An Alternate Perspective by Wynne Mabry

Author:Wynne Mabry [Mabry, Wynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JAFF
Published: 2019-01-25T06:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Try and Try Again

Elizabeth scrambled up from the floor and rushed to the machine. “Do not touch anything,” she shouted at Miss Bingley. “If we are to rescue Mr. Darcy, those knobs must not be moved.”

Miss Bingley stepped back and held her hands up. “I was not going to touch anything,” she said. “I know better than to do that.”

“Can we rescue him?” Mr. Bingley asked dubiously. “Do you think that we can operate this machine? Darcy was the one who understood Mr. Hurst’s notes. I could not make much of them.”

“I only understood the basic idea,” Elizabeth admitted, “but we know enough to make an attempt. The main difficulty is that we can only guess what to do with these knobs. Perhaps if we keep turning them different ways, we might eventually hit upon something which works.”

“But you said that they should not be moved,” Miss Bingley pointed out.

“Not the larger grouping,” Elizabeth clarified. “If anybody changes those settings, it will be disastrous, but these three are different. Mr. Darcy used them when he was operating the machine. That is how he formed the portal.”

“But you do not know how to use them. It is hopeless,” Miss Bingley said in quite a distraught voice.

“Guessing is still better than doing nothing. We have to try. And keep on trying, no matter how long it takes.”

“I quite agree,” Mr. Bingley said. “Well, at least we know how to start.” He went to ring the bell and requested more water.

“I am uncertain as to whom we will be rescuing if we do succeed,” Elizabeth said while they were waiting. “It is puzzling that the portal changed from one place to another. I cannot understand that at all.”

“Perhaps one of the knobs was turned,” Mr. Bingley suggested. “One of us might have accidently brushed against it.”

“I suppose it is possible, although we were very careful. If that is what happened, then presumably the current settings will access the reality to which Mr. Darcy just went. But if the portal shifted due to some other reason, and the knobs have not moved, then they are still set to access the first reality.”

“Well in that case we shall have Mr. Hurst back, and he will be able to find Darcy,” Mr. Bingley said cheerfully.

Elizabeth was less confident. If the portal had randomly switched, how was even Mr. Hurst to determine where Mr. Darcy was? Still, he was the expert on alternate realities and the creator of this machine. There was always the possibility that he had ways of working out what had happened, and he would certainly be able to do more than she and Mr. Bingley could. She just hoped that the knobs were not prone to being shifted by the motion of the cogs or the spiralling light. If that was the case, then Miss Bingley’s pronouncement of hopelessness was probably correct. Just working the machine was going to be difficult enough. Elizabeth was dubious about their ability to conduct a search of many realities.

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