Appendix 27-IV: The Lab: The Perpetual Motion Machine (Part 1

Appendix 27-IV: The Lab: The Perpetual Motion Machine (Part 1)

(August 2nd, July 20th, 2011)

The low hum of the Perpetual Motion Machine competed with the buzzing of bees constructing a hive beneath a shelf beside a propped-open window.

Beside the hive was a machine that went ping-whoomp every eight minutes and had been happily doing so for as long as anyone could remember. Since its function was a mystery and it caused no trouble and at least did something, the artifectors were not inclined to turn it off. They doddered, but they were not fools46 .

The PPM had not been commissioned by the House47. This was quite usual as the House had long since learned that requests were fastidiously ignored and trying to guide the artifectors was akin to shearing a flock of cats. The PPM had been built on a whim and a dare.

The prototype was built during a rare episode of collaboration and the honour of switching the device on was given to the lead artifector at the time, Agrontus. Once they had all been located, his remains were decently cremated at a brief ceremony presided by his successor, Gravitcher.

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The word “doddering” is rarely seen outside of the stock phrase “doddering old fool(s)”; in fact, MerriamWebster does not recognise the verb “to dodder”, treating “doddering” as an adjective. The Oxford English Dictionary defines doddering as the act of “moving in a feeble or unsteady way, especially because of old age”. This unsteadiness of the artifectors’ movements may explain why so many of their inventions don’t work in the way they’d want.

This seems to be the House at its most intellectually anthropomorphic: not only sentient, but capable of

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reasoning, and of making articulate requests of its inhabitants. It is conceivable, however, that “the House” here refers not to the Strange and Wonderful House itself, but to the noble family of the Master of the House, as the idea of the House “commissioning” work from the gaggle of mad engineers may call to mind feudal notions of noble houses acting as patrons to guilds of craftsmen and artists. 62