The Impossible Cube

Dr. Clef was standing in the midst of all this with his back to Alice. He seemed to be scratching something in a notebook. Click leaped down from the rim of a porthole and hurried over to her, purring loudly. Alice scooped him up. His skin was cool and smooth.

“Click,” she said. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

Dr. Clef turned and pushed his goggles up. “Alice! When did you come back, my dear? I have not seen you in weeks.”

“Weeks?” Alice stroked Click’s brass back. “Doctor, it’s been only two days.”

“Oh. Are you sure?” He glanced at the clocks. “How interesting. Did you know that gravity affects a clock?”

“Er… no.”

“Look at these.” He pointed at the ones closest to the ceiling. “They are moving at a slightly different rate than the ones down there at the floor. It gets more noticeable when I put them on top of the ship’s envelope. It is because they are farther away from Earth’s gravity.”

“They look the same to me, Dr. Clef.”

Dr. Clef shrugged. “They are not.”

“Are you trying to re-create your Impossible Cube, Doctor?” she asked.

“With difficulty.” He pointed at a small cable spool on the worktable. It was wound with fat, stiff-looking wire. “I have managed to reforge some of my special alloy using nails and other scraps from the barn, but I do not think I can re-create the Cube itself. And I do miss it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It is—was—unique in all time and space.” Dr. Clef sighed. “I am beginning to think it cannot be re-created, for that would violate the basic nature of its uniqueness. But look at what I have learned while I am trying.” He held up a notebook with a number of formulae scribbled in it. “When you measure certain events, you change them. You can, for example, discover how fast a certain piece of… of matter is moving or you can learn its location, but you can’t pin down both. It is very odd.”

“Ridiculous.” Alice waved her free hand. “There. You can see how fast my hand is moving and you can see exactly where it is.”

“Nonetheless. It is especially true for things so tiny, they cannot be seen and who move so fast, they cannot be captured.”

“Then how do you know they exist?”

“The numbers prove it,” he said, brandishing the notebook again. “It all related to my poor Impossible Cube. I miss it so. The beauty. The symmetry. The way it twisted the universe about itself. Everything about it was perfect.”

“Perhaps you can still rebuild it.”

“As I said, I am beginning to think this is not possible. Can you tell me any more about the way it was destroyed?”

Alice remembered watching Gavin holding the Impossible Cube beneath the Third Ward as he sang a single crystal note that shattered everything around him. Everything but her. Then he dropped the Cube, which fell through every color of the spectrum and vanished in a white flash the moment it touched the floor.

“Only what I’ve told you already,” she said. “Nothing new. Doctor, the way the Cube twists itself—”

“It does no such thing,” Dr. Clef interrupted, agitated. “The Cube is a constant. It twists the universe, but since we are in the universe, we think the Cube is twisted.”

“Of course, of course,” Alice reassured him, though she had no idea what he was talking about. “But I meant that it might be better if you left the Cube alone. Perhaps it isn’t meant to be re-created at all.”

An odd light came into his eyes. “Do you think so?”

“Quite.”

“Hmmm. Maybe I should leave it alone, then. Did you bring back any raspberry jam? I have not had any in quite some time.”

“Oh!” Alice jolted back to the nonscientific world. “We did bring more food, but no jam, I’m sorry to say. Gavin and Feng are down in the barn. We think we have a way to move the ship, and we’ll need your help.”

Dr. Clef rubbed his hands together. “A project! I will be pleased to take part.”

“Madam?” The door to Alice’s stateroom opened and Kemp poked his head into the corridor. “Is that you?”

“Of course it is, Kemp.”

“Thank heavens!” He bustled into the corridor. “I’ve been having a dreadful time keeping the little automatons under control, and I finally had to lock them up. We’re completely out of food, and—”

“Yes, Kemp. You’ve done an admirable job and we couldn’t have survived without you. Now, come down, both of you.”

Kemp managed to look pleased despite his lack of facial features. “Madam.”

On deck, they filed past the little generator, which had only recently been switched back on. It contentedly puffed steam and paraffin oil smoke, a shockingly daring woman smoking a cigarette. Above them, ropes creaked and the envelope’s lacy endoskeleton glowed blue, indicating that it was receiving power and lifting the hull. They all climbed down to the barn floor. At the entrance of the barn was Gavin, who had abandoned his black clothes for an ordinary work shirt, brown trousers, and a cloth cap. He looked like a handsome young farmer. With him was Nathan Storm, his own cap barely concealing his sunset hair, and a team of four horses pulling a wagon, which