In The Library Ch 18

I have to leave this place.

Alexandra has woven me into her life and the blood line has been made whole, once again. And now she seeks to save me from the consequences of her choices, and I will do as she says, for she is my mother, and a good son should not doubt his mother.

Alexandra has married, but he is a cuckold. She has been my secret lover these past months (or I have been her's) but the world thinks that I am her Aunt Catherine's son, and therefore her cousin, visiting.

But now that her belly is starting to swell with our child, we have agreed that I cannot be here when that child is born. And just as Alexandra left me and never knew my boyhood, I must leave my unborn child and never know a son. Or never know a daughter. Or, God help me, never know my sister.

For this blood line is perverse and an abomination to all good people, and Alexandra has been corrupted by it and it corrupts me; but at the same time, she wants to give us a strange and fantastic hope. For she has learned of a curious invention, and she has immense wealth and has engaged the inventor to construct a device.

So why do I think that something is not right, that something is very very wrong? Alexandra has not seen something here, and she has not foreseen something, but I cannot place it. I do not know what it is nor when, but I sense that something is very wrong, and that I am at the centre of that wrongness.

---ooOOoo---

A letter, dated 7 October 1902

My dear Welles,

I have not written for some time, and beg your indulgence, for I have been engaged on a secret business that is now completed. I am eager to inform you of it, even tho' it is fantastical, as the machine I have constructed makes real the very machine you wrote about before the turn of the century.

I can tell you of it, for you know the family of whom I tell, and I can trust your confidence. Indeed, it was at the house of Catherine Cain in England that I first made your acquaintance, as a fellow guest for one of her entertainments - you will surely remember the splendid wench in the library, and that exotic fellow.

But I write of Catherine's niece, Alexandra, for it is she who has commissioned this fantastic venture. She is wedded now, but this commission began before that occasion, and she has impressed upon me a certain urgency, and bid my work not be casually done.

As you know, I experimented with the etheric mysteries before I turned to the electrical sciences and made of them such a success that they are now my main business. This device, and I am uncertain what to call it, combines the electrical agents with the etheric forces. I have perfected a way to tune them both to the life forces of a man in such a way that the combined alternating currents and direct currents, when they work in correct sympathy with a man's heart beat, enter into harmony with the etheric forces and, when a great pulse is applied, the man is thrust electrically along a channel of time into the future.

Yes, Welles, into the very future of this world! Alexandra's cousin, the young Mr Alex, has bravely agreed to be the subject of this experiment, and this intrepid adventurer has succeeded in transmitting himself one month clear into the future!

It is a strange effect, and I have not quite figured the fullness of it. But our first experiment was completed this last week, and here is the essence of it:

One month past, we prepared the machine. To the uneducated and the non scientific eye, it looks as does a chair, constructed completely of wood, for it must not conduct any electrical force in its own material. The navigator, or pilot (again, I do not yet know the best name for the adventurer) has control levers and electrical dials to measure the forces and to regulate their energy.

Constructed in a careful array of loops around the chair are the alternating current wires, a separate set of cables for the direct current, and a cunningly crafted array of glass tubes and vacuum enclosures which channel the etheric waves. The man himself is strapped to the machine, and his heart and another place are strapped with electrical detectors for his body's vital indicators.

The electrical power is fed into the machine from my very own generators, and the etheric power feeds from a large array of crystals, which were provided by Miss Cain. She discovered them, I believe, in ancient places like the Egypt of the pharaohs, and Mesopotamia. She has sent a number of teams to old countries over the years, and has investigated many books of the mysteries.

But one month past, we prepared the machine. Young Mr Cain strapped his unclothed body to the machine and prepared for his entrancement.

I am not certain of all of the complexities, but I have found, through experiments with mice and rats, that the body within the machine must be completely uncorrupted by any other thing. For if there is the slightest tampering of the singular life essence of the occupant, unaccountable impacts will occur, and dreadful combinations of living material will happen, with unpredictable results.

Mr Cain, therefore, entered the machine as naked as the day he was born. As he strapped himself into the chair, he took especial care to unclip a chain about his neck, and to hand it and the locket to me. "Edisson," he said, "I entrust this, my most precious belonging in all my life, I entrust this to you, and I will collect it from you when our times re-align."

For we have discovered that the stream of time moves differently for the traveller thrust forward. I believe that the sudden jolt of the harmonic forces suddenly pushes the man into the future, the period being determined by the electrical power that can safely be applied. Once that point in time is reached, it as if the time there slows down, or even drifts slowly backwards, such that the person enjoys a slower pace of time than those he leaves in this time. So we in this time slowly catch up with the traveller.

And so it was with our first experiment. Mr Cain entered the machine clean shaven and splendid in his nakedness. We adjusted the currents for a one month transmission, and he fell into his private entrancement, which is the key thing to synchronise his life beats with the electrical and etheric harmonies. At his peak moment his life energy was all properly synchronised with the humming power of the electrical and etheric energies, and he simply vanished from my sight. I cannot describe it, for I am a scientist and an engineer and was studying closely the meters and controls to record the exact powers involved. So my attention was completely on the recording instruments, and I simply did not see him go. One second he was there, and next he was vanished.

I had instructed Mr Cain to find evidence of the day he arrived in the future place, by finding some thing, some record, of what day it was, and if possible, what exact time. Once he had that evidence, and he found us, we would be able to compare that date with the date he was sent forward, and the difference in days or hours would be the time period he jumped in a second. For the first experiment we calibrated the machine to jump forward approximately one month.

But in the end it was a simple thing to measure. Every day after young Alex disappeared from this time, I went to the laboratory to continue experiments and measurements, and took care to be there the same time every day, at the same time that he disappeared. For I felt that the rotation of the earth was an important thing, as if the traveller was somehow jettisoned into the ether and would arrive back to the same place one complete rotation of the earth later, and he would instantly travel what would take you and I a day of our lives to live.

And so it turned out. I was in the laboratory four whole weeks later, when there was a strange twist in the air, and there was Mr Alex, suddenly appeared. But for him, only some five seconds had past. Indeed, he was still expelling his etheric fluid, which is a key element of the secret transport, as if it was still the same moment he vanished.

"Alex, it has been four weeks since you strapped yourself to the machine, but how long has it been for you?"

"It has been but a moment," he replied, " no more than five seconds, ten at the most. Look, my fluid is still spilling." And yes, from his splendid organ, his life force was spurting white upon his skin, for his sexual essence is the key to channeling and focusing the etheric forces in this machine.

"Miss Alexandra and Miss Odette will be pleased to discover the results of this experiment," I commented, for these two women were intensely committed to the outcome of my work, and eager to know what time movement was possible. But I do not know their motivation.

"But who is Odette?" young Mr Cain asked.

This effect was not anticipated, and I must ponder on it some more. I will write again, dear sir. Until then,

I am your humble friend, Thom Edisson.

---ooOOoo---

A letter, dated 12 March 1906

My dear Welles,

I write to inform you of the latest state of my experiments with accelerating through time, and to say that I have perfected the technique and refined my machine, my chrono-etheric accelerator. However, I have also found a terrible side effect that will surely prevent its proper development and use.

Mr Alex Cain has this day shown proof that an instantaneous movement forward in time is quite possible, and he has aged but five seconds while I have aged near on three years. Today I was working in the laboratory, cleaning up some of the vacuum jars and cables that are the power source behind the accelerator, when I felt a strange twist in the air, and Mr Cain emerged as if from fog, until his handsome body was clearly seen in the device, his member still rigid and his life essence spilling from that proud shaft. The last time I saw him had been an early autumn day, just less than three years previously, when he strapped himself to the time accelerator.

I turned to the safe and found there his locket and chain, which he placed around his neck. "You are a good man, Thom, keeping this precious thing safe for me, as it is a most important thing for me. But something is a bit vague in my head, and I cannot place my thoughts nor my knowledge to this oddness. It is as if my head is in two places, and is both coming and going." He pondered for a few moments. "How far forward was I thrown this time," he asked.

"Around two years and six months," I replied.

"Good Lord, the child will be about two years old exactly," he cried. "What sex is the child?"

"A girl, sir, a girl."

And a strange look came over his face that I could not interpret. "When can I see her?"

"I will arrange a time for you with Alexandra, who will no doubt want to show off her beautiful daughter," I replied. "She is dark and lovely, just like her mother, and the resemblance to all the women of the Cain family is obvious. She is like her mother Alexandra, and I can also see a resemblance to her great aunt, Catherine."

"But who is Catherine?" Mr Cain looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face.

So this second trip has confirmed one of the most unfortunate side effects of the chrono-etheric device. The traveller in time loses a memory of his loved ones. In an instant I am shocked and cautious of this experiment, for the memory of the dear woman who bought him into this world has been wiped from the mind of young Mr Cain. This is a terrible loss, and I must prevent him from using the accelerator again. It is too dangerous a machine, I see that now.

The next day we attended to the house of the lady Alexandra, who bade Mr Cain most welcome. They greeted each other with a warm embrace, for that splendid woman had not seen the young man for near on three years, even though for him it was yesterday. He accompanied the lady to her sitting room where they made conversation of their own. I sat with the lady's maid, Odette, she with the unusual blaze of white in her hair and the faraway look in her eyes, and made idle chatter with her. She is a splendid woman, Welles, be assured, but I feel that she lives in her own dream world.

Then the little girl awoke from her nap and came into the room. She is a bright little thing, her eyes big and wide and with a thick curl of hair long from her head, just like her mother's. Odette called to Alexandra and Mr Cain, and I observed his face as he entered the room and gazed at the child.

The girl ran to her mother and hid shyly behind her skirts. Mr Cain stood motionless at the door, the strangest strange look upon his face, the meaning of which I could not puzzle. Then he fell to one knee and held out one hand to the girl. The little one looked up at her mother, who also had a new strange look on her face that I had never seen before, but a look of strong emotion, there was no doubt of that. "Go to Mr Alex, my darling, and give him a kiss on the cheek, for you are a lovely girl and he deserves that."

And the little sprite went to that man and stood in front of him, and stood quite still, her dark eyes gazing firm to his face. And then she reached one little hand out, and reached for the gold locket hung on the chain at Mr Alex's neck. The gold locket that was his most precious thing in the world, that was of great sentiment to him. And she touched it with her tiny finger.

"Be careful, Grace, don't touch Mr Alex's locket, it might break. And then where would we be?" There was a quaver to Alexandra's voice when she spoke, as if her heart were pierced through.

There was the deepest emotion in the room, but I knew that I was outside of it all. My challenge, though, was to prevent Mr Cain from ever using the machine again.

Later:

I have failed in my mission. Mr Cain has gone, vanished. I have checked the instruments, and it would seem that he has applied an extraordinary amount of power to the accelerator, and he has thrown himself forward some twenty years. Yes, Welles, twenty years. He will find himself in the early 1920s, as if it was his tomorrow.

I fear for his mind, alas, because I have proof from his first experimental transits that the accelerator wipes memories of his loved ones, and undoubtedly will wipe any last vestige of memory from his head. He will be lost in a future time, a stranger there. But those who will arrive in that future time in the normal way, by living the years in between, will know him as the young man he is today. But he will not know them.

And Welles, I fear too that he has corrupted his last transmission. Near the machine, I found his precious locket on the floor, as if he had thrown it from himself as the machine surged with its electrical power.

The little locket lay open, its glass broken and a tiny photograph of a babe there. But the other half of the locket was empty.

I did not know what was contained there, but when I told the lady Alexandra of the discovery and the emptiness, her face went pale like a ghost.

"Oh my sweet boy, what have you done? Have you clutched those tiny feathers to your breast, just as you did when I left you as a tiny babe? What evil will that terrible gift bring, that the cat brought to me, that gift that I accepted?" She wept, Welles, she wept as if her heart was broken apart.

"And our daughter Grace, my God, what have we done to the child, that is so innocent?"