A simple experiment would tell me. My pallets of aircraft replacements parts weren't confined to wings and other flat surfaces. I found six half-globes. I didn't know what the Alaskans used them for; I did know what I would use them for. Fruit storage.
I placed a tomato (from my food hamper) in one half globe, an orange (from a nearby tree) in a second half globe, and a lemon (also from a nearby tree) in the last. The three other half globes fit perfectly over the bottom half globes and I sealed the two halves together with some handy tape. The fruit was now completely surrounded by titanium. Three unprotected fruits joined the protected fruits in the sling.
The second variable I'd be testing today was the rockiness of the trip. I wondered if perhaps I hadn't given the sling enough push to get through whatever time barriers existed. The sling had bucked and shuddered in the previous experiment. What if I used moderate power to take off, rather than the miniscule amount I had used before? It was easy enough to make the necessary adjustment.
I chose fifteen minutes for the time trial, locked the sling up tight, and let it rip. Then I had to wait. I was very optimistic about the titanium. There's a saying that people commonly use when they're not sure what's going to happen. Time will tell. In this case, time did literally tell me what I wanted to know.
The unprotected fruit arrived as mush. The protected fruit was undamaged. The motion sensor showed a moderate amount of rocking at the beginning, which gradually tapered off and disappeared. The sonic boom on arrival was still there.
For experiment #2, I increased the time passage to six hours. To reduce the rocking of the sling in transit, I created a program that would have the sling flying in a giant circle before it went into time-travel mode. Up to now, I had launched it from a standing start. Perhaps it needed to be going at a certain speed to break through some barrier. I couldn't help but think about Doc Brown's 88 mph that his Delorean had to reach before TiTr was possible. Did the author of that series actually luck into the right conditions? I'd know soon enough. Well, in six hours actually. In the meantime, I'll be looking at what equipment Stanford has that will allow me to change flat panels of titanium into something that will protect a human time-traveller.
I'm excited about this. It's going to work. I can feel it. Perhaps Wolf's feeling is contagious. Normally I'd share my excitement with Izzy, but I can't.
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Chapter 14
From Wizard's journals: Wednesday, July 10.
Momaka's grassy slopes are now finished and people are lounging on them and watching the construction taking place at the bottom. She says that everybody's trying to guess what's she'll be building, but they're not even coming close.
The construction is in the back left corner of the property if you were facing the WC&D tables. Picture a large flat surface at that back corner that is surrounded on three sides by grassy slopes. Sitting anywhere on those grassy slopes would give you a good view of that flat surface at the bottom. And that's the intent. To let people lounge on those grassy slopes and see that large flat surface. Right now, the flat surface is full of lumber, plywood and other construction materials from Clearwater. Soon, something else will be there.
Wanda's company is calling itself the Clearwater Lumber Company now. Momaka says that the lumber Lucas and Mathias transported is top notch. Clearwater had no problems with quality or the time schedule we had given them. Momaka says the construction will be completed on time.
Winnie has been bugging me to visit Clearwater with her because the dreamer girl wanted to talk with me. So, Winnie and I went up with Mathias on one of his scheduled freight runs and I met with her. Purple hair and all. With her standing right next to me, it was hard to miss how tall and skinny she is. She's actually taller than I am.
I told her that we were happy with everything they had done. I also said that we'd definitely be giving them a bigger order next time, but I couldn't say when that would be. They'd have plenty of time to build up an inventory, and if they wanted, to start expanding their operations.
It turns out that was exactly what the dreamer girl wanted to discuss. First, she gave me a tour of their operations while Winnie talked with Wanda. The saws were inside a large building that was big enough to handle the long logs that forklift operators put on conveyer belts in the staging area. These belts brought the logs through a big entrance right to the saws. The cut lumber exited through another big exit and again conveyor belts took the lumber to a storage area for stacking. Since the building had to have a roof to keep everything dry inside, tall, freestanding light standards provided enough illumination inside to keep everything safe. I noticed that they were plugged into Will's power outlets, but the dreamer girl said that they maintained a charge in case power was lost. You couldn't have people wandering around in the dark with dangerous equipment all over the place.
Dreamer girl showed me the one line of saws that they were using right now. Three more lines were available if they needed them, but they'd need additional interior lighting first. Lots of people were working hard. I even saw some teenagers helping with the heavy work of bringing the logs out of the river. The dreamer girl said that tribe members were coming back from Surrey. She stopped the tour in front of a big hill of sawdust.
"We have a lot of wastage when we cut the logs, so we reduce anything left over into fine sawdust. It is now becoming a fire hazard, and it's taking up valuable space in our yard. I'm looking for ways to use it. If we can sell it, we're looking at big profit margins."
With that, she walked over to a small wooden crate and pulled out two small bulging sacks. "I've put some scented sawdust into this burlap bag and sealed it up tight," she said. "I thought we might sell it as a pillow to sleep on, or perhaps to sit on. The fabric is very sturdy. I thought that might be needed to stop perspiration from seeping though to the sawdust. However, the fabric is rough to the touch. This second bag is made from cotton. Again, it's filled with scented sawdust; a different scent this time. It might be softer to sleep on, but I wonder about the sawdust staying dry and not clumping up. Winnie gave me the fabrics from your Cloth and Dye tables. I thought you might field test them for us."
I felt both; comfy and soft, I thought. Saw my name Wizard embroidered on both. I turned them over. She had attached a label. Dreamer Enterprises.
I noticed how she spoke very softly when she wasn't in her tour guide role. I had to lean close to hear her properly with the saws working hard in the background. That's when I noticed her scent. It was the same as the scent in the cotton pillow.
So that's how I ended up taking two pillows home to try out. The burlap pillow was too rough to sleep on, but it was OK to sit on. The cotton pillow was best for sleeping. I thought that she'd be able to sell a lot of them. We could provide the fabric. I asked Winnie to let her know what I had thought but she said that I should be the one to do that. So I messaged her and we talked about the business of making pillows. I offered to bring the two samples back the next time we had a meeting. She messaged back that they were mine to keep.
# # # # # # # #
The tourist business keeps growing and growing. I think we're helping it grow. The WC&D is offering free white cotton cloth to Albertans who know how to sew. If they want it, they can also buy small amounts of emerald green dye. This dye is expensive, so they'll be motivated to sell what they make rather than keep it all for themselves.
The business plan is that they'll sew something that tourists would want to buy and take home to B.C. with them. I had noticed how popular the green neckbands had become with our volunteers. They were actually selling those bands to the tourists. So I knew that emerald green and white products would sell. We just had to make something that would attract tourists' attention. I'm leaving that up to the women's imagination. I offered to give them credit on the purchase of the dye, but soon that became unnecessary.
The women started producing scarves and then, they became creative. They're hand-sewing
clothing now. Some women even use part of the dye to colour the thread and are embroidering Will and Izzy onto whatever they're making. They offer what they make at the barter blankets, but they'll only take cash from tourists. Some women are more interested in sewing the souvenirs, so they simply sell their goods to someone with a barter blanket and go home to make more.
This surge in business is creating some shortages on the WC&D tables. I've had to put in some very large orders for replacement white cotton and the dye. My one supplier can't keep up with our demand. He told me about another firm in Japan that has a good reputation. I'll be going over soon to work out arrangements. However if they're going to work with us, I'll require the second firm to dedicate its entire production of emerald green dye to us. I'm going to take Theo and Mathias with me. We're not going to use the Wilizy this time. We'll sling over, pick up our order in the middle of the night, and send the crates home via Overnight Express delivery. When I told Will about the great opportunity we had and how pressured we were to ship more cloth and dye here fast, he said that he would stop what he was doing and produce five custom-designed nose cones out of what he said was titanium. He would test them out first so that they wouldn't whistle when they were hauling freight.
I won't be taking Lucas with me. He has been acting strange ever since he had a fight with Dad. Lucas had this big stack of chocolate that was still left over from our trip to New York. The rest of us boys had some left too. Lucas said that he was going to go down to Surrey and sell his chocolate on the street. He figured he'd get a good deal. He was willing to buy our chocolate and told us what he'd pay us for it. Reese and Mathias asked me what I thought, and I said that he wasn't offering us enough. Theo thought so too. That made Lucas angry with me and he ended up going down to Surrey with only his stash. When Lucas flashed his money from the sale around, Dad found out what he had done and wasn't too pleased. Not about selling the chocolate; but disappearing without telling anyone what he'd be doing.
Lucas argued that he wasn't in danger and he didn't need to tell his parents where he was because he had a sensor in his brain plug that would tell them. Besides, he could be home within fifteen minutes in an emergency. So what was the problem? Going down to Surrey was the same thing as going into the woods for a stroll. Did he have to tell Dad or Mom where he'd be whenever he wanted to do something by himself?
I could see Lucas' point, but he yelled at Dad that he didn't need to have nursemaids taking care of him and stormed off. Actually, Lucas does need to have nursemaids taking care of him. Theo stops him from doing stupid stuff all the time. That's why I'm not taking Lucas with me. I don't want to have to worry about what he might be doing if I left him alone. Meanwhile he and Dad have a big fog of frost between them.
# # # # # # # #
Giving our seamstresses access to the emerald green dye will mean that I can't compensate our volunteers with emerald green squares or ribbons any longer. They'd be too easy to counterfeit. Instead, what I'll do is create something in green and white that nobody else can create. I have a picture of Will and Izzy that I took back in May thinking that I would need to create our own Wilizy currency at some point. It just happened a lot earlier than I had thought. I'll have one of our best seamstresses create something in green and white that anyone would be able to wear, like a scarf. Then I'll find a way to put Will and Izzy's picture on it. Mom might know how to do that. Perhaps Will? Granny? After the picture is on the scarf, I'll ask Will and Izzy to sign it.
We'll use these scarves to thank our volunteers. They can wear them if they like or sell them. I figure they are going to be very popular. Nobody else will have clothing with Will and Izzy's picture along with their actual signature. I'll have to be careful how much volunteer work to require before we give them a signed scarf. Too little work to earn a scarf will weaken the currency. We may also have to be careful about how many people we take as volunteers. We have only one more major project to complete on the Wilizy Gardens land. After that, we'll have to reduce the number of volunteers.
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Chapter 15
From Will's journals: Monday, July 15.
My meeting with Wolf didn't go too well at first. I told him that I had invented a way to travel through time and that I wanted to use my time capsule to find out what had scared Mac so badly. He was doubtful at first, so I explained that I had tested the prototype and it had worked. I gave him the tomato that I had used to test for safety. I even described the time capsule that I had manufactured out of titanium. It was a man-sized rocket with a long tapering nose ending in a sharp point that would be aerodynamically suited to penetrating the time barrier. The inside of the capsule was sufficiently wide to accommodate me in comfort plus whatever small amounts of cargo I wanted to take with me. The bottom of the rocket was open so that I could crawl in and out. It didn't need to be covered at the bottom since I'd be flying head first through the time barrier.
I went on to say that the titanium shell would be used only for time-travel. Once I had arrived at my time destination, the filaments around the outside of the capsule would keep it invisible in whatever remote location in the sky I wanted to store it. Meanwhile, I still had my own sling for normal travel. I didn't bother telling him about the problems that I had had to overcome, since there weren't any left. I had eliminated the last issue – the sonic boom on arrival – by gradually reducing the energy pushing the capsule through time so that I was coasting to a stop as I reached the designated landing time. I had tested that personally by putting a tape recorder on the Stanford grounds and taking a three-minute trip.
"You wouldn't lie about something this unbelievable," Wolf said. "I believe that you can travel back in time. How are you going to find her?"
"I'll go back in time to when she leaves the compound, follow her to wherever she goes, and start skipping forward in time. If she changes locations, I'll follow her there, and skip forward again." It seemed straightforward to me. "Might take a day to reach present time," I said.
"You can't do it like that. Whatever caused Mac to leave the Wilizy will still exist. She won't come back. You have to find out why she left and fix that."
That seemed straightforward too. I hadn't thought about fixing things, just on finding her. "If I do that, I'll need a starting point for my search into her past," I said. "What do you know for sure about Mac that nobody else does?"
"I'll come along," he said.
"Uh, no," I replied. "I'm trying to keep this a secret. I only told you that the time capsule exists so that I could start my research without breaking any of Mac's rules."
"I come with you, or you don't try to find her."
"You don't believe that I'll respect Mac's wishes?"
"That's not it. I know you'll try your best."
"I can conduct invisible surveillance."
"I know you'll try your best."
"You don't believe I can find her?"
"I know you'll try your best."
"What are you trying to say, Wolf?"
"Will, don't take this the wrong way, but you're not all that well suited for this kind of operation. You're great at inventing things, and you could do this kind of search effectively if everything went smoothly. But if something went wrong, you don't think quickly enough. You know that about yourself, right?"
I had protected Izzy quickly enough in Coronation. But I had messed up my first time-travel experiment and had gotten flustered. So Wolf was partly right. "But I'm going to be invisible the whole time. What could go wrong?"
"I don't know Will." Then Wolf lobbed the tomato at my face. It bounced off my cheek and rolled onto the ground. "But if something did happen, there's a good chance that you'd mess up, just like you messed up catching that tomato."
I picked the tomato up, looked at it and went to put it in my backpack. Then I turned around and whipped it at Wolf instead. I would have missed, but Wolf caught it anyway. He dropped the mush of the tomato onto the ground and wiped
the residue that was on his hand on the grass.
"I'm better at fighting battles than you are, Will. We'd be a good team though. You'd think better than I would. I'd handle emergencies better. Anyway you know the rules. No warrior goes into danger without a partner. I don't want to be the one to explain to the family that you are lost somewhere in time because I didn't insist on being with you."
"You'll keep this a secret, right? This is a one-time operation. I don't want other Wilizy members suggesting that we go back and forth in time regularly."
"Plus you don't want Izzy to know because she'll get mad at you."
"That too," I admitted.
"Here's what I know about Mac that's not common knowledge. She told me when we first met that the two of us would never happen because she was married and her husband would never give her a divorce. She had an army medal hanging around her neck and she'd take it out and rub it from time to time. She's too young to have earned it, so I figure her Dad gave her his medal and that might mean that he's an important man in the Saskatchewan army. Mac must have had some years of army training and perhaps service – in Saskatchewan I believe. She may have given us a fake surname. But if so, her real surname will start with Mac. She's very used to responding to that name. Her hair isn't normally brown. She may be a blonde now."