TIME SHIP (Book Two) - A Time Travel Romantic Adventure

by Ian C. P. Irvine

  He was just about to run back, when Captain McGregor picked a fire extinguisher off a nearby wall and used it to batter the door in, by swinging it repeatedly against the lock. After several, large crashes, the frame of the door around the lock split, and then with one further direct kick with his feet, the door burst inwards.

  Inside the room, the doctor immediately busied himself in his walk-in wardrobe, tossing clothes out onto the bed for Sally and the Captain to try.

  As the Captain pulled on some pants and a fine, silk shirt, he watched in admiration as Sally dressed. She was a beautiful woman, tall, slim, but with soft, full breasts. The Captain had been at sea for several months, and now with Sally standing naked in front of him, he had to force himself to turn and look away.

  Sally laughed, a mixture of emotions colliding within her, the most embarrassing of all being the strong attraction that she felt towards the naked Captain. It had been over a year since she had divorced from her husband, and since then her work had been her only partner.

  A moment or two later, they all stepped out of the doctor's room, dressed and ready for whatever would come next.

  "First, come with us Doctor, sir. I will introduce you to my officers, and leave you with one to make the arrangements for the transfer of half the hostages back to their rooms."

  As soon as they entered the hall, James Silver and Richard Tyler came up to them.

  "The palace is secure," Silver explained. "And I armed the men with a supply of these that we found in one of the rooms," he said, lifting up one of the powerful weapons that the guards of the palace carried. As he did so, some gold flashed from his wrist, and the Captain immediately recognised it as one of the time-telling devices that he had been shown earlier on the boat. The Captain reached out and forcibly grabbed the wrist in front of him: "Where did you get this from?" he demanded, his voice instantly raised.

  "From one of the guests..." the quartermaster replied.

  "Mr Silver, I gave strict instructions that NO booty should be taken from the island. We are here only for food and water. I will say this only once, if you or the men have taken any other trinkets, coin, gold or silver, then they must return them immediately to their owners. Do you understand? If I hear otherwise there shall be punishment for any offender. Is that clear?"

  Mr Silver swallowed hard, and immediately turned to another man standing behind him, and spoke rapidly in his ear. The other man scurried away quickly, intent upon following out whatever direction he had just been given.

  "Captain," Silver said, turning back to McGregor, anxious to learn what was going on. "...The men carrying more provisions down to the beach were sent back with their cargoes, having been instructed that no more supplies would be sent to the ship, under your orders? Is that so?"

  "Yes. But with good reason, although there is no time to explain it all at present. You will understand it all very shortly. I wish you to accompany me with Miss Sally. She is going to give us an invaluable lesson on this new world that we find so strange, yet is so familiar to all others who live here. Mr Tyler, I am leaving you in command. You shall immediately divide the captives in half and use half of your men to help the palace doctor escort them back to their rooms. The others you will watch over as before. Again, there is good reason for this. The doctor will also ask you to help identify any man who is feeling out of sorts, or who is sickening with a cold, aches or fever. Any men so found, will be handed over to the doctor for treatment and instruction, and further direction. Soon you will also understand the reasons behind this apparent madness, but in the meantime, see it done! And step to it. Time is of the essence."

  Sally opened the door to the Premier room in the resort's business suite, and ushered the Captain and his second-in-command to sit down at the front of three rows of seats that faced a large LED video screen on the wall.

  James Silver was looking incredibly nervous, and the Captain rested a hand on his shoulder, guiding him reassuringly to sit down.

  "Mr Silver, before Miss Sally starts, you should know that it seems as if a bigger miracle has occurred than we previously believed. Not only did the good Lord deliver us from the dangers of the storm to calm seas and smooth sailing, but He has, it would seem, transported us into the future of the world. There is a lot that would suggest that this is no longer the year of Our Lord 1699, but that it is now the year 2014."

  Silver laughed, nervously, but did not rise from his seat.

  "There is much that is strange about this palace, that I grant thee, but...to fly through the annals of time,...that is the devils work!"

  "Let us hope not. For we are here, and I would pray that we are not in the clutches of the devil, lest we find ourselves burning in hell for the rest of our days."

  The Captain sat down beside the quartermaster, and continued. "Miss Sally has promised that she would convince us that what she claims to be true, is true: that this is the year 2014. I know not how. But that is what we are here to see. If she is lying to us, I fear that there shall be punishment for the deception, but if she tells the truth, then you and I must discuss how we must come to terms with the new world in which we find ourselves. There is however, one other complication...," and the Captain went on to explain about the plague that was spreading throughout their men. "Which is why, as you can see, I have changed my attire, and now wear the clothes of these heathens, if indeed, that is what they are!"

  "Carried by fleas, did you say? I have been itching for days now, it is driving me mad!" the quartermaster said, jumping to his feet, immediately pulling at his clothes and stripping off to his underclothes, at which he stopped and looked nervously towards the woman in the room.

  She walked out of the room, and returned a few minutes later with a guard's black uniform that she found in the security room at the end of the hallway. Half opening the door to the business suite, she tossed the uniform inside along with a plastic bag, and instructed Silver to put his old clothes inside a plastic bag. "They stink to high-heaven!" A minute later she stepped through the door, picked up the plastic bag, opened a nearby window and tossed it out, taking a mental note to collect it later and burn it with everything else.

  "Okay, good, now we can begin..." she said, turning to a panel of switches on a podium on the right of the large video screen.

  "I think this is going to be very difficult for you both to understand and believe. I will not explain it all, but my goal here now is to show you images and pictures of the world as we are today, partly to scare you into accepting this new reality, so that you will understand the threat that others in this world can pose to you if you oppose them. And secondly, to show you that this is now a world of wonder, beauty and hope, where good men can make good lives for themselves, and live in peace and prosperity, if you work hard."

  "This object on the wall is called a video screen... by using a little bit of what may seem like magic to you, but is in actual fact no more that the practical implementation of scientific advances that mankind has made in the past three hundred and fifteen years, I can make this screen come alive. It will show us images and moving pictures, or any document that we care to ask for. It will show us scenes from far off countries, pictures taken at the bottom of the sea, or even pictures taken on the moon, or of the stars in our sky."

  "You have pictures that were painted on the moon?" the Captain asked. "Mankind has traveled to the moon?"

  "And back!" Sally answered. "There is much that we have done in the past three hundred and fifteen years. There is much that mankind has achieved."

  "And what do you call this beast that can show us all these things?"

  Sally paused, thinking carefully.

  "We call it the Internet. But for you it might be best described as an Oracle. With this device here, which we call a 'keyboard', I can ask any question that I like, and the browser on the internet,...sorry, the Oracle, will give me an answer."

  "You jest!" the Captain laughed, clapping his hands together.

  "I do not." S
ally asked.

  "Then show me a picture of my farm in England! I have not seen it now for over ten years, and I dream of it almost every day!"

  "For that, I will need the help of my friend Mr Google. The Internet can answer lots of questions, but we have to give it the correct information in order for us to get the correct answers... First of all, let's switch it on. But before I do, please, do not be scared. When I wake the video screen up, you will see bright lights and images, none of which can harm you. I can switch the screen off at any time. Nothing you see can come out of the screen into the room...they are all just images, but because this is the latest High Definition LED flat screen available, they may look very, very real. Are you ready?"

  They both nodded.

  Sally hit the button on the control panel, and when the screen came on, Mr Silver almost hit the roof.

  The large LED screen became alive with color, bright blue light flooding the room. Both Captain McGregor and James Silver recoiled from the beast which had just woken up, pushing backwards into their chairs.

  On the top left hand corner of the Samsung SMART TV, little moving images of people ran around in a small box. The rest of the screen was made up of colored boxes showing different images, colored words or pictures, set against a blue background. The word Samsung was shining out of the edge of the bottom of the screen.

  There were sounds too: the sound of people speaking and laughing. Captain McGregor was the first to succumb to curiosity, slowly rising from his chair and edging closer to the screen. His hand held out in front of him, he first touched the screen gingerly with his finger tips, and then bent forward, staring at the people running around within the box.

  "The people are captured inside the beast!" the Captain said, turning to Sally. "And the beast has made them so small! It has shrunk them!"

  "Don't worry. They are not real people, they are just images of real people. Pictures. And this is not a beast. It is not alive...it is just a machine."

  "What is a machine?" Silver asked, standing up, his cutlass slightly raised and in front of him, now on guard against the beast.

  "A machine is something that humans build to perform a function that we want done over and over again, repetitively. In the year 2014, almost everything is done by machines. But you will learn about that later on...If you wish, I can make these people much larger... I just make the pictures bigger, like this!"

  Sally pressed the 'full screen' button on the television, and the pictures on the small TV screen that was top left, suddenly jumped to full size, occupying every pixel of the 55 inch television screen.

  "Wooooaaaaa!" Silver exclaimed, turning and running back around the three rows of seats that were set out in front of the screen. "Make them small again. They are bigger than me!"

  "No... Don't worry, I will leave them large, and I want you to come forward and touch them too, to see that they cannot harm you, and that they are just images...This is what we call a 'television program'. These people are actors. And these are pictures of actors acting a scene that was written for them by a writer,...like William Shakespeare did, but his modern equivalent!"

  Silver came closer and both he and the Captain stared at the scene on the television.

  "This was written by William Shakespeare?" the Captain asked.

  "No...I just meant...never mind...do you want to see a picture of your farm?"

  "Yes...please..."

  "Then why don't you sit down, and we'll try to find it. It may take a few moments. I will now command the television to connect to the Internet, and I will ask it to search for images and pictures of your farm...if it still exists. Do not be too upset, but I fear that in the passing of 300 years that your farm may no longer be there..." Sally called up the web browser on the television. "Okay, we are ready, what was the name of your farm, and where was it?"

  "My farm is called 'Little Oak'. It is two miles from Rich Ham, a little village in Dorset in England."

  Sally typed in the words 'Little Oak Farm England' into the browser and hit the return button on her keyboard.

  A white screen appeared below, with numerous listings of the closest matches to her search string.

  Sally scanned down the list, but finding nothing that looked promising, she hit 'next page' on the bottom of the screen. Still nothing.

  She went back to the main screen and added the word 'Dorset' to the search string.

  The screen below refreshed and a new list of options appeared. Sally clicked on a few of the most promising options, but none of them showed anything that the Captain was looking for.

  She went to back to the browser and took out the word England, leaving only 'Little Oak Farm Dorset.'

  The list of options refreshed again and she starting clicking on the closest matches. When she clicked on the third option, a webpage opened up which showed her a picture of several buildings and details of a family run farm business. All the buildings in the picture were relatively modern, built at least in the last fifty years. She clicked on the link at the bottom of the webpage that said 'About Us', and a new webpage opened up. What immediately interested Sally were the first four lines of text. 'Little Oak Farm is one of the oldest family run farms in England. The farm has been in the possession of the McGregor family for over three hundred and fifty years, handed down from one generation to another. Generations of McGregor's have lived there, ever since Richard McGregor from Dundee in Scotland was given the farm and one thousand acres of land by Charles 1st in AD 1644. Descendants of Richard McGregor who have worked the land include the infamous privateer and pirate captain Rob McGregor, Colonel David McGregor, awarded the Victoria Cross in World War One, and Anthony McGregor, the record producer, founder and owner of Bad Pirate Records Corporation."

  Sally clapped her hands almost involuntarily and laughed aloud.

  "Bingo! Have you read that? You're famous!"

  "I cannot read!" Silver said.

  "Then I shall read it for you," Captain McGregor said, standing up.

  He read the paragraph aloud, turned and stared at Sally, and then walked to the window.

  "This says that I am dead. That I died long, long ago!"

  "No it doesn't. It says that you lived a long time ago, and that you are part of the history of the farm, but the people who wrote this don't know that you are still alive!"

  "...And it says that my family's descendants still own the land?"

  "Yes!"

  "Then my brother must have inherited the land and helped it prosper." Rob said solemnly. "He was always the better farmer. I was always the better sailor. Miss Sally, can you ask this Oracle for a picture of 'Little Oak Church'?"

  A few minutes later they were looking at a picture of a Grade 1 Listed Church in the parish of St. Bartholomew's.

  There were several pictures offered by the 'Oracle'. The Captain stepped closer to the screen and pointed to one of the pictures and asked Sally if she could make that picture larger.

  Sally obliged, clicking on the picture, and it immediately filled the full screen.

  A sadness suddenly descended upon the Captain, his face turning white, and the sparkle disappearing from his eye.

  The picture on the screen showed the front of a church, an old building apparently built in the year 1648, eight years after the restoration of the monarchy by King Charles II.

  "My father built this church. The last time I saw it was on a cold, winter's day in 1689. It was new then. Now look at it! Miss Sally, can you make this part of the picture even bigger?" the Captain asked, pointing to a section of the picture to the left of the covered entrance to the church.

  "Wait a second," Sally replied. "The website offers high-definition photographs too. I'll download one of them instead." She scrolled down the screen, selected the higher resolution jpegs, and clicked on several until she found the one they wanted. Then she put the cursor above the section of the photograph that the Captain wanted to see in more detail and magnified it as much as she could.

  The
picture showed a tombstone, and the angle of the sunshine and the shadows made some of the words on the stone just legible.

  The first few lines of words said simply, "Here lies Ann Elizabeth McGregor. Born 18th January 1664. Departed this world 8th August 1687." Underneath those, there were a few other lines, but they were probably too worn and could not be read from the image.

  Captain McGregor lifted his hand and touched the screen, his fingers resting upon the image of the gravestone.

  Silent tears were running down his cheeks, his head now slightly bowed and his eyes closed.

  A few minutes past and no one said anything.

  "Was she your sister?" Sally asked quietly.

  "No," the Captain replied. "She was my wife."

  Chapter 27

  The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

  Puerto Rico

  Sally felt strangely moved by the sight of such tenderness and vulnerability from the pirate captain. She felt compelled to say something, but didn't know what.

  In the end, she just said quietly, "I am sorry for your loss."

  The Captain nodded without looking across at her, said 'Thank you!', and then stepped backwards away from the screen and sat down again.

  "Okay, enough of the old world. Show us the 'New World'. If you would be so kind. And please, do not hold back. Reveal to us the full impact of our deliverance from our world to the future."

  The Captain looked at James Silver, and he nodded in agreement.

  "Fine, then I propose that I show you several things, for now. All I want to do is to convince you that the world has changed and this is the year 2014. Later, you will have the rest of your lives to learn about your new world. We cannot do that all now. So...I propose that to start we look at several pictures of London, as it is today. Then I will show you a picture of New York, the capital city of the United States of America, currently the most powerful country in the world - although there are many who would say that China has now overtaken the United States. In New York you will see buildings so tall, that they touch the clouds, and can contain thousands and thousands of people."