Cogs in Time 2 (The Steamworks Series)

by SJ Davis

  “After you pressed something that caused its self destruction, according to Billings.”

  “A completely innocent act. A big red button. I pushed it. I caused a diversion so that we could get the better of the Germans. Billings pursued them, but they went through the portal to their own destination, probably Berlin. Since we could not land, we told Billings to proceed back to London and report on the new weapon the Germans had developed.”

  “And you vanished for a year.”

  “Actually, much longer. You see, travelling through portals to these other planets not only displaces you spatially, but also temporally.”

  “I’m not a scientist, and neither are you, Harry.”

  “True. But Liz Fletcher is. She built the Independence, if you recall. She explained it in excruciating details. We weren’t gone for one year, Reggie. It was five.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Nevertheless, true.”

  “That might explain how your hair has turned to gray, but it does not explain where you have been. One year, five years, you were still gone!”

  “Yes, well, we tried one of the frequencies in Himmel’s notebook. It took us to yet another planet. No telling where, but it was another outpost.”

  “And did you find out who built these outposts? Did you meet them? Harry, we need all the help we can get to win this war over the Germans and their allies.”

  “Oh, we found them, Reggie. Or I should say, we found out who they were. They aren’t there anymore. They’re all gone.”

  “Gone? That’s terrible. What kind of creatures were they?”

  “They were us. Humans. From Earth.”

  “Impossible. From Billings’s report, they were highly advanced.”

  “They were, because they came from our future. I told you, Reggie, we traveled through time as well as space. Or they did. Or we both did. Those outposts were built by people who won’t be born for another hundred years or more. Maybe they will never be born. They were all gone. Humanity dies out, because of this war.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” his voice quavered. “How could the war affect people a hundred years from now, unless it lasts a century?”

  “As far as we could determine, the people of our future found ways of traveling through time and inadvertently influenced our mutual past, which affected their future. Our future. They no longer exist because of their tampering with history. We’re it, Reggie. We are the last of humanity. If we don’t stop this war, humans will be wiped from the universe.”

  Shepherd started pacing again. “You expect me to believe all this rubbish about time travel? Good God, this is Nineteen-hundred, not the Dark Ages.”

  “Reggie, we have Tesla portals. You can walk through one in London and out of another in New York within a second. Or to anywhere a second Tesla portal is set up. Do you realize how fantastic that sounds?”

  “Do you have any idea what in our history was changed by these people from the future?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Shepherd shook his head. “The minister won’t like this. I’ll pass this on and see what he says, but there’s still more you’re not telling me. When I come back, you better explain in detail what happened to you and the Independence since you left England last year. I’ll have a secretary transcribe it.”

  He left Pierce alone, still manacled to the table, staring out at London lit by gaslights and fires.

  He sat for what seemed like an hour, absorbed in his thoughts, before the door opened again. This time a tall black man in a rich suit, with waistcoat and cravat, looked down at him after easing the door shut.

  “It’s about time, Murunga,” Pierce said.

  “You do realize how many rooms there are in this building,” Murunga said. “You are not being guarded, so there is little to indicate which room you were in.”

  Pierce lifted his hands, pulling on the chain linking the manacles. “They probably don’t think I’m much of a threat.”

  Murunga nodded, examined the bands of metal around Pierce’s wrists, and then pulled a narrow dagger from the sleeve of his coat. Working the point of the blade into the locking mechanisms, he soon had Pierce free.

  “Shall we make our escape?” Pierce said.

  “Is this action wise?” asked the Maasai.

  Pierce opened the door and looked down the corridor. Few people would be in the building this late. He turned and flashed a quick grin at Murunga. “Timing is everything.”

  Their progress down two flights of stairs went unheeded, but two soldiers in red tunics and white caps waited in the lobby. One called to them to halt, whilst the other unslung his rifle.

  “Diversion?” asked Pierce.

  In response, Murunga reached into his coat and withdrew a small brass sphere with slits crisscrossing its metal surface and a handle protruding from the top. He bent the handle at its hinge and began cranking. The sphere buzzed. Pulling the crank handle free, he tossed the sphere to the carpet, where it rolled to a stop about six feet from the soldiers, who stared at it in curiosity.

  “Please avert your eyes, Captain,” Murunga whispered.

  The buzzing increased, accompanied by sparks. Suddenly, a white flash filled the room.

  “Now!” Murunga said.

  They ran past the soldiers who rubbed their blinded eyes. Murunga scooped up the sphere and tucked it away.

  “Another one of your experiments?” Pierce asked when they reached the streets and began running.

  “The affects are temporary. Miss Fletcher has been very helpful. By combining the basics of clockwork and some of the sciences we have recently discovered, we have—”

  “Please, Murunga! Talk later.”

  They ran down cobble streets. Pierce waved them down an alley, where they stopped in the shadows and he bent over to catch his breath. Murunga was not even breathing heavy. Pierce tapped a finger to his ear. He couldn’t hear a thing over his own puffing.

  “The carriage is approaching,” Murunga said.

  Pierce finally heard it, swallowed, and straightened. They ran from the alley and collided with the side of the carriage. The sole occupant gazed in shock out the window at them. They circumvented the vehicle and hurried into the opposite alley.

  “Harry!” yelled Reginald Shepherd.

  Pierce slowed his pace. He heard the door to the carriage pop open and footfalls follow him into the alley.

  “Pierce! What the devil is going on!” shouted Shepherd. “You’re supposed to be in custody.”

  Pierce stumbled to a stop at Kensington Road, motioning Murunga to go on without him. The large Maasai paused to look at his friend with a pained expression on his scarred face, gave a nod, and vanished into the night.

  Pierce turned as Shepherd approached.

  “Bloody hell, Harry. I will not be able to get you out of this. Escaping custody? What were you thinking? And after I was starting to believe that rubbish you told me.”

  “I take it,” Pierce said, his throat raw, his breath ragged, “that you weren’t able to convince the minister.”

  “Of course not. Travelling through time? A lot of rot. I’m embarrassed that you almost had me convinced.”

  “Yes. It’s almost as unbelievable as travelling to distant planets.”

  Shepherd lifted his walking stick and shook it at Pierce. “That was just a diversion to get me to leave you alone so you could escape.”

  “Actually, it was the truth, but I knew the minister wouldn’t believe it so I had other plans.”

  “Like escape.”

  “Like waiting until you were on your way back so we could run into you and I could get you to follow me.”

  “What?” Shepherd glanced down Kensington Road and to the Gardens opposite them. A few Londoners walked hurriedly along, but at a distance that they could not be overheard. Nor were the pedestrians close enough to be a threat. His finger touched the brass collar of his walking stick, just under the bone handle, ready to release the blade concealed insi
de. Shepherd carried a sword cane as long as Pierce had known him. It had come in handy on more than one occasion.

  “Relax, Reggie,” Pierce said. “I’m not the threat.” He pointed into the night sky over Kensington Gardens. “That is.”

  Shepherd looked up, past the glare of the gas street lamps. The stars winked out above them, what few could be seen over London. Then the waning moon vanished. A great dark shape floated overhead, as silent as an airship without its engines running. It was much larger than any airship in any fleet, triangular in shape, with flashing lights at each corner.

  “What in God’s name is that?” Shepherd said in a small, awed voice.

  “That, Reggie, dear chap, is how we are going to save the world.”

  Pierce looked up, smiling. When the great triangle flickered, he frowned. In a moment, the monster object vanished, leaving a small airship floating in its place.

  “Bugger,” Pierce said. “I hate when that happens.”

  “Is that the Independence?” Shepherd demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me where it was? Things could have gone a lot easier on you, Harry.”

  “I thought a demonstration would be more expedient. I didn’t think you would believe me.”

  “All this fantasy about travelling in time. Did you actually do that?”

  “Our problem is to fix the damage that our descendants create. This war should never have happened.”

  “How will you convince the other governments, you couldn’t even convince me? The minister wondered why I was wasting his time with such fancy. Do you have some new weapon to offer? Is that giant triangle something that we can use?”

  “No weapon, Reggie. You don’t seem to understand. We destroy ourselves. If I brought a weapon from the future and introduced it to our present, that might be the catalyst that brings total destruction. I can’t do that.”

  “Then what was that?”

  “An illusion.”

  “You intend to stop a world war with a conjuror’s trick?”

  “No. That’s just a tool. I intend to use something more powerful.”

  “What?”

  “A lie.”

  * * * *

  They caught another carriage to a private airfield north of London. By the time they arrived, the Independence had landed and her crew were lashing mooring lines to hooks pounded into the hard-packed ground. She was an ungainly craft, thicker than any in the British air fleet. American by design and construction, as well as ownership, she was leased last year for the expedition. The brass coils wrapping around her shell provided the Faraday component of the Tesla portal. She could produce a portal point of her own, pass it along her length, and travel to another place based upon a specific frequency entered into its controls.

  “Seems to be more coils on her hull than I remember,” Shepherd said.

  “A little modification since last year,” Pierce said, “your time.”

  “No worse for wear for your five years of time to my one,” Shepherd said, his tone taunting.

  “We weren’t in a war,” Pierce pointed out.

  “Isn’t the added weight a problem?” Shepherd asked.

  “She’s a bit sluggish, but manoeuvrability isn’t an issue.”

  Shepherd pointed to the prow of the gondola attached to the underbelly of the craft, where a short cylinder protruded. “What is that contraption?”

  “A projector. I don’t quite understand it. Miss Fletcher would be able to explain better.”

  Murunga met them at the ramp leading into the rear of the gondola. He inclined his head in greeting.

  “Hello, Murunga,” Shepherd said. “How are you doing?”

  “I am fine, Colonel Shepherd. And you, sir?”

  “Perplexed.” He looked at the gray that flecked the Maasai’s temples.

  Before they could mount the ramp, Elizabeth Fletcher and Joshua Gridley came bowling down.

  “I want those lens mounts double checked,” Liz was saying. She wore grimy coveralls, her dark hair tied back, waving a spanner at the pilot and looking most unlady-like. “I don’t want any coming loose again. If one is out of alignment, it ruins everything.”

  Gridley nodded, took the spanner, and called over one of the ground crew, both men heading toward the bow of the craft. Liz stopped and smirked at Pierce.

  “I told you it was too soon,” she said. “We should have tested the projectors more.”

  “You did test it,” Pierce said.

  “Not in flight, after a portal slip. That puts a strain on the ship. Hello, Colonel Shepherd. Did you enjoy the show?”

  “Impressive, but I don’t understand. How were you able to trick me into seeing some huge flying machine? Hypnotism?”

  Liz pursed her lips and tapped them with the tip of her index finger. “Hmm, haven’t thought of that one. I wonder if we could alter frequencies in a radio broadcast to cause mass hallucinations.”

  “We can work on that later,” Pierce said, quickly derailing her new train of thought and keeping her on the right track.

  “Then what did I see?” Shepherd asked, looking from one to another. “Surely it wasn’t real. That monster triangle vanished, and your ship appeared. Was that some trick from your portal contraption?”

  Liz flashed a smile. “Nope. Something new. What has Harry told you?”

  “Some rubbish about travelling in time. Our descendants in the future cause some problem in our past and we, as a race, die out. You have been travelling for five years, only you left one year ago. And you don’t look any worse for wear, Miss Fletcher, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  She cast an angry glare at Pierce before smiling at Shepherd. “Thank you, Colonel. I think that was a complement. Harry didn’t tell you anything of what we found? Well, we haven’t been able to use much, or make sense of much, but this bit of technology we were able to incorporate into the airship. We found three dimensional projectors, similar to slide projectors. Most were on the small scale that would fit on a table, but one was very big. It had been used to hide the outpost we found. It was no longer running, but we turned it on by accident.” She shot Pierce a quick glare.

  He shrugged. “Big black button. At least it wasn’t red.”

  “At least it didn’t blow us up,” Liz said. “Anyway, it made an image of a mountain appear over the outpost building. It took some doing, but we were able to figure it out, cannibalize it, and fit it to the airship. It actually takes a lot less power than the Tesla portal.”

  “That was a projection?” Shepherd asked. “You mean like that Edison chap developed a few years ago, with moving pictures? Projectors need a screen or some sort of surface onto which to project the images.”

  “Not this,” Liz said. “Lenses outside the ship project the image to a certain distance from the projector. All the lenses working in unison to build a three dimensional image. If one lens is out of alignment or malfunctions, the image is lost. Which is what happened earlier.”

  Shepherd shook his head. “So what is your plan. Frighten the Germans into surrendering?”

  “In a way,” Pierce said. “We’ll test our plan out over Westminster, see how the PM reacts.”

  “The Prime Minister? I don’t advise that, Harry. You approach Westminster, you’ll be blown out of the sky. We’ve developed portal weapons, too. We had to, to defend ourselves against German attacks. They’re called Tesla cannons, though I understand Mr. Tesla has taken exception to his name being used for them.”

  Pierce looked back toward the London skyline. “Yes, that has been working out for you, hasn’t it?”

  * * * *

  The Thames drifted below the Independence.

  “Where is your brother?” Shepherd asked.

  “Sam? We dropped him off. We didn’t exactly get our arrival point exact when we returned.”

  “And one of Billing’s men, Cooper?”

  “He had been wounded in the altercation with the Germans, but he recovere
d nicely. He’s with Sam.”

  “Good God, you didn’t leave them on some alien world?”

  “I’ve heard America described in worse terms, but, no, we left them in New York.”

  “Why in God’s name would you do that? They are members of her Majesty’s army, they should have reported to their superiors immediately upon their return. You realize we are at war.”

  “With America?”

  “No, of course not. You know what I mean, Harry. This isn’t the time for soldiers to be taking a holiday.”

  “That’s not exactly the situation, Reggie. I’ll explain later. Right now, it looks as though we are approaching Westminster.”

  They stood behind Gridley’s pilot station, with Liz Fletcher to his left and hovering over a bank of controls. On the right were the brass plated controls that activated the Tesla portal, giving the airship the ability to travel to another location almost instantaneously. The levers and dials now under Liz’s hands manipulated the small projection machines strategically placed along the rigid hull of the ship.

  “We won’t frighten your Prime Minister with a sudden show of our projection,” Liz said. “We’ll wait until we’re close to the building, then activate it.”

  Shepherd frowned. “Really, Miss Fletcher, there’s no need to be insulting. I merely insist that it would cause a panic with the general population and might bring about a retaliation from our own air fleet. This is a bit different than a night time appearance, and I can see one of our craft approaching now.”

  “Ma’am,” Gridley said, “the airship is hailing us on the wireless.”

  Liz turned up the crackling speakers. She lifted a microphone off a hook and spoke into it. “This is the airship Independence, on special assignment from Her Majesty. We have Colonel Shepherd on board.”

  “Perhaps I should speak to them,” Shepherd suggested.

  Pierce wondered if that might not be a bad idea. Once they activate the projection, it would appear as if a huge black wedge leaped into existence, displacing the Independence. Any self-respecting airman would see that as a threat and act accordingly. Perhaps if Shepherd let them know that they were about to demonstrate an experimental procedure, that would prevent them from firing upon the Independence.