The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  They waited until the sun was just a mucky brown splodge somewhere out towards Richmond, shimmering dirty off the changing tide. As they waited, Thomas twiddled his thumbs and tried to think about maths and geology and science and other essentially healthy things, and not at all about betrayal and death and sewage; especially not about sewage. He hadn’t thought to find an older pair of trousers for the adventure, there’d been so much to do ...

  Tess thought about when she was growing up, and going underground into the sewers had been another way of life to consider, another means of surviving. She’d known other street children who, in their time, had decided to hunt down there for the things that people forgot and left behind - although Tess had never quite understood how some of the things that could be found in the sewers had ended up down there. Sometimes the other children would come back with no more than a few brass buttons or a shoe so rotten and muddy it would crumble in their hands; sometimes they’d come back with a spoon or a lost farthing eaten away by the slime; sometimes they wouldn’t come back at all, and their friends would wait all day on London Bridge for the tide to turn, to see if the body would be carried by or just washed straight out to sea. The most prized possessions of the sewer hunter were a watch, and a knowledge of the tides gathered from the pilot master or the man who ran the naval clock down at Greenwich that signalled local time to the passing ships. Compared to what happened if you got lost in the sewers, Tess had decided a life of crime wasn’t so bad.

  And Lin thought about . . . nothing. Nothing at all. Perhaps, deep down, she didn’t dare.

  ‘What we’re lookin’ for,’ explained Tess in her special patronizing voice reserved for stupid people, friends, acquaintances and the general populace, ‘is this big place what has a Machine what we reckon’s gotta be really big an’ all, right, an’ it’s in the sewers an’ it were built by this bloke what built the new tunnels a few years back, an’ we reckon as how it’s got these big pumping things inside of it, an’ lotsa people gotta be workin’ round there so you must’ve seen summat, an’ we wanna go there. Oh, an’ it’s run by these bigwigs what are all big on machines - but like Machines with a big “M” ’cos of how it’s all nasty an’ clever an’ stuff - an’ it’s real important that we get there all healthy an’ all, right?’

  Scuttle scratched his chin, which wasn’t due to sport a beard for proper sagely effect for at least another six years, and murmured, ‘Well . . . I might just know this thing what’ll interest you.’

  Horatio Lyle puts the pencil down, looks up from his piece of paper and says, ‘I need some things.’

  Havelock shrugs. ‘We can do anything.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Machine

  Scuttle scuttled. This, Thomas realized, was precisely the motion that characterized him; there was no other way to describe the boy’s movement through the tunnels. As they worked their way into the darkness, lighted only by a lamp that gleamed reflectively off rats’ eyes and dripping slime, the short, jerking movement of Scuttle as he lunged from tunnel mouth to tunnel mouth was exactly as his name suggested - a crab-like motion; alternatively, with that nervous quality of a pigeon constantly turning its head to spot the vulture. Thomas watched Scuttle for all he was worth and tried to think about the physical properties of a crab’s movement, about what each joint did and whether it was a more efficient way of moving than, say, swinging a leg from the knee or riding a penny farthing. He tried to think about the science of scuttling, until his eyes ached; anything, anything to get his thoughts away from the smell, and the heat whose suffocating punch to the chest had knocked through him like a door slamming in the face, and from the strange liquid that swilled above his ankles and had seeped through his shoes to make his socks sticky and his feet wrinkle like pink apricots. Next to him, Tate paddled through the stuff, bounding ahead as best he could to bark at the rats that lurked in every corner. They rippled away from Tate’s teeth in a black tide, their feet making a splishing sound like raindrops in a puddle as they retreated from the light of Scuttle’s lantern, and Tate’s growl.

  When Scuttle eventually stopped, he did so beside, as far as Thomas could tell, a dripping wall no more nor less foul than any other encrusted, rough brick surface in the endless maze of darkness. Scuttle raised the lantern to the wall and, while Thomas nearly gagged, brushed away a coating of thick brown muck to reveal a small marking.

  It had been scratched crudely into the brickwork - two cogs, one inside the other, like the face of an odd-looking mechanical clock. Thomas drew a sharp breath, and instantly regretted doing so as it burnt its way down into his lungs. Tess squinted at the marking and said, ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Scuttle, ‘but they’ve been croppin’ up all over since the new tunnels got opened an’ some of the old ’uns what dares says as how they’re markin’ out territory, see?’

  ‘What’s territory about?’ demanded Tess suspiciously. ‘Who’s pretendin’ to be the bigwig?’

  ‘Dunno. But . . .’ Scuttle grinned. ‘I do know as how there’s places down here what weren’t never put on the map.’

  Havelock hadn’t lied. They had everything Lyle could possibly have needed, and more, laid out in a workroom of a size and scale that ’til now he could only dream of, a miracle of technology, efficiency and proper scientific practice.

  Yet oddly enough, it was the more than what he just needed, that interested him most. He bit his lip, and found himself thinking, inexplicably, about voltages.

  They found more of the marks, cut into the brickwork with a penknife and mixed with the notes of other sewer hunters going lllrl2l3rl ... as they indicated their passage through the tunnels. At some points the tunnel became so low they had to bend down and crawl, with their heads bumping against the roof; with every bump Thomas imagined living, slimy things creeping into his hair. In other places the tunnels were so wide and dry they felt like a passage in a castle, cold and sterile, rather than a sewer. Sometimes they caught glimpses of daylight, seen through grates high above; sometimes they had to pass under veritable waterfalls of leakage, ducking through sheets of water that poured through the brickwork. Every time they reached another corner, Scuttle checked his watch and murmured, ‘We don’t want to get caught by the tide none,’ and tried not to look afraid.

  ‘We keep goin’ ’til I gets bored!’ replied Tess firmly. ‘An’ if you’re lucky an’ all, we’ll’ave found my guvnor by then and he can do the worryin’ for us.’

  It was underneath a shaft of light from somewhere a long, long way overhead, that Tate started barking. He splashed forward, sniffing the walls and the air, and leapt up and down, sending flecks of brown muck spattering out from his ears and coat, and barked yet more.

  ‘What’s up with little Tatey-watey?’ Tess crooned at him. ‘Is little Tatey-watey bored, is he, is heee ...?’

  If it’s possible for a dog to look condescending, Tate managed it, nose wrinkling up in irritation and huge eyebrows sinking over his brown eyes. He scampered down a tunnel and waited impatiently for the ignorant humans to follow him.

  Lin peered after him and murmured, ‘I do believe the dog-creature wants your attention.’

  ‘He’s a dog,’ replied Tess. ‘’Course he wants attention. But you can’t give him none, else you’ll spoil him, an’ you can’t spoil him, can you? No you can’t, little Tatey-watey, no you caann’t . . .’

  ‘Miss Teresa?’ said Thomas uncertainly.

  ‘Whatcha want, bigwig?’

  ‘Well, Miss Teresa, maybe Tate has a scent.’

  ‘A wha’?’

  ‘A scent.’

  ‘A wha’?’

  ‘A scent, Miss Teresa?’

  ‘Bigwig, I ain’t gonna repeat myself again none.’

  ‘Erm ... perhaps he can smell something that we can’t.’

  ‘What, down ’ere?’

  ‘Maybe. Apparently a dog’s sense of smell can be a thousand times more sensitive than a human’s - I mean, as if we could see a
nd the colour red was actually a thousand colours, and . . .’

  ‘Tatey-watey sees colours?’ hazarded Tess.

  ‘No, I mean . . .’

  ‘He might smell Lyle,’ said Lin quietly. ‘I think that’s what the little gentleman is trying to say.’

  ‘Well, yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘I can’t smell nothin’.’

  ‘Well, apart from . . .’

  ‘Yes, apart from the squelchy stuff, bigwig!’

  Tate, who clearly felt that initiative was being lost, barked again. Tess frowned at the shadowy shape he made in the gloom, then turned to Scuttle. ‘Oi, you, what’s down that-a-way?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Scuttle simply. ‘Just more tunnels an’ a brick wall.’

  Tate kept barking. Lin stepped carefully into the tunnel, reached into a pocket and pulled out a very small bronze knife. Tess stepped back instinctively. ‘It’s hotter down here,’ murmured Lin. ‘And I feel . . . strange. More than just a brick wall.’

  Tess scowled and turned to Thomas. ‘Have you noticed how it’s always you an’ me what have to go an’ save Mister Lyle from all the silly things what he’s gone an’ got caught up in, bigwig?’

  ‘Well, I suppose on occasion . . .’

  ‘An’ do you know he only gives me five shillin’s a week pocket money?’

  ‘You have pocket money?’

  ‘Yes. What do you get?’

  ‘Well . . .’ he hesitated. Somehow he didn’t think Tess expected to hear, ‘I don’t get anything, I just tell the butler to go and buy it for me, but when I’m eighteen I’ll get an allowance and part of Wiltshire.’

  But Tess had already moved on. ‘An’ now we gotta go an’ save him again an’ this is you an’ me followin’, with all due respect, miss, this lady what has evil green eyes an’ ain’t like normal people, an’ a lad what refused to give up his special blanket ’til he was nine . . .’

  ‘Oi! You said you weren’t tellin’!’ squeaked Scuttle.

  ‘. . . an’ a doggy-woggy with big ears!’ Tate growled. ‘So what I’m sayin’, bigwig, is as how you an’ me gotta be real clever an’ all to make up for this, or maybe how it’s me what’s got to be clever, an’ save the day against overwhelmin’ type odds!’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Thomas thought about it, straightened up proudly, banged his head, hunched again but repeated nonetheless, ‘Yes! That sounds about right!’

  Tess grinned. ‘Just checkin’. Let’s do the adventurin’ bit, then.’

  They marched off, into the darkness.

  The tunnel was long, featureless and hot. As they walked, it got hotter and darker, and the walls became narrower; and still the temperature kept climbing - until, without warning, Lin stopped dead and murmured, ‘I can’t go further.’

  Tess and Thomas turned. Even Tate stopped his insistent snuffling to stare at her. Scuttle raised the lamp, and in the dull glow Lin had turned white. She was swaying slightly, leaning against a wall, seemingly oblivious of the slime. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘It’s a bit hot?’ suggested Tess.

  ‘Miss, are you all right?’ ventured Thomas. He’d always secretly hoped a lady would swoon in his presence, so that he could leap valiantly to her rescue. Now, however, deep in a sewer, with a woman who filled him with apprehension, his dream was suffering from malign circumstance.

  Lin gave them a look of disbelief, then forced a smile. ‘The future leaders of mankind,’ she sighed. ‘How do you get by?’

  ‘I think she’s bein’ mean about us,’ muttered Tess in Thomas’s ear.

  ‘You’re very, very close to it,’ murmured Lin. ‘It’s ... a sickness ... a coldness, an acidity, right ahead. That way, keep going,’ she said, pointing with her chin down the tunnel. ‘The closer we get, the more it hurts.’

  ‘What? What what what what what?’ demanded Tess, bouncing on the spot.

  ‘The Machine,’ Lin replied. ‘Berwick didn’t say, Lyle didn’t say, but I can feel it. It gives off a magnetic field, it’s like ... walking across broken glass, and the feeling’s been growing all the way down this tunnel. I can’t go any closer. If I do, I’ll die.’

  Tess looked at Thomas, who looked helplessly at Lin. He said, ‘Will you be all right, miss?’

  ‘Just make it stop,’ she hissed. ‘That’s all, just make it stop.’ Then a thought struck her and she added, ‘And get Lyle out alive. And please don’t tell him I said that.’

  ‘But it seems like a nice thing -’ began Tess.

  Thomas nudged her and said, ‘Right, yes, of course, Miss Lin, naturally.’

  ‘But . . .’ Tess tried again.

  ‘We’ll just be off.’

  ‘We will?’ piped Scuttle.

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas, sticking out his chest defiantly. ‘We will.’

  For a moment, just a moment, Tess looked at him in awe. She murmured, ‘You ain’t takin’ charge, are you, bigwig?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Thomas wavered.

  ‘Seein’ as how you’re oldest an’ all,’ she added.

  ‘Well ...’

  She patted him on the shoulder. ‘I think it’s sweet as how you’re tryin’.’ Then to Lin, ‘Goodbye, miss! Don’t go an’ do anythin’ evil while we’re gone, right, ’cos that’ll be bad an’ I’ll sulk an’ you wouldn’t want to see that.’

  ‘Oh, she’s ’orrid when she sulks,’ said Scuttle. His tone made Thomas feel, just for a second, alarmed and protective, and he wondered why.

  ‘Come on!’ boomed out Thomas in the voice he hoped generals used when marshalling their troops. The three of them, and Tate, went on down the tunnel, leaving Lin alone in the darkness.

  Havelock stood behind Lyle’s chair. He was watching everything Lyle did. So did others. Men and even a few women, from the dimness away from the candle on the table, all observed Lyle, as he worked at slipping wires into frames or twisting circuits together. They took in every movement, every breath. Each time one of them didn’t follow his reasoning exactly, they’d call a halt, to study what he’d done, interrogating him about every twist and turn, until finally the voice of dissent would say, ‘Ah, I think I see what he’s trying to achieve.’ There was to be no error.

  There was, however, a suspicion growing at the back of Lyle’s mind, that these very, very clever brains - these exceptionally well-educated scientists watching his every movement, studying his every thought as he twisted infinitesimally small circuits into being at the heart of the Machine - might just be the kind of people to miss the Obvious Thing.

  The tunnel stopped. It ended at a brick wall down which water dribbled in black rivulets defined by almost five years of seepage. Tate sat on his haunches and glared at it. Tess folded her arms and said, ‘I ain’t impressed by this, bigwig.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Teresa,’ Thomas heard himself say.

  ‘Well, don’t just say that, do summat!’ snapped Tess.

  ‘What do you want me to do, miss?’

  Tess stared at him as though he were an idiot. ‘You’re carryin’ most of Mister Lyle’s kitchen, bigwig.’

  Thomas noticed again the weight of the bags across his shoulders.

  ‘Blow it up or summat! There’s gotta be summat in there what’ll go “Bang”!’

  ‘Aren’t we supposed to avoid things that go “Bang”?’ asked Thomas in a pained voice.

  ‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ she replied briskly.

  ‘Are you both always like this?’ asked Scuttle.

  Thomas was thinking. ‘Maybe . . .’ he felt stupid as he said it, ‘there’s a secret door?’

  Tess stared at him in despair. ‘You takin’ the pi . . . I mean, you havin’ a laugh, bigwig?’

  ‘I’m just saying, if perhaps we searched . . .’

  ‘You just think people go round buildin’ secret doors everywhere, do you? There’s always this book you push that makes the shelf come out, or a bit of string you pull or a brick you kick or summat? ’Cos I’m tellin’ you, as someone w
hat knows about gettin’ into places where you don’t belong . . .’

  Thomas kicked a brick hopefully. ‘Ow!’ He hopped up and down, clinging to his foot.

  Tess grinned. ‘Hah. Told you.’

  Overhead, something went thunk. Somewhere near by, something else started whirring. Tess’s face fell. ‘I ain’t never gonna be able to talk proper sense to you again, am I?’

  Thomas’s face had broken into a huge grin. He gazed expectantly at the brick wall. Nothing happened. At his feet, something went shurlp. He looked down. So did Tess. Seeing them do so, Tate also looked down - then started barking furiously as, beneath his feet, a small section of floor started to move, creaking back while slime oozed over its edge into the darkness below.

  The thing opened up into a dark shaft. The lamplight gave no clue as to whether there was a floor below. But there were the rungs of a ladder, and they looked clean and fresh. Tess said, ‘I just get this feelin’ as how we’re gonna ’ave to go down there.’

  Scuttle looked green. ‘Er . . .’ he began.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Thomas politely.

  ‘You wanna go down there?’ Scuttle squealed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas, in the same tone of uncomprehending goodwill. ‘Do you think we shouldn’t?’

  The only answer was a little noise of distress.

  Tess scowled. ‘Men,’ she hissed. Snatching the lantern from Scuttle, she started to climb.

  Lyle put down the last piece and studied the thing in front of him. It wasn’t as neat or as finished as Berwick’s piece of work, but it would do. Hammered together from scraps, it would serve the purpose for which it was made.

  Havelock leant over Lyle’s shoulder. ‘Very good. Yes, I think I see what you’ve done.’

  ‘You claim to be a scientist, Augustus,’ Lyle coldly replied. ‘But I doubt you have any idea of what I’ve done.’