milliways_bar | (no subject)

*Head Alien wanders by, looking carefully under every table. He is no more than three feet tall, dressed all in purple, with a long cape and a helmeted head with a dark visor. His left hand is a lobster-like claw. His boots are rather impressively large, as well.*

Peter tries to stare surreptitiously. This resembles no creature he remembers from his reading, from movies, or from Doctor Who. He can't help but be intrigued.

"Excuse me, please," he calls to Whoever-It-Is, "but who or what are you looking for?"

I lost a pendulum, yesterday. Made from a bedknob and dental floss. *He looks under Peter's table.* The waterclock doesn't work without it.

"A waterclock? Why are you making a waterclock?" In this bar, there could be any number of reasons for making anything.

"Oh, and my name's Peter," he adds. "What's yours?"

I already made one. I'm trying to study how time works here--the ending Universe thing suggests something out of the ordinary is involved, and I have some really freaking bizarre results from last night's analysis.

I'm the Head Alien. We don't really 'do' names in my species.

"Ah. Well, hello, Head Alien.

"And what did you learn from last night's analysis?" he says, peering at the Head Alien. "As someone who's been here for--good Lord, it's been more than six months now!--I'm more than a little curious."

Well, the period of the ending universe is two hours and ten minutes. And either some people eat a lot slower and a lot faster than average, or we've got isolated vortices of fast and slow time occuring. Maybe even causality forks.

Peter looks thoughtful. "You mean that time in the bar operates, simultaneously, slower than the ending of the universe AND faster than the ending of the universe AND in separate continuities?"

*Head Alien taps his claw thoughtfully against his helmet.* I hadn't thought of measuring it against the view in the window. Logically, people experiencing a faster relative time rate ought to see the universe ending quicker and vice versa. But do they? Hmm. *He looks at a digital watch, then the window.* I need to establish a star chart and landmarks, I think.

Time in the bar seems to be like a train heading for the edge of a cliff. *He streeeetches up to the table and grabs a salt-shaker.* When it gets to the edge though, a crane grabs it and moves back to the start of the loop. Either it keeps moving 'forward' somehow despite that, or time stops every two hours and no one notices. Either way, when it goes back, some of the salt gets shaken up, producing aberrations in the relative time rate.

I'm having trouble synching it with the sundial-time, although the water clock and mechanical gave the same time, which suggests whatever it is is acting equally on all physical laws.

Peter looks thoughtful. "Have you used an hourglass along with the sundial, the water clock and the mechanical clock? I know that hourglasses are fairly primitive clocks, but you could probably rig up a self-turning one. And it's easier to make than a mechanical clock. No gears or anything. Just glass and sand."

He refrains from suggesting creating a clock based on the number of the beats the Head Alien's heart takes per minute. He's not sure if the Head Alien has a heart. And even if he has, Peter isn't certain that it has a regular beat, or is presently beating at all.

I wonder... the bar might even give me that. For some reason I can't get anything higher tech than a digital watch out of it, or anything in the way of specialized equipment. But an hourglass...

Anyway, it's a gravity feed, so it ought to synch with the waterclock. I'm really interested in the lake simulation though, and it's sun-time. If the bar is generating it, I figure it ought to be some kind of Bar Standard Time. People's diurnal rhythms seem to match it, as far as I can tell after so little observation. People sleep when it's dark out there, I mean.

Peter nods--then frowns. "Simulation? Oh, no. It's a lake, all right. And quite real. It's been here since the fifteenth of July. I remember the date quite well."