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Description
Captain Welshyft stood in the middle of the room, not sitting, his hat in his hands. His eyes shifted with a certain impatience, a desire to be somewhere, anywhere else.
“I’m afraid it’s the official word, Miss.”
“I see.”
Miss Harnby turned, blinking quickly to look at something in the middle distance out of the old deformed glass of the parlor windows. So they were not to come for him after all. It would be just her, then, and the ransom, if there even was one.
The Captain turned, to look at where she was looking.
“If there is anything,” he said. And stopped. “That I can do to be of help, then please—”
“Go.”
And he went out.
She watched the grey form of him walk out and blur as he came to his coach. Her father had been gone for two years before he even went missing. He was something of a spectre, a man rarely even in Britain, but when he was he became a commanding presence to her, his large sad eyes, his rough hands, his sailors smile. And here she was, imagining a rescue. Of course they could sell the estate, pay the madman. If that’s what it was about.
What was clear, at least, was this was no mere pirate or outlaw. A man without clear moral limits, an educated man of means, the type of individualist believing in themselves, and nothing else. He was, she feared, a man far more ruthless than Charles realized.
Of course, Charles had an advantage himself. If he could, as promised, simply extract her father just by finding out where he was being kept, then there was little to worry about. Merely, the possibility that something might go horribly wrong.
And that was so rarely the case. The night before having been something of a debacle. She recalled her bisection with a sudden amusement. She had retired that night at Chelkine, with nothing below her waist, and woke in the morning to hear shouting coming from the window. She had managed to crawl to the window, only to find the happy sight of her legs running amok in the overgrown garden, Charles in pursuit with a large bag. Her legs eluded capture for a while before tiring out at last, and were brought to be reattached, much to her relief.
She imagined then, the feeling of freedom her legs must have felt, unattached and unfixed to the legacies of others, men locked in endless conflict, and no wonder they didn’t want to come back. They were hers after all.

When she returned to Chelkine, it was nine days later in her own coach. She’d suspended many of her affairs in the city, without saying why. Most seemed to know already, their condolences written in their wrinkled brows and unfinished smiles. The city seemed suddenly hollow, and her place in it, distant. There were parlors, once full of warm smiles, excited talk of plays and even novels, where she now found women with guarded tongues, pitying eyes, wishing her all the best of luck.
And so upon leaving the city, she found herself in good spirits, even though the night before had seen a cold snap across the countryside. A frost lay over the fallow fields by the road, the white frost and the white sky meeting mutedly on a horizon of endless gentle hills, the plots divided by centuries-old hedges. It took two hours longer by her buggy than in Charles’ mechanized terror, but she was glad to have the time to relax. She passed the way between an adventure novel and simply watching the hills roll off into a foggy horizon.
When she arrived, there was an unusual silence all across Chelkine. No noise, not even from the workshop. She went to knock on the door, and found it open a crack.
“Hello?” she called out. No reply came. The inside of the house was dark. Somewhere, she heard glass break. Alarmed, she entered cautiously, hearing again the sound of glass on stone, from the laboratory. Closer she came, peering in and found—
Well, she’d never quite seen anything like it. In the center of the room, floating some six feet from the floor, a large black sphere hung, suspended, apparently, from nothing. It was dark, absolutely lightless, a kind of black never found in the ordinary world, a dark than no ink or dye could ever reproduce. A seemingly supernatural force was drawing everything from the laboratory into the body, appearing even to warp the walls and ceiling towards itself. From one of the workbenches, a hammer suddenly sprung into the air and sailed into the black void, absolutely soundless.
She tried to take a step back and found it difficult, nigh impossible.
“Charles?”
No reply. Her necklace succumbed to the abyss in the middle of the room, pulling straight away from her body. She took her hand off the door to secure it — it was made from Indonesian pearls, quite expensive — and found herself caught in the same riptide. And then she was floating, slowly, watching in disbelief as she hovered closer and closer. She reached for the edge of a workbench, but found that even just reaching out her hand seemed to take an extremely long amount of time, minutes or more by her guess. Looking back towards the void, she found herself being drawn into it, her feet already being sucked and distorted into the darkness. Helpless, she watched the rest of her legs, her stomach, and finally, the remainders as they were squished down to fit into the tiny, impossible black.

“Far too much power!” shouted Charles.
Anna sat up, dazed. She was in the laboratory, which was a mess. Charles was gathering up papers, his face nearly red.
“There’s no way to regulate it! All the Bubblator has is an ‘on’ switch.” said Eliza. She flung an armful of equipment onto one of the benches.
“Did you try to generator itself? The most direct control possible!”
“Well, I didn’t think—”
“That it would do that. No, I’ll confess it caught me by surprise as well, especially after the first test. Oh hello Anna. I’m afraid you’ve come during a bit of a cleanup.”
“She’s been here,” said Eliza. “Musta come in during the experiment, ain’t that right?”
“Yes,” said Anna. “I was just going to stop by to find out if you’d made any progress on the rescue plan.”
“Oy, progress,” chuckled Eliza, then silenced by a sharp look from Charles.
“Yes, there’s been some new findings. For instance, we’ve developed what I’ve come to call The Bubbler. It creates a erm… well, maybe bubble is a poor word. It’s actually a sort of hole, a contraction of real-space.”
“Is that the … when I walked in, there was —”
“A black abyss!” shouted Eliza, unloading another armful of metal chunks into a chest.
“Please,” said Charles. “It was merely an overcharged area of negative space, but luckily it did not have the internal power to sustain itself over time. What happened, however, it simply consumed and contracted the laboratory into a very small space.”
“Along with, y’see, the three of us. Why, we weren’t but this big!” Eliza held her fingers up, touching.
“But once the field collapses, everything expands back to its original shape,” said Charles.
“I’m not sure if I understand.”
“Can I show her?” said Eliza.
“I suppose a demonstration is in order,” said Charles.
Eliza picked up a small copper sphere, about six inches across, suspended in the middle of a two-foot wire hoop. A thin cable ran from the sphere to the Hobson which began to whir to life when Eliza gave the pedal a nudge.
“Y’wanna try’t out?” Eliza asked, offering the device.
“I think, that given the lady’s improper welcome, perhaps we should refrain from practicing any science on her just yet,” said Charles.
Anna, for some reason, bristled at this suggestion. It was just the sort of thing she’d resented so much from the Londoners who offered their damnable pity and protection.
“No,” said Anna, “I’d like to try it myself.” Charles smiled at the rebuke. Perhaps he’d only meant it as a way to goad her into the test. Or so she liked to imagine.
“Hold it here,” said Eliza, passing the device and positioning it right against her middle. “Okay, you ready? Here goes, hope the voltage holds.” She pressed the other pedal on the Hobson, a sharp buzz came from the copper sphere as it suddenly began to glow and then rapidly fade until—
For a second, she thought she was falling. It was much the same as before, the feeling of floating, a slowness, a stoppage even of time as she felt things getting smaller. She tried to look down at the device, to see what had become of it, but there was nothing there. That is, a small area of nothing, right where her stomach had been, and beyond still, her legs. The feeling continued, seeming to take ten or even fifteen minutes, but all the while she was unable to form any words, while Charles and Eliza stood fixedly watching, as if perhaps somehow frozen.
But no it occurred to her I’m the one who’s sped up.
Blink. She looked around. Took a step forward.
“I think there may have been a malfunction,” she said.
“Nope,” said Eliza. “That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
“But this isn’t the same at all!”
“Oh, it is really, just a matter of scale,” said Charles.
“See, before, we made it too big and it sucked up the whole laboratory. But this one, when you do it smaller, well it just sucked up your middle.”
Anna took another step forward. In the shiny metal of the Hobson she looked at what had become of her body. From the waist down and shoulders up she’d been unaffected, but everywhere in between— well it looked like that part wasn’t even there. The shape of her shoulders flowed smoothly into her hips
“I was hoping, perhaps, to be able to use this as a suppression device, as a way of settling any er, altercations we may have on the far end of the world. But the unreliable nature of the field makes it pretty clear that any such use may pose an equal hazard to its’ wielder.”
“Well,” Anna shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps you can find another place for it in your magic show. By the way, I’ve thought of the ideal arena for your entertainment.”

Description
Captain Welshyft stood in the middle of the room, not sitting, his hat in his hands. His eyes shifted with a certain impatience, a desire to be somewhere, anywhere else.
“I’m afraid it’s the official word, Miss.”
“I see.”
Miss Harnby turned, blinking quickly to look at something in the middle distance out of the old deformed glass of the parlor windows. So they were not to come for him after all. It would be just her, then, and the ransom, if there even was one.
The Captain turned, to look at where she was looking.
“If there is anything,” he said. And stopped. “That I can do to be of help, then please—”
“Go.”
And he went out.
She watched the grey form of him walk out and blur as he came to his coach. Her father had been gone for two years before he even went missing. He was something of a spectre, a man rarely even in Britain, but when he was he became a commanding presence to her, his large sad eyes, his rough hands, his sailors smile. And here she was, imagining a rescue. Of course they could sell the estate, pay the madman. If that’s what it was about.
What was clear, at least, was this was no mere pirate or outlaw. A man without clear moral limits, an educated man of means, the type of individualist believing in themselves, and nothing else. He was, she feared, a man far more ruthless than Charles realized.
Of course, Charles had an advantage himself. If he could, as promised, simply extract her father just by finding out where he was being kept, then there was little to worry about. Merely, the possibility that something might go horribly wrong.
And that was so rarely the case. The night before having been something of a debacle. She recalled her bisection with a sudden amusement. She had retired that night at Chelkine, with nothing below her waist, and woke in the morning to hear shouting coming from the window. She had managed to crawl to the window, only to find the happy sight of her legs running amok in the overgrown garden, Charles in pursuit with a large bag. Her legs eluded capture for a while before tiring out at last, and were brought to be reattached, much to her relief.
She imagined then, the feeling of freedom her legs must have felt, unattached and unfixed to the legacies of others, men locked in endless conflict, and no wonder they didn’t want to come back. They were hers after all.

When she returned to Chelkine, it was nine days later in her own coach. She’d suspended many of her affairs in the city, without saying why. Most seemed to know already, their condolences written in their wrinkled brows and unfinished smiles. The city seemed suddenly hollow, and her place in it, distant. There were parlors, once full of warm smiles, excited talk of plays and even novels, where she now found women with guarded tongues, pitying eyes, wishing her all the best of luck.
And so upon leaving the city, she found herself in good spirits, even though the night before had seen a cold snap across the countryside. A frost lay over the fallow fields by the road, the white frost and the white sky meeting mutedly on a horizon of endless gentle hills, the plots divided by centuries-old hedges. It took two hours longer by her buggy than in Charles’ mechanized terror, but she was glad to have the time to relax. She passed the way between an adventure novel and simply watching the hills roll off into a foggy horizon.
When she arrived, there was an unusual silence all across Chelkine. No noise, not even from the workshop. She went to knock on the door, and found it open a crack.
“Hello?” she called out. No reply came. The inside of the house was dark. Somewhere, she heard glass break. Alarmed, she entered cautiously, hearing again the sound of glass on stone, from the laboratory. Closer she came, peering in and found—
Well, she’d never quite seen anything like it. In the center of the room, floating some six feet from the floor, a large black sphere hung, suspended, apparently, from nothing. It was dark, absolutely lightless, a kind of black never found in the ordinary world, a dark than no ink or dye could ever reproduce. A seemingly supernatural force was drawing everything from the laboratory into the body, appearing even to warp the walls and ceiling towards itself. From one of the workbenches, a hammer suddenly sprung into the air and sailed into the black void, absolutely soundless.
She tried to take a step back and found it difficult, nigh impossible.
“Charles?”
No reply. Her necklace succumbed to the abyss in the middle of the room, pulling straight away from her body. She took her hand off the door to secure it — it was made from Indonesian pearls, quite expensive — and found herself caught in the same riptide. And then she was floating, slowly, watching in disbelief as she hovered closer and closer. She reached for the edge of a workbench, but found that even just reaching out her hand seemed to take an extremely long amount of time, minutes or more by her guess. Looking back towards the void, she found herself being drawn into it, her feet already being sucked and distorted into the darkness. Helpless, she watched the rest of her legs, her stomach, and finally, the remainders as they were squished down to fit into the tiny, impossible black.

“Far too much power!” shouted Charles.
Anna sat up, dazed. She was in the laboratory, which was a mess. Charles was gathering up papers, his face nearly red.
“There’s no way to regulate it! All the Bubblator has is an ‘on’ switch.” said Eliza. She flung an armful of equipment onto one of the benches.
“Did you try to generator itself? The most direct control possible!”
“Well, I didn’t think—”
“That it would do that. No, I’ll confess it caught me by surprise as well, especially after the first test. Oh hello Anna. I’m afraid you’ve come during a bit of a cleanup.”
“She’s been here,” said Eliza. “Musta come in during the experiment, ain’t that right?”
“Yes,” said Anna. “I was just going to stop by to find out if you’d made any progress on the rescue plan.”
“Oy, progress,” chuckled Eliza, then silenced by a sharp look from Charles.
“Yes, there’s been some new findings. For instance, we’ve developed what I’ve come to call The Bubbler. It creates a erm… well, maybe bubble is a poor word. It’s actually a sort of hole, a contraction of real-space.”
“Is that the … when I walked in, there was —”
“A black abyss!” shouted Eliza, unloading another armful of metal chunks into a chest.
“Please,” said Charles. “It was merely an overcharged area of negative space, but luckily it did not have the internal power to sustain itself over time. What happened, however, it simply consumed and contracted the laboratory into a very small space.”
“Along with, y’see, the three of us. Why, we weren’t but this big!” Eliza held her fingers up, touching.
“But once the field collapses, everything expands back to its original shape,” said Charles.
“I’m not sure if I understand.”
“Can I show her?” said Eliza.
“I suppose a demonstration is in order,” said Charles.
Eliza picked up a small copper sphere, about six inches across, suspended in the middle of a two-foot wire hoop. A thin cable ran from the sphere to the Hobson which began to whir to life when Eliza gave the pedal a nudge.
“Y’wanna try’t out?” Eliza asked, offering the device.
“I think, that given the lady’s improper welcome, perhaps we should refrain from practicing any science on her just yet,” said Charles.
Anna, for some reason, bristled at this suggestion. It was just the sort of thing she’d resented so much from the Londoners who offered their damnable pity and protection.
“No,” said Anna, “I’d like to try it myself.” Charles smiled at the rebuke. Perhaps he’d only meant it as a way to goad her into the test. Or so she liked to imagine.
“Hold it here,” said Eliza, passing the device and positioning it right against her middle. “Okay, you ready? Here goes, hope the voltage holds.” She pressed the other pedal on the Hobson, a sharp buzz came from the copper sphere as it suddenly began to glow and then rapidly fade until—
For a second, she thought she was falling. It was much the same as before, the feeling of floating, a slowness, a stoppage even of time as she felt things getting smaller. She tried to look down at the device, to see what had become of it, but there was nothing there. That is, a small area of nothing, right where her stomach had been, and beyond still, her legs. The feeling continued, seeming to take ten or even fifteen minutes, but all the while she was unable to form any words, while Charles and Eliza stood fixedly watching, as if perhaps somehow frozen.
But no it occurred to her I’m the one who’s sped up.
Blink. She looked around. Took a step forward.
“I think there may have been a malfunction,” she said.
“Nope,” said Eliza. “That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
“But this isn’t the same at all!”
“Oh, it is really, just a matter of scale,” said Charles.
“See, before, we made it too big and it sucked up the whole laboratory. But this one, when you do it smaller, well it just sucked up your middle.”
Anna took another step forward. In the shiny metal of the Hobson she looked at what had become of her body. From the waist down and shoulders up she’d been unaffected, but everywhere in between— well it looked like that part wasn’t even there. The shape of her shoulders flowed smoothly into her hips
“I was hoping, perhaps, to be able to use this as a suppression device, as a way of settling any er, altercations we may have on the far end of the world. But the unreliable nature of the field makes it pretty clear that any such use may pose an equal hazard to its’ wielder.”
“Well,” Anna shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps you can find another place for it in your magic show. By the way, I’ve thought of the ideal arena for your entertainment.”