A/N - Thanks to everyone for your reviews and thoughts - I've changed the method I'll use for the Morse Code dialogue to parentheses, I hope that will make it clearer. I'll also put a note at the beginning of each chapter in which it appears.
I didn't want to render the rather terse dialogue that would be actually occurring in Morse Code with the same punctuation as that of speech, but perhaps the option I chose (and the rendering on ) wasn't working for people.
He opens his eyes to the first rays of sunset and realizes that he had fallen asleep over his notes, and that he is stiff, and hungry, and has no idea what time it is. A moment of fear when he looks at the clock, stilled when he realizes that he still has an hour until she will return.
He stands and stretches, tries to limber up his shoulders where they were hunched over the low table. A cabinet on the other side of the small lab yields a commemorative picture collection of the Columbian Exposition that he had bought on his way home. He pages through, looking to make certain that a flying city had not escaped his notice, but the pictures show no such thing.
He set the book down, looked around at his lab. Her comment about his achievements floated into his consciousness, rankled him. His parents supported his desire to live abroad, but they did not have the resources to provide any financial support, and he had counted himself lucky to land this job with few local references. He had published a few small articles that were well received, but his college was by no means wealthy, and he still cherished a dream of research elsewhere with better prestige and deeper pockets. He was particularly proud of his Lutece field generator, which he had built with scavenged parts and his own earnings.
He cannot imagine how much it must have cost to build, much less float, an entire city. The thought makes him a little dizzy and he remembers that he has not eaten.
The kitchen yields a plate that the farmer's wife had brought over for him when he was asleep, biscuits and thick gravy and some fresh raspberries. He had not thought of his physical needs when he first rented the house, thinking that he would just eat at the school, but he had not reckoned for weekends and the long summer. He sheepishly had shown up on his neighbor's front porch asking for food one Sunday afternoon, and, for a small additional payment, she brings over a plate whenever she cooks.
He sits down and eats gratefully, thankful that she remembered and also that she did not wake him when she came in.
By the time he is done eating, the clock has almost struck nine. He turns on a light in the lab and starts the process of powering up the machine, hoping that there will be no power failures or broken parts this evening. He has not wanted anything in his whole life so much as to talk to this woman, this other self from another world, and he is trembling as if cold, though the weather is stifling and humid.
He has realized that he can disrupt the electrical current at one of the junctions, which is easier than shutting the machine on and off, to produce the dots and dashes that form their speech. which will speed things up. The things he wants to say to her can barely be conveyed through this medium, but for the time being it is all they have.
(are you there), comes the message.
(yes), he responds.
(the tours today went badly. these men are less interested in prophecy than profit.)
(prophecy?)
A pause. (using the lutece device i can open windows into other possibilities. i call them tears. he thinks they are the future, despite my warnings.)
(you can open…) Robert is sweating, his mind enveloping the thought and absorbing it.
(yes. it takes vast amounts of power to open the spaces between atoms, but it is possible. he takes what he sees in the tears and spins prophecy from it, and in doing this has attracted a good number of followers, enough to populate this city)
(do you believe in his prophecies)
(of course not. i know whence the information comes. but i can hardly speak my mind. he has been clear on that.)
They talk all night, Robert's hand aching from the effort of taking notes, not that he thinks he will ever be able to forget any word that comes through the void. He is now sure that she is real, no hallucination of his, and that his theories and work are real and true and it seems like a dream. They send their parting words before one or both pass out from sleep, though Robert does not know if he will be able to drift off despite his fatigue. He is already making plans to build the machine of which she speaks, regardless of cost or effort, so that he can see her and speak to her and—
He is too tired, he thinks, and closes his eyes.