Experiment Gone Awry

[Peredhil]

Technically this should be in the Library, but I may come back to it soon.

 

Chapter One

 

 

I had to admit, it was definitely a traveling machine!

 

But as to whether it had done duty in moving us through time I did not know. According to the theory which had been laid forth before me, we should have traveled through time into the future, then to the past, and have come to rest once more in the present.

 

The theory had been reduced back to hypothesis in my mind. Something had gone amiss. In the Eternal Circle of Time, like circumnavigation of the terrestrial sphere on which I was born, going far enough in one direction should b ring one back ot the beginning point.

 

Fine enough on paper. Once the Earl had attempted to enlist my aid, I had made him run through it all very thoroughly. I had had not the least desire to discover myself taking a one-way trip down a river of time.

 

Enough soliloquy! Proceed to inquiry.

 

"Dorchester, have you quite gotten it through that marvelously dense skull of yours that we are not in the dungeon of your keep?" Harsh you might say, but I bloody well meant it to sting.

"Patience Colonel, I have been comparing the things with see with the equations, and have discovered an indisputable fact. Either our sense deceive us, or equation Sixty-seven has another derivation than was suggested."

"Suggested? My dear Ass, do you mean you haven't actually plugged test information into the thing?"

"Quiet! The other equations were so consistent with what I thought, I didn't waste time doing the last four equations."

"FOUR!"

"Don't use that boorishly injured tone. I have made it quite obvious that I am an engineer, not a physicist. Everything fit so well, I didn't see the need."

 

I maintained a distinctly wounded scientist. Freudian slip there, I meant to say silence. I had desire enough to wound his Lordship, the Earl of Dorchester, but the old bear had shown in the part a similar lack of attention to detail. I had overlooked it in my eagerness to be doing and risking again. A jaunt through time had seemed just the thing. All in all, it really was unfair to pin him now, I mean, dash it all, he was an extremely brilliant mathematical engineer. Pity he had been trained by the Yank's government.

 

The universe has so many needless complexities and loose ends, at times I think it was manufactured by American government. Suppress the shudder, Eric-me-lad, the Universe hasn't treated you all that badly.

"Move on Eric," I prodded myself gently, "delicately pin the Earl with action."

"Dorchester."

"What now. I'm busy."

"Old man, do take a moment and solve those last four equations, what? You may crawl under that afterward, and I will hand you the tools for which you have been groping industriously."

"Why?"

"I would dearly like to know where we are, to whither we go, and when we may return."

"Presently I shall, at the moment I am occupied. The screwdriver please."

"Grab it yourself," I grumped, walking away. Behind me I heard a faint reminder that I had come for adventure.

"Yes, but...", I thought, looking out at the verdant jungle. A rather over-sized panther, reclining indolently on a branch, looked back and yawned widely.

 

Adventure. Bah!

[Peredhil]

Chapter Two

Having expected to come to test within the confines of Castle Bladworth, I had felt a definite psychic shock on first seeing the present view.

Entirely surrounding the traveling machine is a jungle. A lush forest. Very un-British. No order here. Vines and flowering shrubbery were not scantily present. Rather, the one ran this place delighted in vines and shrubbery strewn about carelessly. No discretion had been used, no feng-shu. It is obvious that the master decorator had never asked him or herself, "Is this hibiscous needed?" or even a simple thought such as "perhaps a mossy boulder or bit of soft grass?" No, the architect of this scene had pulled up every stop, ripping out doubts from the mind, and replacing them with clashing floral arrangments of every type. Flowers fornicating pollen left, right, and straight-away. With unrealistically large insects assisting the flowers in their orgy. Bloody Australian-sized buggers.
Not that there weren't trees. Tall leafy trees grew thickly where ever the shrubs weren't, and in a few spots contending for where the shrubs were. They provided yet more opportunities for the bloody vines to grow.
Sumatra had not been so cluttered. Come to think of it, how did all of these plants get enough sunlight? The high canopy provided by the trees should have inhibited the undergrowth. This mass of green growths lacked all semblance of inhibitions.

Not unlike that skirt in Manturia, come to recall. Even unto the wild panther staring across the way to stretch a metaphor.

I hadn't thought there were panthers on English soil?

[Peredhil]

Chapter Three

It has been several days since we arrived. It rains morning, evenings, and nights. Dorchester has finished fixing the machine. He seems a bit put out I won't let him use it until he redoes all his bloody equations. Let him stew! I have removed all the control instrumentation and locked them in his closet, and hidden the key.
Looking out, I notice that the panther is back. He is staring at something near to the tree's base. Probably one of the small red deer which graze in the evenings.
Gor! Bloody Dorchester's out there taking pictures of the beast!

Running down the stairs, I threw open the door.
"Dorchester! I say, get your bloody ass back in here immediately! There's a panther eying you!" To say that I was furious would have been an understatement of the situation. I mean, stiff upper lip and all that rot, but a fool and a panther, wot?

Dorchester, of course, turned and grinned foolishly at me.

"Colonel! Old man, dash it, happy to see you!" In response to my frantic gestures, he began to amble back to the machine.
"Yes, yes, Eric, I know about the panther. Lovely specimen, what? Pity he didn't leap. Would've had the shock of his life."
"Are you Irish? Is the moon gone full? He's got fangs and claws. All you've got is your stone head! This isn't the London Zoo."
Tapping a curiously bulky belt, the Earl continued his slow pace. the panther had descended gracefully to the ground behind him. In no particular hurry, it began a measured pace after the dolt. Its tail lashed slowly as it glided across the glade like a ripple in water.
"Colonel, you fail to grasp the situation fully. This belt," another tap, "generates a field impenetrable by anything larger than molecular atmosphere. I've been working on it for the past week." At my look, he hastily continued. " -- Between the equations I mean!"
The panther was scant paces behind Dorchester, who'd stopped several feet from the door.
"The beast would have merely slid harmlessly off, baffled and unable to understand it's inability to best the human mind and English ingenuity."
Turning, the Earl spotted the panther. Taking a quick step back, he frowned. The panther had crouched and was snarling soundlessly, tail sweeping broad strokes. Dorchester shattered the silence.
"Here kitty-kitty-kitty! Do be a love now." Taking a rapid step toward the beast, he squatted! "Here kitty-kitty-kitty," came the falsetto, "Come to the Earl and prove his genius, what?"
Baffled at this bizarre prey's behavior, the large cat crouched yet lower. Its front paws worked the ground beneath it. When the Earl lunged up and took two rapid steps toward it, it was too much. The tableau broke into action.
As the cat spun and leaped into the ever-present underbrush, I sped from my place at the door. Coming up behind Dorchester, I heard a quiet, "Pity, I'd had hopes of being attacked."

Placing a hand on his shoulder, I spun him about and applied a doubled fist to his jaw. With an astonished look, he slumped to the ground senseless.
"Ass!"
Looking about furtively, I picked him up and ran like hell's furies pursued me for the door. The Earl's belt buzzed a merry hum in my ear as I ran.