Dear Anne,
At last she's complete! My Time Machine is perfect! Right
after our journey to Transsyldavia I started to work on her.
You already know that I can record images. Until now I could
only visualise the past. But now I can calculate the course of
events by a calculator, which I added to my Time Machine, and
extrapolate the images to the present and even beyond.
So now we can travel to the future! If you come to me very
soon, the three of us can make our concentration journey. I
hope you are looking forward to that.
Your Govert Gosseling
Dear Govert,
We just returned from a long trip to Moscow and are not quite
in the mood for leaving right away. But we'll come and see
your invention very soon.
Anne and Lisabeth
"A calculator?" Lisabeth wondered. "What a coincidence. I
have to re-design my entire Castle and I certainly could use a
piece of machinery that performs all the dull calculation
work."
"I too could use a device like that", Anne-Christine said.
"Anne-Lise once told me that one could find a lot of secret
messages hidden in those letters, if you only liked
puzzling."
"And you like puzzling?" Lisabeth asked.
"I adore it and in fact I practise far too little!" Anne-
Christine declared fervently.
A fortnight later, Anne-Christine and Lisabeth drove off.
Anne-Christine had a piece of Muscovite Crystal to give to
Gosseling, to enable him to make his journey to Anne-Lise's
Moscow. She intended to give it to him the moment they left.
In this way, she would protect herself. If she couldn't,
perhaps the temptation would make her travel without his
knowledge to the same era he wanted to go, in order to place a
trap for him. But, on the other hand, she was convinced that
Anne-Lise didn't need her assistance and would know exactly
what to do, after Gosseling would had arrived. Her
interference might just complicate the whole affair.
Govert Gosseling received them heartely in his little
cottage, which seemed fuller than ever before.
"I appologise", he mumbled absent-mindedly. "Such a
calculator takes up a lot of space".
Without doubt it will produce a lot of noise, too!"
Lisabeth guessed, as she thoroughly inspected the apparatus
from all sides.
"Certainly it does", Gosseling admitted. "I never stop
oiling all those levers, because otherwise the squeaking woul
send shivers up and down your spine. But, even if I oil it all
well, there will still be quite a lot of noise".
"What can she do?" Anne asked curiously, meaning the
machine.
"Oh, so much!" Gosseling answered proudly. "I need her to
predict movements. For instance, take the trajectory of a
ball. If I possess the pictures from the moment it is thrown,
then I can predict the rest of its trajectory and so its
future. At least, that's something I managed to do."
"Then she must be able to multiply and divide", Lisabeth
said.
"She certainly can, at a rate of three divisions every 10
seconds! She can even store the temporary results and display
them on these pivoting spools, which are marked with the
numbers from 0 to 9."
Gosseling indicated the various parts of the machinery and
both girls couldn't say a word, being overwhelmed by so much
ingenuity.
"So she has a certain kind of memory?" Anne-Christine
understood. "That's good, because I planned to try to decipher
my letters."
"Well, that will be no problem!" Gosseling said, "This is
a most versatile piece of machinery. In theory, she can
understand anything. If you want to feed her loads of
information, then you'd better use paper as an input
medium".
"She can read as well?" Lisabeth asked in surprise.
"If you use this feature", he said laughingly, opening a
heavy book which consisted of zigzag folded paper with little
holes in it.
"Every hole represents a number!" he explained. "But you
also can take an 'A' for a '1' and a 'B' for a '2' to make her
work on text!"
"Then I'll start typing all Anne-Lise's letters in such a
book, tomorrow", Anne-Christine spoke resolutely.
"And I want to re-calculate my entire Castle!" Lisabeth
exclaimed.
"Well, well, she will serve you well, I hope, but in fact,
I built her to predict the future!" Gosseling reminded them.
He put his arms around the girls and pulled them close to him
as if he would never let them go.
"Shall we make a plan of who is going to use the machine
at what hour of the day?" Govert proposed. "Then we won't
bother one another".
"Good thinking", Lisabeth agreed. "For I also have a lot
of drawings to make and I can do that while you are
calculating".
"I'll make a list", Anne-Christine said, walking to the
desk and searching for quill and paper. A few moments later,
every hour of the coming week was planned.
During the next days, they worked with great discipline.
Anne-Christine used every minute of the time attributed to her
to transfer the pile of letters into a pattern of holes in the
zigzag book. Lisabeth calculated how to split her Crystal
Castle into transportable parts, while Gosseling tried to
predict the future by a series of pictures. This work didn't
progress as he had hoped it would and, from time to time, he
complained to Lisabeth, who unfortunately hadn't much time for
him.
But the nature of the problems was clear.
"The trajectory of a ball in motion is a simple parabola.
But there are other events which are less predictable and I
can't cope with them," the scientist spoke desperately.
"Try some other curves, not just a parabola" Lisabeth
suggested.
Over the next few days Gosseling tried all the curves he
could think of, but to no avail.
In the meantime, Anne-Christine had transposed all her
letters into a pattern of little holes and, when it was her
turn to use the machine, Lisabeth and Gosseling were as
curious as she was to see the result.
"First, I'll start looking at all the even letters", Anne-
Christine planned. "Perhaps that will reveal a secret
message."
She turned the calculater on and read the spools, on which
she had glued letters to make the deciphering process more
convenient. Random series of letters dashed along and, though
the machine read the entire book, they were no wiser than
before.
"Then I'll take the odd letters!" Anne-Christine said,
putting the machine into motion again. A few moments later it
became clear that this new action wouldn't provide any
results, either.
"Anne-Lise's little puzzle must be more complex than
that", Gosseling guessed.
"I'll just keep on trying", Anne-Christine said firmly,
adjusting the machine to make it pick and display every thrird
letter.
"I don't think we'll get any further this way", Gosseling
concluded after a couple of days of fruitless labour.
"The machine works quite handsomely, though, except for
the noise", Anne-Christine said. "But I don't have any result
yet, either".
"I do!" Lisabeth said. "This apparatus is very good in
calculating the bending moments in a cast-in cantilever on a
double support, which is exactly what I need".
"What in the world may that be?" Gosseling wanted to
know.
"What? A bending moment or a cast-in cantilever on double
support?" Lisabeth asked.
"A bending moment", Gosseling said. "Perhaps it will help
me to find what I'm looking for".
"You may be quite right", Lisabeth said, being surprised
by his proposal. "You know, when you want to predict the
future, the immediate past is more important than the more
distant past, isn't it?"
"That seemes common sense to me," Gosseling admitted. "And
that is a bending moment?"
"Not quite", Lisabeth answered. "But it has something in
common. When a glass pane is supported, not only is the force
on it important, but also the distance from the point of
support, say the origin. The value of the bending moment
progresses with the distance and you need the same
principle!"
"Maybe me, too!" Anne-Christine said. "I've searched for
every second letter, every third and even every thirty-third
but I still find nothing. I think I have to increase the step
as the distance from the very first letter increases".
"Who knows?" asked Lisabeth.
Two days later, everybody was more than satisfied. Thanks
to the theory of the bending moments, Gosseling had been able
to predict many if not all of the movements. He had fed a
series of pictures of an oncoming stage coach into his machine
and the apparatus had been able to predict the last images
from the preceding ones.
Anne-Christine had succeeded as well. She danced with joy
after it became clear that the very same theory was going to
reveal a message from her letters.
"In fact, it's more of a philosophy than a physical
theory", Gosseling thought, when he silently recalled what had
made it all work.
"And what do your letters reveal exactly?" Lisabeth asked
curiously.
"I don't know!" Anne answered, laughing. "I saw some words
I could recognize so at least there is a beginning." She took
Lisabeth by the arm to take yet a few more dance steps in the
small room.
"Phooey", she then puffed and dropped onto a chair.
"We're going to celebrate this. For already we made
considerable progress, didn't we?" asked Gosseling.
He then turned off the machine and an almost-forgotten silence
returned to the cottage. Only now they realized that the
calculator had been working without pause for days. The three
friends looked at one another uneasily until Anne-Christine
bursted into laughter. Soon they danced circles around the big
machine standing silently in the room.
"Anne", Lisabeth said later in bed. "Are you asleep?"
"Not any more", Anne-Christine said, "But please do speak
your mind freely."
"Anne, I've been thinking. We planned to give the
Chandelier's Crystal to Gosseling just before we leave. But
what if we did that somewhat earlier. Then we might combine
several ideas".
"What ideas are you thinking of?" Anne-Christine asked,
standing and being as curious as ever.
"Well, with a prism, you can reveal the images which are
stocked in the Crystal. Gosseling can put them onto his glass
plates with his camera. His calculator may continue the series
and his projector will visualise the coming events. In this
way, we'll know what will happen in the proximity of that
particular piece of Crystal!"
"You are right!" Anne-Christine admitted after thinking
about it deeply. "Tomorrow we'll propose it to Gosseling."
Gosseling was more than enthusiastic.
"Why didn't I think of that?" he wondered over and over
again. "I'll prepare my camera right away".
In a short while, Gosseling asked: "Are the Crystal and
the Prism ready? Yes? Then please open the curtain!"
Right after they had done so, they became entranced by an
ever-changing colourful world. They could hardly see one
another, but they knew from the clattering noise of the glass
plates, that Govert Gosseling had turned on his image
recorder.
When all was silent again, Lisabeth took the prism away
from the sunlight and at once the Crystal images
disappeared.
"I hope it will reveal something, because focussing was a
problem. It looks as if there is nothing to focus on, don't
you agree?"
"I do", said Anne-Christine, who was still blushing from
the excitement.
"Do you have any particular plans for the rest of the day,
now that I'm leaving you alone?" Gosseling asked.
"That depends", Lisabeth said. "If you don't need your
calculator now, I would like to see what this message from
Anne's letters is all about."
"That's a good idea", Gosseling agreed. "For the next few
hours I won't need her, anyway."
"Shall we take a look at what's hidden in these letters?"
Lisabeth asked Anne-Christine, who stood up straight to feed
the zigzag book into the machine.
"Now let's see, what was the right adjustment?" she
wondered. She needn't have worried because the configuration
hadn't changed since the previous day and the spools started
to spin as soon as they turned on the machine.
"Beware of Mary O'Lein, Beware of Mary O'Lein", Anne-
Christine read out loud and by the time the last little hole
had been read, nothing had been added to this warning.
She had turned pale when she turned off the calculator.
"What's the matter?" Lisabeth asked, shocked by the
expression on Anne-Christine's face.
"Now this, after all we already went through!" Anne-
Christine said.
"Who is this Mary O'Lein?" You know her?" Lisabeth asked
nervously.
"No, but I do know Tamarlan or Timur Leng from 'The Chain
of Mountain Crystals' Anne-Christine said. "He was the most
bloodthirsty Mongol who ever lived. Compared to him Attila was
a cute little lamb".
"You think those two have something in common?"
"If I only knew", Anne-Christine said. "I'd have done
better not to bring back that Glasswork, I have to confess
now."
"Oh what does it matter?. This is the way to keep life
thrilling", Lisabeth countered. "After all, to me Mary O'Lein
rather looks like a woman with an Irish background and there
is only a distant similarity to the names you just mentioned.
Who knows, it will be a storm in a teacup, after all!"
"Do you really believe what you are saying?" Anne-
Christine asked. "I'm glad I've read that booklet, for now I
know how to prepare myself. All those letters are warnings for
one and the same person!"
"Perhaps the Crystal will show us what she looks like!"
Lisabeth guessed. "Then we may be one step ahead of her."
"You're looking forward to it more than I am", Anne-
Christine said.
"The pictures are ready, please turn on the machinery",
Gosseling called from his darkroom.
Lisabeth started the colossus and, within moments, the
scientist appeared bearing the dripping wet glasswork in both
hands. He predicted that it would take an enormous amount of
time to feed the pictures into the machine one by one. For
this purpose, the calculator possessed a stylus with which one
could follow the contours of the images.
"Oh, that's the way she learns what the pictures look
like!" Lisabeth said in surprise.
"If you want to, you may help me", proposed the scientist,
who was visibly tired. "There is a vast pile of plates and, if
everyone does his duty, the work will be less dull."
The plates still being wet, Lisabeth started to scan them
with the stylus until the calculator clicked as if she were
pleased, after which Lisabeth started to work on the next one.
After she had scanned a considerable number of plates, she
thought that Anne-Christine could continue with the work. But
Anne-Christine seemed somewhat absent-minded. More than once
the click didn't occur so that she had to start all over
again.
Nevertheless, the work progressed faster than expected
and, after the last image had been stored into the calculator,
Gosseling decided it was time to start the machine. He placed
his camera with its lens pointing towards the calculator and,
every few seconds, the girls heard a new plate just processed,
falling out of the image recorder.
That evening a show was held.
"We already know about the past", Gosseling said, "So I'll
skip that and just show the newly-processed images."
The room was in total darkness until he turned on his
projector on, when it was bathed in daylight. They seemed to
be in the very same room where they had been that morning.
First they saw Lisabeth and Anne-Christine working with the
stylus and then Gosseling placing his camera facing towards
the calculator. Then the room became dark again.
"I must have put the crystal into the pocket of my
trousers", Gosseling had to admit.
"Your pocket isn't a very interesting place", Lisabeth and
Anne-Christine giggled, until all of a sudden a giant wheel
appeared and seemed to crush them. Then the last glass plate
slid out of the projector and the show was over.
"That last image was the one I liked least of all",
Lisabeth said, still shaking. "What in the world was it?"
"I don't know!" Gosseling said visibly touched by what he
had seen. "Maybe there are still some improvements to make.
But the rest of it worked well, didn't it? We could see what
happened during the rest of the day!"
"It would have been wiser not to put that Crystal into
your pocket," Lisabeth sugested. "This way the future remains
very dark indeed".
"We'll try again tomorow", Gosseling promised.
Anne-Christine didn't want to go through it once more. She
preferred to stay in the garden, reading her 'Chain of
Mountain Crystal'. She found the announced coming of Mary
O'Lein more important than the future of a small piece of the
Muscovite Chandelier.
"What did it come up with?" was all that she asked, later
that evening.
"Oh, nothing in particular", Lisabeth answered.
"Yes, but what came up with it?" Anne-Christine insisted
very curiously.
"Just about the same as yesterday" Lisabeth answered
vaguely. Anne-Christine had to be satisfied with this
statement, as Gosseling, too, had little to add.
"You conspire together, the moment I have other things to
do", Anne-Christine said angrily. "I'll leave tomorrow as I
don't trust you any more."
"That's a pity," Gosseling regretted. "I tried hard to
make you feel at home".
Anne-Christine didn't speak a word but stood up to leave
Lisabeth alone with the scientist.
Next morning, Anne-Christine was packing her porte-valise,
Lisabeth saw by her face that they still weren't on speaking
terms.
"Don't worry", Lisabeth said. "Gosseling is more
trustworthy than you may think he is."
"What do you know about that?" Anne-Christine asked,
folding her nightgown. "Do you know him any better than I
do?"
"No", Lisabeth admitted. "But he's rather kind and he
means it well. He just couldn't say anything because I begged
him not to do. I'm the one to blame, not him, you know".
Feeling somewhat uneasy, Gosseling bade Anne-Christine and
Lisabeth farewell.
"What a pity it had to end this way!" he said, opening the
door of the stagecoach for the girls.
"We'll be all right", Lisabeth said.
"I hope so", said Gosseling, searching for a handkerchief
to wipe a tear from his eye. As the coach sprang forward, a
squeaking sound made the two girls jump to their feet.
"The chandelier!" Gosseling cried out loudly. He ran after
the coach and was able to follow it for a few moments.
"It ran over the Crystal! I must have lost it with my
handkerchief!" he cried, out of breath, to Lisabeth, who had
stuck her head out of the open window.
"We'll send you a new one!" Lisabeth replied, but she knew
that this wouldn't be the most important question for him.
Gosseling stopped running as soon as he realized that they had
understood his words. Lisabeth saw he was in deep thoughts as
the coach turned the corner.
"He will be thinking of his powers of prediction", she
knew as she shut the coach window.
"So it's no mistake", Anne-Christine said. "That crushing
wheel wasn't fantasy. Gosseling actually can calculate those
things".
"Or he threw it under the wheel deliberately", Lisabeth
answered. "To make his prediction come true".
"I don't know", Anne-Christine said. "He's not stupid. It
was far too real, after all. You can't come up with such a
detailed plan so rapidly, which makes me wonder what you did
really see the second time".
"I can't tell you yet", Lisabeth said. "First, I have to
think about it. What I saw has something to do with myself and
now I have to make a choice between you and me and that isn't
easy".
"You certainly know how to focus attention upon yourself",
Anne-Christine snapped.
"It isn't very easy for me, Anne. I've seen something I
preferred not to have seen. Anyway, I beg you never to take
your Muscovite Glassware to my future Crystal Castle, for that
will mean the end of both of them, from what I know."
"So you've seen the final hours of the Muscovite
Glasswork", Anne-Christine guessed.
"I'm telling you, I don't know, Anne!" Lisabeth cried out.
"It just depends on what's true and what isn't. I've been
wondering all night long whether to tell you. I was convinced
that his experiments had failed once more. But with the coach
driving over that piece of Crystal, I am in doubt again. Just
leave me alone with my thoughts, will you?"
"All right, all right", Anne-Christine retorted, not used
to seeing Lisabeth behave this way.
"Change your mood for a better one", Lisabeth said that
evening when she emptied a cardboard roll to inspect her
drawings once more. "I've made us a nice Crystal Castle and
we'll take it to the Black Sea, where you can enjoy a nice
swim. Don't you like that idea?"
But the prospect didn't seem to influence Anne-Christine's
mood very much as she seemed to be preoccupied by her own
thoughts.
"I'm scared, Lisabeth", Anne-Christine said at last. "I
thought that I had got rid of the Muscovite Glasswork as it
was predicted, but it's still there and I feel the end of the
Glasswork may also be my end".
"Then we'll have to take good care of it", Lisabeth said.
"We can make a little shock-resistant basket for it in which
it can't break and so you can take it with you wherever you
go", she proposed.
"That's a good idea", Anne-Christine answered with a
sigh.
The rest of the evening she spent covering the inside of
her porte-manteau with a velvet lining in which she made
places for the different parts of her Glasswork.
"One glass is missing!" Anne-Christine cried suddenly,
after she had finished her needlework and had started to fill
the basket.
Anne-Christine noticed how Lisabeth reacted somewhat
unexpectedly to her words. It was as if Lisabeth was suddendly
feeling very uncomfortable. Anne-Christine had to think for
just a moment, but then she knew where to find the missing
piece. She walked quietly to the porte-manteau that Lisabeth
had taken to Gosseling and recovered the missing glass from
it.