Prehistoric Clock (11 page)

Still the predator didn’t move. Embrey ducked under Verity’s hose as it pulled tight across him. She was at the end of its tether. Had she reached the clock mechanism in time? Indeed, could she even see it?

Another flare blazed inside the forest, near the dinosaur’s hind paddle.
Please know what you’re doing, Verity.
She tossed it away from the monster.

Before it landed, the lake burst to life. Dozens of large coin-shaped fish, each almost ten feet long, wrenched the stalks apart, barely avoiding Verity’s taut hose. Embrey kept low but found himself wheeling backward in the wake of a stupendous current.

The leviathan shot out after the coin fish and vanished.

He pressed his hand to the iron weight over his heart. “Verity, where are you? What have you done?” A part of him knew it hadn’t been an accident—she had to have tossed the flare deliberately at the fish, to incite this chase—but it was no less reckless, and he would give her a piece of his mind when they returned to the bell. “Whatever happens, follow my lead”, she’d told him.
Bloody stupid.

He took her advice and guided himself using her line. She almost bumped into him carrying Reardon’s kaleidoscope, her blasé wink reminding him that while he was out of his depth, Verity Champlain most assuredly wasn’t.

Thank you, God, on all counts.

To his surprise, she tugged him back into the forest and bade him follow her to a small glade where the latest flare had landed. She lit another.

As it fell, a flat rectangular shape glimmered on the jagged rock. Overgrown and a little discoloured, it appeared to be made of…but no, that was impossible.

He looked at Verity. She gazed back with no answer. But there
had
to be an answer.

Where the deuce had a metal panel that big come from?

“Another six! Luck smiles on me today.” Reardon moved his counter up the Snakes and Ladders board, barely missing the head of a big serpent that would have taken him back to square one.

“Bloody rigged, I reckon,” groaned Billy—the poor lad hadn’t reached past the second row. He rolled a two, which got him nowhere. “So how’s about your machine, Cecil?”

“What’s that? You want to know how my machine’s doing?” Cecil had grown extremely fond of the boy, but sometimes his regional brogue was hard to decipher, especially for a man who’d never even visited northern England.

“Yeah. I mean apart from t’ missin’ piece, have you figured it out yet? Why it brung us so far from ’ome. ’Ave you fixed it?”

“Bugg…darn it.” Cecil’s three landed him on the next snake head and sent him four rows down to Billy’s level. “Oh, not yet. There’s still something I can’t quite get my head around.”

“’Ave you told it to Garrett? ’E’s a right good ’un wi’ knowin’ what to do in a tricky spot. I reckon there’s no one like ’im.” The lad’s eyes glazed and he looked down, trying to blink the dampness away. Cecil’s urge to take Billy in his arms and reassure him that he had nothing to worry about triggered a sore memory. His own son’s tendency to cry when he’d been very young had led to the lad being picked on at school, and Cecil had raised hell with the headmaster when nothing had been done about the bullying. A sharp echo of that livid quarrel made him wince. Billy needed a father figure, someone to look up to. And he had chosen an excellent role model.

“Indeed. Lord Embrey’s a rare fellow. I daresay he’s the best of us in a tricky spot. But I’m afraid he hasn’t solved our problem yet. Nor has Captain Champlain. It’s something beyond our understanding…for the time being.”

“My mam always said lookin’ for t’ simplest answer first were usually t’ best way. She said my dad were always makin’ things complicated when they weren’t really.” The boy’s next throw landed him at the foot of a ladder, taking him up five rows.

“That’s good advice. Your mother was wise.”

“Yeah.” Billy sniffled, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. His amusingly sheepish expression suggested he’d often been chided for not using a handkerchief. “My mam taught piano.”

Taught—past tense.
Cecil handed the lad his own handkerchief. “That notion of the simplest explanation is a big one in science, Billy. It’s often the most straightforward connection that…we miss…”

“Eh? What’s the matter? Cecil? It’s your go.”

Straightforward connection…simplest explanation…

The boy tugged at his waistcoat and stared at him as though he wasn’t sure Cecil was still breathing.

“Billy, can I ask you something important?”

“I reckon.”

“It’s about your book.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

Let me get this straight in my mind. 1908…the storm…the ice cream vehicle on the embankment…

“Billy, what were you thinking about when the time jump occurred? At that
precise
moment when the storm vanished and sunlight appeared.”

Retrieving his book from the deck behind him, Billy opened to a double-page illustration depicting several dinosaurs in their natural habitat. The coloured pencil sketch was well-drawn but the backdrop appeared somewhat tropical and idealized.

“It were this picture. I were frightened by all t’ chasin’, an’ I went an’ hid in my dad’s coat. All them bright lights from t’ factory made me think of that comet—you know, that big ’un that killed all t’ dinosaurs off. That were t’ last thing I thought about.”

“The dinosaurs?”

“Yeah, I reckon.”

Could that be the answer? As far-fetched as it sounded, it was frankly the
only
theory he’d come across even remotely linking 1908 with the Cretaceous Period. And with the advent of the perfect spider web in his factory, this metaphysical can of worms had already been flung open. But what actually, physically linked the two phenomena? Somehow, a boy’s imaginings had veered the most advanced machine ever created millions of years off course?

How in the name of—

“So you think I were to blame for all this?” Billy’s inscrutable stare bored deeper and deeper into Cecil’s flimsy reasoning.

“Not at all, lad. Of course not.” He could never let the boy think that. And this grave line of questioning had lasted long enough. “It’s one of a hundred theories I’ve had that doesn’t hold up. There’s no scientific basis…any more than there is for why your sarsaparilla tastes better here in the time of the dinosaurs than it ever did back home.”

“Yeah. I always liked that an’ all. Garrett said it were good too.
I say.
” Billy’s imitation of Embrey’s posh accent was spot on. The deck rocked a little as Cecil laughed. Commotion among the crew at the stern lasted only a moment and then all went silent. A second shimmy sent Kibo dashing across the quarterdeck, and a faint splash in the distance drew telescopes from pockets. But no one appeared unduly alarmed.

“All right, here we go…” Cecil blew into his fist as he shook the die, “…no more snakes for me. From now on, I’m the snake
charmer.
” He rolled a five and climbed another ladder to dizzy heights.

Billy folded his arms and pouted. “See, I told yer it were bloody rigged.”

Their bubbles columned into the bell’s fading light. Verity tugged hard on her lifeline, signalling she was ready for Djimon to hoist her back up. Still no response. She’d already yanked the line over a dozen times to no avail. But now, with darkness smothering the lake bed, Embrey sensed things were getting desperate.

Where the hell are you, Djimon?

She lit another flare and he breathed easier. Though the bell hung a mere several fathoms above them, it might as well be a nautical mile because the weight of their deep sea diving suits anchored them to the bottom. He anticipated her next gesture—to cast off their weights and swim up—as quickly as he feared it. The pressure at this depth was considerable, and without helmets, they would have to exhale as they ascended slowly, to avoid gases building up in the bloodstream. If they didn’t, a potential air embolism might prove fatal.

He shut his eyes and tried to remain calm.

Verity jabbed his shoulder to get his attention. Her harsh gaze yanked him back to immediate obedience. She mimed what she was about to do and then raised her eyebrows, as if to ask, do you understand?

Embrey gave an emphatic nod.

Oh, God, please let this work.

First, he clumsily unbuckled his heavy boots. Verity then sliced his ballast weights free with her knife. Finally, he took a deep breath and she unfastened and lifted his helmet. The flood of icy water seized his skull. She pointed up. He began kicking and clawing his way to the bell as though it was the last pocket of life anywhere in existence. He exhaled a few bubbles after every few strokes. The fog of spores and plankton made him think he was lost in a giant pea soup. Progress seemed glacial until he spied a not-quite-circular shape in the gloom. Lines dangled from it like distended veins. One last spurt brought him to within arm’s reach. He gripped the rim and his momentum lifted him into the bell with surprising grace.

The first thing he noticed in the dim light was a dark stain on the metal floor.
God help us. Has Djimon—

“Here! Take it!”

While coughing his guts up, he took the kaleidoscope from Verity and then helped her climb in and somehow wrapped her in a blanket. She wound the dynamo handle until all the lights blazed on. Shaking uncontrollably, she spied the pool of blood. The rim of the moon pool, too, had buckled. Something large and powerful had to have broken through, snatching poor Djimon.

She collapsed onto the floor and stared at the damaged brass rim.

“I’m sorry, Verity.”

She brushed his hand away. They sat in stunned silence. The gentle echo-popping sounds of droplets on lapping water, the whir of the dynamo, and Verity’s quiet sniffles conspired to deafen his thoughts. Finally he rose to his knees. “Okay, we did what we set out to do, so where do we go from here?”

“To hell, I hope.”

“All right, but
then
where?”

“Remind me to kill that pompous bastard when we make it back.” She thumped the copper wall.

“Who? Reardon?” No reply. “Granted, but how—”

“How the buggery did you
think
we were going to get back?” Verity’s shout pierced his already aching ears. “For God’s sake, get out of my way.” She pushed him aside and snatched up what looked like a hollow telephone receiver on the end of a hose. She spoke into it, waited for a reply.

“And they’ll haul us up?”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “Shut up and don’t speak to me again.”

Embrey waited until her face was downturned and then flicked her a mocking salute. He drank a few cupped handfuls of fresh water from the moon pool. It tasted crisp, marvellous.

Then he recoiled, remembering what swam down there, and what might appear again at any moment…

Over twenty minutes later, with no reply from the
Empress,
Verity leapt up and turned her back to him. “Help me off with this thing.”

Words he’d give anything to hear under any other circumstance.

“We’re swimming the rest of the way?” he asked.

“No choice, I’m afraid.”

The chilling finality hit him. Something
had
happened on the surface, and if it worried someone like Verity… “We could wait a bit longer, see if they—”

“No. We’ve waited long enough,” she said.

“But what if it’s just a problem with the communication cable? Say something bit through it. They’ll hoist us up after a set time has elapsed without word, surely.”

Verity’s dripping hair appeared almost gunmetal brown in the dimming light. “Yes, and that time has elapsed.” She wound the dynamo once more. “The auxiliary diver checks in every five minutes. After fifteen without contact, the deck crew automatically begins hoisting. Trust me, Embrey, we are on our own. Whatever happened to Djimon may have happened to the
Empress
as well. Now get this thing off me.”

He obeyed, but the thought of finding an empty deck—he’d left Billy and Reardon up there, for Christ’s sake—turned his stomach. Even the sight of Verity in her underwear served only to remind him of how vulnerable they were and how much he needed this ordeal to be over. He wasn’t Garrett Embrey right now—he was simply another creature in the primordial soup, snatching at survival. Nothing else mattered.

She helped him out of his clingy suit and they both peered into the moon pool.

“Remember to exhale steadily all the way up.” Her words were soft, distracted.

“I will.”

“I’ll take the clock part.”

“No, the strongest swimmer should carry it.”

Verity blinked at him, her pink-and-white face elfin and beautiful. “Embrey, I do this for a living.”

“But I haven’t done a damn thing to help on this dive. At least let me take this risk for you.” He picked up the kaleidoscope and slid into the water, gauging her reaction.

Verity shook her head slowly.

He sighed, then handed her the clock part. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

“Crazy fool. You’d never have made it like that anyway.” She cut a length of rope, tied one end to the gadget and the other to her ankle.

“Ah.”

She gently splashed his face. “Don’t look back,
omafimbo odula.
Whatever happens, kick until you taste home. I’ll be with you all the way.”

“Promise?”

After her quick nod, he took three deep breaths and submerged. He kicked away from the bell, confident that he could swim the breadth of an ocean if Verity were beside him. He climbed with a muscular stroke, never doubting, never looking back. The cream umbilical cable stretched forever upward. Lighter hues flickered above him like an emerald stampede on a glass ceiling.

He finally surfaced, gasping for his life on the starboard side of the
Empress.
Verity sprang up beside him, equally spent. But no one greeted them from the open hatches across the bulwark or through the porthole windows.

“Remember, we’ve surfaced far too quickly after such a long dive,” she said. “It’s dangerous. If you should start to feel sickly, use the oxygen canister or drink plenty of—Look! The bow!” She pointed him to a dent in the iron plane, then to several harpoons floating near the stern, still attached to their lines. “They’ve been attacked all right.
Ahoy! Kibo! Anyone aboard?
”