Seeds for Time

Raj arrives in the early morning. He is in a hilly, wooded area that is a few kilometers from the Exeter Ship Canal. The age of progress is in full bloom in this era. In just a few years, a man living here in Devon, will create the very first steam pump. Then shortly thereafter, the principle of the piston and cylinder will be discovered and the industrial Homo sapiens will forever more pump carbon into the atmosphere. Well, they will until the Earth itself, finally says no.

During the Great Collapse one of the world’s last poets had written,

“The rain has become poison through mankind’s careless deeds,

The horror of human nature is what our violence breeds.

And there is no turning back to when we were kinder and simpler then.

An enemy of ourselves, we have become our greatest sin.”

He had written it. The first day he volunteered for the Project, Raj had written the poem in his journal.

He travels through the wooded area and moves further up hill. He has a better view and locates the oats and barley crops. He treks towards them. Not far away, he hears a rooster crow. He increases his pace.

The field with barley and oats is ripe unto harvest. Raj works quickly as the field’s location is too close to home structures at the far end of the field. Hopefully the trees will hide his presence. Raj hears a crack of wood and someone crying out in pain. It sounds like a child.

He moves to the other side of the trees and views a young girl struggling with some type of wooden structure. She is on the ground holding her leg in pain. She is bleeding. Raj knows he not supposed to get involved. He tells himself that three times in a row as he moves towards her.

She seems to be ten or twelve years in age. She is dressed in peasant’s garments. It appears she was standing on a wooden ladder next to a small building. The ladder has broken and cut her leg. She sees him and makes an expression of fear.

With raised palms showing the girl his open hands, Raj speaks softly, “Do not be afraid. I will not harm you. You are hurt?”

The girl does not answer and Raj kneels down on his knees near her. He can see that the ladder has her leg in its broken pinch. He reaches out slowly. “Let me see if I can get this off of you.”

The girl watches him and understands that he is trying to help her. With the leg now free from the wooden wreck, Raj looks over the wound. It will need to be cleaned and bandaged. Hopefully her mother will take care of that. She does not react to the beep of this wrist band announcing the time for his departure. Perhaps she is deaf?

Without his help, the girl manages to stand. She hops on one leg to move around, not putting any pressure on her injured leg. Raj locates a broken tree limb on the ground nearby that is sturdy enough to be used as a crutch. He hands it to her. She nods her head at him and mumbles. He thinks possibly she is mute and deaf. He waves at her as she hobbles away towards one of the larger buildings.

Raj turns to leave. He needs to get back to the point of entry. He has already been here longer than the five minute adjusted mission time that the team had agreed upon. His curiosity gets the best of him and he moves back towards the small building where the broken ladder is scattered in pieces. What was she looking at through the window?

Raj is tall enough to peer in. He sees the simple machinery and cannot believe his eyes. Someone is attempting to construct a steam pump. He is not sure, but could this be Thomas Savery’s first attempt at the steam pump? Though there were several others in this part of the world who were working on steam power at approximately the same time.

Some of the metal tubing is copper, maybe some pieces are tin. The enclosed brick oven has a large closed container on top. The tubing runs from the container to other pieces. Raj remembers the drawing he has seen of Savory’s pump. There are certainly similarities to those sketches with what he is viewing now.

He receives the second “beep” warning on his wrist band. He must leave now. He activates the time stream.