series 02 01 Conspiracy of Silence

by Andy Frankham-Allen

  “What happened?”

  “I do not know, all I know is that…”

  “Professor!” came a shout from deep inside the garden square.

  Nathanial steeled himself, then relaxed when a figure emerged from the shadows. It was Folkard. Nathanial smiled grimly. “I take it I have you to thank for the timely rescue.”

  Folkard looked around at the dead bodies, and shook his head. “Nothing to do with me,” he said, and patted his overcoat, “my derringer hasn’t left my pocket since I set out to find you. It is high time we got out of here.”

  Nathanial agreed. The sound of many shoes hitting the cobbled roads drew closer. “Yes, we will have a hard time explaining this away to the local constabulary.”

  Folkard reached down and helped Edwin to his feet. “Introductions later, now we must away.”

  Edwin, although still dazed, smiled. “I quite agree, Captain Folkard,” he said.

  Folkard raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, as sharp as your brother I see.”

  While Folkard helped Edwin away, Nathanial held back for a few moments, looking around in the hope that his unknown saviour would show himself. Many strange things were going on. The toughs were clearly hired by the same man who had sent the assassin after Nathanial before, and undoubtedly after Annabelle, too. He already had his suspicions about Lécuyer; could it be that whoever had shot these toughs was the man for whom Lécuyer was working, or, perhaps, working with?

  What had been Lécuyer’s game? Clearly something to do with Nathanial’s designs. Whatever it was, it included Nathanial staying alive.

  At least for now.

  “Professor, make haste!” called Folkard.

  Nathanial shook himself out of his stupor. Such questions could be addressed in the safety of Folkard’s room. He set off after the captain and his brother.

  Chapter Ten

  “Salt and Gravity”

  1.

  “WELL IT TOOK more digging than I anticipated, but I believe I have something,” Fairfax said, once they all drew chairs into Annabelle’s sitting room and pulled the doors closed. Mrs Collingwood and Rachel sat with Uncle Cyrus in the parlour; he seemed perfectly content in their company. George, Fairfax, Colonel Wyndham and Major Blount sat with their chairs arranged in a semicircle facing her on the settee, which now had a quilt over its back to cover the red-brown blood stains. She looked at the four and could not avoid thinking of them as her Council of War. Although none wore a uniform, all but Fairfax were military men and bore themselves as such, and Fairfax was young, slender and athletic of build, so could easily have passed for one himself. They might not be brutes or bruisers, but they were formidable, each in his own way

  “Pray tell us then, Mister Cartwright,” Annabelle said. “We have been waiting in the dark for what seems a very long time. Illuminate us.”

  Fairfax leaned forward and began. “I was correct that the death of the Austrian ambassador Deym by a bomb blast is the immediate cause of concern throughout Lord Chillingham’s domain, but it was not the original cause of distress. That, apparently, was the destruction of a highly secret experimental heliograph station in deep space, so secret I had never heard of it before.”

  Annabelle exchanged a look with George who shook his head minutely. Yes, better to not react yet and see what followed. Such a secret shared would only add to these men’s hazard.

  “A heliograph station?” Blount demanded. “Secret? Why everyone’s heard of Harbinger. You say it’s been blown up?”

  “No, Major, not Harbinger in orbit here above Earth, nor its sister above Mars, but a third station in solar orbit between the two. You see, when the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun, or even close to opposition, heliograph is no good as the sun’s in the way, you see? So I suppose the idea was to build this other station to relay messages between the two worlds in those times.”

  “That seems perfectly sensible, even mundane,” Colonel Wyndham said. “Why was it secret?”

  “I have no idea,” Fairfax said, “but I did discover that the Austrians were partners with us on it. Perhaps that’s the secret, although I can’t see why that would be sensitive either. The Germans might not like the idea of us getting cosy with their neighbours to the south, but they’re still nominally our allies against France, so I can’t see any serious repercussions from it getting out.

  “Whatever the reason, apparently this new Austrian ambassador has a brief to get to the bottom of the whole affair, and there’s something Chillingham wants to keep from them.”

  “What?” George asked.

  “Again, I have no idea,” he said and Blount groaned slightly while Wyndham shook his head. “But I do have a bit more. Lord Belvedere, the Lord Minister at Home, is beholden to Chillingham for some recent legislation, and so has turned the police upside down trying to track down these anarchists who blew up Ambassador Deym. I suspect that is why your own attack received such scant notice, Miss Somerset. They were short-handed and whipped into the streets to track down the other culprits. They haven’t, but there are rumours the nest of vipers resides in Whitechapel. I realise that last information may be of somewhat limited value.”

  Blount and Wyndham both sat back in their chairs and frowned, apparently in agreement with the last sentiment.

  “Why would that be?” Annabelle asked.

  “Whitechapel?” Blount asked. “A thousand alleyways and hidey-holes, a hundred thousand souls packed together like insects, and every one of them raised in violence, steeped in gin, and damned desperate. Why, I wouldn’t want to clean it out with less than two battalions of the foot guards.”

  “And an armoured landship or two,” Colonel Wyndham added to which Blount nodded in vigorous agreement. “Send in two-hundred bobbies with orders to stir things up and there’ll be at least a hundred widows collecting police pensions, I’d wager.”

  “Mister Cartwright, would you care to accompany me tomorrow?” George said quietly. It was the first he had spoken since they all sat down.

  Fairfax’s eyebrows rose and he sat up straight. “Accompany you where, Commander Bedford?”

  “Why, to Whitechapel, of course.”

  2

  “I AM THE prey of two disparate individuals, Captain, I feel sure.”

  Several hours had passed since they returned to Bedford Square, affording Nathanial plenty of opportunity to ruminate over his current situation. Edwin was sleeping on the sofa, despite Folkard’s concerns about concussion, while Folkard and Nathanial sat at the small table in the corner of the room. Folkard indicated Nathanial’s freshly bandaged wrist.

  “How is the hand?”

  “I suspect it will look worse before this business is concluded,” Nathanial said wryly, recalling a similar sentiment the captain had shared with him almost nine months ago when they had first approached Luna. At that time Nathanial’s left hand had been badly burned in the engine room of Sovereign and had been bandaged with a dirty rag. “Fortunately this time it is my right wrist, and I am left-handed.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Folkard turned his attention outside the house. “And what makes you draw that conclusion, Professor?”

  For a second Nathanial thought Folkard was still talking about his damaged wrist, then he recalled his comment about the two men who were preying on him. “That ruffian who attacked Edwin and I mentioned he was being paid by someone, and that it was ‘government orders’ that I should be killed. Thus I can draw the conclusion that it is in connection with the treason charge that was levied against me. Clearly someone in the government believes I ought not to have been released, and that the punishment for treason still ought to be carried out.” Nathanial frowned. “Of course, I am still unsure why I was arrested for treason in the first place, since the destruction of Peregrine Station was not my fault.”

  “Not according to the evidence found,” Folkard said absently.

  Nathanial blinked. “What evidence?”

  Folkard looked at Nathanial sharply. “Ah.�
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  “Captain, I think it about time you shared with me what you know as to why I was charged. As much I can appreciate there is a time and place for one to keep one’s own counsel, I think the attempt on my life proves we have passed such a time.”

  Folkard turned his attention back to the window, one eyebrow raised. “Perhaps you are right, Professor. Although I’m not convinced that knowledge of why you are wanted dead will help us discover who is behind the plot.”

  “So, you do know why, then?” Nathanial shook his head. “Out with it, then,” he said, attempting to keep the frustration out of his voice.

  “The destruction of Peregrine Station caused quite a stir in certain quarters of the government and the Admiralty, especially those aware of Project ‘G’. As I believe you know, Peregrine was a joint effort between the British Empire and the Austrians. The reasons for the Austrian’s involvement is highly confidential…” Nathanial opened his mouth to ask why, but before he could speak Folkard said, quickly, “it will become relevant in due course. Now, when Peregrine was sucked into that aether vortex no one knew what went wrong. Until just over a week later, when a cutter from Peregrine was discovered on the Isle of Dogs.”

  “Someone survived?” Nathanial could not hide the hope in his voice. Until now he had thought only he and Annabelle had survived that catastrophe. He hardly wished to hope, but one of his friends may have survived.

  “Unfortunately not. The aether cutter was a wreck; the poor unfortunate who had managed to pilot it from Peregrine did not survive the journey back to Earth. According to reports the body was burned beyond belief, no doubt due to the cutter almost burning up on re-entry. I do not know how much you know of aether cutters, but they are not designed for atmospheric turbulence.”

  Nathanial nodded. “Yes, I am aware of this. Annabelle and I were in a cutter when we crashed on Mars. That we survived was nothing short of a miracle.”

  “Quite so, Professor. But I had no idea.” Folkard paused. “Where was I? I have always been much better at writing reports down than giving them in person,” he said with a smile.

  “The cutter on the Isle of Dogs, and the charred body within,” Nathanial said shortly, no longer wishing to stray from the path he was on.

  “Yes. Quite. A stroke of luck occurred during the search of the crash site, when a journal was discovered, charred and burnt, but with enough pages intact to put together the story of Peregrine’s final days. The journal belonged to one Avram Salt, whom it is believed to be the body in the cutter.”

  Avram Salt. The name sounded familiar to Nathanial, and for a moment he could not place it, then an image of the Jewish art and antique dealer came to his mind. Salt had been on board Peregrine, brought aboard to oversee the station’s garish interior design. Nathanial had not seen much of the man, except for occasionally bumping into him when Salt was wandering around the station, appearing for all the world like a man lost.

  With a twinge of guilt Nathanial was relieved that it had not been one of his friends who had escaped. Being aboard Peregrine while it was rented into little pieces had to be preferable to the slow and painful death of burning up on re-entry. At least Peregrine’s destruction had been swift.

  “A rather convenient discovery, I’m sure you will agree, Professor.”

  “Convenient that it survived, when Mister Salt did not, yes.”

  “Even more curious when you consider that the cutter, although badly damaged on re-entry, was less burned up than the body within.”

  “Suspicious,” Nathanial agreed. “May I enquire as to what was found in Salt’s journal?”

  “I’m afraid this is where my source rather dried up. They risked much getting the reports of the Peregrine’s cutter to me, but they did mention that the journal explains how you broke into Professor Wren’s laboratory, how you murdered a man called Brennan and then blamed the bombings on him. And, apparently, you also incited a coup, overthrowing the station administrator, one Mister van den Bosch.” As Folkard explained this, his smile became wider, clearly not believing a word of it.

  “Well,” Nathanial said quietly, “such events did occur. But you have to understand the circumstances, Captain,” he insisted, not wanting to lose the one ally he seemed to have. “The station was in the grip of a madman, at the mercy of a diabolical plan to construct a super weapon. Le Boeuf was behind everything!”

  Folkard was silent, his attention shifting between Nathanial and the square outside. “I believe you, Professor, only because I know you. I have seen you in dangerous situations before, and I have come to trust your reactions. Nonetheless, the evidence, such as it was, was pretty damning.”

  “I would rather like to see this journal. Salt did not seem to be the kind of man to keep one.”

  “Alas, I highly doubt either of us will get to lay our eyes on it. Nevertheless, the evidence was enough to convince those who had secrets to keep that you were the perfect scapegoat upon whom to blame everything. If the station’s destruction was the result of sabotage from a rogue employee of the British government, then everyone could accept that. Even the Austrians.”

  “A rogue employee indeed! Director White allowed me some time of leave, to assist a friend on Venus.”

  “Nathanial,” Folkard said carefully, “please understand how these people think. You had been away for several months, with no word of why you left Venus and did not return to Chatham. You were rogue in their eyes—a brilliant scientist who had in his possession a secret known only to a few. I’ve never had the pleasure to meet the former Austrian Ambassador, but I have heard tell that Franz Deym was ‘an easy sell’. Certainly he would have been happy to lay all the blame on you.”

  “I do not care for the politics of the situation, Captain. But what is this secret you mention? I know of no secret, other than those I had been sworn to keep during my time working at Chatham Dockyards.”

  “Project ‘G’, Professor. You had been aboard Peregrine, discovered a station with on board gravity.”

  Nathanial did not see the problem. “Captain, I have noticed that neither the flyers that took me to Venus and Mercury, nor Esmeralda, had gravity…” He stopped and verily smacked himself on the head. “By Jove! So much has happened since I arrived on Mars I completely forgot. I had every intention of looking into why there had been gravity on both Sovereign and Peregrine, but…well, events quite sidelined me.” He shook his head. “The truth behind the ‘why’ is this big secret I am supposed to the keeper of?”

  “Someone had made a serious misassumption, I fear.” Folkard shook his head sadly. “By making you their scapegoat, the orchestrators of this entire affair have created their own problem. You really had no idea you carried the secret. Whoever is targeting you has made a grave mistake.”

  “It would seem so. But if the gravity on Sovereign was a secret, why did they allow me on Sovereign in the first place?”

  “Perhaps they relied on your ignorance? After all, it was one mission. With what had you to compare it?”

  Nathanial considered this. It was true. Had he not been summoned to Venus by Jericho he would have been none the wiser regarding gravity on aether flyers. Indeed, at the time such an anomaly had not even occurred to him. He certainly would not have ended up on Peregrine if he had refused Jericho’s cry for help. “Tell me, what exactly is this Project ‘G’? I assume the ‘G’ stands for gravity.”

  “Not quite.” Folkard sat back in his seat. “Ever since they past that blasted Official Secrets Act last August, Project ‘G’ is protected; if I tell you that I am a traitor to the Crown.”

  “How can it be considered treason? I have already been arrested for treason, and reprieved from that charge, when in fact I was never guilty. They have my own journal, and that of Professor Wren. Compared alongside Salt’s journal they must have seen the truth, and thus released me. Yet still, someone believes I am aware of this Project ‘G’, the great secret that will…destabilise the British Empire?”

  Folkard laughe
d. “Hardly that serious, Professor. But it would cause a great deal of problems, for both our government and the Austrians’. Oh very well,” he added, with a sigh, glancing over to make sure that Edwin was still asleep. “As the captain of Sovereign I was fully briefed on Project ‘G’, how in early 1888 Austrian geologists on Mercury made one of the most important discoveries since the Martians revealed their liftwood to us. Deep under the surface they discovered a layer of ‘heavy tar’, this heavy tar, or ‘gravitar’ as it has become known, is responsible for most of a planet’s gravity. I do not understand the science of it, but I am sure if you used your deductive brain you would be able to work out how gravitar works.”

  Nathanial had to admit he was stumped. “I would need to speak to those geologists who discovered it.”

  “An unlikely occurrence, I think.”

  “Agreed. So, this gravitar was used on Sovereign?”

  “Illegally, yes.”

  “Illegally?”

  “Yes, Professor,” Folkard said shortly.

  Nathanial raised his hands in submission. “Sorry, this is all very fascinating. Pray, continue.”

  “Naturally the British Empire, the dominant force on Mercury, soon learned of the Austrians discovery and so a secret alliance was formed between the Empire and Austria. Political channels between our two governments have always been generally good, but still not strong enough that either government wished to acknowledge the existence of gravitar until its worth could be proven beyond a shadow of doubt. As you can imagine, once the secret of gravitar is out it will affect aether travel in a drastic way. Not only that, but there would be mining expeditions throughout the inner planets—how long before it becomes a marketable commodity?”

  “This gravitar layer exists on all the planets?”

  “That is the considered opinion. Secret expeditions have already been sent out to Venus and Mars to prove it.”

  “And here on Earth?”