And now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, „The Lord of the Rings“

„I want to talk about my last journey today“, Mr Tuniak said. „Or... my last big journey, to be more precise. I went to America, to the United States in 1926.“

“Did you travel alone?”, I wanted to know.

“No, I was accompanied by Cailinn”, Mr Tuniak replied. “The whole journey, the idea for it, was hers. She would have done it with our without me. We met in London and boarded a ship there that would take across the Atlantic Ocean.”

I should have asked right there, why they didn't take the time machine to be quicker, but I have to admit that I was distracted today. Today, Mr Tuniak was sporting a full beard and his hair was so long that it nearly touched his shoulders. I have mentioned before that each time I met him there have often been subtle differences in his appearance, but never as drastic and radical as this time. At least, that's what I am claiming and using as an excuse for not paying full attention.

Mr Tuniak continued: “We got off the ship in New York and from there we took a train that would take us to Auburn, Massachusetts.”

Cailinn had hired several porters to take care of all their luggage and equipment and to carry it to their train. This way, she and Alexander didn't have to carry any suitcases as they were looking for the departure platform. Cailinn was about seventy years old and Alexander estimated that he was at least ten years older than her. All around them people hurried to the trains or the exits, but they were not in any hurry themselves.

“I think that there is our train”, Alexander said. “In which car are our seats?”

“You don't have to pretend as if you don't know”, Cailinn said. “We have a whole vehicle, of course. My vehicle.”

Alexander stopped walking in surprise. “You still have it?”, he asked. “I have read about it in the Gemini archives, but I thought you had sold it the last time you were here.”

“I did”, Cailinn said. “But Michael was nice enough to lend it to me for the time I am here. He is in California at the moment and will stay there for the next several months, so he has no need of it. Come on!”

They reached the last car which was a bit shorter than the others. It had fewer windows too and there was only one entrance. Cailinn and Alexander entered.

Alexander had seen sketches and photos of the inside of the car, but as is usually the case, reality was a bit different. It was also probable that the buyer – Cailinn had never said who he was and Alexander suspected that Michael was not his real name – had made some changes to suit his tastes better. Most of the car was like one big living room. There were sofas at the side, a bar and a library with a writing desk. There was also a small kitchen with a gas stove and a potable water tank. The back part of the car was hidden behind a curtain, but Alexander knew that the bedroom and a bathroom had to be there. The whole car reminded Alexander of a TV series his friend Farid had watched in his childhood, but he couldn't remember its name. He smiled thinking about how even after a century had passed, Gemini would still be influenced by this. Of course, in the future it wouldn't be a train car, they would modify into a moving apartment, but a whole jet plane.

“Would you prepare something to drink? I think I need a whisky”, Cailinn asked. “I'll take care that all of our luggage is safely stored. I don't want the same thing to happen as last time, when they left half of it somewhere in the train station.”

When she came back, they both sat down on the sofas, drinks in hand and Alexander asked: “I have seen you have brought several stilts?”

“And you want to know why, right?”, Cailinn said. “To get as quickly as possible to the rocket, if the experiment should prove to be a success. Those stilts are my seven-leagues boots.”

“Seven-leagues boots?”

“Have you never heard of them? The fairy tale?”

“No, I have, but...” Alexander thought about it for a moment and then he realised how Cailinn planned to use those stilts. The longer they were and the higher up you were standing on them, the bigger the steps would be you could make. As long as you didn't fall down from them, they would be a simple way to move very fast.

“I bought those stilts in France”, Cailinn told him. “I saw shepherds there who used them to be able to get quickly from one end of their herd to the other. And of course they have a better view standing on them. You can try them, if you want to.”

“I have never tried walking on stilts and I'm afraid that now, I am too old to learn it”, Alexander said with clear regret.

“It's really amazing how fast you can move using them”, Cailinn continued. “I remember about... oh, I guess thirty years ago, when I met a baker in France who had used them to travel from Paris to Moscow in fifty-eight days. It's really quite amazing.”

“You had... Cailinn had her own train car?”, I asked. “I guess her financial situation had improved with the years.”

“Yes, it had”, Mr Tuniak agreed.

“Was it her books? Were they that successful?”

“No, not by a long shot. Her books were read, yes, and she earned money thanks to them, but most of her income she got through lectures and acting in an advisory capacity on many projects”, Mr Tuniak explained. “Also: When she bought the train car, it was just an ordinary and old car. She made all the changes herself.”

“And... why was Hugo Delake not with you on that journey?”, I asked. “Had they separated? Or was he dead?”

“Oh, no, far from that, Cailinn and he had married and were still married in 1926”, Mr Tuniak said. “It just that they usually travelled separately, because Cailinn thought they were agreeing to often with each other.” He shrugged. “She wanted to see new things and make new discoveries, but she didn't want to accept those on blind faith. She wanted to question everything and that was easier, she claimed, if you had two people who did not have the same opinion.”

“And thus one of the principles of Gemini was established, I see”, I said. “So, I take it that you two disagreed a lot of the time?”

“No, I didn't count”, Mr Tuniak said with a smile. “I was a time traveller, she thought that I would know the answer to everything anyway.”

“So, why did you travel to Auburn?”

It was a cold morning in March. The plain, where they had gathered, was covered with snow. They were all wearing long coats and thick boots. Robert Goddard was making final preparations. Today, he would test for the first time a rocket that was propelled by liquid fuel.

“I have done several test already in my laboratory last year”, he told Cailinn and several other people who were standing close by to watch the experiment. “It worked quite well, so I am confident that we will get a positive result today.”

Cailinn studied the papers he had given her which contained the notes about those early tries. Most of it, she already knew. Goddard was one of a large group of people she exchanged letters and was in more or less constant contact with. Alexander was standing a bit apart from the group. He had brought a digital video camera and was now filming the proceedings as secretly as possible. Next to him, Cailinn's stilts were lying on the ground.

“Everyone ready?”, Goddard asked.

Cailinn and the other men took several steps backward, so to get a bit of a distance between them and the two metre long rocket, which at the moment, was still held by something that looked a bit like a metal cage.

“Attention!”, Goddard cried and lit the rocket.

At first nothing seemed to happen. A flame was coming out of the engine, but apart from creating a lot of noise it didn't have any visible effects. But then, slowly but surely, Nell – Goddard's name for his rocket – started to rise. The blow back was pushing her towards the sky. Because of the way the rocket was built (with the rocket engine at the top), the flight lasted not even three seconds, but within that time Nell had reached a hight of over twelve metres and came down sixty metres away from the place she had started from. The experiment had proven that it was possible to use a rocket with liquid fuel and could therefore be considered a success. Alexander looked up at the sky, knowing that on this day the first step on a long journey had been taken; a journey that would eventually lead to the moon.

“You told me that this was your last big journey”, I said, finally talking about the question which had formed in my head since Mr Tuniak had started talking today. “Why? Has it something to do with the fact that you didn't use the time machine to cross the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak admitted after a moment's hesitation. Unknowingly, he had placed his right hand on his breast. “Cailinn asked pretty much the same question, when we were still on the ship.”

The ship had survived the thunderstorm with hardly any damage. The same could not be said about the passenger, most of whom had gotten sea sick. Alexander was standing on deck, hands placed on the guard rail and looked out to the far horizon. The sun was mostly hidden behind a thin cover of clouds. Cailinn came to him.

“Well, you don't seem to be affected too much by the bad weather”, she said.

“I'm not”, he said. “I have seen... lived through worse.” He told her about the time in his youth, when the ship he had been on, had passed through such a thunderstorm that he had been swept into the sea.

“It's good that that incident hasn't made you afraid of ships”, Cailinn said, when he had finished. “But why are you here? Why didn't you travel directly to the United States?”

“Because I needed some rest”, Alexander replied. “The beyul is coming along very nicely and for most of the work done there now, they don't need me. But it was exhausting to get to this point... the last few years... I guess, they were too eventful for someone of my age.”

“You had a heart attack”, Cailinn said.

“No, thankfully not”, Alexander said. “It was angina pectoris. My body just wanted to warn me that it couldn't do as much as before.”

“And that's why you stopped travelling?”, I asked.

“No big journeys, at least”, Mr Tuniak answered. “I'm still going on short trips, but never alone. Which reminds me: I wanted to ask you to accompany me on such a trip next week.”

“Of course”, I said immediately. “Are you going to tell me where we are going?”

“No”, Mr Tuniak said with a smile. “But I will tell you that you are going to see part of my biography with your own eyes.”

NEXT WEEK

Is it a comedy or a tragedy?