The Tea Machine by Gill McKnight Read Free Book Online Page B

behind the rim of his teacup.
    “I promise to put it back once I get the replacement copper disc made. This is just a prototype.” He nodded at his machine and bit into his cherry scone with relish. “It’s all about precision. I need to calibrate the measurements before I send the templates off to the engineers.”
    “A prototype what?” Millicent asked. She had watched the apparatus being slowly assembled over the last few weeks and had asked this question frequently, never once receiving a satisfactory answer. She didn’t expect one now.
    “I told you before. It’s an automated heuristic simulator,” Hubert mumbled with a full mouth, his greedy gaze already fixed on a second scone.
    “I am certain that you didn’t tell me any such thing.” Millicent sipped her Lapsang Souchong thoughtfully, then said, “You mean it’s a sort of timepiece, like a clock.” She cast a dubious glance at the machine crowding the centre of the room. She’d thought the Baroque grandfather clock in the hall, over-sized and showy. It looked positively demure compared to this…this conversation piece. Its brassy curlicues gleamed in the light streaming through the windows. The sun was beginning its midday arc across the rooftops to the front of the house, and already the room was becoming uncomfortably hot. “If it is a clock, it is uglier than the Baroque. And I’ll tell you here and now, there is no room for it in the vestibule,” she said.
    “No. It is not a clock, though perhaps it could be called a time piece of sorts.” Hubert looked pleased. He loved to make riddles, but Millicent wasn’t in the mood.
    “Forgive my ignorance. At the moment it looks like a sleigh with half our furniture piled upon it, as if we were refugees in a snowstorm. How is it a timepiece of any description?”
    “Because it can take you to any piece of time.”
    “Pardon?” His riddling was growing tiresome. She moved the plate of scones out of reach and fixed him with a steely glance. Hubert stopped his games at once.
    “It’s a time machine, Millicent. Imagine it! A machine capable of transporting a man to any pre-selected moment in history.” His voice rang with enthusiasm. “Well, almost. I still need to work out how to power it. If my algorithms are correct there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.” He settled in his seat, brows furrowed, considering his problem.
    “What powers the engine?” Millicent asked. She was curious, now she understood what he was working on. Hubert always had some interesting invention at some stage of development sitting around his laboratory. This one was more thought provoking than usual.
    “That’s the problem; what fuel type to use. Gas delivers such an unstable current. I’ve tried pressurizing it to a higher ratio but it doesn’t work very well, and it smells dreadful.”
    “I know. Cook was complaining. What are your alternatives?”
    “Coal?”
    “No, Hubert. I will not have it. Last time you experimented with combustion, we had coal coming out of our ears and the heat was unbearable.”
    Hubert strolled over to the windows overlooking the Mews. “I do have another idea,” he said. “But it is very radical.” He paced back and forth before the window until Millicent found she was squinting at the sunlight that haloed him.
    “Do come away from the window, Hubert, the light is too bright.” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “Whatever do you mean by radical?”
    “I mean radical as in harnessing the power of the cosmos!” He turned and tugged on the cord to close the window drapes. The heavy velvet swung shut like the curtains in a theatre production. The room was plunged into cool shade. “Solar power will fuel my machine, Millicent. Even as it powers the earth on which we stand,” he said.
    “Solar power? How ingenious. And how will you manage that?”
    “Copper. Huge copper plates.” He indicated the wooden disc already mounted on his time machine. “And a water