by Jean Rabe
“Just think what I can accomplish without all those silly restrictions,” Thomas said in celebration of their victory. “Think of the possibilities!”
“More noise and smoke?” she asked with a chuckle.
Thomas invited members of the party and other like-minded thinkers home.As they gathered with their cigars and brandy in the parlor, Alva retired to the kitchen to sit by the fireplace and warm her crippled hands. Sometimes she listened in and marveled at the unbelievable topics these men of science discussed: flying machines, home-contained power, and old favorites like Thomas’ wickless lights. It amazed, and at the same time, frightened her. Where would such thoughts lead?
It was after one such late-night meeting that Thomas, fired up from goodwill and a few too many glasses of good wine, went back downstairs to, as he put it, “fiddle some more.”
The jolt an hour later shook Alva from under the covers and threw her half out of bed. She hurriedly slipped into a quilted wrapper, shoved her feet into slippers, and rushed downstairs, for once paying no mind to the shooting pains in her fingers.
Dark clouds billowed from behind the open cellar door. “Thomas? Are you all right?”
Fear gnawed at her like an undiscovered cancer. She grabbed the rail and pushed through the dark plumes of smoke, carefully going down each step like it were made of glass. “Thomas?”
She screamed at the chaos before her. Dark blotches, looking like those newfangled Rorschach blots, she thought, covered the walls. The air stunk of spilled chemicals and sulfur. She sniffled, pulled herself to her feet, and approached the ragged remains of the giant wood worktable.
A moan at the other end of the room grabbed her attention. She found her brother wedged against the wall, his body twisted, an arm bent and bloody. He breathed in heavy, loud wheezes. She grabbed his unhurt hand and held it.
“Thomas, I’m here. Hold on. Help will be here soon. Someone had to have heard the ruckus.”
His voice came out in a raspy croak. “No time,” he muttered. “B-b-b . . .”
“Shh, rest. Don’t tax yourself.”
His agitation grew as he tried to make his wants known. “G-get boo . . .”
“You want me to get something for you? By the table?”
He gave a slight nod. She hated to leave his side, but didn’t want him to push himself further. Seeing no other choice, she hurried to the table, or at least what remained of it.
What in the world does he want? What could be so important?
Broken bottles and jars, the spilled contents thick and gooey, littered the floor. She shuffled through piles of stained newspapers and tried to regain her balance as her feet slid on the papery mush. The pile shifted, revealing a worn, leather journal. That must be it. She wiped the cover and rushed back to her brother, concerned at his gray color and shallow breathing.
Despite his fading condition, he tried to give her directions. “K-keep f-from D-d-d . . .” He stopped and gasped several times.
Alva grabbed his hand. “Daniel? Keep it from him?”
His voice came out in a throaty whisper “You . . .”
“Me?”
“Yessss, finish,” he whispered and fell silent.
Alva held his hand, worried at the weak pulse and ragged breathing. Hearing someone call her name, she quickly shoved the book under her favorite quilt on the shelf.
“Miss Alva?” The man pounded down the stairs. “Are you all right? I saw the smoke. The doctor and fire brigadiers are right behind me. How is Thomas?”
She recognized the suave, over-confident demeanor of the handsome Daniel Defore, her brother’s rival and the man he apparently didn’t want knowing his secrets.
Her attention remained fixed on the doctor and others who rushed in. They began to treat her brother and transferred him to a stretcher. She said a silent prayer as they carried him to the medical wagon waiting outside.
“Miss Alva, is there anything I can do?”
She started as Defore grasped her hand. “Oh, no, thank you, Mr. De—”
“Please, Daniel is fine. Don’t worry. Thomas is a strong man. They’ve made such great advances in medicine. He’s in good hands.”
She nodded, grateful for his support as her foot slid on a piece of paper. He helped her to a chair, away from the shelf, away from the homely quilt that held her brother’s secrets.
“It appears that Thomas was working on something important?” he asked.
She chose not to answer. Let him get his information elsewhere; he wouldn’t hear a thing from her. “Thank you, Daniel, for your assistance. If you don’t mind, this has been quite a shock. I’d like to be alone now.”
“Very well.” He took one last look around. “I’ll go check on Thomas and see myself out.”
Feigning tiredness, she shooed out the rest of Thomas’ friends who had wandered in to share their good wishes and the latest on his expected recovery. The news cheered her, but she needed time to adjust and recover over her near loss.
The door locked, the shades drawn, and a pot of strong black tea at her side sweetened with sugar (and a good dash of whiskey), she pulled over the quilt and carefully opened it. A sob escaped as she caressed the cover of the worn journal inside.
She sipped her tea and read the neatly written script, the pages accented with small, detailed sketches and numbered schematics.
Alva didn’t have her brother’s mechanical aptitude, yet as she studied the drawings and read his detailed instructions, everything became clear. Amazing! She finally understood what Thomas felt with each new discovery.
She marveled at how the mathematic and scientific equations read like passages from a Jane Austen novel. Now she knew what kept him toiling in secret until the wee hours of the morning. She was invigorated and ready to work. With Defore sniffing about, it was doubly important that she and Thomas be the first to complete the experiments, but it would have to wait. The giant grand-father clock in the hall struck two. The book closed, she hugged it close to her heart, anxious for Thomas to return home, impatient for him to hear her ideas.
Two days later, Alva smiled at her brother, happy to see him seated in his favorite worn chair by the fireplace, an afghan over his wounded leg, a glass of brandy beside him. It seemed impossible that the worst of his injuries amounted to a broken arm, bruised ribs, and a few gashes on his head.
“It’s so good to see you seated there,” she said again. “You looked so awful, I feared the worst.”
He nodded. “I know, I know. I truly wish I hadn’t worried you. I’m sorry.”
“While you recovered, I did what you wanted. I read your journal.”
He leaned forward, his eyes lit with excitement. “And?”
“It’s like poetry! I always thought what you did was far beyond what I could comprehend, but it was so clear and easy to understand!”
“Alva, no medicine could be better for me than your words.”
“Good, then let me help. I can be your hands and do the things you can’t do yourself right now. And if you don’t mind, I know what went wrong with your little experiment.”
That brought him to his feet. “Alva! You know? Tell me!”
“From what I saw, you had some wires crossed wrong and others touching when they shouldn’t. And the cogs were out of alignment.”
He limped to her side and kissed her cheek. “Alva, you don’t know how happy I am to hear that. I guessed later what might have been faulty, but hearing you say it so soon after reading my journal puts me in awe of your thinking process. Just think what the two of us can accomplish together!”
She went to the cellar door and opened it. “Shall we?”
“By all means! Ladies, first.”
They went down the stairs slowly, she careful not to grasp the rail too tight with her swollen hand, he as careful not to bump his wrapped arm.
He laughed. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
“I guess we are. But let’s see what we can do,” she said. “If y
ou don’t mind, I’d like to finish this first project on my own. You can check if anything is wrong before we test it, all right?”
He nodded and settled into an armchair to watch. He’d already done the preliminary work, soldering copper and zinc sheets around a box filled with water instead of the dangerous acid used in earlier charging cells. His cell ran on kinetic energy and steam power using a complex grid of interconnecting cogs and other components.
Alva searched the cabinets for what she needed: lamp, check; wicks, check; wires, check; wire cutters, check.
The book open, she pulled over the lamp and followed her brother’s detailed sketches. She attached the raw wires to the bolts according to the diagrams. A couple of twists, a few more adjustments, and voila! Thomas’ joyous expression told her she was on track.
He checked and double-checked each attachment. “We don’t want a repeat of my earlier performance,” he joked. “It looks good. Wind it up. Oh, better put these on.” He stared at her from behind frog-like goggles.
She adjusted a pair over her own eyes, pulled the knob, and let it go. The gleaming cogs began to turn with a steady tick-tick-tick. Such a marvel!
Thomas pulled her back a few feet. “Just in case,” he said.
The ticks gave way to a low hum. The box’s vibrations made Alva uneasy. “Thomas . . .”
“Wait, look!”
The box rattled and shook like a mini earthquake. She stared and bit her lip, worried that the bolts and connections would shake loose. Suddenly, she yelped and held out her hands as a snap, crackle, and pop filled the air. She reached out to Thomas and regretted it the instant her hand touched his with a sharp jolt of static. “Oww!” she yelled. “Thomas, your hair!”
His hair stood straight on end. “You, too,” he yelled as the crackling became louder. His crazed laughter didn’t make her feel any better. The humming increased.
“Thomas, we have to go!” she screamed.
“No, Alva, look!”
The wires inside the small glass bulb inserted in the center of the lamp started to glow. The brightness resembled a firefly and then a sunny day.
“Thomas, it worked!”
She hugged him and stared, still in awe of what they had accomplished. The buzz softened; the brightness faded. The bulb dimmed and went out. She eyed the blackened surface and poked the bulb, pulling back at the hotness of the glass.
“Now what? It’s dangerously hot and the light doesn’t last very long.”
“It’s a start,” he said. “We’ll perfect it. First, we have to file the patent. I’ll call it Alva’s light.”
“I appreciate it, but how about the light-bulb? Makes more sense.” She watched him unhook wires and disassemble parts. “Thomas?”
“Mmm?”
“While you were in the hospital, I did something else.”
“Oh?”
She held out a pile of papers. “I found your other notes. You know, what you wrote about your discussions with Mr. Wells.”
“You mean H.G.? He has some interesting ideas, but they’re not ready yet. Those notes were just scribbles. You know, scientific doodles.”
“Can I show you something?”
His tinkering done, he followed her upstairs and out to the storage barn behind the house. He laughed as she pulled the door open.
“So you found my other secret. The dirigible went together well, but H.G.’s directions were far too complicated. It’ll take me a while to simplify them.”
“No, it won’t.” She took a lamp down from the wall and lit it with a candle.
“For land’s sake!” he yelled. “Alva, what did you do?”
The gleaming silver bullet had been streamlined: the outer panels stripped away, the inside but a shell of itself. All that remained were the two seats set on a small base, a skeletal frame, a control board with an array of different size dials and a giant lever.
The look of amazement on his face was worth all her effort, she thought, as he ran around the contraption. “But . . . what? Alva, how did you do this?”
“I couldn’t sleep while you were ill, so I worked out here. You were right about Mr. Wells’ ideas. I simplified the wiring and stripped off all the extra metal to make the machine lighter. Everything’s connected now.”
“Did you try it?”
“No.” She shook her head and laughed. “I wanted to wait for you. All it needs is a source of power like your charging cell.”
He pondered the idea, a hand on his chin. “Yes, but that may not be able to power it for a long enough period of time.”
“The larger cogs I installed should overcome that. Should we try it?”
“But what if the charge fails?” he asked.
She shrugged and rubbed her hands. “Now you sound like I used to. I’ve decided it is worth every risk. Just think . . . if it works we can go into the future. You will be rich from your inventions and can create other wonderful things. And maybe there will be a cure for my condition.”
He looked thoughtful, but still hedged. “That would be grand. But what if we’re wrong? We could be stranded in an unknown dimension. We could be stuck in some alternative space, or we could simply disappear.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Well, no. All my studies on matter seem to point otherwise. Time is never-ending. But it’s also yet unexplained.”
“Isn’t that what you do when you invent, explore the unknown?” she asked. “All your inventions require someone, namely you, trying them for the first time. So why not this?”
“You may be right,” he said.
“Good, let me get my cloak and we’ll be off.”
That made him laugh. “Your cloak? Do you think we’re taking a turn in the buggy? My dear, if something goes wrong, being cold will be the least of our worries.”
She rolled her eyes. “Leave it to a man. All the same, a woman never goes anywhere unprepared and underdressed. Give me a moment.”
Several minutes later, she returned wearing a saucy gray hat decorated with gray and blue feathers, the wide bow tied under her chin. She wrapped the matching wool cloak around her shoulders, sat, and buckled herself into the machine. “All right, shall we go?”
“So impatient!” He sat next to her, tightened the belt around his waist, and turned the key. The machine roared to life with a purr and a puff of steam. He studied the glass dials and smiled. “Might I say you look pretty? So where to?”
Her smile matched his. “Since we’re taking a chance no matter what we do, why not set it for one hundred years ahead? The nineteen hundred and sixties sound interesting.”
“So they do, sister, so they do. Hold on tight!”
The humming increased in volume as he pulled the lever. The machine shook, rattled, and disappeared in a burst of gray smoke. As the clouds cleared, a lonely blue feather floated to the ground.
The Nubian Queen
Paul Genesse
Paul Genesse is a registered nurse on a cardiac unit in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works the night shift keeping the forces of darkness away from his patients. He lives with his incredibly supportive wife, Tammy, and their collection of well-behaved frogs and moderately scary dragons. He is the author of several short stories featured in Fellowship Fantastic, The Dimension Next Door, Furry Fantastic, Imaginary Friends, Catopolis, Terribly Twisted Tales, Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms and more. His first novel, The Golden Cord, Book One of the Iron Dragon Series was published in 2008. Book two, The Dragon Hunters, came out in May of 2009 and more novels are in the works. Download the first ten chapters of The Golden Cord for free, listen to podcasts, or watch videos about the Iron Dragon Series at www.paulgenesse.com.
Lower Nubia, 1854 A.D.
Queen Sahdi gave the command to destroy the tracks ahead of the armored train as it steamed through the savannah beside Lake Nubia. She stood behind the thick ramparts of Gebel Adda, an ancient fortress situated in the hills that marked the border, wondering how many of her brave soldiers,
and how many of the Egyptian emperor’s, were about to die.
Through the telescopic sight on her rifle, Sahdi inspected the canon barrels and machine gun turrets that bristled from every car on the train. The emperor’s generals would use the railcars to spearhead their attack for as long as they could. Her artillery hidden in the hills and the big guns at Gebel Adda would kill everyone who remained in the flatlands and leave the train a burning wreck.
A puff of white smoke, then a thunderous boom echoed from the bottleneck canyon that led to the train yard at the base of Nubia’s largest fortress. Boulders tumbled and covered the iron rails and the handful of unfortunate Libyan scouts inspecting the tracks for sabotage or explosives. The war train screeched to a halt a hundred yards away from the rock fall as dust filled the air.
Queen Sahdi lowered her rifle as General Kemani waited for her signal to open fire on the invading army now that the first part of their trap had been sprung. Five thousand Egyptian infantrymen in green tunics and tan trousers marching in columns behind the train formed firing lines, and some took cover beside the elevated train bed. The two dozen rhino mortar and machine gun trucks stopped rolling forward on their spiked metal wheels, smoke from their flash-boilers mixing with the dust, as they took aim at the hills on either side of the canyon.
A flag-bearer exited the train.
“A white flag?” Sahdi quickly looked through her scope as a group of men exited the second car and walked ahead of the locomotive carrying what appeared to be a folded up shade tent and poles—in addition to the unexpected truce flag.
“Your Majesty, shall I send our terms?” General Kemani asked, his weathered face bearing little emotion.
Sahdi sucked in her breath as far as the ivory corset in her dress would allow and got a mouthful of chalky dust as she beheld the face of the man standing beside the flag-bearer. It was General Nahktebbi himself. Seeing the man who had humiliated her when she was a girl stoked the kind of rage in Sahdi reserved for the cruelest criminals. The vile man had harmed her in a way no one else could. It had been so many years, but she could neither forget nor forgive. She rested the gun on her shooting tripod on the rampart wall, trying to calm herself and slow her pounding heart. She applied a subtle amount of pressure to the trigger. It was a far shot, but with the scope and her years hunting on the Nubian savannah, Nahktebbi would be a dead man shortly after she pulled the trigger.
