OK, I got out of hand with the length on this one.
I was going to break in two or cut out the part with Amelia, but decided to just leave it all. So here you go - two scenes in one!
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While Rukhsana and I kept working on the communication system, trying to repair the damage that had been done to it, and trying to make it fully functional for the next attempt to contact Ajri, Grandfather was busy drawing plans.
Apparently the 'lotus' that his mother had mentioned was a crystal and metal structure that stood at the base of a ruined tower in the den'Rhelys mountains on Ajri. The lotus itself was in partial ruins, but enough of it was still standing that it was possible to determine what it would have looked like when whole.
Grandfather was doing his best to try to remember every detail of the metal 'leaves' and the crystal 'petals' that rose upward to form the blossom shape. He woke in the middle of the night, jotting notes about possible dimensions, or about the specifics of the carvings on the stone base.
And eventually, months later, he was able to put together a scale model of what he thought the finished structure would have looked like when first built.
That was, unfortunately where our progress stopped. We'd had no more communication from his -- I guess 'our' -- family in Ajri, and given the cryptic warnings we'd heard about 'proportion' and it being 'very important not to' do something, we didn't want to proceed much further without knowing for sure that we had the model correct.
In addition, there was apparently no such thing as adamantine. To hear grandfather talk about it, it was apparently strewn all over the beaches of Ajri, in giant, shiny chunks. But neither Rukhsana nor I had ever heard of it, it wasn't on any periodic chart or any list of alloys we'd ever seen, and the one time I raised it at the lab, my research partner just laughed.
"What are you making, Captain America's shield?"
"What?"
"Adamantium's not real. It's just from the comics, you know? Ultron's armor and all that."
"Not adamantium. Adamantine."
"Oh, well, right. Sorry, man. I apologize. That's a whole different thing."
"Exactly."
"Yeah, I think that's what the giant turtles drop in Final Fantasy."
"Never mind."
Lodestone was a different matter -- quite literally. It was an old term used to describe naturally magnetized pieces of magnetite, and it referred to the use of the rock in compasses -- a 'lead stone' or direction finder.
No one knew how the stones were made magnetic, but the most prevalent theory was that if a rock with the proper composition were struck by lightning, it had a chance to become a lodestone. The problem was, there weren't very many of them around, and most of them were in museums and labs that weren't going to give them away to a bunch of lunatics living in a barn and trying to construct a magic gateway to another world.
So we were stymied, until we could get more information about adamantine, which meant until we could get the communication array working. And until we could find a convenient lightning strike that just happened to hit the perfect rock.
Believe it or not, that's where Amelia came in.
"Yeah, sure, I'm at school. Of course. Right, yeah. Love you too. Bye!" She rolled her eyes with a typical teenage irritation as she ended the call, propping her feet up on the table and leaning back in her chair as she reached for a magazine. "Whatever, nerds."
"Was that your mother or your father?" Grandfather had stepped into the barn behind her, and had apparently overheard the entire conversation -- or at least the half on this side of the phone.
Amelia scraped her chair back, standing up in a second. "Oh, uh… hi! That was… it was…" Grandfather could see the wheels turning in her head as she scrambled to come up with a cover story and Amelia could see that there was no way he would buy it, no matter what she said. So she simply shrugged. "Yeah, that was Mom."
Grandfather just nodded as he stepped closer, craning his neck forward to see what she was reading. "
Popular Invention? That's more important than school?"
She sighed with the long-suffering patience of someone who'd been asked that question multiple times, in multiple scenarios. "At least it's not
Bridgeport Fashion," she mumbled, managing to sound annoyed and contrite at the same time.
"No. But school is important, Amelia. Look what your mother and father have done with their education. If you want to get into University--"
"Who says I want to get into University? Who says I want to wear a lab coat? There's more to life than books, books, books!" She threw her hands up in frustration, then jabbed a finger toward the work bench, where a pile of metal scraps surrounded a newly finished -- I think the only word to describe it properly would have to be 'contraption.' "I built
that without going to University. Sometimes you just have to DO things, you know? Experiment! Try things out!"
"Like you tried fixing the kitchen sink?" Grandfather raised a skeptical eyebrow. That particular experiment had ruined the pipes, the cabinet and the floor.
"I've gotten better at plumbing," Amelia replied, looking down at the floor and kicking at a loose nail with her boot. "The showers don't break anymore. Much."
"That's true." Grandfather couldn't help but smile at the defense. "And I happen to agree with you that there is
more to life than books. But books are a necessary part. Now -- I'll overlook you skipping your classes once --" He held up a single finger to cut off her enthusiastic thanks. "ONCE. And you're not to lie to your parents again, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," she said dutifully.
"Good. So tell me what this… thing… is for?"
"Why does everything have to have a purpose? I just made it because I wanted to see if I could. There was an article about using electricity to make magnets, and I know you and my dad and Grandpa Pascal have been talking about magnetizing rock with electricity, and so I wanted to see if I could do it, but I used a duck not a rock, because I had a duck, and ducks are made of rubber, and rubber doesn't usually work for that, so I borrowed some of the potion you guys were working on, and I'm sorry I didn’t ask, but it worked."
Grandfather blinked as the torrent of words ended, and he was confronted with the evidence of what Amelia had said: it worked. The rubber duck was -- apparently -- floating on a cloud of electrostatic repulsion. "You can't have just coated it in the potion. Your father tried that already."
"No," Amelia replied, hesitantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm as she realized she wasn't in trouble. "It has less to do with the thing you're trying to magnetize, and more to do with the way you introduce the current. So I made a new battery, and instead of just using a dry cell like a normal battery, I made a wet cell with the potion, which must have changed the way the electricity came out, because--" She gestured at the duck, which was still floating.
"And if you cut the power, it falls, right? It's not magnetic anymore?" That was me -- I had come home from the lab, and found the pair of them in the barn. Amelia jumped at the sound of my voice, sure I was about to lecture her on being home during a school day, but in truth I was fascinated by what she was saying. "It's only held up because it's in the current?"
"Uh, no." She picked up the duck with a roll of her eyes, held it out, then let go. It sprang out of her hand and attached itself to the workbench with a loud THUNK.
Grandfather blinked in surprise. "How did you do that?"
My father, who had wandered in when he heard us talking, tilted his head curiously. "What made you think to put potion in a battery?"
"That's like an old Edison-Lalande cell," I said as I peered into the battery, "but with silicon dioxide instead of copper. How did you calculate the proper pH for the potion to get it to function as an efficient electrolyte?"
Amelia was trying to tug the duck back away from the workbench as she answered each one of us in turn: "I don't know. I just thought it might work. And why do I never even know what you're talking about?"
A few hours later, after we had quizzed poor Amelia about every step of her process, we had come to two conclusions. First, what she had done looked promising, but we would need to more systematically analyze what had happened to see if we could use it to reproduce lodestone. Second, Amelia had absolutely no scientific discipline at all, but she had an innate talent for tinkering with things and getting them to work. And that was just the sort of outside-the-box thinking we needed.
Before we could get too far along in testing her insane quartz-and-potion battery, however, it was time for another attempt to contact Ajri -- this time on the monitor for all of us to see.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
We'd all gathered in the barn as though we were getting ready for a family photo -- brushed hair, pressed clothes and nervous hope as we waited for the communications array to warm up. The charged pillars we'd lined with gems and potions began to turn, and Rukhsana monitored the pressure in their sealed case while I adjusted frequencies and outputs in response to readings on the computer.
I think that after all of our prior trials and all of the associated pandemonium, we were expecting more noise, or more mayhem, or at least a little fanfare. But this time, for once, the insane machine we'd built actually worked as it was supposed to, and with no commotion of any kind, the lights transitioned to green, the signal connected with a quiet *ding* and the screen above the bank of servers came to life.
"Is that it?" My mother craned her neck forward to get a good look at the strange room on the other side of the connection. "I can’t see anything -- only a chair, and wall."
"
Hello?" a confused voice answered from the speakers beside the screen. The room seemed to spin as whatever device was being used on the other side was turned around. And then a face came into view, in front of a shelf full of strange bottles and books. "
Who's in there?"
"It's me, Uncle Edran." Grandfather stepped forward, holding up a hand. "It's Jaffaran."
The man on the screen peered more intently, studying the old man that had been a young man just a few weeks before in Ajri. Eventually, Edran sat back in surprise. "
Jaffaran! But you-- How long--Ybeline!" He was shouting now, to someone outside the frame."
Ybeline, it's Jaffaran... I think. Are those--"
Before Uncle Edran could form any more half-questions, the room spun again, and this time centered on the face we had all seen before, in the fuzzy image that had appeared on Rukhsana's birthday. The woman we had come to recognize as Grandfather's mother smiled eagerly, and then blinked in startled dismay.
"I'm old," Grandfather said, before she could say a word. "I know."
"How long have you been there?" Ybeline asked in amazement. "It's been only a few weeks here."
Grandfather smiled sadly in response, and shook his head. "I've lost track," he said. "Around a hundred years I think."
"A hundred--" Ybeline sounded distraught at the idea, but before she could say anything else, another man appeared over her shoulder, squinting back at us.
"Son?"
"Hello, father. We're making progress." He turned to my mother first. "This is Claudia, and this is Etienne, and Amelia."
"Hello," my mother said shyly, standing close to my wife and my dad. Amelia lifted her hand as well, in a small greeting. We were all enthralled by the images, and trying to take in all of the details we could.
"Already?" Grandfather's father asked, leaning even closer. "How long have you--"
"A hundred years," Ybeline cut off the inquiry, her voice shaking. "But we knew it would take a long time," she added more firmly, taking hold of her husband's hand for comfort. "And so these are our -- let me see... Granddaughter, great-grandson and great-great-granddaughter?"
"That's four generations," her husband said encouragingly. "Your mother and I make five -- you're more than halfway there."
"Six actually," Grandfather said after a moment's pause. "But-- we may need to start again with Claudia, which means Amelia is only generation three."
"What? Why?"
Rubbing at his forehead, Grandfather related the problems with Alden, and the fact that we didn't know where he was. "... or even if he's alive," Grandfather finished. "I'm sorry. We'll keep looking, of course, but I'm so sorry."
Lord Mithren, as we knew Grandfather's father was named, shook his head at the apology. "You've done more than we expected," he said. "And you have time, even if we have to start with Claudia."
Grandfather nodded, though he looked unconvinced. "All's well then? You and mother? Nella and Meri?"
"All well," Lord Mithren replied. "Your sister's with the Pembina, and Meridel is here, working with the physicians."
"And Ajiana?" Grandfather asked the question hesitantly, as if expecting bad news. My mother put a comforting hand on his back.
"Oh!" Ybeline exclaimed. "Of course you don't know. She's fine. Edran--"
But Uncle Edran was already poking his head through a door in the background, talking to someone else off screen.
"It was her bloodline that protected her," Lord Mithren said, recounting more of the situation in Ajri. Someone named Stellan was very ill, and someone named Mara was unlikely to survive. "...and some of the scholars here have died. But the Peninsula has been worst affected, and--"
"Daddy!" A high-pitched voice broke through the somber recounting, and a little girl, her hair tied in ribbons and flowers, darted into the picture. But she was focused on me, not Grandfather, and she looked perplexed. "You look different."
"That's your nephew, Etienne," Ybeline said to her quietly, then pointed her toward Grandfather. "Your father is here."
The little girl blinked in confusion, not at all sure what to make of the old man lifting a hand to wave at her, his eyes bright with adoration. But she lifted her own hand, shyly, and then broke into a broad smile at the sound of his voice saying "Hello, Ajiana."
She craned her neck around to see each of the rest of us as Grandfather introduced us again, and told her a little bit about life in Aurora Skies -- she was especially sad to hear that his horse Astanal had died, especially curious about her 'cousin' Amelia, and especially intrigued by the idea of snow.
But though none of us wanted to interrupt Grandfather's time with his family, nor to put an end to our chance to meet them, Rukhsana eventually reported that the charmed gems we used to open the channel were running out. "Ten minutes," she warned quietly as the first of the warning lights started to flash between yellow and orange.
"Oh, no..." Ybeline said, reaching out as if to touch her son through the screen. "So soon?"
"You must tell him the dimensions," Edran's voice came from off to the side. And then he was scooting a chair into the frame, and taking a seat. "Listen, boy," he said without a moment's thought for the fact that his nephew looked older than he did. "We've found the proper dimensions for the base of the lotus. Take these down now..."
My father darted forward with a pen and paper, Amelia whipped out her trusty cell phone, and I leaned in closer to be sure I heard as Uncle Edran listed the information they'd found in their archives. All of us were just recording whatever he said, without understanding much of it -- I saw Amelia's eyebrows go up in confusion as she started typing in dimensions listed in cubits and remen and spans, but her fingers flew over the keyboard without a pause.
"...be sure to forge the lodestone with the electrum. You cannot simply inlay it. And the petals must be veined with pallasite and heliolite, a full span at center point, tapering to points at the tips. I should note that-- Jaffaran?" He leaned forward suddenly, peering into the screen. "Are you there, boy?"
"Signal degradation," Rukhsana reported. "Trying to compensate, but you have less than a minute."
I jumped to the computer to try to assist her, but it was no use. The image on the screen started to break up.
"We'll contact you again," Grandfather shouted, "But it will take time."
Edran shook his head and pointed to his ear, unable to hear. Ajiana jumped off her grandmother's lap, and squinted into the screen. "Daddy?"
"We'll be here, son, whenever you call. Someone will answer." Mithren smiled encouragingly into the screen, as Ybeline nodded. But Grandfather's eyes were on his daughter, as she clasped her hands together in the traditional farewell.
"I'll be home soon," he called, just in case she could hear.
And her lips formed the silent words "I miss you," just before the screen went dark.
