Brigit's Flame - August Week 4 - Scrambled
The next installment in the new steampunk-ish story brewing in my head. This is actually becoming a rather fun one to write. More to follow soon, I'm sure. I look forward to introducing the rest of the crew! I stopped here because... Well, it's almost 6:30am and I need to go to bed.. And I'm 1334 words in with many more to go. Heh... I just can't seem to write a SHORT, short story. Anyway, the first part, if you need to brush up, is here: http://shadowdream.livejournal.com/136865.html.
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Ellen turned in a circle, taking in the strange semi-circular room she had just stepped into. It looked to be the control room of the time machine (or Chronometrical Movement Apparatus, as Garret had called it). Graceful lamps lined the walls, each holding a slightly frosted glass tube which partially obscured a pair of small electrodes. Between the electrodes, a brilliant blue spark shimmered and danced. This discharge created a soft blue light, and a faint buzzing that underscored the other sounds of the room.
Elegant control panels, made of darkly stained wood, ran along the two curved side walls that held the portal she just stepped through. Every inch of each panel seemed to be covered in switches and buttons, bright brass levers and elegantly lettered chrome gauges. They chimed and beeped, clicked and whirred, some spitting out lengths of paper tape with figures typed upon it.
The center of the room held the most interesting sight of all. On a short pedestal stood a tall glass chamber containing an enormous crystal suspended in a clear liquid. The crystal slowly turned and bobbed ever so slightly in the liquid, rainbow light shimmering off its faceted surface.
Ellen strode across the room unthinkingly, drawn by the remarkable beauty in that giant vial. She reached out and placed her hand upon the glass, smiling at the soft, pulsing vibration she felt.
Behind her, Garret cleared his throat. Ellen jumped, her reverie broken, and turned to face him with eyes filled with awe.
“I'm sorry... It's just... This is fantastic! I can't believe it! A real time machine? Tell me all about it! What does this do?” Her words tumbled out over each other.
Garret grinned from ear to ear. “This ship is the fruit of many years of labor and experimentation. I call her the Whisper of Aeon. This is her first real voyage.” He ran his fingers lightly over the glass chamber, his face a mixture of pride and wonder.
“This crystal was mined from the dark continent. A colleague of mine found it on an expedition, actually. He told me that when the native miners found it, they closed off the mines and refused to work. Naturally, the company that owned the mines was outraged, and called my colleague in. He's a natural with the natives. Anyway, the natives had tunneled into an old cave system, and found this enshrined in there. The cave paintings surrounding it named it “breath of the creator” or perhaps, “song of the creator”, the translation is a little sketchy.
“Regardless, the natives refused to dig further into the chamber and disturb the artifact. My friend served as a liaison between them and the mining company, and in the end, they agreed to wall up the passage and continue around it. Of course, my friend, being the intelligent man he is, mapped the network of tunnels to a small cave a few miles off. After the natives were back to work, he slipped in the back way, secured this prize, and brought it to me for experimentation.
“The rest, my dear, is history,” he chuckled at his poor joke. “I found that the sound waves that resonated from this crystal seemed to create temporal distortions. Some extrapolation and experimentation later, and we have this wonder before you.”
“Amazing,” was all Ellen could manage in breathless reply. “But... You said you were aiming for 1600. How did you end up here? 2010 is a bit far off.”
Garret blushed and cleared his throat. “Well, you see...” He started. “There is a perfectly good...” He sighed. “Ok, well, I suppose the reason is twofold. Firstly - and this happenstance was entirely random and not my fault - we came upon an... irregularity. As I explained before, time travel is possible via the temporal distortions created by the resonation of sound waves from the crystal. We are able to affect the speed, distance, and direction by altering the tone of the resonation. Well, we were not very far into our maiden voyage, when a sudden reverberation shook the entire ship. It sounded like... like whale-song. The crystal picked up the reverberation, and suddenly we were wheeling through time forward instead of backward.
“There was nothing I could do to stop it. I'm, well,” he looked at the floor. “I'm completely tone deaf. I understand the properties of sound. Higher frequency of waves create a higher pitch and vice versa. However, I am lost to the nuances. It was all I could do to bring her to a stop!”
Ellen looked at him, her brow furrowed, “That is strange. But tell me, how did one who is tone-deaf fine tune this ship, and understand the tonal nuances to begin with?”
“I had an assistant, actually. A dear, dear friend of mine helped me through the experimentation process, and helped me fine tune the controls. Oh, he has a voice that could sing angels themselves to sleep! And he has the ear to match. The tiniest change in tone and he could compensate for it. He even was the one who suggested the use of these.”
Garret flipped open a door in the pedestal, and slid a tuning fork out of a padded drawer. “If you tap them against the glass and hold them there, the tone will resonate through the temporal medium and into the crystal.” He replaced the tuning fork and shut the door with a sigh.
“Last night, before our inaugural voyage, he told me that God had something else in mind for him, and that he could not accompany us. Being that he is a priest, I could not exactly argue with him, though I did worry for him, hearing voices and all. So, I took his book of notes and figured I would be alright on my own. Apparently, I was wrong.”
“May I see that book, please, Garret?” Ellen asked, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I might be able to help.”
Garret raised an eyebrow. “I thank you for the offer, miss, but I'm unsure how a young woman such as yourself might be able to assist in the sciences. I'm afraid the terminology might be a bit above you.”
She gave him a hard look. “I'll have you know, this young woman is currently in her third year at one of the more prestigious universities in the country. I may be studying music - which would be of a great help to you, I might add - but I do have an understanding of the fundamentals of science! Also, you can leave off the 'Miss' and call me Ellen.”
He blinked and handed her the book, looking a little astonished. “My apologies, Ellen! I had no idea that women of your time were so... emancipated! That is wonderful! Please, by all means, peruse away! If you, ah, have any questions, I will, ah, be happy to clarify... Not that you will need it!” he hastily added as she shot him a glare that could easily have melted steel.
No sooner had he handed her the book, than the ship suddenly lurched and dipped, nearly knocking Ellen from her feet. As Garret caught her, awkwardly trying to avoid touching all the bare skin her bikini left exposed, they both heard a deep, trilling, almost moaning sound that resonated through the entire ship. The crystal picked it up and began pulsating, playing the sound over and over, a soft glow forming at its core.
“Was that the whale-song from before?” Ellen asked in a shaking whisper.
Garret nodded, his eyes wide. “I'm sorry, mi... Ellen. I think you're stuck with us for the time being. Please! Help me bring this to a stop, somewhere! Then I think we need to go and inform the others. Something is wrong here.”