It took us a year to get our first full-sized generator working.
In the meantime we had been working on the light-bulbs, using chemical batteries made from lead and various kinds of acid to drive them. We had also discovered that potatoes and certain fruits would work as well, although with considerably less potency. In any case, it gave us enough power to test the bulbs which we had made.
The human guard had proven himself most useful - we had been able to to question him deeply about everyday human life, both verbally and by reading his mind. Once we had convinced him that we were not legions from Hell or some kind of alien invasion force, he was rather more cooperative.
After a few days we returned him back to his home plane, and what we learned from him would make our next trip considerably less hazardous.
Two years later we had a pair of three-phase generators powered by a dam on the river, and plans for an even larger installation in the mountains. From this smaller plant, we were able to light all the streets in the town at night, without using coal gas. We had also discovered a way to make heat from electricity, which proved useful in the winter although it was rather inefficient.
From my calculations I had seen that we would not be able to support these in every home, at least not until the mountain dam was operational, so currently only the palace was heated in this way.
While I had been working on the designs of the generators, electric motors and helping with the lightbulbs, Page had been experimenting with electronics. From the basic concepts in the textbooks we had stolen he had been able to construct a simple voice-coil speaker, and by running a small generator into it at different speeds he was able to create various rather unpleasant sounds. Remembering what we'd read about telephones, I pointed out that the speaker should work in reverse, and that if we had two of them we should be able to transmit voices along a wire, a rather more elegant solution than the speaking-tubes which we had used in the palace until now.
This did work, but not very well. The resulting sound was always too quiet, and it was this more than anything else which really got Page started on electronics, because we needed to amplify the signal and that could not easily be done in a purely mechanical fashion.
Once we had devised a way of reliably producing lightbulbs, Page was able to experiment with thermionic valves. These, among various other components which we were able to duplicate fairly easily, were the building-blocks of the humans' electronic technology.
As with the humans' initial efforts, Page's first attempts looked like some kind of freakish lightbulb, but they did what we needed. Depending on the voltage attached to the control pins of the device, we were able to affect the current passing through it - increasing it, or cutting it completely. And so, after a few false starts we were able to amplify voices, Page's exultant howl promptly treating us to our first demonstration of negative feedback.
From here we were all set - we had the basic elements of a technology that would allow us to record voices as vibrations on a wax disk. It had taken the humans seven years to do what Page had done in about seven months, although it must be acknowledged that they had been groping in the dark and we were simply retracing their steps.
A couple of years went by, and in spite of the miracles which we had wrought, I could sense that Page was becoming despondent. "Everything we've done so far has been simple tricks, Jakob." he said, "According to the histories we have, the humans had managed to do all of this by 1914, and more besides. When we visited it was 1964. That's fifty years of advancement! Fifty human years." he added, flexing his claws in frustration.
"I want it all, Jakob. I want to make our civilisation's technology equal to theirs. We'll have to go back."
So we did. Leaving the refinements to the valve, lightbulb and generator designs in the capable hands of our apprentices, we prepared for another voyage into the human realm.
One of the things I have never really understood about Page's dimensional gate spells was the time relationship. It seemed that he was capable of altering the time at which we arrived relative to our own time.
"Does this mean that we could use it to travel into the past?" I asked him.
"Perhaps," he replied, "but I'm not about to try it. Those books we took, for instance. What would happen if we went back in time to the day before we took them and tore them up? Or burned them? For all I know that might end the universe. So I've designed the controls such that we can only ever go forwards in time relative to the destination."
"Anyway," he went on, "the textbooks were talking about some new technology that could replace valves - 'transistors' I believe they were called. I want to see what happened, so I'm moving us ahead a few years from our last visit."
We emerged once more on Clacton pier, and made our way into the town.
It was 1968. The library had a few new books, including two volumes of 'Television Receiver Theory' by G. H. Hutson, and a couple of other works about transistor circuits which we also stole. Fortunately a different librarian was on duty this time, and I saw in her mind a curious difference from the attitude of the other librarian.
Having learned our lesson from the Mod clothes, we had gone for something slightly different but still smart-looking. The librarian approved of this, mentally comparing our smart look to the long-trousered, long-haired and scruffy appearance of youth in that time. This was an interesting change.
As before, we had to resort to subterfuge in order to make off with the books, although as a form of compensation I had brought back the least useful of the books which we had borrowed from our 1964 expedition.
Wandering around the town, we entered a music shop of some kind. Using some more of our earth money, I purchased a small portable disk player and a selection of the black grooved disks which it used. I made a mental note to buy another of these machines, so I could have one for my own use and the other to dismantle for study.
The shop also had a few recording machines, which used spools of flat rusty ribbon to store the sound on. These must be the advanced magnetic recorders I had read so much about. I sorely wanted to buy one of those too, but they were rather heavy and expensive. I didn't want to have to change more gold if I could avoid it, so reluctantly I settled for the disk player alone. We could more-or-less duplicate its technology anyhow, since it only needed an amplifier to pick up the vibrations of the stylus. The magnetic recorder would be a lot more work, requiring fields we hadn't even begun to study. Nonetheless, I had managed to obtain a book detailing the principles of magnetic recording and I intended to study it fully at a later time.
Sitting in an area of parkland, I began to experiment with the disk player, carefully reading the instructions that came with it. The first disk I put on was called 'The Nice' by 'Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack', whoever she was.
I was rather impressed - I had been so caught up with the idea of copying human technology that studying their culture as well had not really occurred to me. There were strange sounds and instruments in this song, products of a technology we had yet to invent.
When the song finished, I put it on again, and suddenly noticed that Page wasn't there. Looking around, I saw he'd headed off to a group of people relaxing in the sun elsewhere in the park.
This irritated me - Page was an Angel and didn't have the 'cubi ability to read minds or emotions, so he wouldn't be able to tell what they were thinking in the same way as I could. Nonetheless, he was older than me so I figured he would be able to take care of himself, and besides they had a van with the word 'peace' written down the side. I just hoped they practiced what they preached.
As the song finished the second time, I took the disk off and tried another one. This was about a year old but still extremely popular. It was called 'The Beatles' by 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.
Curious names, I thought. Curious sounds too - strange, unreal wind instruments played in a rather stilted manner, as if they were somehow being played like a clavichord. I was seized by a strong desire to know how they had achieved some of the things I was hearing on this disk - it was fairly obvious that this was not just a band playing in front of a recording machine, something more complex was afoot.
Listening to the words I suddenly realised that I'd got the song title and band name the wrong way around. Looking back at the other disk, I saw that it actually had two different sides - I had assumed they were both the same.
I put on the other side of the first disk by 'The Nice', which was apparently called 'Angel of Death'. At this point Page returned, weaving slightly and clutching a small thin, smouldering object in his hand. He was looking at me with an idiotic grin, and proffered the thing to me. It was a small stick of incense. "Try this," he said, "it really helps clear your mind.."
I looked up at him with exasperation.
"My Gods, Page! What were you thinking? You have no idea what this stuff is or how it will affect your metabolism." He didn't reply but started giggling at the lyrics to the song.
I told them what they asked - why hold my breath?
'Cos Az-ra-el on wings of death collects his pound of flesh
I told them what they asked - why hold my breath?
Az-ra-el the Angel brings only death!
At this he burst out laughing and nearly dropped the little stick of incense he was carrying. I was forced to take it off him in case he burned himself, which annoyed me, partly because I had expected more caution from the genius of Ha'Khun, but also because I was trying to listen to the music. There was a rather clever bit made by some keyboard instrument, rather like a clavichord but considerably more advanced.
"Angel of death! They must be talking about my mad uncle, Jakob! What do you think? Reckon I'd make a good avenging angel?" He started giggling again.
"Come on, 'Azrael'," I said, "and pull yourself together. What did you learn from the humans?" I was starting to get a headache.
"Love and peace," Page smirked, "that's the secret of their technology. Come and listen to them, and it will all make sense.."
Unfortunately the fumes from the incense were starting to affect me too, and I found myself grinning as well. "What do you think they would do," I giggled, "if I reverted to wolf form?" This was a real risk as the shapeshifting wasn't entirely automatic. Yet somehow it didn't seem to matter.. in fact I found the idea more funny than dangerous as the drug began to cloud my senses.
A long-haired man in spectacles and brightly-coloured clothing looked us over and offered another of the incense sticks. "I'd like you to meet my friend Jakob," said Page. "he's, like, a wolf."
"Groovy," said the man, his eyes not quite focussing.
"Azrael and I were just wondering what would happen if I stopped being human," I babbled, scanning his mind. It very difficult, since the haze of the incense was impairing my judgement, and it also meant that his own thought processes were very bizarre. I did however make out that the drug they were burning was a leaf which they called 'mary', and that small doses had no serious side-effects among humans. What that meant for Creatures was anybody's guess.
"Wouldn't it be, like, cool, if we were animals?" said one of the others. He looked rather like a woman, but it didn't fool me for a second. After all, my sense of smell could tell me things like that instantly, even if I was unable to feel his mind.
"Like, what would you be?" he asked Page. "Oh, I don't know - what about a leopard?" he said, grinning foolishly, and for a moment I was afraid he would remove his concealment charm or something equally foolhardy.
We talked for a number of hours, the others being too stoned to really pick up on the few times we were in danger of revealing that we were nonhuman.
It seemed that these people had decided to drop out of everyday life, to try and find themselves, living off the land in the process. Page and I learned a great deal about their philosophy and ideals, which proved quite interesting even though it was in some ways opposed to the technological progress which we had come here in search of.
Not all of these people, who called themselves the Flower Children, seemed entirely convinced of their decision either, at least not deep down, and sadly I wondered how long the movement would last before it disintegrated and all these happy dreamers would wake up, drifting back to the world of hot showers, hot food, and nine-to-five jobs.
Page, however, was enraptured and I could see that although he was still hell-bent on bringing a new technological age to Furrae, his grand plan had just been modified to include bringing back the philosophies which he was absorbing at this very moment.
Of course that was hardly a surprise. Page had already succeeded in creating a small paradise out of Ha'Khun, a place where Beings and Creatures could live together in harmony. As an incubus, I had spent some of my life on the run from Beings who believed that the only good 'cubi was one that's dead, and so the way I saw it, a healthy dose of peace and love would do Furrae a world of good.
If what Page was picking up now could help turn all of Furrae into a haven where there would be no more 'cubi witch-hunts, no more eating Beings and no more hatred, then I was all for it.
And so, sitting cross-legged upon the floor with beads around my neck, wrapped up in my own beautiful dreams of love and peace throughout all Furrae, I utterly failed to grasp the significance of the punch which was being shared around the group.
The first sign I knew something was wrong was when I realised that the sky had become green and the grass was blue. At first I assumed that I had simply fallen over, but the trees were blue as well. Actually I had fallen over, because the trees were starting to drip down onto the grass.. or was it the sky? I couldn't be sure.
Picking myself up and looking at Page, I could see his wings, but they weren't the right colour and he was still human. He was looking at his hand with an expression of sheer awe. The Flower Children were now pointing at something in the sky which I couldn't see and babbling about electric snakes.
The more I looked at them, the more I noticed that humans actually looked quite a lot like Furrae. Why hadn't I noticed their cute little muzzles before? And the reptilian scales and claws on their hands? Actually, that was quite an interesting combination. I began to wonder whether it would breed true, when Page suddenly began to sing campfire songs in a high-pitched voice.
I picked myself up again, and realised that my hands felt different. But no, they were grey and furred as usual. The Flower Children were all staring at me now, with an expression of happy wonderment. Damn, that tasted good. I still had this nagging feeling that there was something wrong, but I couldn't place it.
As the sun was beginning to set, I realised that I could see the end of my muzzle again, and the cool breeze was stirring my feathers. In a flash I realised that I had reverted to my natural form. I tried to make myself human again but I couldn't.. it was just too hard.. everything was getting so distant and fluffy. With an enormous effort, I managed to stand up. "You know," I said, "I do believe there was some kind of drug in that punch." And that was the last thing I remember.
I awoke underneath the van. It was fortunate I had managed to crawl there otherwise some early riser walking their dog might have seen me. My head was pounding, but clear enough to allow me to change back to human. The Flower Children were totally zonked out, and a quick inspection of their dreams and minds revealed that they remembered my becoming wolf, but had written it off as a trip caused by the LSD which they had put in the punch.
Given the circumstances, I thought it best to examine Page as well. Physically he was still human, the charm holding out well. After the last expedition he had made sure to bring more than one in case of emergency, but I was more worried that he had removed it while we were all out of our gourds.
Examining his mind, I found that he seemed to be pretty healthy. I had picked up from somewhere that this particular drug could cause permanent changes to the user's core personality, but fortunately neither of us had been so affected, possibly because we were both Creatures and thus not entirely biological so far as our metabolisms were concerned.
Time for you to wake up, I thought, and entered his dreams.
Page, in his proper snow leopard form, but with even longer hair and a garland of beads around his neck, was building a small DC motor, an exact duplicate of the one we had seen inside the disk player. I called out to him.
"Page..." I said.
"Azrael!" he replied. Perhaps the acid had affected him after all.
"Wake up! We have to get going!"
"Damn it! You mean this is just a dream?" he replied, peevishly.
"I'm afraid so. We're still on Earth, and we'd better get cracking if we're going to make the 9 o'clock portal."
"You're right, let's go." he said, looking forlornly at the tools in his workshop. Suddenly we were back in the park, and he was opening his human eyes to the world.
As we dusted ourselves off and made to leave, the leader of the Flower Children awoke too. "You takin' off, man?" he said.
"I'm afraid we must," I replied. "Thank you very much for the Mary and the punch, and talking things out in general. It's been very instructive. But we really do have to go, I'm afraid."
"Well I guess that's cool," he said, "but if you change your mind, we'll be here 'till tomorrow. There's a Happening at the Naze!"
I didn't stop to find out what he meant by that, but I waved goodbye, Page following groggily. When we got back to the pier, I put a coin in the turnstile and handed one to Page so that he could enter as well.
At 8:58 by my pocketwatch we were waiting patiently for the Gate to materialise. At 9 am we were still waiting. At five past nine, we began to panic. At ten, there was still no gate, nor any magical residue.
At twelve noon, we had to face facts. We were stranded.