9 - A Strange Host

As the two men walked through the streets back toward the western part of the city, Henly marveled at the ambitious architecture of its industrial establishments, with their brickwork, patina frames, and glass domes.  With air quality regulations a long way off, he could determine the approximate age of a structure by the dinginess of brick façades and iridescence of window panes.  Surely many of these folks must suffer from one respiratory ailment or another, he thought.

They reached a block which offered some semblance of residential zoning and walked up to a modest house. 

They climbed the creaky wooden steps to a spacious porch, which featured what he could best describe to be a swinging couch.  Dead leaves and a fine layer of dirt dominated its seat cushions.  The door was flanked by two ceramic planters with dead flowers. The foyer windows were dark.  Henly turned to look beyond the house at their surroundings in the growing shadows (Again!  Why was it always turning dark when he was about?) and noted a hotel across the road.  Beside the house was a tree and a larger house with a sign on the front lawn; they probably took boarders.

A light suddenly came on in the foyer which threw bright stripes on the planks of dried wood where Henly and his new acquaintance stood.  He noted its warmth against grey and indigo tones, unusual patterns from a beveling of their glass.  The trees hissed sharply as a gust of wind sifted through their boughs.  It just occurred to him that the trees about these two houses were the first he'd seen since his arrival.  That couldn't be right, could it?

Mr. Farnsworth," said the gentleman, "this is Mr. Henly, who helped recover your wife."

Henly turned to smile, and beheld a somewhat elderly man in plaid shirt and suspenders.  For some reason there was an expectation of someone younger, perhaps enthusiastic.  He took the man's hand, which gripped his with extraordinary strength.  He let his new friend continue to do the talking.

"It appears Mr. Henly has some experience with internal medicine and has expressed concern that there could be residual effects from Mrs. Farnsworth's ordeal which may have a potentially adverse impact on her future well-being."

Henly couldn't have said it better himself.  In fact, he probably would have used those very words.

Mr.  Farnsworth squinted as he listened but appeared to comprehend.  He nodded and stepped back as he swung the door wide open.

The runner along the foyer was slightly worn but retained its Oriental elegance.  Much of the home was furnished in elaborately sculpted mahogany, with creme cloth doilies of various sizes adorning surfaces from what Henly could see as they passed doorways.  He thought back on period fictions he'd read and how people were ordinarily led to a sitting room or parlor close to the front door. Perhaps, he thought, Mrs. Farnsworth had already begun to experience symptoms and they were being led to her bedside...

Henly stopped.   Not visible to the human eye was a barrier filling the height and width of the foyer seemingly leading to a large kitchen, close to where they were at the other end.  Mr. Farnsworth passed easily through it, oblivious.  However following suit could result in very different consequences for them.

He knew it was probably rude to bring out his device, but it was necessary over an undesired alternative.

"Is this your... examiner?"

"Yes.  I call it a scanner."

"A 'scanner'..."

Henly nodded.  "There is a portal mere centimeters in front of us.  It is not clear where it leads.

They looked at one another. 

"Oh Mr. Farnsworth!" the man suddenly called out, for their host had continued his silent walk into the kitchen and turned out of view.

There was no response.  In fact Mr. Farnsworth hadn't said a word throughout their encounter.

"We are the only life forms registering within a twenty meter radius."

"Is the portal harmful?"

Henly's eyes squinted behind heavy brass and leather goggles. Now there was a thought! "There may not be a way back," he replied, "and where we'd end up may not have a habitable environment."

"Which, might I assume, you said for my benefit?"

Henly pursed his lips. 

"You're good, Mr. Henly, but still a tad off with regard to your social skills for this era.  You're too careful."

"You're not from around here either I take it?"

"So very much," the man bowed, "but you may call me Lord Myron."

Henly broke into a grin. "'Lord' Myron?"

The man looked down his nose at Henly, only this time wearing a smile touched with mock cynicism. "It suits my station where I come from."

"I see," Henly replied. "So, Lord Myron, do you carry an oxygen source?"

"I do indeed Mr. Henly... or should I address you as 'DOCTOR Henly'?"

"It hadn't crossed my mind, to be honest. I'm not here for medical reasons." Or maybe Lord Myron was making a joke...?

"Something tells me that your purpose does involve the well-being of someone, perhaps several someones?"

"At the risk of seeming overly altruistic: yes."

Lord Myron extracted from the lining of his coat a brass ring-like device, which he placed around the back of his neck.  The two ends pressed slightly into the sides of where his thyroid would be towards the front. "Ready," he said.

8 - A Near Discovery

The journey to Mrs. Farnsworth did not go quite so smoothly for Henly.

In an alleyway not far from the Red Rum, he momentarily blacked out (by "momentarily" it is meant a duration of nanoseconds).  The bright blue flicker against the brickface betrayed a static device was used in an attempt to stun him, but Henly knew that there was no point in feigning unconsciousness. He whirled to look the man in the eye.

It wasn't a difficult task, given their size at that moment.  "What are you?!" came a raspy exclamation.  For the briefest of moments, Henly's visage had become semitransparent.

It appeared that the wrong man had been stunned.  While tempting, Henly knew any expression of smugness or bemusement could be construed as malevolence, so he kept calm. "Suffice it to say I'm not from around here."

"You most certainly are not!" The man said shortly; he tugged at his lapels as he composed himself. 

"Then again, neither are most people in this town, are they?"

"Nothing like you..."

"I've met a boy with amphibious traits," said Henly, "nothing should surprise you."

"Are you even really here?" asked the man.  His tone was sincere and not meant as a slight as he squinted at Henly's goggles to find his eyes.

Henly sighed.

"-or did I trigger a time travel device on your person?"

It was easy to deduce from this that the sources of tiny chronoton readings throughout Neo Adapolis were the result of inventions capable of temporal manipulation which had been incorporated into their culture and used widely. Fascinating, he thought.

What had occurred was something else entirely - and far more serious - but Henly enjoyed the sympathy garnered from the incident and used it to his advantage.

"The sphere generated its own time distortion," said Henly, "I'm sticking to a theory that I displaced Mrs. Farnesworth when attempting to enter it, at which time she re-appeared in the harbour."

The man nodded; he was far less haughty now.

"If my theory is correct," he continued, "then there may be residual chronotons - what my people call emissions caused by time distortion and time travel."

"And you can detect this?  Fascinating!"

Henly nodded.  "Now we must see Mrs. Farnesworth while the readings are still strong."

7 - That Farnsworth Woman

Henly managed to get out of a congratulatory pint by explaining that his constitution was still in early morning.  In a way it was true; fortunately the thought of offering him a meal hadn't occurred to them.  From what he gathered, it was still the same day.

They weren't so much in a flurry over having saved him than for Henly having brought back a woman who had gone missing.

"Where is she?" he inquired, but the group appeared too busy enjoying their ales.  Henly slipped out unnoticed from between two chunky men as they knocked back their pints.  He beheld a well-dressed man at a table nursing a green drink.  Henly nodded in greeting as he straightened up.  The man reciprocated.

"Would you know where I could find this woman they mention - Harriet Farnsworth - so that I may ask her some questions?"

The man raised his chin and looked down his nose at Henly.  He appeared well-mannered but with an edge of haughtiness.   His air suggested this entire event was beneath him.  Of course this mood could have been from the absynthe.  Middle aged lines were mostly obscured by a thick mustache and lambchop sideburns, light reddish brown hair with random strands of silver dotted throughout.  "You spent quite a bit of time with Mrs. Farnsworth," he said with a hint of annoyance in his delivery, "and you never asked her any questions?"
"According to my timepiece, I spent no more than twelve minutes away from here," explained Henly, and produced it from a side pocket.

The man raised an eyebrow as he examined the clock face and its deviation from the correct time.  "That's very interesting," he said calmly.

Henly found the man suspicious in his manner, but dismissed the notion; there could have been any number of reasonable explanations for his tone. "I take it you know Mrs. Farnsworth?"

"Somewhat," the man answered with a smirk.

"Do you know if she is well?" asked Henly. He read the man's expression, "I'm a doctor," he added, "if she experienced a radical deviation  in time then there could be  physiological & psychological manifestations. I want to be sure she is well."  No doubt something could be learned from the visit, but Henly did not voice this.

The prospect however was apparent. "Quite right, Mr. Henly," the man responded suddenly.  With a heave he stood up from the comfort of his seat. "Perhaps we should pay the Farnsworths a visit."
Henly nodded. "That was easy,"  he thought.

6 - Riddle of the Sphere

Henly saw pretty much what he'd expected when he re-materialized.  That is, a conventional square room consisting of posh aesthetics of the period beside several incongruously designed builds of a technologically advanced culture.  Any of these mismanaged could cause catastrophe if used in their current state.
Wasn't it always the way?

He switched off the apparatus on his ear; the space was sufficiently lit with oil lamps set on surfaces around the room.  He stepped over to a writing desk against the northern wall.  There were hand-written calculations on parchment, scrawls made with a quill pen which lay nearby and beside a bottle of india ink.  The penmanship betrayed someone not schooled to read and write from this era, where students mastered calligraphy before they proceeded with schooling - or so he understood from historic texts. Henly deduced that anyone with such a scrawl had to have come from a society which did not rely so much on hardcopy and the need to write by hand.

A humanoid perhaps.

His scanner identified the function of many odd builds as he pointed to each one to gauge their emissions.  "The air must be toxic down here," he muttered, but when Henly pointed his device to an odd invention which looked in part like a pipe organ, he found it was a cleverly camouflaged filtration system.   There was every possibility that most high tech objects within the dome were being prepared to resemble local style and exist undetected, with the intention for what?  Perhaps to not adversely affecting the local populace if the pipe organ was any indication.   In truth innocuous items such as an armchair or torch lamp emitted radiation as well, so such considerations were - if nothing else - noble.

But to what end would these serve in Neo Adapolis?  Certainly the lengths taken to introduce these tools and engines were not necessary to observe the city's inhabitants on an anthropological level, so if to not affect or alter them for some self-serving purpose, why? Then again...

Henly whirled to face the center of the room.  A chandelier hung over what looked like a round wooden frame table with green velvet surface.  It closely resembled something for playing card games, but not quite. 

The highest concentration of chronotons were emitted from this object.

Henly looked around for an anomalous blur or other indication of a portal idling nearby, but could detect no distortions.

The ink on the quill pen was half-wet when he first observed it.  Now the ink had dried complety.  Whomever was here was not gone long.  But to where?

The device registered nothing beyond the room.  The radiation of the universe's starlight could not be read to give Henly any confirmation that he was anywhere where he had been. 

He leaned over the scribbled notes again.  No message for help, just formulae and calculations.

Henly stepped back and leaned lightly against the pseudo card table.  He closed his eyes in an effort to concentrate on his physiology to determine any sensation of altitude.  There was just the artificial enviroment of the room.

Suddenly he found himself back in the water beside the sphere.  How did this happen?  As soon as he surfaced several strong hands yanked him out.  A small crowd of locals raucously patted him on the back amidst a flurry of congratulations.  They moved enmasse with a disoriented Henly toward the nearest pub to celebrate.

Amidst the confusion, Henly noticed over his shoulder that it was dusk.

5 - The Mysterious Object

He was out on the streets before dawn, well before the landlady could obligate him to breakfast.  The air was damp as it often was at this time, being a harbor even moreso.

There were lights again behind shutters; several were  accompanied by the sound of movement: The shuffle of things, the clatter of plates...

There was no barking, no howling of stray cats.  If there was one thing lacking here, it was the sound of domestic animals to mingle with the stirring.

A hint of illumination could be detected in the sky.  The gulls certainly noticed, and went into their territorial song.

Henly took out his scanner.  He also extracted a brass device with tiny appendages, which grabbed the contour of his ear on contact. 

A touch of pink glowed on the horizon.  Silhouettes appeared beyond the harbor both on the water and in the air.  A different world from a different time; it was the stuff of wonder and magic.

His smile faded as he turned his attention back to the water's surface.  He fiddled with the device on his arm and his longcoat dematerialized.  Decorum aside, the least restriction of movement the better.

There were no lifeforms in the area.  Good. The horizon glowed pink as he stepped off the pier.  A muffled rushing  sound displaced the oxygen pockets of his ear canals.  His mind was filled with rising figures for water pressure and temperature in several popular units of measure.  He tapped the attachment on his ear and a wide beam illumuminated the immediate area ahead of him.  A large brass dome sat on the harbor floor, devoid of windows or any visible means of entry - or oxygen source.  Henly positioned himself upside-down above the dome, kicking in place while he extracted the scanner. No subterranean routes could be detected beneath.  He frowned, unable to acquire a visual representation of the dome's interior.  Either the emissions were causing interference or whomever had enough technological knowledge to maintain a dampening field. 

And of course a transporter...

...like him.  He calculated slightly left of center within the sphere and activated the beam.

4 - All Pronouns Aside

Curiously the  mention of an unclaimed waif bore klout with the inn up the hill.   Since he'd arrived, he carried apprehension over what name to use.  He tried several throughout the years but they never suited him.  How ironic, he thought, that one of mankind's greatest envies - to name one's self - should be so problematic.  He signed the register quickly before he could change his mind.

"Right this way, Mister Henly."

He sighed and followed the innkeeper up a set of creaky stairs, and was left in a modest but clean room overlooking an alley.  He recognized the back of the bakery a ways over, with its single flickering window.

Henly turned his attention back toward the task at hand, reaching for his device as he removed his coat.  The child's flesh had amphibious properties; it was possible that many people here came from somewhere else.  He accessed the scanner settings and turned them up.  What he detected supported his notion.  Tiny pockets of low level chronoton emissions were everywhere.  Widening the range, they could be detected to the farthest reaches of Neo Adapolis.  Borrowed technology?  An accidental discovery?  Whatever their origins, their intensity appeared controlled and consistent throughout...

...with the exception of his objective.  Whatever was down there emitted an inordinate amount of radiation, with the potential to displace a large portion of Neo Adapolis out of time, not with just the rest of the city but with the rest of the universe.   He was not fully versed in temporal physics -  it wasn't part of his initial orientation - but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the consequences.

He took stock of his paraphernalia, quickly relearning their camouflaged interfaces, with their tangible switches and levers.  He couldn't help but admire the elegance of their design.  This was truly a clever people: a cultured and civilised people.  Henly smiled.

3 - A Murky Impasse

In every era of every society, money talks.  It may be called different things, it may take the form of a tangible object or a virtual credit on one's profile.  Or labor.  No matter; it all works the same way.

The baker's demeanor changed with a flash of coin and was soon back working his dough. With minimum discussion of reliable boarders, the child went back into the shadows with the bread and a small jar of jam. 

It was very dark on the boulevard now.  Shops were closed for the night.  Slivers of gaslight flickered from the seams of shutters on upper floors.   Having produced his device from a deep coat pocket, he turned into a deserted alley toward the piers.

Sounds of welding cut the air sharply.  The essence of burnt metal was carried on the breeze.  Other sounds could be heard in the background: the hiss of steam in rhythm, mixed with something else.  He slipped into the entrance of a poorly marked workhouse to see several robots methodically building marine vehicles.  He smiled.  The scene was something out of ancient literature, only fully realized. Then again, these were ancient times.

The other sounds drew his attention.  There was something not quite right about this.  If this device was any indication, what he sought was the source of those sounds.

He left the robots to their work and stepped out, following the signal and as the sounds grew louder.  He stopped suddenly at the edge of the pier; the source was below by at least a dozen meters.

He detected no lifesigns, which was a good thing, but peering into the depths, there was only blackness.  He had to reconsider: With no portable light source on hand (much less one which was water resistent), there was little he could do anymore tonight.

With a sigh he rose from his haunches and headed back into town.