1894

8. The Time Machine

The two guards at the castle gate stood at attention as our carriage rattled past. A moment later we were at a side entrance of the main residence building and on our way up into the castle.

I stole a glance at my watch: it was just a few minutes before noon. Where had the time gone? I thought of Jane. She would soon be having a bit of lunch. I wished I could be with her!

We walked into a gloomy high-ceilinged hallway, then toward a double door guarded by a sergeant in blue palace livery. The non-com snapped to attention and saluted as we approached. The major returned the salute. “At ease, sergeant. Mr. Wells, meet Sergeant Roper.”

“Sir!” snapped the sergeant.

“Sergeant Roper has the responsibility of guarding these rooms,” said the major.

Meaning (I translated), we can work without interruption.

We went on inside.

“This is the prince’s bedroom, two single beds, some chairs, a table,” said Banning. “That door over there leads to his study. Everything here is pretty much the same as when he died.”

“But he didn’t die here, not in this room?”

“That’s true. He was ill here, in that bed, for three weeks. At the very last, though, he was moved to the Blue Room, and he died there.”

“December 1, 1861.”

“That’s correct. Come, let’s go into his study.”

Within the study, off to one side where it could not easily be seen from the bedroom, stood something about the size of a large chair, and covered by a white canvas tarpaulin. I knew what it was. I walked over and gingerly pulled the coverlet off.

With blended awe, reverence, and curiosity, I inspected the Time Machine.

The major watched me in silence for a moment, then he said, “With a couple of minor modifications we have followed fairly faithfully the description in your patent.”

Modifications? I wondered. No changes were immediately apparent. So far as I could see they had done a fine job. The saddle was placed properly over the battery compartment, slightly off-center, as required, and fronting the console, with two time dials; the whole being constructed within a framework of glittering brass rails.

The core of the system, the thing that actually altered the four dimensions enclosing the machine, was presumably positioned in place under the dial console. The access panels had already been folded out for my inspection. I knelt down and began checking the internals. Primarily I was looking for the crystal that had to be there for the machine to work—a great blue sapphire.

I stared. The gem-receptacle was there, all right. But it was empty.

My feelings at that instant were impossible to describe. I felt acute disappointment. I felt anger. 1 felt relief. At least I would not be arrested and/ or shot in 1861 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My feelings coalesced into a question mark. I twisted my neck and looked up at Banning.

He was in the act of taking something from his black satchel. “Is this what you’re looking for?” He held up a sizeable piece of jewelry, a brooch: an outsize sapphire. He was grinning.

I took it from him without a word. It was difficult to be angry at this man. A close inspection satisfied me that the jewel would not have to be removed from the setting in order to mount it in the machine. I leaned back into the core compartment and clipped the brooch into its mountings. Then I closed the panel doors carefully and got to my feet.

Banning watched me in silence.

I studied the two time dials in the console. “These are your ‘minor modifications’?”

“Yes. In your patent you call for four time dials: days, thousand days, million, and billion. As you see, this machine has only two dials, one for days, the other for thousands of days. For the Project you should need only these two.”

“I see two marks on the thousand-day dial,” I said. “I assume the first is set for early November, 1861?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, November first.”

“And the other mark brings me back here, to 1894?”

“Right again.”

I held up a hand. I had to think about this. The time of return was critical. I pulled my watch from my waistcoat. It was high noon. Suppose I return today, but at 11 A.M.? I haven’t left yet. In fact, at that hour the train is pulling out of Paddington Station. Then, how about returning at 12 noon? That doesn’t work either. Wells, returning from 1861, meets me, Wells leaving for 1861. Do we exchange nods in silence? Do we speak? Does the returning Wells say to me, you had better go on, else I can’t return as me? And how might I reply? I might well say, indeed, old chap, since you’re here, it’s clear I’ve already been there. So there’s no need now for me to go. In fact, if I went, you and I might be caught in an iterative time oscillation that would never end.

I scowled and shook my head in an attempt to bring order out of the time-paradoxes. This seemed to amuse Banning. I realized then that he had already considered the problem.

“The time forward dial is set for one a.m. tomorrow morning,” he said. “You’ll return twelve hours after you leave. That gives you plenty of clearance. You won’t meet yourself en route at any point. It’ll be nighttime, but that should not be a problem. I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

I breathed a long sigh. “All right.” I examined the time forward dial again. “What happens if I accidentally overshoot the one A.M. exit?”

“Just use the reverse time lever and come back to the proper moment.”

“But what’s this red mark, one at the far edge of the dial?”

Banning winced. “Sort of a contingency exit, in case things get totally fouled up. Can’t think of any reason why you might need it. Anyhow, it brings you out about one hundred years from today—into the closing years of the twentieth century.”

Something to keep in mind. I pointed to the threaded studs on the console. “You have the control levers?”

Banning pulled them from his leather case. “We know they thread on properly. However, they have not been used to actually operate the machine.” He handed them over, and I got into the saddle and screwed the handles onto the studs. The one on the right should take the traveler forward in time, the other into the past.

“The vaccine?” I said.

The major pulled the third and final item from his black bag: the little vaccine box. He handed it over to me, and I pushed it carefully into an inner jacket pocket. He checked his watch. “Five minutes after twelve. Remember, be back here at one A.M. tomorrow. Good luck, Wells.” We shook hands. There was no expression at all on his face.

It was time to go.

How had I let this happen to me?

I ground my teeth, grabbed the back-time lever… I think the major said something… as he saluted… and vanished.

I was falling, and whirling around and around in some sort of time-swept vortex. I screamed, but of course no one heard, and even if they had, they could have done nothing for me. I was certain that I was going to crash into something, that every bone in my body would be broken, that I would conclude my twenty-eight years as an unrecognizable bloody pulp. For the first time I had intimations that Isabel, my first wife, was right: I should not have tried to rise above my station. I should never have gone into science, and writing. I should have remained a draper’s assistant. But then I thought, no. Never. Death first.

I found myself gasping and sweating and still sitting in the saddle of the Machine, and still in the prince’s study in Windsor castle.

The room was well lighted. At least I had arrived in daylight. Shakily, I got out of the Machine and looked about the little room. It differed but little from the room I had just left. It seemed to have the same furniture, the same bookshelves, even the same books. She had left everything the way it was when he had died. The only functional difference seemed to be the lamp over the study desk. Here, in 1861, it was the new brilliant Welsbach gas-mantle. In 1894 it had been the new electric light bulb (which, in my humble opinion, gave somewhat less light). Progress.

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the far side of the desk. I glanced at the dial. Ten fifteen, A.M., of course. Beside the clock lay a newspaper. I tiptoed over and looked at the date: November 1, 1861. So far so good.

It was time to get down to business. I unscrewed the two drive levers and put them in my jacket pocket next to the syringe case. I took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and peeked around the half-open study door and into the prince’s bedroom.

He was lying on his bed against a bulwark of pillows. His head was canted to one side and his eyes were closed.

I studied him for a moment. Could this be Prince Albert? His portraits showed him as tall, erect, chin lifted proudly, hand on sword pommel. What I saw here was as shrunken wreck, a near cadaver, a creature with hollow ivory-coloured cheeks. The nose, formerly merely aquiline, was now blade-like from emaciation. The wispy hair was in disarray. His once bountiful beard that looped under his chin was gone, presumably shaved off to facilitate bedside care. The room gave off a sickly sweet perfume: the odor of terminal illness, the smell of death.

My first thought was, the vaccine is too late.

I took a step forward. Even under the thick carpet the floor boards creaked.

The sick man opened his eyes and looked at me.