trips and the better part of a day, but he was able to bring everything he needed, including a variety of seeds and cuttings for growing vegetables, and several chickens that would supply both eggs and meat. Later, if he felt it was necessary, they might also bring in sheep and pigs.
The machine continued to act erratically at times, sometimes bringing him back smoothly, other times rematerializing with a lurch or a bone-rattling shake, as if it were a rat caught in the jaws of an enormous cat.
He checked the machine carefully, and could find nothing wrong. Later he would wish that he had brought along even a simple magnifying glass to examine the crystal.
Not that it would have mattered.
He had no record of the temporal or spatial coordinates when and where Weena had been taken by the fire. He would have to approximate both and refine his jumps through trial and error. Fortunately, his travels to the dying Earth had given him practice in quick, precise jumps.
What might happen if his past self were to witness his arrival? Might the knowledge that he would appear affect his actions in the past? Although a nested set of paradoxes might indeed result, he intuited that Time was rather like a river, with any number of tributaries issuing from the main flow. While he was on Tributary A, his past self might be shunted over to Tributary A-1, or even Tributary B. His travels had demonstrated that Time and its events seemed resilient, and that his peregrinations along its courses were no more bothersome than that of a fly amongst elephants.
By disengaging the main lens, he could move over the landscape without traveling through time. In a series of mile-long “hops” he was able to find the main dwelling-place of the Morlocks. There was no trace of either race, but he recognized a pattern of boulders that had once hidden one of their hateful hatches.
Weary, The Time Traveler rested and ate some bread and cheese he had brought with him. Fortified, he set the controls and made his first jump.
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