· 6 June 1939 ·
HAWKE CASTLE
Ah, there it is!” Hobbes exclaimed.
“There what is, Hobbes?” Hawke asked.
“Sorry, m’lord. I was referring to the Tempus Machina. I’ve managed to get the machine open. Quite interesting, actually.”
“Open! I daresay, Hobbes, really!” Hawke said, crossing to the table in a bounding stride. The golden ball now lay in two halves on the velvet pillow, like two halves of a large golden orange. “I mean to say, the Tempus Machina, open at last, and all you can manage is ‘Ah, there it is’? Really, Hobbes! You do try one’s patience.”
“It separates along the equator, with a reverse clockwise twist which threw me for a few moments. Sorry, sir. Although, you’ll remember, Leonardo did many things backward. His mirror-writing, of course. As you may know, Leonardo da Vinci kept all of his journals written backward, so anyone attempting to read them could only do so by holding them before a mirror. Ha! The man wrote backward as easily as mere mortals write forward.”
No one was really listening to Hobbes’s history lesson. They were all much too captivated by the glittering interior of the four-hundred-year-old machine. Nick had no idea what he’d been expecting to find inside the machine—whirling atoms, perhaps. Actually, the device resembled an exquisite piece of jewelry. Delicate scrolled writing surrounded an engraving of the sun and its nine planets on one half, and there was a pyramid with what appeared to be Greek symbols on the other.
“I say, Hobbes, there seems to be some of your backward writing here, surrounding the figure of the solar system. Have a look, will you?”
“Nick,” Hobbes said with some excitement in his voice, “hand me the mirror you’ll find in that top drawer, please.”
“Latin, I assume, Hobbes,” Hawke said, as Hobbes held the mirror to the beautiful machine. “What does it say, Hobbes? Blurt it out, man! You do push one to the limit at times.”
Nick looked at the backward writing reflected in the small mirror.
Nunc Mihi
Mox Huius
Sed Postea Nescio Cuius
“Now Mine,Then Theirs, But ForeverAfter I Know Not Whose. ” Hobbes intoned the words, sounding like the voice of antiquity itself. “Well, we know whose, don’t we? Leonardo’s Tempus Machina now belongs to young Nicholas McIver!”
Nick felt himself flushed with excitement, looking now at a number of jewels set in the golden faces of each half, like buttons. Unlike the scholarly Hobbes, Nick didn’t know a lot of Latin. It was, in fact, his weakest subject at school, but he knew that the engraved words “Tempus” on one half, and “Locus” on the other stood for “Time” and “Place.”
“Now, the ‘Tempus’ half seems to be a perpetual calendar,” Hobbes said. “And, as you can see, this dial is showing today’s date and time, exactly. Quite amazing, isn’t it? Ticking along for four hundred years! Now, I imagine if I press this gemstone—an emerald, I believe—the calendar will advance—”
He pushed the emerald, and indeed the minutes, hours, and days started racing by, gaining speed until they were nothing but a blur. Nick noticed that, eerily, the machine made no sound at all.
“Hobbes, please be careful! Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Hawke said, peering over Hobbes’s shoulder and clearly alarmed as time raced ahead on the machine.
“Fairly elementary, your lordship,” Hobbes replied, nonplussed. “The genius of Leonardo, if you will. Ah, now that we’ve got time moving, I wonder how in the world we get it to stop!”
“Good lord, Hobbes! You’re jesting, of course!” Hawke said. “You don’t know how to stop it!”
“This stone here,” Hobbes said calmly, “a ruby, I believe, should stop the acceleration. A brake, you’d call it in an automobile. Let’s see if I’m right, shall we?”
Hobbes pushed the tiny ruby and immediately the spinning days and hours began to slow until they could be read again, and then they stopped. Nick would never forget the date where the machine stopped.
1 April 2079
It took his breath away. The machine had sped ahead a hundred and forty years into the future in the very blink of an eye!
“I say!” was all Lord Hawke could muster. “I daresay I’d feel a great deal more comfortable if you’d just return us to today, Hobbes. Really, let’s not rush headlong into this, shall we? Can you get us back to today’s date?”
“Certainly, sir,” Hobbes replied. “Although the machine can not possibly take us anywhere without the two halves being rejoined, so I shouldn’t concern yourself too much about experimenting with it. I would imagine this middle stone is the reset button. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Hawke let out a sigh when Hobbes pushed the middle jewel, a diamond, and the days began to spin slowly backward to a stop. They all noticed with great relief that the machine had stopped where it had started, on today’s date. Nick looked at his watch. Same exact time as was showing on the machine. To the second!
“I must say, Hobbes, guessing the functions of the various gems is rather a neat trick.”
“Not really, sir.” Hobbes smiled. “Seventy-two percent of the civilized societies on earth have designated the colors green for ‘go’ and red for ‘stop.’ Leonardo, the original time traveler,
would surely have discovered that fact in his travels to the future. I imagine he chose the red ruby for stop and the green emerald for go as his way of saying to anyone coming into possession of the instrument, ‘You see, I’ve been to the future.’ ”
“A bit of an inside cosmic joke is what you’re saying, Hobbes?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“And this bottom half,” Nick said, “it sets the geographic locations?”
Hobbes studied this lower half for a few moments.
“Indeed! One must assume that this dial here is a global positioning indicator. Notice it uses standard latitudinal and longitudinal numerals. Now, if I’m correct, the figures here should change if I walk over to the window, shouldn’t they?”
Hobbes carried the device over to the window, studying it intently as he walked. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “the machine is tracking with me as I walk, even this minute distance across the face of the planet! Look here, here is my new position!” Hawke and Nick practically ran to him to see for themselves.
“Astounding, Hobbes!” Lord Hawke said. “So this dial is the machine’s current location, correct? Where we are standing now?”
“Precisely, my lord. That is to say, precise within a radius of, oh, a few feet. Maybe less, considering how it tracked my position as I walked to the window. I really don’t know what the margin of error is, sir. Nick, would you plot Hawke Castle’s position on the maritime chart you’ll find in that drawer, please?”
Nick found the chart and quickly located Hawke Point. “All right, Commander, zero-two degrees twenty-four minutes longitude by forty-nine degrees twenty-five minutes north latitude.”
“And the machine’s reading, Hobbes?”
“Precisely the same, your lordship!”
“By Jove, Hobbes! You’ve cracked it!”
“I endeavor to give satisfaction, m’lord.”
“Is that it, then, Hobbes? Can we at long last go find that scoundrel Blood?”
“One final thing, m’lord,” Hobbes said, picking up one half of the globe in each hand. “Please remember. You enter the desired time of arrival in Tempus. And the desired destination in Locus. Then one must screw the two hemispheres together again to actually activate the machine.”
“Time and space rejoined is what you’re saying, Hobbes.”
“Precisely, my lord. And, sir, before you depart, might I mention the historical protection issue? Not that you need reminding, m’lord.”
“Historical protection issue, Hobbes?” Hawke asked, momentarily puzzled. “Ah, of course! Splendid point, Hobbes!”
He turned to Nick and Gunner, a deadly serious expression in his eyes. “We are about to venture into the past, gentlemen. In so doing, we incur an enormous responsibility to history. It is our obligation, you see, nay, our sacred duty to protect the flow, and to abide by the Law of Unintended Consequences.”
“Protect the flow?” Nick asked. Hobbes smiled at Nick.
“By going back in time, you have it in your power to change the whole course of human history, Nick. This could have unforeseen and disastrous effects on mankind if the time traveler does anything to dramatically alter the precious flow of history.”
“We can still help the captain, can’t we?” Gunner asked.
“A relatively minor historic event,” Hobbes replied. “Yes, you can help Captain McIver, Gunner. I’m talking about interfering in major events. The lives and deaths of significant historical figures, for instance. Do I have your solemn vow you will avoid this at all costs?” Hobbes asked his two fellow travelers.
Nick and Gunner nodded in silent agreement.
“Right! Our first stop, then, Hobbes?”
“The shanty, sir, any time prior to Nick’s six o’clock appointment this evening, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of entering the coordinates for the Old North Wharf. You should arrive within or near the shanty. Shall I enter five-fifty to be on the safe side, sir?”
“Excellent! And Captain McIver’s frigate?”
“Your next stop. Mr. Blood will be most unpleasantly surprised to see you, I should imagine, my lord.”
“Yes, I suppose he shall. We shan’t be gone too long, I wouldn’t imagine, old boy. To do so might, as my hero Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, generate too much unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. Take good care of this pretty young lady, won’t you, Hobbes?”
“Indeed I will, sir,” Hobbes said, “My nursemaid skills are a bit rusty, but I think they’ll come back to me. And now, sir, as the French are so fond of saying, ‘Bon voyage et bonne chance!’ ”