Authors: Karl Alexander

Time After Time (4 page)

BOOK: Time After Time

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“Anatomy.”

“Can you picture the face, stature and mannerisms of your professor?”

“Certainly.”

“Can you close your eyes and see the drawings and charts of the human body?”

“Definitely.”

“Can you recall the first cadaver your class dissected?”

“What are you getting at, Wells? Of course I can! My memory's as good as anyone's!”

“Then your mind has just traveled through time. Fait accompli.” H.G. smiled, then administered the coup de grace. “And if your mind can do that, why not the rest of you?”

The guests murmured to each other.

Stephenson was on his feet exclaiming, “It's against reason, Wells!”

“Perhaps. But so is defying gravity. You do know that more than one man has risen over five thousand feet above the earth's surface in a balloon, don't you?”

Stephenson started to speak, then sagged and thought furiously. Ten years ago, who would have thought of an electric light bulb? Or a talking machine? One hundred years ago, who would have thought of a camera? Or a gramophone? Technology did appear to be developing faster and faster. Maybe Wells was right about a Utopian future with a contented population. His theories seemed sound.

Smythe had the floor, and as he spoke he gestured triumphantly. “Doesn't this all sound suspiciously familiar? Much like a collection of absurdities Wells published in the Journal five years ago?” He turned and addressed H.G. “What did you title that piece?”

“âThe Chronic Argonauts.'”

“Oh, yes.” Smythe continued. “Wasn't it about a young man who traveled through time encountering great civilizations in the future? What a lot of simplistic rubbish that is! Give up this thinking about a time machine, Wells. It's a waste of time, and it doesn't suit you.”

H.G. cleared his throat and smiled smugly. “I haven't just thought about a time machine, gentlemen, I have constructed one.”

The uproar of voices from downstairs awakened Mrs. Nelson. She listened for a moment and could hear Wells's muffled tones and then another uproar. She looked at her clock on the bedside table: 5:15 A.M. She frowned. The man has no sense at all, she thought. No sense and no breeding, despite his educated ways. Him and his cronies will have half the neighborhood up before long. If Mr. Wells didn't have the consideration to tell his guests when to leave, then she would tell them herself. She got out of bed and donned a robe over her blue nightdress.

As she started downstairs, she shook her head. She just didn't understand the man. He could be so nice and thoughtful, so kind and generous, then turn right around and spout his radical and blasphemous ideas until all hours of the morning. No doubt the former qualities could be attributed to the guiding hand of Mr. Wells's mother, who kept the family together, Mrs. Nelson thought. The latter were undeniably part and parcel of his irresponsible father, who was always away playing in semiprofessional cricket matches. Not to mention the schooling that planted the spurious seeds of Darwinism, socialism and other irreligious notions in poor Mr. Wells's impressionable mind. She sighed. Perhaps some day soon she could
induce the vicar to drop in for some tea; he might be able to talk some sense into the young man.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard sharp knocking on the front door. Who could that be at this hour? If there were more of Wells's scruffy friends about, she'd send them packing soon enough. She yanked open the door. The fog had lifted, and she had to shield her eyes from the rising sun.

“Mr. Wells is not receiving any more guests this evening, gentlemen,” she said haughtily to two hard-looking but sheepish men. They removed their hats and straightened their ill-fitting suits. She was about to slam the door in their faces when one of them flashed a badge.

“Morning, mum. I'm Inspector Adams. Scotland Yard. I apologize for the hour, but is the man of the house about?”

After Wells had made his announcement, the guests had leaped up and begun bombarding him with questions, the most vociferous being Stephenson. H.G. had never seen the man so excited. His shouting went beyond the bounds of decorous behavior. Wells imagined that Stephenson was acting very much like a converted disciple to Catholicism. And why not? The time machine would nullify death and, he mused, hopefully the existence of God, too.

When his guests had calmed themselves, H.G. endeavored to explain. He kept his account as simple as possible, realizing that he had been studying and testing the concepts of time and fourth-dimensional geometry for years. His friends hadn't, and he wanted to convince them irrevocably.

“Gentlemen. Atoms rotate through the solar system just as the solar system rotates through the universe. The universe also turns while it travels at the speed of light through space.

“What I have discovered is that both the past and the future exist
permanently in our universe, but our consciousness sees only ânow' because it has been conditioned to do soâperhaps by nature's dictatorial need to maintain order.

“Time planes, or spheres, are adjacent to the one we now find ourselves in, and they function according to the laws of the Gaussian coordinates. In other words, our particular time dimension is merely an electromagnetic field. Swirl, if you will.

“What I have done is constructed a machine which juxtaposes fields of energy, creating friction. The result is an ever-increasing and magnifying series of chain reactions which lift, or literally rotate, the machine out of one time sphere and into another. Acceleration will keep the machine and its occupant above all time spheres in a conscious but vaporized state. You may go into the past or the future at will.”

“How do you know which is which?” asked Grinnell.

“If you rotate to the west, you gain yesterdays. To the east, you accumulate tomorrows.” H.G. drained his glass of claret and poured more.

“And if you go north, you'll find Scotland, and south, you'll end up in the Thames,” remarked Smythe sarcastically. “I say balderdash!”

“Quiet!” snapped Stephenson. He turned to face H.G., his eyes wide and glistening. “Does the device work, Wells?”

“Theoretically. I have not tested it yet because I have been concerned with the re-entry problem. Although this morning I installed what I term the Interstices Vaporizing Regulator. Hopefully, it will automatically keep passengers above the time spheres if it detects danger.”

“What danger?”

“Well, you wouldn't want to stop off in the middle of a pestilence or a war.”

“Doesn't the time machine stay where it is?” queried Grinnell perceptively.

“Of course it does, but in a thousand years England may have sunk, and this house may be on the bottom of the Atlantic. In such a case the IVR would sound a warning, take over the controls and guide the passenger to the nearest safe landing date.” He paused. “In addition to the IVR, the machine has another safety feature. The Rotation Reversal Lock. This device automatically returns the machine to its starting date after the completion of a voyage unless overridden.” He did not show them the special key which would shut off the RRL.

“But why would you want the damned thing to return?” asked Stephenson.

“What if you were injured during flight and incapable of fending for yourself? Wouldn't you want the time machine to take you back home?”

“You mentioned that the machine stays where it is during a trip,” commented Grinnell. “I'm not sure I understand. Could you explain how that is possible?”

H.G. smiled. “It moves only along the fourth dimension. It always occupies the same space, but if it is not in today's space, then you may find it in yesterday's space or tomorrow's.”

“Then it does indeed disappear?”

“Of course. For the duration of a particular jaunt through time.”

The guests murmured.

“In a fortnight I shall want you all present for the maiden voyage.”

Suddenly, Smythe was on his feet again. “The maiden voyage? Come off it, Wells!” He laughed derisively. “If you persist in these discourses, the only trip you'll be taking is to Bedlam!”

“Hear, hear!” Preston concurred, nodding his head and clapping his hands.

But before H.G. could reply, Mrs. Nelson opened the hall door and stuck her head into the room.

H.G. turned. “Yes, Mrs. Nelson, what is it?”

“Scotland Yard is at the door, Mr. Wells.”

“What the devil?” H.G. exclaimed with surprise. Then he briefly faced his guests. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen.”

As soon as he had left the room, his guests were out of their seats, talking excitedly and moving spasmodically around the room.

Stephenson quickly started for the door that led to the kitchen. Before he arrived there Smythe intercepted him with the air of a foreign minister who is bewildered over the sudden defection of a staunch ally.

“John!”

Stephenson turned.

“You haven't taken Wells seriously, have you?”

The surgeon frowned impatiently at the distraught economist. “If I have?”

“Well, I'm beginning to think that he's gone stark, raving mad.”

“Wells is no more insane than you or I.”

“But surely you don't believe a time machine possible!”

“Of course I do.” He smiled thinly. “Is not necessity the mother of invention?”

Smythe took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. He put his spectacles back on, raised one finger and was about to ask a question. But he never uttered the words.

Stephenson was gone.

At the front door beside Mrs. Nelson, H.G. listened impatiently to the detectives as they wearily and methodically explained the nature of their visit. He was reminded of his brief and unpleasant tenure as a drapery apprentice when the foreman was spelling out why he had to account for every minute of his time during the day.

When Adams was finished, H.G. replied with unusual venom, for he detested the presence of a unilateral authority. “That is absolutely ridiculous, Inspector! I am not in the business of murder, and I do not entertain those who are!”

“A suspect was seen in the neighborhood, sir.”

“Well, then look for him in the neighborhood!”

“Our instructions are to have a look inside every house in Mornington-Crescent. Even yours, Mr. Wells.”

“My good man, I have guests!”

“And I have a warrant,” Adams replied sternly, then held up a writ signed by the sleepy clerk of Regent's Court just a few hours ago. He gestured to his companion. “Come along, Duggan, let's get on with it.” He entered the house and went upstairs, alert for whomever he might suddenly confront.

Duggan was so large that he had to stoop under the doorframe to get inside. And when H.G. started back for the library, he found himself restrained by one huge hand. Then Duggan gently turned the much smaller man around, expertly searched him, straightened up and smiled.

“Shall I do the others here, too, sir?”

H.G. turned on his heel and strode into the library, where his friends waited. They were quiet now, having overheard the detectives, and they all watched H.G. as he tried to find words that would make him appear dignified instead of humiliated. The only thing that came to his mind was to speak quietly.

He repeated what Inspector Adams had told him, then politely asked his friends to leave.

“You must understand that this comes as a great embarrassment to me, personally,” he said, his hands strangely clasped behind his back. “Furthermore,” whispered H.G., “I implore all of you to keep this evening's remarkable revelations to yourselves. I must test the device before its existence is made known to the world.”

The guests murmuredâsome speculative, some serious. But they left the library agreed that no outside words would be uttered about H. G. Wells's claim that he had constructed an operational time machine.

And so they queued up at the front door, where Mrs. Nelson delicately (the police had humbled her considerably) handed the guests their coats and hats. Then Duggan spread their legs and searched them one by one. As only true British gentlemen could, they totally ignored the detective and accepted the frisk as if it were just another part of the evening. After all, what was a mere murder and a trifling personal indignity compared to a time machine?

When they all had left, H.G. felt more sad than angry. For months he had dreamed of announcing his discovery to a smallâif not critical and influentialâcircle of friends. Who would have thought that the police would interrupt such a gathering? He shrugged with resignation, which was far from his usual militant stance. He could only thank God that at least they had come at the end of the evening as opposed to the beginning or middle.

In the library, he poured himself the last of the claret, then sat in his favorite chair close to the fire. He stretched his legs out and stifled a yawn. It felt good to relax after standing and talking all night. His mind drifted, but before he could think of something pleasant, Mrs. Nelson came into the room. She carried a tray that held a pot covered with a cozy, milk, sugar and a cup. When she saw him still drinking wine she frowned.

“I thought you might want some tea while you waited for the police to finish.”

He started to reply, but heard noises from upstairs. Adams and Duggan were now going through his bedroom. He scowled.

“Damn them! Do you think they'd be here if I hadn't published those articles on free love?”

“We're not the only household they're having a look in, sir.” She set the tray down on the table with a bang. Free love, indeed!

“I wonder.” He took a sip of wine, then smiled at her. He played with the ends of his mustacheâa sign that he was about to say something at which Mrs. Nelson would take offense. “The next time you go to church, pray for a socialist state, will you?”

Before Mrs. Nelson could tell Wells in no uncertain terms that his salvation was in serious question, Inspector Adams appeared in the doorway, hat sarcastically in hand. He raised his eyebrows slightly.

“We're sorry to have disturbed you, sir.”

H.G. slowly rose from the chair, took a deep breath and straightened to his full five feet seven inches. “You've more than disturbed me, Inspector, you've desecrated my fundamental human rights!”

“We'll be going, then.” Adams executed a slight bow and headed for the hallway.

“Just what the devil did you expect to find, Inspector?”

Adams turned and replied, “Jack the Ripper.”

BOOK: Time After Time

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