Moone and Carie to bring the round shot & wynding sheete & bear all. This was done & we commytted him to the sea & Flettcher spake the office for the dead, spedelley & quiet in the dark. & at first lighte I spake to
the saylers and said: That the manne was dead, by poyson as we thowght, throw his rash want of forethowght, but noe strange thyng attended his going as som myght unwisely saye. & this they well understood & drew off their cappes but murmured nott, wherat I was well pleased.
THE YEAR 2350:
THE MEETINGS OF THE INKLINGS NOUVEAU
In the year 2350, Oxford University was located at No. 10 Albany Crescent in London. There was a small sign over the doorway telling visitors so. If there had been such things as postmen in that day and age, the local one would have smiled indulgently and shaken his head every time he dropped letters through the slot in the front door. But there were no postmen in the year 2350, and no letters for them to deliver if there had been, and anyway the letter slot had been sealed shut for two centuries to prevent the insertion of small bombs, incendiary devices, or venomous reptiles.
By and large the only people who noticed the sign were tourists strolling through the historical district of Georgian terraces, who usually stood there staring at it for a moment before frowning, turning to each other and saying something like:
“Wasn’t Oxford University supposed to be bigger? ”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be in, uh, Oxford or something?”
“Was Oxford in London?”
“I don’t know.”
They would usually wander off in mutual confusion, and the portly man watching from the window at No. 10 would chuckle and rub his hands. His hands were usually cold. He’d shiver, then, and pull his tweed jacket tighter around himself. It didn’t button in front (it had been made a long time ago for a much thinner man), but it was a genuine tweed and he was
terribly proud of it, which was why he wore it on conference days. Conference days were special, because then his colleagues would arrive at No. 10 and they’d have a brainstorming session.
On this particular day he turned from the window and went to the fine old oak table, where he’d carefully arranged his props. He had an antique stoneware jug full of ginger beer and three tankards—not pewter, unfortunately, but twentieth-century aluminum copies were the closest thing available in 2350. He had a stack of real books prominently displayed, moldy and swollen with age. He’d actually attempted to read one of them, once, but the first page had crumbled so badly he had closed the book and looked over his shoulder fearfully, expecting the wrath of the curator, forgetting that he was the curator now.
He had a humidor on the table, too, and a rack with three actual pipes, black and ancient. There hadn’t been tobacco in the humidor in over a century, but if you lifted the china lid you could still detect a faint perfume of vanilla and whiskey. If he was so bold as to take up one of the pipes and set his lips to its amber stem (having first made sure nobody was watching him), he could inhale an air of sensuous old poisons, burnt tar, bitterness, faintly salty.
Rutherford (that was the portly fellow’s name—well, not his real name, but reality was what you made it, after all) very nearly put a pipe in his mouth now, but thought better of it. The others would arrive at any moment, and so far he’d never dared that particular affectation in front of anybody. His colleagues, of all people, would probably understand; but he valued their friendship too highly to risk disgusting them. They were the only friends he’d ever had, hard to find as a real tweed jacket or a briar pipe in 2350.
Need I mention that Rutherford wasn’t really an Englishman? He had, in fact, been born on Luna, to parents of American extraction. As a child, though, he’d fallen in love with the idea of England. He wore out three copies of The Wind in the Willows with
the saylers and said: That the manne was dead, by poyson as we thowght, throw his rash want of forethowght, but noe strange thyng attended his going as som myght unwisely saye. & this they well understood & drew off their cappes but murmured nott, wherat I was well pleased.
THE YEAR 2350:
THE MEETINGS OF THE INKLINGS NOUVEAU
In the year 2350, Oxford University was located at No. 10 Albany Crescent in London. There was a small sign over the doorway telling visitors so. If there had been such things as postmen in that day and age, the local one would have smiled indulgently and shaken his head every time he dropped letters through the slot in the front door. But there were no postmen in the year 2350, and no letters for them to deliver if there had been, and anyway the letter slot had been sealed shut for two centuries to prevent the insertion of small bombs, incendiary devices, or venomous reptiles.
By and large the only people who noticed the sign were tourists strolling through the historical district of Georgian terraces, who usually stood there staring at it for a moment before frowning, turning to each other and saying something like:
“Wasn’t Oxford University supposed to be bigger? ”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be in, uh, Oxford or something?”
“Was Oxford in London?”
“I don’t know.”
They would usually wander off in mutual confusion, and the portly man watching from the window at No. 10 would chuckle and rub his hands. His hands were usually cold. He’d shiver, then, and pull his tweed jacket tighter around himself. It didn’t button in front (it had been made a long time ago for a much thinner man), but it was a genuine tweed and he was
terribly proud of it, which was why he wore it on conference days. Conference days were special, because then his colleagues would arrive at No. 10 and they’d have a brainstorming session.
On this particular day he turned from the window and went to the fine old oak table, where he’d carefully arranged his props. He had an antique stoneware jug full of ginger beer and three tankards—not pewter, unfortunately, but twentieth-century aluminum copies were the closest thing available in 2350. He had a stack of real books prominently displayed, moldy and swollen with age. He’d actually attempted to read one of them, once, but the first page had crumbled so badly he had closed the book and looked over his shoulder fearfully, expecting the wrath of the curator, forgetting that he was the curator now.
He had a humidor on the table, too, and a rack with three actual pipes, black and ancient. There hadn’t been tobacco in the humidor in over a century, but if you lifted the china lid you could still detect a faint perfume of vanilla and whiskey. If he was so bold as to take up one of the pipes and set his lips to its amber stem (having first made sure nobody was watching him), he could inhale an air of sensuous old poisons, burnt tar, bitterness, faintly salty.
Rutherford (that was the portly fellow’s name—well, not his real name, but reality was what you made it, after all) very nearly put a pipe in his mouth now, but thought better of it. The others would arrive at any moment, and so far he’d never dared that particular affectation in front of anybody. His colleagues, of all people, would probably understand; but he valued their friendship too highly to risk disgusting them. They were the only friends he’d ever had, hard to find as a real tweed jacket or a briar pipe in 2350.
Need I mention that Rutherford wasn’t really an Englishman? He had, in fact, been born on Luna, to parents of American extraction. As a child, though, he’d fallen in love with the idea of England. He wore out three copies of The Wind in the Willows with
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