Flaming Zeppelins (38 page)

“We have the Time Traveler's diary in the machine we abandoned,” John Feather said. “It might help.”

“Yes,” Mr. Wells said, “it might. The last time I saw the Time Traveler he had grown quite mad. He left, and I never saw him again. But now, Mr. Beadle, I understand what has happened to him.”

“Yeah,” John Feather said, “we fucked him over good. But he had it coming.”

“No doubt,” Mr. Wells said. “But once he was my friend. And whole. A good man. I must give him that.”

“You don't get as bad as he was without some character flaw somewhere,” Beadle said. “And I doubt it was just bad bathroom habits. Early on, he was askew. It just took stress to show his true character.”

“Perhaps, but what matters is this,” Mr. Wells said. “If we can travel the paths he made in time, reversing the energy on the machine, we can pull the corridors back together as we travel through. Tighten up the universe. Stop this collapse. I think.”

“If that is true,” Mr. Beadle said, “If it can be done, we would need a time machine to make it work. And we would have to know all the paths the Time Traveler took.”

“Right you are,” Mr. Wells said. “Remember, he was my friend. I know a lot about him. A lot I did not report in the book. As for where he went, and how to follow, a companion machine would naturally be pulled into those corridors. The idea is to follow the paths, then reverse them. Close the time tunnels off.”

“He traveled so much,” Mr. Beadle said.

“Then,” Mr. Wells said, “so will we. But not until this Martian menace is certainly defeated by our heroic microbes.”

“And how will we travel through time?” John Feather said.

“In this room, I have the plans my friend used for his machine, and I have applied them to the very structure of this room. There are still a few things to be done. Areas to be sealed. But in the very comfort of this room, these rooms, in fact, we, sirs, can travel through time.”

I wrote:

THAT IS SOME REALLY NEAT SHIT.

“Yes, Ned,” Mr. Wells said. “It is.”

A week later, living off the supplies Mr. Wells had put aside, we ventured out one day near evening. London was in flames, but there were people trying to put out some of the fires. A fire engine drawn by four huge, tired horses clunked by, wearing men hanging on the sides of it. It was somehow reassuring to see vestiges of civilization returning. Soon, I presumed fish markets would be back in business, and fish could be purchased at most any time of day. The idea of that intrigued me. Any time of day without swimming about for them. A very merry idea, indeed.

The wrecked Martian machines were everywhere.

So were a lot of people.

They had come out to finish off the few Martian survivors, beating them with bats and clubs. And they looted anything of interest they could find in the machines.

In a huge pile near Big Ben, near where Steam still stood, they had piled Martian bodies and were burning them.

We joined in, dragging the invaders to the pile.

Well, I actually watched. I wasn't suited for moving too swiftly over the streets on my belly. I rode about in my cruiser.

I wrote a lot of notes about what people should be doing.

No one gave me any mind.

Maybe it was becoming too dark to read my signs.

No one asked about me or about Rikwalk, who was carrying the stinking Martians by the armload to the pyre. They had other concerns and had become accustomed to strange things coming through the time and space rips. And it was obvious to them that Rikwalk and myself were helping dispose of the Martians.

I did see one dead dinosaur lying nearby. A long very big thing with tree trunk legs that looked something like the Brontosaurus I had seen in books, but his head was different. And he was brightly colored, like a bird. He had started to decay. It was my guess the creature had come through a rip and gotten into a battle with a Martian machine, and had lost to a death ray. Part of his chest was gone. The tip of his nose, about the size of Rikwalk's head, was rolled up against a wall and was covered in happy flies.

The body of Passepartout, or what remained of it, was pulled out of Steam, stinking and dissolving, and put on the pyre along with the invaders. It was all that could be done under the circumstances. The diary of the Time Traveler was rescued and kept by Mr. Beadle.

According to Mr. Beadle, it was lucky it had not been destroyed, as much of the machine's interior had been sabotaged and stripped of anything worthy by looters. Even Passepartout had been stripped of his shoes, jacket, and pants.

Mr. Verne said a prayer for Passepartout, and we watched his remains climb to the sky in smoke.

And that was that.

When the day was done, we made our way back to Mr. Wells' home, avoiding others lest they might want to follow us and take our food. People had worked together on this day, but there was an air of anarchy, and we did not want to be recipients of it.

It wasn't really much trouble, our going our own way without interference. We had Rikwalk with us. No one wanted to mess with him. And Mr. Verne had returned Mr. Beadle's rifle, which Mr. Beadle carried with an air of authority.

Still, we came to the street where Mr. Wells lived, and snuck into his basement cautiously. Just as I was about to drop downstairs on my cruiser, I looked up and saw a dragon fly across the face of the partial moon.

Not a good sign.

A Week Later — Ned's Journal Continued

And now I sit me down to write on the night we leave. Mr. Wells says we can move through time, and we can move through space, so we will actually change locations, not just travel through time.

That being, coming back could, I presume, result in complications.

Shit. I don't know. I am a Fez-wearing seal. Not some goddamn mathematician or scientist. I can barely boil water.

The room has been sealed and a special door has been fastened above the stairway where before there was only a large gap and a board to cover it.

The door is huge so that Rikwalk can come and go.

Out there, the world is coming apart.

We have water and food in here. Enough to last for some time. Even some canned fish, which is a good thing.

When the last bit of work is done on the machine — and this is being supervised by Mr. Verne and Mr. Wells, and the actual work is being accomplished by Mr. Beadle and John Feather — we will set asail on the seas of time.

If fate is with us, we will fix that which needs fixing.

If fate is not with us.

Then we will die trying.

Not on purpose, mind you. I mean, I'm going to try and live. Even if the world is full of harpooners and dinosaurs and pigs that fly and venomous snakes the size of Big Ben and a dragon that can fly across the face of the moon.

But you get the idea. This is heroic dime novel stuff.

And maybe you don't get the idea.

Maybe no one will read this.

That bothers me. I have used my best penmanship.

Of course, if the journal is in the machine with me, how will anyone read it?

Maybe later it will be read.

If we survive.

Even if we don't survive.

Maybe a flying pig will read it over our dead bodies. It could happen. Provided the pig can read, of course.

I really must rest.

I have been awake for way too many hours.

Ah, Mr. Verne is calling to me. They need me for some last-minute repairs. (I don't know what I can do, but I'm glad to do it.) And then, after we eat, canned fish, I hope, we're off.

I'M BACK

Damn thing wouldn't start up.

Isn't that typical. Someone crossed a wire or something.

But, hey, we haven't given up. A short break. A nap. And we'll try again.

And if there was someone out there who could wish us luck, someone who could read what I write as I write, I would want them to do that right now.

Wish us luck, I mean.

Luck is always good.

It would be nice if the machine worked, of course. That would be pretty handy, actually.

I have faith it will. And when it does, it will plunge us backward and forward through time, plugging holes like the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike. (I read that story in Doctor Momo's library long ago, and I am very proud of my reference to it. I think it is very appropriate, don't you?)

Ah, they call again. The nap is out. They are certain they have it, now.

Someone dropped a fish down there in the wall wiring, they say. They're not naming names, but they have an idea. The fish shorted out the wires. But now all is good. I hope they didn't toss the fish away.

We are going to gather in the main room, sit on the couch, the control box in Mr. Wells' lap. He will flip a switch, twist a dial, and off we will go, a chuggy-whuggy through time.

By God, it will be a great adventure.