The Map of Chaos (69 page)

But Armand understood their nature. And he couldn't help but see past the monster Valerie became under the influence of her animal self to the scared little girl who had clung to him after he lifted her onto his horse. Nor could he help falling in love with her. For Ramsey and many other of Bompard's colleagues, that had been his mistake: to attempt to suppress the young girl's instinct to kill, to deprive her of human flesh, unaware that her corrupted bodily fluids had to infiltrate the blood of a receptor in order to create the immunity everyone was so desperately searching for. Persuaded by the Church of Knowledge to continue his research in another world, Bompard was forced to abandon Valerie, whom he had made his wife, and, despite fulfilling his duties in his new posting, he could never forget her. He grew embittered, taciturn, given to depression, and even overbearing; he started to drink too much, he disobeyed orders, and finally, when it was rumored that it wouldn't be long before the Other Side sent an Executioner to deal with him, Bompard saved them the trouble. He took his own life barely a week after Higgins managed to obtain a blood sample from Clayton, the same day on which he, and all the other Scientists scattered through the multiverse, received a delivery with instructions to make it their research priority. It contained a preparation of the CoCla cells, the legendary cells born of the sacrifice his beloved made for the sake of another man.

Bompard had killed himself for love, Ramsey said aloud as he sat alone in his sitting room. And although that act of rebellion seemed to vindicate the Church of Knowledge's view that intense emotions were fatal, it was also true that the multiverse was about to be saved thanks to a lovesick policeman and a tormented woman abandoning themselves to them. Furthermore: if that multiverse deserved to be saved, it wasn't only so that a stale, dying civilization could find a new home. No, Ramsey told himself, glancing about cautiously, as though fearing someone might read his blasphemous thoughts. That world was worth saving because of its wealth of feelings, which hadn't yet been sacrificed on the altar of some Supreme Knowledge. Of course, everything there was mistaken, misguided, and divorced from the truth, but that was precisely why people's imaginations were so fertile, their art so stimulating, their emotions so intoxicating . . .

Yes, Ramsey understood very well why Bompard had been on the verge of betraying their world for love. Had he not been tempted to do so himself out of a simple sense of friendship? He smiled sadly as he recalled Crookes, that passionate enthusiast, as brilliant as he was naïve, for whom he had felt a deep fondness and whom he had nevertheless betrayed. When his friend had fallen desperately in love with that wretched cronotemic called Katie King, who thought she was the dead daughter of a pirate, Ramsey had seriously considered telling him the whole truth, sharing the Supreme Knowledge with him. Did Crookes not deserve this token of his trust? Wasn't that the mark of true friendship? But Ramsey had done nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he had joined in the scientific community's ridicule of Crookes's research, publicly renouncing his disgraced friend. And not content with that, he had reported to the Executioners so that they could hunt down the Destructor Katie King. Afterward, he had eased his conscience by telling himself he had simply been doing his duty. After all, the fate of two universes was at stake. But that thought hadn't consoled him any more than it would have consoled Bompard. And although many years had passed since then, whenever he remembered Crookes, or heard his name come up (there was a rumor going round that Crookes had installed some mysterious columns in his garden that glowed and flashed at night, scaring his neighbors out of their wits), Ramsey would feel a pang in his chest, as if someone had ignited a flame too close to his heart.

But this wasn't the time for such thoughts, he reproached himself, or for questioning whether his world might not be mistaken. Not now that they had reached the final effort. Higgins had just returned from the Other Side, and after the hibernation period to recover from the extreme conditions to which he had been exposed, he would bring round the latest serum approved by the Church, the most effective of all the prototypes they had synthesized. They must go to work on it immediately, because, although the vaccine had been perfected, the problem remained of how to administer it. For the moment, the patient had to be inoculated via injection and then given three booster shots to ensure the vaccine's full effectiveness. Naturally, it would be impossible to inject the entire population of the multiverse one by one, so they had to find another way of doing it. If only they knew where and when the first infection had occurred, Ramsey thought, then they could inoculate the primary source of contagion, and the shock wave of inverse causality would probably neutralize the epidemic, although they could not be absolutely certain of that. In any event, they didn't know, and so they could only attempt to change the route of administration of the serum. Perhaps if they could make it airborne, it would simply spread through hyperspace like a fine dew, pollinating all the atmospheres in the multiverse, and everyone would breathe it in without even realizing. There was a slim chance it could work! Ramsey said to himself, leaping up from the table with a burst of enthusiasm. And they might manage it in time . . .

Just then, he felt something vibrate in his pocket. He took out his fob watch and opened the lid, which was engraved with a Star of Chaos. He turned the glowing dial to the wall, where it threw a beam of light that traced his colleague's flickering face in the air.

“What is it, Higgins?” he asked. “Are you still at home?”

Higgins replied with another question. “Have you looked out of your window recently?”

For a few seconds, Ramsey gazed uneasily at his colleague, who was tugging furiously at his little black beard.

“Yes, a moment ago. Why?”

“And you didn't notice anything . . . odd?” Higgins inquired nervously.

Ramsey shook his head.

“Then take another look,” Higgins almost commanded him.

Ramsey lowered the hand in which he was clasping the fob and made his way tentatively over to the window, dragging Higgins's face across the floor as if it were a dirty rag. He had no idea what he would find, but he was aware of what it would mean. His heart in his throat, he peered out, surveying the street from end to end: the two gentlemen were still calmly chatting, and at that moment a couple of mounted policemen were passing below his window, a nursemaid with a perambulator was buying a bunch of roses . . . It looked no different from any other morning, the same scenes as every day. What was it Higgins wanted him to see? Then, just when he was about to turn away, a deafening squawk tore through the air like a hacksaw. Everyone in the street raised his or her head to the sky, as did Ramsey. To his astonishment, he saw the silhouette of a gigantic pterodactyl, its membranous wings spread imposingly, circling the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

“Can you see it, Ramsey?” he heard Higgins ask in a frantic voice. “It has started! We must leave this multiverse immediately! I have summoned an Executioner, and Melford, too . . . We must go back to the Other Side. At least there we will enjoy an easy death . . . This multiverse is going to explode . . . Ramsey, can you hear me?”

Ramsey's watch slipped out of his fingers and fell to the floor. He stepped on it, crushing its cogs under his shoe. Higgins's puzzled face vanished abruptly. Ramsey leaned against the window frame and watched through eyes brimming with tears the policemen take off at a gallop, the nursemaid shriek, the two gentlemen wave their arms about and point up at the sky . . . “It has arrived,” he said. The Day of Chaos has finally arrived, as it had been written. And they had been unable to prevent it. All those worlds would vanish in the Great Annihilation, and the Other Side would freeze over. All their sacrifices, the attainment of the Supreme Knowledge, the terrible slaughter of innocents ordered by their superior civilization, had been in vain. They would all disappear, the learned and the ignorant, those who had known love and those who had not, victims and Executioners, and their only legacy would be their atoms floating in the endless void, tracing the symbol of barbarism for all eternity and for no one . . .

“Chaos is inevitable,” he whispered sadly.

“Chaos is inevitable,” a metallic voice rang out behind him.

Ramsey swung round knowing exactly what he would find. There, in the middle of the room, stood an Executioner, dark and shiny like a black flame. He recognized him.

“Why are you here, 2087V?” he snapped. “Did Higgins send you? Tell him I am not leaving. Go without me. Get out! I am tired. And in any case . . .” He shook his head, almost in despair. “What difference does it make dying in one world or another? What difference . . . ?”

Ramsey broke off his sad soliloquy. The Executioner was slowly spreading his arms, his cape rising like a curtain to reveal a cowering figure. When the light filtering through the window illuminated her, Ramsey saw an old lady, so frail she seemed to be made of fossilized tears. The woman stepped forward, rubbing her hands together nervously and gazing solemnly at Ramsey.

“Good morning, Doctor Ramsey. Do you remember me? I see you don't . . .” She smiled at Ramsey's unease. “We met a long time ago at Madame Amber's house.”

Ramsey screwed up his eyes.

“Mrs. Lansbury . . . ?”

Jane nodded. “That was what I called myself, but my real name is Amy Catherine Wells. I am the widow of H. G. Wells, the famous biologist from the Other Side who synthesized the cronotemia virus.”

Ramsey stood gaping at her, fascinated and dumbfounded. He managed to nod. Then Jane took a deep breath. Here I go, Bertie, she said to herself.

“I am truly ashamed to admit that we were the ones who caused this epidemic. We brought the virus to this world, dooming it to destruction. However, fortunately, before he died, my husband . . . left a written account of how to save it.”

A
ND NOW, THE TIME HAS
finally arrived for Cornelius Clayton to resume his prominent role in our story. We find him at the moment in a place he goes to whenever he does not want to be found, brooding over
The Map of Chaos,
which is lying on the table next to a cold teapot. He runs his fingers over the eight-pointed star embossed on its cover and then leans back in his chair, his eyes roaming sadly over the array of magic objects hidden in the Chamber of Marvels, that damp, dusty room that has served as his refuge over the years.

He sighed, glancing back at the book. It remained a mystery to him. A mystery that only grew, he thought, recalling Baskerville. A few months ago, the eccentric old man had turned up at his office and told him he came from a parallel world, a world where everyone had a twin, a potential variant of oneself. The old man himself, for example, was a variant of the author H. G. Wells, although rather more doddering than the one in Clayton's world, as he could see, and that in the world he came from he and Clayton's double had been friends. Any other police officer would have called him crazy and sent him packing, but the inspector's job was to listen to people like him, and so he had told Baskerville to sit down, had closed the door, and within ten minutes he was persuaded that the old man was speaking the truth. How could he not have been, when Baskerville had told him that his twin from another world had lost his hand in a ferocious duel with the woman he loved, whose portrait was hanging in his cellar? For over half an hour, the inspector had listened spellbound to the adventures of the old man, who had sought his help because for the past two years he had been pursued by strange killers. Something about his description of them had made Clayton sit up in his chair: the weapons those Hunters carried bore the same star as the one on the cover of
The Map of Chaos.
Clayton had shown the old man the book, anxious that someone might finally be able to shed some light on that mystery. However, although they both recognized the symbol and acknowledged there must be some link between the book and the Hunters, neither could offer any fresh information.

After he had left, Clayton sent a patrol to scour the moor for anyone fitting the description the old man had given of his pursuers—impossibly tall men swathed in flowing capes, with broad-brimmed hats and peculiar-looking canes—while he himself resolved to pursue that alleged Wells from another world. Just as he had told Clayton, he worked for the famously wealthy Montgomery Gilmore, who at the time was plunged into deep despair after his fiancée died in a car accident. A tragic fact that had not only caused Clayton to view more leniently that man whom he couldn't abide, and whom he had stopped investigating in the name of something as foolish as love (he still flushed when he remembered the arguments Wells had used to persuade him), but had also made his surveillance extremely tedious. Murray spent the entire time drinking himself into a stupor either at his house or that of the Wellses, obliging his coachman to sit around twiddling his thumbs most of the day. And so, after several months of fruitless surveillance, Clayton decided to stop shadowing the old man. He couldn't keep putting his other inquiries on hold due to a case his superiors had long since filed away.

This was a great shame, for had he persisted just a few days longer, as many of his twins in other worlds did, he would have seen Arthur Conan Doyle show up at Murray's house in the early hours, accompanied by Wells and his wife, and, intrigued by this untimely meeting, would have tailed the two famous authors for several days afterward. Increasingly bemused, he would have seen them visiting fancy dress shops, purchasing slates, and making secret excursions to Brook Manor. Finally, he would have followed them on the day of the fake séance with the Great Ankoma, during which the Invisible Man had appeared, and thus prevented Baskerville's death, causing events to take a very different turn.