Time After Time (31 page)

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Authors: Karl Alexander

BOOK: Time After Time
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He was not sure why he had done it—other than that he had placed the lock there originally, so he must have had a good reason. Perhaps his deductions had been concerned with the sanctity of the universe. Whatever, he had no doubt feared that someone else would place their irresponsible hands on the Accelerator Helm Lever.
He remembered when they had returned from Saturday. Then, he had worried about the fact that before the trip he had cut through the bar of the lock. He had shrugged off the concern and replaced the little device anyway. Since it would be hanging in the path of a gearing system, the engine would not work, regardless. He grinned. In this case, then, the mere physical presence of an unsophisticated foreign object near the heart of his machine meant that both he and history would have a second chance.
He heard the cabin door unlock and open. Stephenson pushed Amy through the hatch, the knife to her throat.
“As you can see,” Stephenson stated coldly, “she is in one piece. Presently.”
H.G. was filled with relief and gratitude, but did not dare to show his feelings. A plan was beginning to form in his mind as he realized that he, too, might use deceit to his advantage.
“The only question is, Wells, how long will she remain in that condition?”
Wells did not respond.
“Either you fix this infernal contraption or I'll kill her right now.”
“If I repair the machine, you'll kill her anyway,” H.G. replied flatly. His voice betrayed neither his pounding heart nor his dry throat.
“Maybe I will and maybe I won't.” He leaned against the side of the time machine. “There are two ways to look at it, my dear fellow, depending upon how one views the human condition. You can repair the device thinking that your good deed will be rewarded in kind. Or, you can perform the good service fearful that the worst will happen anyway. Would you agree with my assessment?”
H.G. nodded slowly.
“Regardless, then, you really have no choice, do you? Unless, of course, you're more callous that I thought.”
“You're right.”
“Don't do it!” Amy screamed.
Stephenson laughed. “He has to repair it, my dear girl, for he is hopelessly in love with you. Isn't it marvelous how weak the human heart is?” He turned to H.G. “Go on! Fix the blasted thing!”
H.G. shrugged helplessly. “But I have no tools.”
Stephenson reached down, removed the surgical knife from his half boot and tossed it. The instrument clattered across the floor to H.G. “That's the best I can do.”
“H.G., please!” she cried. “I'd rather die!”
H.G. picked up the knife and went to the engine. He lifted the hatch cover, then went into the engine compartment. He did not need the knife—or any tools, for that matter—to remove the small lock from the central gear wheel. All he had to do was insert his arm into the reversal housing, twist his wrist the wrong way, bend his fingers back in the other direction and, presto, the lock was in his hand. The engine was free to function. Then he took a deep breath and studied the complex wiring. His eyes narrowed. Yes, the time machine would work all right, but not in the way that Stephenson suspected. H.G. raised the knife.
 
 
“Just what the devil is taking you so long?” Stephenson demanded.
H.G. slid out of the engine compartment, got to his feet and closed the hatch cover.
“Well?”
“It is done.”
The doctor grinned. “Thank you, Wells, you're a jolly good sport.” He took a guinea out of his pocket and flipped it to H.G. “Keep the change, old boy.”
He turned and Amy into the cabin.
“Why did you fix it, H.G.?” she screamed. “Why?”
“Because he's a simpering, callow fool who believes in the golden rule!”
Stephenson shoved her halfway into the cabin. Despite the prod of his knife, she continued to resist. Finally, he got her all the way inside, but in so doing he lost his momentum and his watch chain became tangled around the door handle. He automatically turned to extricate himself and inadvertently let go of her.
Amy bolted free of the time machine.
H.G. rushed the cabin. Stephenson saw him coming, emitted an oath, slammed the door and locked it. Caught outside, his pocket watch swung from the handle; the lid had popped open and the French lullaby played.
H.G. banged on the door, then realized—once again—that his attempts were futile. There was nothing he could do. A low hum emanated from The Utopia. H.G. cursed, then looked down at the absurd little pocket watch playing music. Suddenly, he saw the ring handle for the declinometer. He grabbed it and pulled the prism-shaped component out of the machine. He dropped it, then backed away, afraid to contemplate what he had done. He saw Amy, still in a state of shock. He quickly untied her and they embraced tightly. Her supple body shuddered as the tension left her. She began to sob, her cries. He becoming joyful imagined that he was hearing a celestial symphony, a celebration of everything that was good, a song of life.
He was crying, too, for Amy was finally safe. There were no more deceptions. The moment was real and true.
They stood back from the time machine, silhouetted by the intense blue energy field that surrounded The Utopia as the engine gradually warmed. He held her tighter and caressed her face and hair. She had stopped sobbing, her attention drawn to the time machine much like the enthrallment one could see in the eyes of a lower primate held spellbound by the lights of an automobile. He,
too, stared at the spectacle in awe. He heard the hum of the engine reach its familiar pitch and level off, indicating that speed had been achieved. A faint, red glow blinked intermittently from behind the small, opaque cabin windows, and H.G. knew that very soon now Stephenson would make his cosmic leap into the fourth dimension. H.G. held his breath with anticipation. Would The Utopia explode? He truly did not know.
Suddenly, the engine growled as if straining against itself. There was a clunk, then another hum, more high-pitched than before. An explosion of light. A whiteout.
A long, agonized scream emanated from the cabin. A terrible, elongated wail that echoed through the universe, gradually dying out like a comet falling forever beyond endless horizons.
A long silence.
From the top of the cabin rose a wisp of smoke, then it slowly dissipated along with the bluish cast that surrounded The Utopia.
 
 
After leaving the museum, they retreated to the smoky haze of a warm and intimate bar that had no windows which might serve as portholes for the imagination. They had both seen enough to last a lifetime. Or so H.G. told himself at that particular moment.
And in time, the inevitable questions were asked and answered.
First, Amy had wanted to know what H.G. had done after she had finally gotten away from Stephenson. H.G. explained that once she was safe, he could jerk the declinometer out of his machine. Inside the cabin nothing at all was affected; hence, there was no way Stephenson could fathom that he was about to embark on a journey which would never end.
“Oh,” Amy exclaimed. “Then you sent him to Eternity.”
“Exactly.” He smiled and nodded.
“Does that mean that he's dead?”
“I don't really know, my dear.” He sipped a gin and bitters. “And I'm not really sure that I want to speculate, other than to say that Dr. Leslie John Stephenson is no doubt permanently stuck outside of time.”
“Permanently?”
“Of course. You remember. Once you arrive at Infinity, you cannot return, for there is nothing to get back from. Ever.”
“But what about your time machine? It's still in 1979.”
He smiled. “Quite true. When Stephenson asked me to fix The Utopia, I realized that all was not lost.”
“I don't understand.”
“I really didn't have to fix anything. All I had to do was remove the lock which I had placed on the engine earlier. But while I was under the machine, I cut part of the RRL circuitry with the villain's knife.”
She gasped, her eyes wide. “You were planning to follow me!”
“Fortunately, I was spared that ordeal due to the man's ultimate carelessness.”
She laughed joyfully. “Go on.”
“When I pulled the declinometer, he went to Eternity without the machine. If part of the RRL circuitry had not been already cut, The Utopia would have gone with him. I was lucky.”
She shook her head, her eyes full of astonishment. “You are amazing.”
“Thanks to this.” With a magical grin, he reached into his pocket and took out the small lock that he had removed from the engine's central gearing wheel. He chuckled and reminisced. The tour guide who had first encountered him in 1979 had been correct: the time machine had never been known to work, although the poor man never would have guessed in a million years that the reason why not was an infinitely simple, drop-forged bicycle lock.
H.G. released a long, luxuriant sigh. He hefted the lock in his
hand and speculated about how the principle of matter rejuvenation actually functioned when one was traveling into history. (The bar of the lock was cut now: it would be whole then—eighty-six years in the past; but if only it were placed, say, on the control panel, hence being left inside time and exposed to the swirling vortex of high-energy rotation.) Suddenly, he grinned broadly.
He finally knew that he, H. G. Wells, had actually been the one who had originally placed the lock on the machine when he got back to the nineteenth century. And he knew why, too. After the cosmic ordeal that they had both been through, he realized—profoundly so—that no one must ever use his time machine again.
“So then what do we say about Dr. Stephenson?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He shifted in his chair. “According to history, no one ever really knew what happened to Jack the Ripper.” He raised both his eyes and his glass and toasted the skies. “And they will never find out, either, my dear.”
“You know what,” she said, her voice full of awe. “I just realized something.”
“What?”
“I'm in love with an older man.”
Unlike Leslie John Stephenson, the fate of H. G. Wells and Amy Robbins became common knowledge. Far more common, perhaps, than either of them desired, although neither was ever known to complain in public about the questionable virtues of fame and fortune. What happened—briefly—was this.
When H.G. returned to 1893, he took a consenting Amy with him. Since they arrived within minutes of his original departure, Mrs. Nelson was not surprised that he had come home so soon. As a matter of fact, she never really was sure whether or not he had left. Especially since she hadn't had a chance to find the envelope containing the fifty pounds and his letter of explanation in the basement. She was not particularly amazed by the digital watch he wore; she assumed that he had created it in his laboratory. She was, however, shocked by the presence of Ms. Amy Robbins and flabbergasted that such a pretty young lady would dress in such a bizarre fashion. But, like most good and true English gentlewomen, she stoically accepted the news from H.G. that his female companion, most recently arrived from America, would be moving in for the duration. Besides, Mrs. Nelson and Amy quickly became fast friends and, on rare occasions when alone, they would share mild outrage at the inconsiderate nature of the adult male of the species.
Needless to say, London society was utterly scandalized that H. G. Wells and a woman from the notorious city of San Francisco were living together under the same roof. As a result, the articles that he was obligated to pen for the Pall Mall Gazette became even more popular. His readership avidly looked for erotic tidbits from the radical who was living in sin and enjoying it. Demands on his time became heavy, for he had begun his first novel. But he never forsook his daily bicycle ride through the city, now accompanied by Amy. And if the weather was good, they spent Sunday afternoons boating on the lake in Regent's Park. If not, the two of them invariably could be found in the library of 7 Mornington Place by the fire, sipping wine and reading to each other.
H.G. had returned from his sojourn a wiser man. His vision of the future was more skeptical, and hence realistic. No longer did he blindly trust the proponents of science and technology, for he realized that they could be morally bankrupt. Moreover, he understood that during his eighty-six year hiatus many of their dazzling creations had been employed to devastate societies and annihilate human beings, sometimes for no reason at all. Furthermore, he had seen that an advanced technology could effectively crush people if they themselves allowed it to happen. He had seen that man was dangerously close to becoming a slave to the artificial, automatic world that, ironically, he had created for his own power and convenience. Therefore, if Techno-Utopia ever did become a reality, the possibility existed that it would ultimately serve only itself.
H.G. had no answers, failing a return to organized religion. He could only dedicate his life and work to making frequent eloquent pleas for rationality. What was it that Huxley had once said? It is a fact that men must control science and check the inevitable advance of technology. What is even more important, however, is that they must control themselves according to the designs of reason if they are to avoid a final solution of no quarter.
Amen, H.G. had finally added.
With unfailing devotion, Amy helped him finish his book, and shortly thereafter The Time Machine was published. It created a sensation in literary circles, although not entirely a favorable one, and instantly became a best seller. One critic was prompted to report that the work deserved serious attention because of its “fantasized, yet penetrating insights into the future of mankind.”
And what of H.G.'s cosmic battle with destiny? He never did claim superiority or even victory. He preferred to let the matter rest alongside the notes on his desk and other philosophical riddles. Suffice it to say that Herbert George Wells and Amy Catherine Robbins were married in 1895 and lived happily together in a state of mutual tenderness for a good, long time.

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