The Time Traveller's Almanac

by Ann VanderMeer

  The Clock ticked.

  When the floor had stopped vibrating, he got up and walked across the Great Chamber. Dust rose in acrid clouds about him, making him sneeze. He urinated in the corner, lifting his nose against the sharp smells that arose from the intersection of the walls that he always used for this purpose. Then he turned and walked back past the pile of bones in the other corner, skulls like large pieces of yellow putty, twigs of ribs, half buried by dust, and made his way to the door on the far side of the Chamber, moving among the bronzed supports of the Clock mechanism as he did so. He arrived at the low arched door and turned the iron handle, pushing open the wooden slab with effort.

  The Clock ticked.

  Now he was in the Small Chamber. The room was about nine feet long by seven wide, and was lined by wooden planks. The whole of the left-hand side of the Small Chamber was covered by a mass of wheels, thousands upon thousands, interlocking in frightening complexity. He had never tried to work out their arrangement and purpose; he just knew that they were an integral part of the workings of the Great Clock. The wheels were plain-rimmed—not cogged—and were of silver metal. They varied in size from about four feet down to one inch, and were all turning at varied rates. They whirred and clicked softly as they worked. The sounds of the Clock were muffled here in the Small Chamber, with the door closed, and only the tick was still just as disturbing, as disruptive to logical thought.

  The Clock ticked.

  He watched the chains from the wheels disappearing through the myriad holes in the wooden walls at either end of the Chamber. Some of the wheels were partly obscured, with just a tiny segment of their arc appearing through the space between the ceiling and the left-hand wall. Once, he had wondered whether he saw all the wheels or whether in fact there were more, many more, stretching away upward and downward.

  The rest of the room was taken up mainly by the only compromise to his welfare, apart from the pallet in the Great Chamber. There was a wooden table and a small wooden chair. On the table were three objects, all of metal, a plate, a spoon, and a heavy goblet. At the far end of the Chamber by the cupboard set into the wall were two silver faucets. Above the faucets were two wheels of iron, to which worn wooden handles were attached.

  The Clock ticked.

  He walked across the Chamber and picked the plate off the table. He placed it on the floor below the nearer of the faucets. He stood up and began to turn the wheeled handle. A white mash poured out of the wide mouth of the faucet and slopped onto the plate. After he had turned the handle about ten complete revolutions there was a click, the handle spun free and no more mash came from the mouth. He picked up the plate and carried it back to the table, burying the spoon upright in the mash. Then he repeated the performance with the goblet and the other faucet, and filled the vessel with cold water.

  The Clock ticked.

  He settled down listlessly and began to spoon the mash into his mouth. It was completely tasteless, but he accepted it as he accepted everything else. The Clock ticked five times before he had finished his meal. He left half the mash and inverted the plate over the primitive drain in the floor. Rotting food from previous meals still remained, and at one time the stench would have appalled him.

  A short, sharp blast from the pipe informed him that it was time for his duties to start. There was a lot of work in front of him. A vague memory came into his mind of when he used to eat all the mash and still have a little time to relax quietly before starting his work. Now he toyed with his food and needed less.

  The Clock ticked and dispersed the thought.

  He walked with heavy steps over to the cupboard and opened the door. Inside were his tools. To the left was a rack of hammers for testing the wheels. They ranged in size from a tiny hammer all of metal, the head of which was about the size of the first joint of his little finger, to a giant sledgehammer with a large iron head and a thick wooden shaft, which was used for testing the Great Wheel. The trolley was just as he had left it the previous night. Everything was just as he had left it. The trolley was made of black cracked wood with iron wheels. On it was a giant drum with an opened top. A great faucet extended down from the top of the cupboard above the drum, and now the container was filled with yellow sweetly-smelling grease. Every night it was the same.

  The Clock ticked.

  On a shelf on the right was a can, below yet another, small, faucet, and the can was now filled by the dark translucent beauty of thin oil. He lifted the hammers from the rack and slowly placed them on the trolley beside the drum. He lifted down the oil can and placed that on the rack designed for the purpose.

  He grasped the pulling rail and began to heave the trolley backward out of the cupboard. His body strained with the effort. Surely, at one time it had all been easier...

  The Clock ticked.

  The trolley was finally right out of the cupboard, and he walked round it, so that he would be able to push it from the back. Before he started pushing, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to move the table out of the way. He sighed deeply and walked back to the table, folding up the legs and resting it on its side against the wall.

  “Getting old...” he muttered, “... getting old...” Those were the first words he had spoken in a long time, and his voice sounded thin and weak. He pushed the trolley through the Small Chamber, past the whirring wheels. His last duty of the day would be to oil those wheels. He realized that he had forgotten to open the door, opened it, and pushed the trolley into the Great Chamber. He stopped the trolley at the point where he always stopped it.

  The Clock ticked.

  He went up to the nearest of the wheels. It was a large wheel, about five feet in diameter. Most of the wheel could be seen clearly, unobscured by other mechanism, and the black metal was pitted, as if by age. He selected the correct hammer, a large one, weighing several pounds, and swung it into contact with the edge of the wheel. The wheel shivered, and rang like a gong. Satisfied, he placed the hammer back on the trolley, and pushed it on a little further. On he went, wheel after wheel. Some of the wheels boomed hollowly, others tinkled like tiny bells. Never had they done otherwise.

  When he came to the first supporting column, he selected the second largest hammer. The column was of a diameter of about a foot, and it was made of a golden metal, either copper or brass. Later these columns would have to be cleaned.

  The Clock ticked exactly at the moment he swung the hammer. But after the sounds had died away, the column still reverberated with a shrill brightness. Now he had come to the Fast Wheel. There was a wooden ladder set against its supports, and he picked up the oil can and began to mount the ladder.

  The Fast Wheel was different from most of the others. It was difficult to observe, owing to its rate of travel, but the lack of fuzziness at the edges indicated that it possessed no cogs. It appeared to be a double wheel, having two rims, its spokes tapering inward to the single hub. It was driven by a taut chain which was an insubstantial blur that stretched to a hole in the Anterior Wall, opposite his pallet. The ladder vibrated with the wheel’s motion, and air fanned his face strongly as he climbed upward. The wheel ran in oil, and a reservoir arched above it with two ducts that fell past its eighteen-inch radius to the hub. The hum of the wheel was almost intolerable at this closeness.

  The Clock ticked and for a couple of seconds drowned the hum of the Fast Wheel.

  He poured half the contents of the oil can into the reservoir, then quickly descended the ladder. Now there was just the Great Wheel and then four smaller cogs over the other side of the mechanism. He picked the largest hammer from the trolley and dragged it across the floor. The Great Wheel was only exposed at one point, and then only about a foot of its surface. This was about the nearest it was possible for him to get to the Anterior Wall. The Great Wheel was about a foot thick and was constructed of matt black metal; a foot from where it disappeared into the space between the floor and the Anterior Wall the other mechanism of the Clock terminated. He dragged the hammer into a conv
enient position and tensed the muscles of his arms and stomach.

  The Clock ticked.

  He swung in an imaginary back stroke, the hammer not moving, then, reaching as far back as he could and starting to swing forward, transformed the stroke into actuality by dragging the hammer along the floor toward the wheel. The head lifted just before the hammer came into contact with the black metal. It hit, and his stomach was churned by the deep vibration of the Great Wheel. Along with the almost subsonic fundamental, an upper partial screamed briefly. The sounds almost made him vomit, but he checked this and instead coughed the dust from his throat. During the time when his duties had always seemed to be much easier and quicker, and there had been time to spare, he had watched the twenty-foot Great Wheel very carefully for long periods, and had never seen it move a fraction of an inch.

  The Clock ticked as he walked away.

  He went to his trolley and plunged his hands into the drum, withdrawing two gobs of grease. He went up to the Great Wheel again and slapped the grease into the reservoir at its side. There would be more points to grease later in the day.

  Now there were just the other four cogs to test, and then it would be time to check the Meter.

  The flue pipe blew piercingly.

  Shock raced through his body, and the grunt he made was lost in the sounds of the Clock. Had he been so slow? He never remembered having a job unfinished when the time came to begin the next. He looked unbelievingly at the clock on the wall; the hand stood unquestionably at the second of the scored marks.

  For a moment he was lost; his knees trembled and his body shook. What should he do? Should he finish his job or hurry to check the Meter? Normally he liked checking the Meter; there was rarely any need to make an adjustment, the pointer always resting at the zero position. This meant that he would have at least fifteen minutes to himself. But now he was in an agony of uselessness, for the first time being faced with a decision. A thought began to bubble up through his shock, and forced itself into consciousness for a fraction of a second.

  Why?

  The Clock ticked, dissolving the thought in a torrent of sound.

  He decided to check the Meter. He could always come back and sound the remaining four wheels; it would mean losing a little of the precious spare time, but that didn’t matter.

  He wiped his greasy hands on his thighs and walked across to the Posterior Wall and the little panel behind which lay the Meter. He pulled aside the wooden panel with effort, and then groaned in dismay. The pointer stood at minus two.

  He was plunged into panic; an adjustment would have to be made. When would he have time to sound the remaining four wheels? He would have to hurry. He pulled aside the adjacent panel with trembling hands. He stepped inside the lift and began to turn the large wheeled handle. The Great Chamber was lost to view as the lift began to travel down the shaft. Little light filtered down from the Chamber, but he was able to see the joints in the wood of the shaft. Going down, he was fighting the counterweight and the work was much more difficult. He wished that he was coming up, the adjustment having been made.

  After what seemed like hours, the dim light of the Pendulum Well traveled up the open front of the lift and he stopped.

  The Clock ticked, very slightly muffled at this depth.

  He clambered out of the lift and then finally stood upright in the Pendulum Well. The Well was vast. It stretched up and up, many times his own height, and the top was marked by a light rectangle where the mouth of the Well met the lighter Great Chamber at the very front of the Clock. Cogs jutted blackly above, and the tall cylinder of the Pendulum Rod inclined itself gracefully and slowly toward one side of the Well. Once he had wondered on the unusual nature of the Escapement Mechanism. The Escapement itself appeared to be almost independent of the Pendulum, its action only being triggered by the Pendulum’s motion. The Pendulum swung freely for almost its whole arc, and the Escapement Lever only inclined at the extremes of its swing. At the top the Escapement Lever quivered, preparing for its giant pivoting movement, and its sound came to him like a clanking of great chains. The Pendulum had a wide arc, about forty-five degrees, and at the moment it was reaching the peak of its swing. The Pendulum was so vast that at this point of its swing it scarcely seemed to be moving. It was only when the Bob was whistling past his head at the bottom of its swing that he could really appreciate how fast it was moving.

  At the top of the Clock the Escapement quivered again. The Pendulum had slowed now and seemed to be poised impossibly, hanging without movement, a vast distance from him. There was a rumble and, with a screech of metal, the Escapement Lever roused itself and began to pivot its great weight. With a shattering crash, it fell heavily into its new position.

  And the Clock ticked.

  Now the Pendulum was moving back again, increasing speed second by second.

  The walls of the Pendulum Well were, like the Small Chamber, lined by planks of wood, although black. The sounds of the clock came to him here with a wooden consistency as they were reflected and diffused by the Well. On the near side of the Well, iron rungs were set into the wall, which would enable him to reach the giant bulk of the Weight. He glanced up, looking at the dark shadow that loomed overhead. He stepped forward into the path of the rapidly approaching Pendulum Bob, which would pass about a foot above his head. At the far end of the Well was another ladder which led up to a platform far above, which would enable him to meet the Bob as it rose up to the top of its swing, and from which he would step on to the Bob to carry out the adjustment.

  From its highest point, above the Escapement Mechanism, to a point about one sixth of the way down the Well, the Pendulum Rod consisted of a cylinder of shining golden metal, probably brass, with a diameter of about four feet. From there to the Bob, a distance of at least fifty feet, it was made up of a frame of several smaller tubes of various colored metals, probably some kind of temperature compensation. The Bob itself was a ten-foot lens of gray metal, tapering at the edges to knife-blade-thinness. As the Pendulum rushed through the air, eddies formed on alternate sides like the ripples running along a flag, setting the Pendulum, as it rode the turbulence, into vibration.

  And the Pendulum sang.

  A deep, clear ringing vibration filled the Well, like an organ note, but with a chiming quality. He felt the vibration through the soles of his feet as he stood there on the wooden floor. He kept his mouth slightly slack, for if his teeth touched together they would buzz unpleasantly with a higher version of the same note.

  The Bob was now rushing down upon him, and with a sudden gust of air, it was past him and away, climbing rapidly toward the peak of its swing.

  With a shock he realized that there was no time to stand here watching. There were still four wheels left unsounded. He turned and began to climb the nearer ladder. There was a catwalk leading round the Well past the Weight, and he always came this way to check on the Weight as he passed. After a long time of climbing the iron rungs he eventually arrived at the catwalk. The Weight was a vast bulk to his rear; he was fortunate that he had come down at this time, for often the Weight was further toward the floor, or too high, which necessitated painful maneuvering on the rungs.

  He turned and looked at the Weight. It was a block of black metal, about two feet deep and four feet high, and it stretched the length of the Well. It was supported by thin wire, which branched out from a single strand far up the Well and culminated in hundreds of strands spread out in an angular delta. At the top of the Weight was a complex of cogs, the largest of which was about six inches across, the smallest about half an inch, and some of them were revolving quite rapidly. The fine wire passed up and down in the complex of wheels, circling some of them. These grooved wheels turned as the wire moved round them, and the vast Weight was lowering itself, so slowly that its motion could scarcely be seen.

  The Clock ticked.

  He glanced at the Pendulum, now at the fullest extent of its swing at the far end of the Well. He would be able to get to the p
latform in one-and-a-half strokes, by which time the Bob would be in the correct position for him to mount it. He began to move along the catwalk, his bare feet pattering on the wooden planks. There was no safety rail and he kept close to the wall, as he was now about twenty feet from the floor. As the Pendulum overtook him on its way back, the Bob dropped to far below his level, and then began to climb past him.

  The Clock ticked before he reached the corner of the Well.

  Past the corner he went, and he walked across the width of the Well, a distance of only about thirty feet. The platform projected out from the wall, and he stood out on it, waiting for the Bob to arrive. There was a long, thin chain hanging beside him, that stretched up into the mechanism of the Escapement. He guessed that his weight was computed by the strain on the platform, and pulling the iron ring at the end of the chain caused some kind of weight compensation to be applied to the Pendulum, so that his weight on the Pendulum for one whole swing had no effect on the accuracy of the Clock. The Bob was now at the bottom of its return swing and was rising, apparently slowly, toward him. Mounting the Pendulum was a difficult feat, one that had caused him trouble in the early days. The early days? He dismissed the distracting thought: he must concentrate on mounting the Pendulum. The difficulty was in the apparent motion of the Bob. When one stood in the center of the Well at the bottom, at the higher points of its swing the Pendulum scarcely seemed to be moving, while at its center its true speed could be appreciated. Here, at the high point of its swing, the opposite illusion occurred, but was made more complex by the fact that the Pendulum did actually slow at this point of its arc.

  The apparent speed of the Bob was increasing rapidly as it approached him. His muscles tensed as its bulk loomed up toward him. He slipped his hand into the iron ring, and pulled the chain downward. Then, as the Bob was almost on him it suddenly appeared to slow. Now he could see the corresponding platform that jutted out from the Bob. He watched the platform and nothing else. The edges of the two platforms came smoothly together. There was a pause. He stepped swiftly across on to the other surface. There was a brass rail on the inside of the platform with a strap looped from it. With fumbling fingers he hurriedly buckled the strap about his waist and pulled it tight, just as the Pendulum began to move downward.