Early morning sun leapt up and through the window, but Burton cast no shadow as he moved out of step with the normal course and speed of Time. His eyes moved from the dial of the device to the room beyond, waiting for any change that would signal he was nearing the point he needed.
Shadows danced across the sparse Stranger’s Room, and Burton increased his forward march through Time just a bit. A strange flicker from the opposite corner of the room caught his eye. He thought it a trick of the light at first, a Time mirage. But it persisted, solidifying into a human figure.
“Bismillah!” Burton murmured, his voice taking on a strange echo. “The other Time Traveler!”
Thinking this is the mysterious figure Miss Hemlock tracked here from the future, Burton continued to watch, hoping his presence was masked by his own movement through Time. Indeed, it appeared both men were out of sync, not only with each other, but the inexorably slow, one second per second course of Time. But now the figure started to move, flickering from one place to another, bounding across the room and directly toward Burton in an instant.
The explorer raised his arms in a defensive posture, still moving forward through Time. The door to the Stranger’s Room silently opened, and Mycroft Holmes entered with an attendant. With a speed impossible for any human being, Holmes zipped behind his desk and began reading a newspaper. But Burton had other things to worry about at present.
The face of the other Time Traveler flickered before him. He was a dark man with sour features and a neatly trimmed black beard. He leered at Burton, reaching for him but never laying hands on him because they were still out of sync with each other. Still, Burton shrank back from him reflexively, a wave of dizziness moving through him. He teetered and almost fell over. That’s when the cold hands of his opponent seized him.
They were traveling at the same speed now, their bodies hurtling in sync into the future. Afternoon and evening came and went as Burton grappled with his foe. If he could halt the Time Machine’s forward motion, he would fall out of step with his assailant and escape his grasp.
The explorer twisted his left arm free and reached for the device before his attacker could grab him again. He flicked the tiny lever, slowing his progress, and felt himself falling away from his assailant, who reached for him once more, only to pass through him like a ghost.
Burton fell into darkness, landing with a thud. It was evening. The Stranger’s Room was dark. A pale moon shown through the single window. He had gone hours into the future. He’d have to start all over, this time in reverse.
He heard the creak of a floorboard, and snapped to attention, rising swiftly to his feet. Surrounding him was a trio of Morlocks. They were wearing goggles with smoked lenses over their eyes, and they reached for him with pale, fungoid, subhuman hands. On one of their wrists was another miniature Time Machine.
They overpowered the explorer, their small stature masking their brute strength. Burton managed to punch one of them hard in the stomach, but his comrades redoubled their efforts, grabbing his arms and stretching them apart as the one he had punched wrenched the tiny Time Machine from his wrist. Then, with a mighty swipe of its pale arm, the Morlock rendered Burton senseless.
Richard Francis Burton opened his eyes. He was lying on something cold and hard. Around him stood a group of Morlocks, black goggles strapped tightly around their misshapen heads. They looked down at him, muttering in their incomprehensible tongue.
“Ah,” said a voice behind them. “At last you rejoin us. I feared my associate was a bit overzealous in his attack.”
With a groan, Burton staggered to his feet. “Who are you?”
“I call myself Dr. Moses Nebogipfel,” said the man. He was still obscured by the Morlocks clustered around him. They appeared to be standing in some sort of vehicle, and Burton felt the sensation of forward movement. The front of the compartment was covered in thick windows that reminded Burton of the portholes aboard the Nautilus. Through them, he saw gray clouds. Or was it fog?
“Where the bloody hell am I?”
“You are aboard my craft. I haven’t chosen a name for it yet. Do you like it?”
“What manner of craft is it?”
“In a general sense it is a dirigible. But in practice it is much more.”
“You mean I am standing in a bloody balloon?”
The Morlocks parted, and the man he had grappled with earlier stepped toward him. “No, you are standing in the gondola of a bloody balloon. Welcome to my Time Machine, Captain Burton. Or is it Captain Sir Richard? I get confused.”
“Captain Burton is sufficient, if you must address me at all. What sort of name is Nebogipfel?”
The man smiled, clapping his hands together. “I love the sound of nonsensical words, don’t you? So alliterative, so poetic. Are you familiar with the work of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? He writes under the nom de plume Lewis Carroll, an anagram of his real name. Wonderfully outlandish work. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ Magnificent.”
Burton eyed the stranger, finding a hint of the familiar about him. He was shorter than Burton, wearing a dark, tailored suit and affecting a dark, neatly-trimmed black beard. But there was something about the eyes.
“Why did you bring me here? Why not have your Morlocks eat me and be done with it?”
His captor uttered dark laughter. “My dear Captain Burton, the answer should be obvious. I would much rather have you alive. You are too important to history. I brought you here to give you something.”
The other Time Traveler began to pace around Burton, the Morlocks giving him an ever widening berth as he did so. “Journeying through Time is a terrible gift. I want you to see it as I do, all the myriad strands of Time. I want you to see how they bend and fold, how easily they snap and break.”
“I already know how fragile Time is,” said Burton. “Now who are you? And why did you bring the Morlocks here?”
“The answer to your first question will take some time. The answer to your second question, however, is this: I think they should have their place in the sun again. They are our cousins. Humanity’s discarded.”
“But their time is not yet!” Burton declared. “Why must you meddle with the natural course of Time?”
Nebogipfel leered at the explorer. “Because I can.”
“You’re using Mycroft Holmes for that purpose, aren’t you?”
“He’s just the meddlesome sort for the job, isn’t he? The empire he will build and oversee will last untold centuries. I’ve already seen it. The last human army ever to do battle upon this beleaguered old Earth will march under his banner. And the machines, Burton! You’ve never seen such machines. Machines that can plumb the deepest ocean, dominate the sky and even break the bonds of this planet to explore the heavens.”
“Machines of war,” said Burton with a scowl.
“Man is a warlike species. I was once naive enough to think that would not always be the case. I found out better. As a wise man once told me, the greatest desire of a slave isn’t freedom, but a slave of his own. War, not hope, springs eternal in the human breast.”