The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (15 page)

“And here we are,” Burton said. He picked up his cup and drank from it. His hand was shaking.

Too much to take in. It's real. I know it's real. But how can it be?

A deep thrumming sounded, the floor vibrated, and, through a porthole, he saw the trees drop out of sight.

Raghavendra said, “Off we go. Home to our own world and our own time, where you three will establish yourselves and live again.”

“Cretinously!” Pox contributed. “Twonk rubbers!”

“My first task shall be to compose a poem,” Swinburne announced, “comprised entirely of that feathered fiend's insults. It'll be a masterpiece.”

Burton stood, crossed to the glass, and looked out. He saw the patchwork fields sinking beneath the ship and spotted again the wall and the small group of people standing by it. He could see their faces were turned toward the
Orpheus
, though they were too distant for their expressions to be clear. He guessed they reflected absolute astonishment.

“Our destination, Sadhvi. Events have unfolded differently there. Does Lieutenant Speke still live?”

“No. He died a hero at Berbera in 'fifty-four.”

“A better death than he suffered here.”

“Most assuredly.”

“And my wi—and Isabel. How did she die?”

“Not well, I'm afraid, Sir Richard. She was murdered by one of your enemies.”

The ship plunged into the clouds. There was nothing to see outside but grey. Burton's face was reflected in the window. He watched the ghostly other and the ghostly other watched him.

“My counterpart has enemies?”

“He is, or was—and now you are—the king's agent, commissioned by the prime minister on behalf of His Majesty to protect the empire from threats too peculiar in nature for the police. It has involved antagonists. Some of them have been very powerful.”

Burton raised his eyebrows. He counted backward from Gladstone, the prime minister of 1890.

The Marquess of Salisbury. Gladstone again. The Marquess. Gladstone. Disraeli. Gladstone. Disraeli—Gad! Those two went at it like duellists!—the Earl of Derby, John Russell, and—ah!

“Your Palmerston apparently possessed considerably more faith in Richard Burton than my own did.”

“My Palmerston was hanged as a traitor in 1842.”

Burton turned. “Good God!”

“Our prime minister is Disraeli. Our king is George the Fifth, the son of Ernest Augustus of Hanover.”

Trounce uttered a sound of surprise. “Not as barmy as his father, I should hope! And what of Albert? What has become of him?”

“The prince works in a diplomatic capacity, and with consummate skill. He brokered a peace accord between our empire and the German Confederation.”

Swinburne said, “My hat! Then your history is certainly far different to this. We are a republic, and in my final years, a war with the
Deutsches Reich
was all but assured.”

Raghavendra nodded. “That war will come in this and in every other history but my own. It will devastate two generations of men, lay Europe flat, and extend across the entire globe. The consequences of it will reach so far forward in time that the very evolution of the human race, the rapture, will be badly delayed. However, where we are now going, you three gentlemen—together with a faithful band of followers among whom this crew is counted—have created conditions through which the great disaster will be averted.”

Swinburne's left leg twitched with such vigour that he kicked the table and slopped the coffee. “Us? But I'm a mere poet! Richard is an explorer and writer! Mr. Trounce is a policeman!”

“And I, a nurse.” Raghavendra turned her palms upward. “History is shaped by individuals. No matter a person's circumstances, all have a part to play. Not one single man or woman can be counted as insignificant.”

Orpheus
's voice suddenly reverberated through the ship. “Prepare yourselves, peculiar creatures. We are about to traverse time. Sideways and backward. Destination: midnight of the nineteenth of March, 1861. A primitive era due to your ridiculously inadequate ability to organise yourselves.”

Pox blew a raspberry.

Raghavendra said, “I warn you, this will feel a little strange. It used to be a lot worse, but since the ship's brain was improved, our jumps through time have been considerably easier on our stomachs.”

“Perhaps that compensates a little for the brain's personality,” Swinburne suggested.

“I doubt the captain would agree. He considers the babbage an absolute pain in the—”

Raghavendra, her words, and the ship blinked into whiteness.

“—neck.”

In an instant, everything was back, but the lounge was suddenly darker, there now being no daylight streaming through the portholes, and when Burton looked out, he saw neither cloud nor the Somerset countryside but rather the twinkling lights of nighttime London.

“We're descending,” Raghavendra said. “Finish your coffee and take up your hats and canes, gentlemen. I'll escort you to the exit. We'll be staying overnight in Battersea Power Station before meeting with the minister in the morning.”

A curious presentiment caused Burton to clear his throat. Something lurked at the periphery of his mind and refused to come into focus. Before it could be clarified, the ship's voice sounded again.

“Jump successful. We'll be on the ground in two minutes. Welcome home, peculiar creatures.”

The three men followed Raghavendra out of the lounge and along to the door through which they'd entered the ship. Trounce glanced at Burton, and the explorer recognised that this man, whom he'd met a just little while ago but who already felt like an old friend, was feeling nervous. He offered him a slight nod of encouragement. The policeman rubbed a thumb over his moustache and said, “Then it's done. We've left everything behind. I know you'll think me a silly beggar, but I can't get it out of my head that I'll never wear my blue striped pyjamas again. Of all the blessed things to miss! A pair of bloomin' pyjamas!”

“My pipe,” Swinburne said. He tapped his chest. “At this age, I hadn't taken up the habit, but in my dotage I enjoyed nothing better than a contemplative puff in the garden.” He took a deep breath and exhaled with satisfaction. “Young lungs! I shall start smoking earlier and reap the benefits all the more!”

“That's the spirit,” Raghavendra said as they arrived at the boarding hatch. “Look forward, not back.”

There came a gentle bump and the ship was immediately filled with a deepening whine as its motors slowed.

“1861,” Krishnamurthy announced. “I wonder what we've missed? Shall we see?” He took hold of a handle on the left side of the door and nodded toward its opposite. “Would you, Sir Richard?”

Acting without thinking, Burton took hold of the other handle and, in concert with Krishnamurthy, lifted, pulled, and slid the door aside. A ramp emerged from the bottom lip of the portal and smoothly slid down to the ground. It was only then that it registered with Burton he'd somehow known how to do something he'd never done before.

Chilly night air rushed in carrying with it droplets of moisture and a multitude of disagreeable odours. Filled with curiosity, the explorer peered out and was dazzled by the blazing lights of the power station beside which the
Orpheus
had landed. The structure, which didn't exist in his own world, was blocky and massive, with four tall chimneys rising from its corners, each of them, by the looks of it, fashioned from copper.

Daniel Gooch exited the lower deck, joined them, and placed a metal hand on Burton's shoulder. “I expect you chaps could do with something to eat. It's a bit late in the day, but we can't expect our inner clocks to immediately readjust, can we? Come on.”

However, before they could step out of the ship, they were interrupted by Lawless, who emerged from the door to the bridge. “Mr. Gooch? I think we might have a problem.”

Gooch turned. “Eh? But we're landed.”

“We are. And the moment we touched the ground, the Mark Three announced that it had received a transmission.”

“A what? Here? There's no radio in 1861, Captain. What manner of transmission? Who from?”

“That's the problem. When I asked, the babbage didn't respond, and is remaining silent.”

“It can't choose not to answer.”

“I know, yet I can't get a single word out of it.”

“That's both strange and uncharacteristic. Mind you, if the blessed contraption has developed a fault, we must thank our lucky stars that it's happened now, rather than during our voyage. I'll examine it in the morning. Our stomachs must take priority.”

Lawless made a sound of assent. “I'll join you for supper after I've given the ship the once-over.”

Returning his attention to Burton and the others, Gooch led them down the ramp.

The explorer pulled his coat tighter. Trieste had been warm. So, too, had Bath. Here, the air was wintery.

They crossed hard, well-worn ground to a huge gate in the station wall. A normal-sized door was inset into it and upon this the engineer rapped his knuckles. “Hey there! Open up!”

Immediately, the lock clicked and the portal swung inward. A figure stepped into view.

Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce all took a pace backward. A manlike machine had responded to Gooch's hail. Constructed from polished brass, it was slender and about five feet five inches tall, with a canister-shaped head. Its “face,” across which the lights of the
Orpheus
reflected, was featureless but for three raised circular fittings set vertically in the front. The topmost of them resembled a tiny porthole, and through it could be seen a great many spinning gears, as small, complex, and finely crafted as the workings of a pocket watch. The middle circle enclosed a mesh grille, and the bottom one was simply a hole out of which three very fine five-inch-long wires projected. The neck consisted of thin shafts and cables, swivel joints and hinges. A slim cylinder formed the mechanical man's trunk. Panels were cut out of it, revealing cogwheels and springs, delicate little crankshafts, gyroscopes, flywheels, and a pendulum. The thin arms ended in three-fingered hands. The legs were sturdy and tubular; the feet, oval-shaped and slightly domed.

It did not at all resemble, Burton thought, the hulking mechanism his other self had occupied in the future, being far smaller and more delicate in appearance.

“Good evening,” it said in a pleasantly mellifluous and lilting voice. “My name is Fiddlesticks. I presume, by the arrival of the
Orpheus
, that you are Mr. Gooch? Please, come in. My masters will be delighted to see you.”

“Hallo, hallo!” Gooch exclaimed. “Have there been developments? New voice boxes? You sound superb!”

The engineer passed through the door into a courtyard and stepped aside to allow entry to Burton, Swinburne, Trounce, Raghavendra, and Krishnamurthy.

Fiddlesticks said, “Mr. Babbage made many improvements to his devices before his disappearance, sir. Our voices being but one of them. This way, please.”

They followed the contraption toward another set of big double doors.

“Disappearance?” Gooch asked.

“Mr. Babbage hasn't been seen for the past four months or so. No one knows where he's gone.”

“Good Lord!”

The clockwork man attended to a lock then opened one of the inner doors sufficiently for them to pass through it into the station.

Burton shielded his eyes. Big glass globes were hanging from the high ceiling of the cathedral-sized interior. Captive lightning crackled and popped inside them, casting incandescence into every corner of the great hall. As his vision adjusted to it, he saw a vast floor crowded with bewildering contrivances of metal and glass. There were things that pumped and sparked and buzzed; things that showered sparks and sent lines of electrical energy between themselves, snaking through the air, so that the station was filled with the sharp tang of ozone; things that assaulted the senses and muddled the mind.

Nearby, an elderly, white-haired man was bent over a knot of pipes examining a row of gauges, the indicators of which were swinging wildly back and forth. Another mechanical man was standing beside him, and Burton now realised that there were a great many of the clockwork devices attending to various tasks. Machines operating machines.

“Mr. Faraday!” Gooch called.

The man at the pipes straightened, turned, and cried out, “Daniel! You're back, by gosh!”

“We are,” Gooch countered.

Faraday walked over, a little unsteadily—Burton guessed him to be nigh on seventy years old—and shook the engineer's hand, then Burton's, then each of the rest in turn. His eyes were rheumy and his manner rather vague. “How wonderful to—to—um—to see you again. We'd practically given up on you. Splendid! Er. My goodness! Was the—the thing—the mission—was it a success?”

Gooch nodded. “It was.”

“And the—er—the future? What was it like? Marvellous? What scientific advances? In what state the people? Do we achieve the whatchamacallit—Utopia, I mean? Have you brought machineries of the future back with you? By gosh! Can I examine them?”

“Steady, man!” Gooch protested. “Don't overexcite yourself. We thought it best not to infect our own time with too much. The Mark Three babbage calculator aboard the
Orpheus
has been enhanced with future techniques, but aside from that, we are empty handed.”

Faraday gave a disappointed sigh. “I suppose you've acted correctly. As Mr. Whatsisname—er, Darwin—would no doubt say, um—”

“Evolution must develop at its own pace,” Raghavendra offered.

“Yes. Exactly. But—” Again, a despondent sigh. “But you say the Mark Three has been augmented? May I ask how?”

“A full explanation later,” Gooch said.

“But will you not give me at least a hint? Something to think about?”