“ What! has Time run out his cycle, do the years
return again?
Are there treasure-caves in Dreamland where
departed days remain?”
From a poem titled “Recollections Of A Dreamland” - James Clerk Maxwell 1831 - 1879
Doctor Taylor’s office was empty, but Max could hear his wife’s voice echoing from the Professor’s suite of rooms just along the corridor.
‘After what I’ve just told you, you can’t seriously intend to continue. Not when we’ve endured this nonsense twice already.’ Despite her words, Cathy sounded disappointed rather than angry.
Max found the door into the ante-room open and Joyce, the professor’s elderly secretary, holding the inner door ajar. She noticed him, frowned and gently closed it before Max could hear any reply.
‘Is Doctor Taylor in there too?’ Max asked.
Joyce pursed her lips and shook her head. When she also folded her arms, he shrugged and went to retrieve the bicycles they’d left outside. By the time he had stowed his machine in the basement and returned, Cathy’s bike had gone. Max looked over the railing into the murky lake waters. He could well imagine her tossing it in. What business did she have with the professor that could be so upsetting?
When he reached the Graeme’s lab on the upper level, the team were frantically busy until they realised it was only Max who had entered.
‘Hey Max. The traffic today was murder, but you didn’t need to run Graeme’s wife over,’ Joshua, the engineering undergraduate, joked from his bench under the diesel tank.
Max shrugged but couldn’t help his face going red. It was typical that Graeme couldn’t wait to change before bad mouthing him to the others.
‘I thought I’d get my daily catastrophe done with,’ he told Joshua.
‘Only one a day?’ Tania’s disembodied voice asked from behind the data acquisition stack.. ‘We’ve just been given a long lecture on your many short-comings.’
‘Where is our evil mastermind? I need to ask him something.’
Rake thin Tania emerged and negotiated the mess of cables to reach her desk, one careful step at a time. ‘Graeme’s off for a shower. However I’m still pissed at all you bike riders. Graeme wouldn’t listen to my own rant, so you’ll have to do. It took me two hours to drive just ten kilometres.’
‘Why?’
‘Huh. Surely you’ve heard about the world wide GPS failure. But then you cyclists just ride where you please, onto the pavement, through the bush. You’ve got no sympathy for the poor motorist stuck in traffic behind those not-so self-driving cars. My nerves are totally shot, so you’d better be on your best behaviour. And no more cheek from you either, Josh.’
Uoshi, the Chinese Phd student who preferred the name Lilly, had been watching him from her seat since he entered. She pointed at Max’s collar.
‘Yes, I know, thank you.’
She bowed her head and returned to her work, studying flow patterns. Lilly rarely spoke to anyone. That day, Max had the impression she wanted to say more.
He took off the soiled coat and stuffed it, inside out, into his back pack, and shoved that under the work station he shared with Lilly. Space in the new building was at a premium. The five staff who used this small laboratory needed to dodge past various pipes and cables, and the room also served as storage and workshop. The shelves were stuffed with parts from failed experiments awaiting dissection.
‘You do not look well,’ Lilly noted, surprising him with her unexpected> candor.
‘Only my head. Nothing important.’
Rather than laugh, she widened her eyes and nodded. ‘I too have bad dreams.’
Max smiled as if he understood. He didn’t want to say anything that might send her back into her shell, not after such stunning progress in international relations.
Graeme walked in smelling of deodorant, glared at him, then continued to the comfortable armchair by the only window in the room. He took supervision literally and used a flexi-book in his lap to direct requests at each of them.
10:24:34AM G.T. to M.C.: Have you replaced the piezo transducers?
10:24:40AM M.C. to G.T.: You told me not to.
10:26:10AM G.T. to M.C.: Correct.
Max had learned never to question these commandments, and decided today would not be a good one to ask about trying his new improved software. Graeme would either say no outright, or would insist on days of system validation tests first. So having worked on it most of the night had been a waste of effort.
The group settled into their customary work-day silence. After months of this, the otherwise quiet sounds from air vents, cooling fans and tapping of keyboards grew to annoy Max, as did the bass beat from Joshua’s head phones. Only the low rumble of an aircraft might sometimes penetrate the triple glazing and break the monotony.
As the latest recruit, Max had the smallest work space, but his had a most advantageous view. From his seat he could see what the others were really doing. From over the top of his monitor, he knew Joshua was playing a video game and winning. The keyboard sounds came mostly from Tania and Lilly, but their periods of typing would alternate. Even Graeme must have realised what was going on as their affair was a well-known secret.
The downside to this voyeurism was that their studied procrastination made it difficult to concentrate on his own work. His mind wandered to the pleasant vision of Cathy’s dark eyes and welcoming lips. Did he just imagine she was that beautiful? Any certainty of memory was fading fast and Max was tempted to search for an image of her on-line. However the risk of Graeme seeing his wife’s image on Max’s screen seemed too great.
They heard Emeritus Professor Daniel Lehach expounding in the corridor long before he appeared. The clip-clop of high heels accompanied his voice and Max wondered for a moment if this was Cathy, then remembered she had been wearing flats. Imagining the professor in heels made him grin.
Graeme jumped up to meet them at the door.
‘Nothing particularly serious can go wrong,’ the Professor was saying as he entered, closely followed by a young woman with microphone in-hand. This device, and her carefully applied make-up, put everyone on high alert. She was no academic, maybe an environmental auditor? Or worse, she was from Work Health and Safety?
‘Besides, we are fully insured,’ the professor continued. ‘Which is more than can be said for other groups in this building. Also, we are located on the lake as an added precaution. If there is a major accident, the casualties will be limited to a few invasive fish, and maybe a swan or two. PhD students don’t count of course. Ha ha.’
The safe-guards described did not appear to reassure or amuse her. ‘What caused the accident at the old site?’
‘I’m told the void centred around the applied mathematics cottage. That surprised everyone. The mathematicians may have applied their algebra a step too far, or, they were branching into chemistry. No residue was found, so we’ll never know. Ah, here he is.’
Max grimaced before he received the customary pat between the shoulder blades. He often felt like a hand-me-down since the professor had passed him on to Graeme, still Max forced himself to smile up at his former patron.
‘This is our star performer, Mister Clerk,’ the professor explained. ‘We have great expectations of this young man. Together we made some amazing discoveries during his honour’s year. No paper to publish as yet, but we mustn’t give up hope. Cold fusion, for instance, wasn’t accepted over-night, and yet we have a reactor in the basement powering this building.’
The professor spotted an even greater prize and headed for Graeme’s armchair. No one, least of all Graeme, was game to remind the old man that this was no longer his laboratory, or that he had retired a year earlier. How the old man managed to retain an office, or a secretary, remained a mystery.
'Of course those fatalistic number crunchers,’ the professor, returned to his earlier subject, ‘should never have been welcomed into a school for physics. The papers they published were mostly on the shape of soap bubbles. Hardly what I’d call real physics.’
Tania came to stand next to Graeme and took the professor’s insightful claims as her opening.
‘The Professor likes to tease me for my profession, but the optimisation of an enclosed surface represented by a soap bubble can tell us much about analogous surfaces in higher dimensions. Hello. I’m Tania, Doctorate in Applied Maths. And you are … ?’
‘Heidi Solenge, Friend Face News. High school diploma in media studies.’ Heidi held out a long nailed hand, which Tania shook warily. ‘Since I’m new at FFN, I get to edit the science column.’ She looked indifferently at the miles of cable. ‘It’s good you are an applied something. Our average reader is more interested in the practical application of science than any airy theories.’
‘Practical?’ asked Tania with icy calmness. ‘Then you’ll be here for the demonstration of our fuel efficiency experiment. Sorry. That isn’t scheduled ‘til this afternoon. Has there been a change of plan, Graeme?’
Apparently shaken by the loss of his chair, Graeme remained speechless.
‘We must cope with many changes,’ the Professor ruminated while studying cloud patterns through the window. 'Mathematicians play with chemistry, chemists do play with physics, and the absurdity of the quantum state leaves us physicists playing with philosophy. Of course philosophers are always dabbling in mathematics.’
He nodded sagely, as fitted an octogenarian.
‘I decided to invite Miss Solenge only this morning, and she has kindly offered to witness a trial run.’
‘Really, it was no problem. I was stuck in the most awful traffic jam not far away when the Daniel called,’ she explained to their blank faces. ‘Well. I can see you are all very busy.’ Heidi attempted to back away towards the door. ‘As soon as the roads clear up I’ll be on my way. In fact I probably already have enough...”
‘And in this way,’ the professor continued, more loudly, ‘we can answer any … let us say, naïve questions without the usual embarrassment. It will also be a fitting dress-rehearsal for this afternoon’s main event. The answers that you give then will determine your future careers.’ The old man shuffled around in his seat to meet the eyes of the scientist with the most at stake. ‘Doctor Taylor. I hope you don’t mind?’
Graeme nodded slowly, his expression dour. He mumbled, ‘Some notice might have been useful.’
'Good. As principle investigator, would you please explain to Miss Solenge, in lay terms, what it is you have failed to achieve?’
Heidi’s apparent boredom evaporated.>
‘Hardly a failure, professor,’ Graeme replied. His face twitched into a smile. He turned to their guest. ‘Over the last few years I’ve been able to reduce the average fuel consumption in our test engine by five percent. Given the earth’s known oil reserves, I’ve calculated we could extend the use of oil-burning ships for a further six years.’
‘And what about antique motor vehicles?’ Heidi suggested. ‘My father has an old Citroen.’
‘Yes. That might be a bonus, I suppose.’
The reporter suddenly smiled, like the cat who found a mouse raiding the larder. ‘I’ve done a little research of my own and I read you’ve an 1984 Audi Quattro? Would this be your real motive for continuing a project for so little gain? I’m sure the government would rather spend research dollar on health issues than the preservation of vintage cars.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Graeme scoffed. ‘My beast will do perfectly well on synthetic oils, as would your father’s car.’
‘Heidi?’ Tania broke in. ‘We’re privately funded. But are you sure you only write for the science column? Maybe you could make a move on the used-car section?’
Max thought he saw flames lick from Heidi’s eyes.
‘Anyway,’ continued Graeme, taking the young reporter firmly by the elbow and shifting her towards a rack of equipment. ‘The movement of freight around the world is a far nobler cause than any concerns over personal transport. If you look here, you’ll see our test rig. It’s small, but has the same high compression as you’d find in a ship’s engine, at least for those that haven’t converted to hydrogen.’
The well groomed young woman peered at the block of metal enclosed in its polycarbonate housing. The density of cables and pipes around the engine’s perimeter made it difficult to appreciate what it was.
‘Doctor Taylor? If you succeed, wouldn’t you be discouraging ship owners from switching to the cleaner fuel?’
When Graeme hesitated to answer, the Professor spoke instead. ‘You are so astute, Heidi. That is exactly the kind of question I’d hope you’d ask.’ He chortled to himself for a moment. ‘While our good doctor comes up with a suitable reply, why don’t the rest of you get this demonstration up and running. I’m sure Miss Solenge hasn’t all day.’
Graeme reluctantly nodded. Joshua paused his video game in order to prime the fuel lines.
‘Mr. Clerk,’ said Graeme, turning to Max, ‘I hope you’ve returned our software to the version from our most successful run?’
‘As instructed, Sir!’ Max surprised himself, as he had not intended to shout Graeme’s honorific. But his supervisor was oddly subdued and showed no signs of anger at Max’s insolence. Even so, Max wondered if he gone too far, but felt momentarily rewarded when he saw the smirking professor wink at him.
Only the day before, Max had heard the professor reminisce with Graeme about their past antics, exploding equipment, drunken romps and flirtatious students. They’d known each other for so many years, yet now a rift had developed. Something had changed over night. If Graeme was to be thrown under the bus, Max wanted no part of it, and he knew of only one way he might prevent it.
Max checked that Graeme and Tania were distracted, and reached for his phone.
‘Confucius,’ he whispered to the internal A.I., ‘Wake up. Drop that new patch into the transducer firmware now.’
‘Are you sure? I would advise more caution.’
‘Just do it,’ Max hissed. Cathy would be proud of him, taking this risky action to save her prince of darkness.
‘Okay, okay. No need to kick the dog,’ the phone complained. ‘Uploading now.’
The bar on the phone’s cracked screen crawled across at a leisurely pace, slowly changing from green to flashing red – more abnormal behaviour and probably deliberate. His phone had lately developed a troublesome personality. He would need to replace it if it continued its attempts to dominate him.
Max sensed eyes on him and found Lilly staring. She started typing on her laptop without looking down.
10:55:20AM U.H. to M.C.: Max. I see a new file in experiment. The modification date is only a minute ago!
10:55:30AM M.C. to U.H.: Just a bug fix. Shouldn’t change anything.
10:56:10AM U.H. to M.C.: This is poor science..
Max stuck his tongue out at her. Lilly giggled>, earning some bemused looks from those nearby. She started typing again:
10:58:05AM U.H. to M.C.: How you manage to graduate? You must take more care when tampering with records. I change file date for you. :)
‘Thanks,’ Max whispered.
The noise level in the room increased as Joshua brought their equipment to life. After a few turns, the single-cylinder engine caught and shook on its mountings before settling into a less percussive rhythm. The professor’s hearing aid could adjust to the volume automatically, but the others donned their noise cancelling headphones, and Graeme handed some ear plugs to the reporter.
‘Do you get many complaints?’ Heidi shouted.
‘This is research,’ Graeme shouted back, ‘It’s supposed to be loud.’
The shelving swayed as the engine sped past the building’s structural resonance. Finally only the reflection in the windows shook. The Professor lost interest and gazed out with a sleepy expression.
Max followed the performance of the engine on his screen. The sensors told him its temperatures had stabilised, but he waited for a nod from Graeme before engaging his fuel efficiency software. When he did, there was a noticeable change in pitch as the transducers in the cylinder head did their magic and the rhythmic tone mellowed.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he ignored it.
Graeme pointed the reporter to a display showing the fuel consumption dropping. It quickly passed below their previous record and continued to fall, but neither Graeme or the reporter were paying much attention and began swaying drunkenly on their feet.
Even Tania, who must have been seeing the same readings, showed no recognition of this unexpected improvement.
Not the reaction Max had expected, but he found the sound from the engine too soothing to care. His eyes wandered to the view through the window. He watched a cloud form around the telecommunications tower on Black Mountain. Soon the whole mountain was shrouded in a lenticular cloud. Max had never seen one before, and his mouth dropped open as the sky change from a deep blue to a rainbow green. He wondered if Cathy could see this too from where she was.
When the little engine fell silent, no one in the room realised the failure had been in any way disastrous.
Josh sighed with exasperation, threw off his headphones then struggled to rise from his stool. The professor groaned, while everyone else just sat back from their terminals, blinking.
Heidi broke the silence first by clapping twice. ‘That was wonderful. Or am I misunderstanding, what has happened. Isn’t the fuel consumption supposed to go down?’
‘Not that far,’ Graeme muttered. ‘Someone has stuffed up.’
Max slowly came out of his daydream, oddly at peace, and noted the rising colour of their leader’s face. He calmly waited for the storm to break over him.
Graeme coughed before beginning his tirade. ‘Mister Clerk. What sort of game are you playing? You tell me you have everything sorted and then prove, in front of a visitor, that you are totally incompetent. Just when I thought we understood the process, the limitations and the solution, these new results will set us back months. We will need to recalibrate all our sensors. Were you, or were you not, testing my systems for an entire week?’
Even while venting his frustration, Graeme kept glancing sideways at the Professor, looking for a reaction. The old man had fallen asleep. Max smiled back at his tormentor, both embarrassed and bemused. Should Graeme be told that he was berating the saviour of Cathy’s husband’s academic career? And had Max been stupid to even care what happened to Doctor Taylor? Regardless of these questions, Max couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.
‘Does this happen often?’ Heidi asked Tania, unimpressed with her male hosts.
‘The experiment? Or Graeme’s sense-of-humour failure?’
After pausing for breath, Graeme continued to berate Max, though without his usual vitriol. ‘How do you think this would have gone down in front of our client’s representative?’
No one replied.
‘Graeme,’ said Tania. ‘If you’ve finished, come over here and have a look at this.’
‘What?’ Graeme exclaimed, but did as he was asked.
‘Before the engine stopped, we were getting an efficiency of 46 percent. That’s unheard of. There must be something wrong with our sensors. See here. The speed sensor hasn’t quite gone to zero.’
‘That’s because it hasn’t stopped?’ Josh beckoned them over. ‘See?’
Those who were already standing moved to crowd around the engine compartment. From where he sat, Max could only see one moving part – a flywheel located between the engine and the generator, which acted as its load. This wheel was still spinning, but very slowly, and yet the engine remained totally silent.
‘Have you discovered perpetual motion?’ Heidi suggested.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Graeme replied. ‘Now be quite while I think this through.’
With no one talking, it became obvious that the entire building had become unnaturally quiet.
The first whoop-whoop of the evacuation alarm sounded and they all looked at one another in confusion. Then Tania twigged that the old man was less than unconscious. She leapt across the room, dragging a couple of instruments by their cords with her – their plastic cases shattering on the floor.
‘He’s not breathing!’ she exclaimed. ‘Uoshi. Quickly. Get the defibrillator from the sick bay and I’ll start CPR.’
If they were going to be evacuated, Max decided it would be best to turn off his equipment. But why couldn’t he get Cathy out of his head. Even then, he was considering Cathy’s whereabouts. Was she in dander?
shutdown now, he typed.
As soon as he hit the Enter key, the engine leapt back to full speed, startling everyone.
‘Shut it off,’ Graeme screamed.
Joshua quickly turned off the fuel supply and the engine grunted to a halt.
At the same moment, the professor dragged in a lungful of air. He looked around, at Tania, who was about to fill his lungs again, and then at their expectant faces.
‘Did I miss something?’