CHAPTER 9
In what seemed like no time (after all, we were having fun, reveling in everyday life in our little paradise), Albert finished work on The Zenia Zephyr.
Perhaps you would like to know a little about how the time & space travel vehicles are operated. In reality, they function semi-automatically and are thus deceptively simple to fly. There are only five controls that need to be set, or manipulated:
A Hologram of the Globe, which is activated by pressing a button with an image of the earth on it. This button is situated directly in front of the pilot’s right shoulder. Pressing it “pops out” the hologram, which can be enlarged and spun to the specific spot the pilot wants to choose as the destination. The vehicle thereafter handles all the navigation duties by itself.
A “DateTimePicker” control that allows the month, day of month, and year to be changed from the default values of the current date and time the first time the vehicle is flown, and thereafter the values most recently selected. This control is located directly below the globe hologram button. Collectively, these first two controls are referred to as the GPS/CPS (Global Positioning System/Chronological Positioning System)
A Start button (located adjacent and to the right of the globe holograph button), which functions as an ignition switch.
On the left portion of the console—which is located between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats— there is a Directional lever, which has three positions: Up at the top, Down at the bottom, and Horizontal in the middle. The “Up” position is used when lifting off, until the desired altitude is reached; The “Down” position is used when landing; and the middle “Horizontal” position is selected when traveling forward. It is also possible to fly backward, by simultaneously depressing two buttons on the sides of the directional lever while it is set to the middle position. In other words, horizontally forward (“straight ahead”) is the direction of travel unless you specifically change it to horizontal backward.
Finally, on the right portion of the console is the Speed lever. Its range is from 0 mph (with the lever at its default “full away” position, parallel to the directional lever’s “Up” position) to mach 32, or 24,553 mph (parallel to the directional lever’s “Down” position). If you were to choose the maximum speed, you would be able to travel all the way around the world at the equator in barely over an hour (and even quicker at other latitudes). This top speed can be reached by pulling the lever all the way back.
So, to take off and fly, all the pilot needs to do is this:
Select a location using the holograph of the globe.
Select a date and time
Verify that the Directional lever is set to the “Up” position (which it transitions to by default after landing and shutting off the engine)
Press the Start button
Pull the speed lever back a little, until reaching the desired altitude (an altimeter displays how far above the surface of the earth you are). If you do not manipulate the speed lever during takeoff or landing, the speed is automatically set to pi (3.14 etc. miles per hour).
Once you reach the desired altitude on takeoff, push the speed all the way forward to 0 (to momentarily hover in the air at the current altitude). When landing, the speed is automatically set to 0 on touching the earth.
Set the Directional lever to the middle (Horizontal) position
Increase the speed as desired by pulling back on that lever. A display on the dash shows the current speed.
Landing is similar: The craft automatically slows down until it’s hovering over the destination you selected; then, when ready, the pilot moves the Directional lever to “Down,” and the craft gradually descends and shuts itself off upon reaching terra firma.
Another sometimes necessary piece of equipment, although not used to fly the craft, is the device that allows animals that would be too large to fit in the seats to be temporarily shrunk. Also, extra-small passengers (such as kittens) can be enlarged to balance out the weight distribution within the vehicle.
In preparation for departure, Drako, Marmalade and Tubthumper went through the shrinking/deshrinking process using the vehicle’s Compressor/Decompressor device so as to be small enough to fit in their seat (in Tubthumper’s case) or large enough to balance out the weight distribution (which was done for the Bearded Dragon and the Kitten).
During this process, Drako and Marmalade continued to double in size until they were larger than a breadbasket, while Tubthumper morphed in the other direction: she kept being halved in size until she was also—while still larger than a breadbasket—at the point where if she were to be halved in size one more time, she would be smaller than a breadbasket.
Stripes and I, being naturally larger than a breadbasket but not so much larger that we would throw off the weight balance, did not need to have the Compressor/Decompressor (also known among us as ‘the shrinker/deshrinker’) wand passed over us. We remained our natural size. This was true of Albert, too. He never changed size.
“All aboard that’re going aboard!” Albert called out, as he climbed into the pilot’s seat. I sat to his right, on the other side of the console. Behind us, the second row of seats were filled by Drako, Stripes, and Marmalade. The left and right seats in the back row were empty for now, and Tubthumper took her place in the middle seat.
Albert brought up the hologram of the globe, selected Solnhofen Limestone, Germany as the location, and the year -15,002,525 (fifteen million years in the past).
“All set?” Albert yelled, looking around at all the passengers.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” we all said. We learned that phrase from watching some old movie or TV show.
Albert pressed the Start button and away we flew—first rising straight up, then—after Albert switched to forward motion— away horizontally through the sky, gradually reaching the speed of Methusaleh (969 mph, or 1,559 km/h).
As mentioned earlier, The Zenia Zephyr has the capability to clip along at a quicker rate than that, but any faster and we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the scenery much as we flew over it.
In about six hours, we arrived in Germany. Little by little, we slowed down until we were directly over Solnhofen Limestone, then hovered above our landing spot for a while. Having reached the location, the time began to unroll, century by century, millennium by millennium.
Our speed through time seemed far faster than our rate of speed through space had been. We went back in time one hundred thousand years per minute, so we couldn’t get a good look at much—mainly quick bright flashes from distant volcanic eruptions now and then, accompanied by angry, booming, reverberating, thunderous sounds.
There was one exception to that: On certain momentous occasions in geologic history, it seemed as if we hit a seam or a rough edge in the space-time continuum. When that occurred, we felt the Zenia Zephyr jolt and vibrate, and heard high-pitched scratchy sounds, like a needle being dragged across a vinyl record, followed by a bone-rattlingly low tone, somewhat like a string on a bass guitar being quickly detuned.
On one of those occasions, we felt our craft being pulled backward at an amazing clip, heard thunder loud enough to cause a Lion to seek the solace of his cave, and saw an unbelievably violent rush of water going on down below, with rivers and then oceans of water churning up and seemingly moving in every direction at once, and soon the entire earth was covered by a deluge of epic proportions.
Soon enough, even the tops of the mountains were completely covered by the rising seas. Before that, we saw and heard the cracking of canyons being formed; mountains rising, ripping through former plains; continents splitting apart and being driven thousands of miles from their original places. We could feel the mist from below, even though we were far, far above it. But most impressive and chill-inducing of all of this was the almost incomprehensibly loud noise that accompanied the cataclysm! It was deafening—or nearly so. I had to put my paws over my ears to reduce the volume a bit.
Then, as suddenly as the convulsion began, it stopped. All was calm again, and we were pushed forward, as if by an impatient, giant hand, hovering over the same spot we had been when time started running backward.
As we animals caught our breath and exchanged shocked glances, the year dial reached -15,002,525 (our desired point in time, fifteen million years in the past).
Albert, who had only reacted to the spectacle we had all experienced with occasional unintelligible outbursts of astonishment or delight, calmly switched to landing mode by pulling the directional lever to the “Down” position. We slowly descended, straight down, coming to a soft touchdown at the edge of a meadow, next to a reedy, shallow marsh which stretched on for what seemed like miles and miles—as far as our eyes could see.
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