series 02 01 Conspiracy of Silence

by Andy Frankham-Allen

  Fontaine raised an eyebrow as he sat in an ornate armchair. “My son’s English is as good as mine. Like me, he likes to project a certain image. As I was saying to Paul just yesterday… Oh, he’s just been assigned as French Ambassador to England, would you believe?”

  “Paul?” Nathanial asked, sitting himself opposite.

  “Surely you have heard of Pierre Paul Cambon?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  Fontaine eyed Nathanial for a moment, as if checking to see if Nathanial was playing the cod, then nodded once certain that he was not. “Hmm, well, Cambon has done a superb job in Madrid and has been rewarded the post of Ambassador to England. Can’t say that I envy him; things have changed a lot since my day. Still, politics are the art of the impossible.”

  “I thought Chancellor Bismarck’s expression was ‘the art of the possible’,” Nathanial said.

  “Bismarck lacks vision.”

  “I see,” Nathanial said and smiled. “Well, politics is not really my field.”

  “An irony considering your current predicament,” Fontaine observed.

  At that Nathanial could only nod in agreement. “So, you were saying what to Cambon yesterday?”

  “Oh yes! If people see what they expect to see, then they rarely look any deeper. I am sure you understand, Professor.”

  Nathanial wanted to protest that he did not, but there was a certain sparkle in Fontaine’s eyes, and instead Nathanial had to wonder just what it was that Arnaud had told his father.

  3.

  “DOCTOR DUMBA WILL not see you today!” the clerk insisted again. “It is Sunday!”

  Annabelle scanned the interior of the embassy’s foyer and saw two other clerks hurrying up the steps to the second floor with their arms filled with papers and portfolios.

  “Clearly the staff is here and working, Mister Schaffhausen. Commander Bedford and I will wait here in these chairs until such time as Doctor Dumba agrees to see us. Would you be so good as to take my card to him? Please be sure to have him read the note on the back.”

  “He will not see you!”

  Annabelle smiled. “Please take him the card and if, after reading it, he asks us to leave, we will trouble you no more today.” She had already placed the card in an envelope and sealed it. It would not do for anyone other than Dumba to read it. She had no way of knowing if the clerk would honour the seal, but she supposed he would and in any case it was a risk worth taking.

  The man snatched the envelope from her hand. Between black hair parted in the middle and slicked down, a tidy little moustache, and pince nez glasses on a black elastic cord, the man would have been a stereotypical office clerk had he not stood a bit over six feet tall and strained the buttons on the chest of his shirt and vest. He turned in exasperation and climbed the stairs two at a time, clearly anxious to have done with them.

  “My dear, I am not as confident as you that Dumba will respond to your note,” George said as he helped her sit on one straight backed chair and prop her peg up on another.

  “I am by no means certain myself. What I do believe is that if the note does not excite his interest then he is not capable of helping us in any meaningful way.”

  In a few minutes the clerk returned. This time he walked down the stairs one at a time at a moderate pace—purposeful but not so fast as to compromise dignity. He crossed the mosaic tile floor to their chairs and bowed slightly.

  “Doctor Dumba will see you now,” he said politely, without a trace of apology, defiance, or surprise, as if their entire earlier conversation had never happened.

  George helped Annabelle to her feet and they followed the clerk back upstairs and to a cluttered but well-furnished office. The clerk closed the door behind them and left them with the man Annabelle assumed must be Dumba.

  The man started to rise but then quickly sat back down, snatched a handkerchief, and sneezed into it, sneezed with the thunderous report of a small cannon. He wiped his nose with one hand and waved them forward with the other, gesturing to two chairs in front of the desk. There was, as always, the awkward matter of Annabelle’s peg which stuck out straight when she sat. George turned the chair on the left a quarter turn to face the other, settled her in it, then sat in the other and rested her peg on his left knee. It felt oddly homey, she thought, and quite natural.

  “I am Konstantin Dumba,” the gentleman said in English with only a trace of a Viennese accent. “You are the infamous Annabelle Somerset, or course. I have not the pleasure of the gentleman’s acquaintance.”

  “Commander George Bedford, Royal Navy.”

  “I am pleased to meet both of you. You will forgive me for not offering my hand. All it will avail you is transmission of this cold from me to you. For two years I have been stationed in St Petersburg, two freezing cold winters, but a dry cold. Now I come back here and in two days I have this cold. It is…” he paused, raised the handkerchief and sneezed again.

  “God bless you,” Annabelle said.

  “Thank you. It is the damp, I am certain.” He wiped his nose again and examined them. Annabelle took the opportunity to do the same to him.

  Dumba looked to be in his mid thirties and had a broad forehead and high brow, enhanced by his receding hairline. His dark moustache was full and drooping. His eyes had a droopy, sleepy quality of their own, offset by semi-circular eyebrows which seemed always in a state of mild surprise—as if he might drift off to sleep at any moment except for the two odd people before him and the remarkable card he had placed in the centre of his desk. His eyes now dropped to it. He turned it over to show the single word written on the back—Peregrine. He tapped it with his blunt finger.

  “I know you by reputation, Miss Somerset,” Dumba said. “There are those who say you had something to do with the destruction of Peregrine Station. You were imprisoned for it and then released—yes, I know that much at least. Perhaps you should tell me your side of the story.”

  “In company with Nathanial Stone I was on Peregrine Station right up to the hour of its destruction and we escaped on the same aether cutter together. The man who engineered its destruction shot me in the leg, the result of which you can see with your own eyes.”

  “You have my deepest sympathy for your injury, Miss Somerset. And your role in this, Commander Bedford?”

  George shifted in his chair. “I am here as a friend of Miss Somerset’s, to see to her safety. There has already been one attempt on her life, possibly a second one last night.”

  “You believe her visit here places her in danger?” Dumba asked and his eyes narrowed. “Why, and what has it to do with Peregrine Station? I hope you do not hold the dual monarchy liable for your disability.”

  “Liable?” Annabelle asked. “Do you think we have come here to extort money? Our immediate concern is the danger to your ambassador and, by extension, a number of senior British officials, possibly even the crown prince.”

  Dumba’s face cleared and he leaned back in his chair.

  “You need have no fear on that count, Miss Somerset. The police have broken up the ring, arrested the conspirators, and seized their weapons. But as to—”

  “Did the police tell you that we captured the first member of the ring and provided the information which led to the others?” Annabelle asked. “Did they tell you the ringleader is still at large? Did they tell you the same source which led us to them now says the ringleader is acquiring gunpowder, undoubtedly for another bomb?”

  “You two did all that?” he asked, disbelief showing in his eyes.

  “We had friends helping us,” George said, “but the actual encounter with the villains which led to the capture occurred last evening in the Whitechapel district, and Miss Somerset and I were accompanied by one other stalwart gentleman. Four men set upon us and we drove them off with aid of a revolver, but Miss Somerset slashed one fellow’s leg with a sword cane and prevented his escape.”

  Dumba looked from Bedford to Annabelle and his eyebrows rose a bit more. “A sword cane?
How remarkable! Perhaps you should tell me everything.”

  4.

  ANNABELLE TOLD, as briefly and directly as she could, of her and Nathanial’s arrival on Peregrine Station, the troubles there, their efforts to get to the bottom of them, and the final confrontation with the French saboteur Le Boeuf, which ended with Annabelle crippled and the saboteur mortally wounded. Nathanial was barely able to get her into an aether cutter and escape before the station was destroyed in the aether vortex where the wake of Earth and Venus met. The following interludes on Mars and Luna she barely touched on, except as they related to the arrest of Nathanial and the attempt to lay blame for the disaster at his feet. She told of her incarceration upon their return to Earth, the British government’s blackmail of her to sign over control of the Grant-Stone patents, and the subsequent cascade of events leading them to Dumba’s office.

  George and Dumba sat quietly throughout her account, Dumba with a look of intense interest, George with a neutral expression. When she finished Dumba looked at a landscape painting in the wall, chin in hand, and tapped a finger against the side of his nose absent-mindedly.

  “So you have travelled the aether after your visit to Peregrine Station, and before as well, one expects,” he said at length.

  “I have visited each of the inner worlds. It was not my original intention to do so, but happenstance so dictated.”

  “And did you notice anything…unusual about Peregrine Station?”

  “That a project of this apparent importance would be entrusted to command of a grotesque madman, that his staff seemed terrified in equal measure of him and of the spectre which haunted the place and cursed its very existence; those struck me as highly unusual. There was also the matter of gravity, of course. It was the only vessel, if you can call it such, on which I travelled where there was the sensation of gravity.”

  Dumba nodded.

  “Except, of course, for HMAS Sovereign,” Annabelle added and was rewarded with Dumba’s eyebrows climbing up his forehead, dragging his eyelids open beneath them.

  George sighed and Dumba’s gaze fell on him. “You have something to add, Commander?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  “You have no direct knowledge of these things?” Dumba asked.

  “I am first officer of HMAS Sovereign, sir, so I have direct knowledge of a great deal. But I would add nothing to what Miss Somerset has told you.”

  “What is this about your ship having gravity, as did Peregrine Station?”

  “As to that sir, I cannot comment,” George answered.

  “I insist on knowing,” Dumba said, leaning forward, and Annabelle saw a hard edge in his eyes she had not seen before. Was this the wisest course after all? But the question was meaningless—it was their only course.

  “I am doubly bound not to satisfy your curiosity, sir, bound both by honour and law. I have pledged my word not to discuss this, and as to—”

  “Yes, yes, I know, your damned Official Secrets Act,” Dumba cut in. “But surely you suspected Miss Somerset would reveal this secret. Does this not place you in an untenable position?”

  “I am myself bound by the Act, but I am not bound to its zealous enforcement. Miss Somerset was never, to the best of my knowledge, informed of her responsibilities under the Act, if indeed she has any at all, which I doubt. On the twenty-eighth last, she officially renounced the British half of her dual citizenship. Beyond that she was never sworn to secrecy concerning…anything regarding Sovereign.”

  “Why not?” Dumba asked.

  For the first time since arriving at the Austrian embassy George smiled. “An oversight, I suspect, or perhaps the misguided belief that there was nothing much to fear from the actions of one young lady.” He turned and looked at her fondly and she reached out and took his hand.

  “Yes, extremely misguided in this case it seems,” Dumba answered. He rose, walked to a window, and parted the curtain to look out. Sunlight briefly cast an irregular pattern on the floor, filtered through the patina of soot on the outside of the window panes. He dropped the curtains and turned back.

  “I almost forgot. We share a common friend, Miss Somerset. Mister Lincoln at the US Consulate has been anxious after you. He has tried to contact you but has lost track of your whereabouts after leaving some government house or other.”

  “Dorset House? But he knows my new lodgings,” Annabelle said. “He recommended them.”

  Dumba shrugged. “Could that have slipped his mind? Like me, he has a lawyer’s mind, so I think not.”

  Annabelle exchanged a look with George. Surely Lincoln had recommended the lodgings. Hadn’t he? The note had come anonymously, but it had come from the US Consulate—or at least from a gentleman standing outside of it. If not from Lincoln, then from whom?

  A knock sounded at the door. “Now what?” Dumba asked in exasperation.

  The clerk entered. “My apologies, Doctor, but you said to bring Professor Stone to you as soon as he arrived.

  “Nathanial?” Annabelle said.

  5.

  BEDFORD HARDLY RECOGNISED Stone, even though his exterior appearance—extreme height, ginger-coloured hair, and thick whiskers—was unmistakable, but fatigue and pain lined his face and his eyes had a wild, desperate look to them.

  “Good God, man! Are you injured?” Bedford asked, helping Annabelle to her feet.

  Far from relief or delight at seeing them, Nathanial looked at Bedford and then Annabelle with an expression close to panic. “What…? I thought I was to see the ambassador in private!”

  Bedford glanced at Annabelle and saw the remark had cut her deeply. She swayed as if to back away and then her face cleared and became an expressionless mask. Nathanial passed his hand over his face and shook it slightly, as if clearing it of unwonted visions.

  “I am very sorry for… I have been under some stress,” he said. He looked at his bandaged hand and added, “I have been in a fire and have not slept in some time.”

  “Captain Folkard was with you. Is he safe?” Bedford asked.

  “He was when last I saw him. I have left his company as our interests no longer coincide. I… It is good to see you well, Annabelle. I have worried a great deal about you.”

  “I thank you for your concern,” she answered coolly.

  “Yes. Um…your leg—it functions in a satisfactory manner?” he asked, as if struggling for a subject of conversation.

  “I have no complaints,” she answered.

  Bedford glanced at her before speaking himself. “She uses the peg carved by your Martian friend. The authorities took her mechanical leg from her when she was held in the Tower.”

  “Took it?” Nathanial asked and Bedford saw a flash of pain pass across his face, pain and guilt.

  “There will be time for reunions later,” Doctor Dumba broke in. “You have come here with information, I believe, Professor Stone. Your friends have already shared theirs with me. Perhaps you would care to do likewise. Pull a chair over to the desk.”

  Nathanial stood awkwardly for a moment and then did as told, dragging one up so that he sat with Bedford between himself and Annabelle. He looked from Bedford to Dumba uncertainly, still clearly off-balance from the unexpected encounter.

  “I know about Project ‘G’,” he said at last.

  Bedford looked at Doctor Dumba’s face but saw no change at all, not a flicker of recognition or of surprise. Dumba, he thought, had chosen his career well. His face gave nothing away across a conference table.

  “Do you have nothing to say about that?” Nathanial asked after a moment of silence.

  Dumba shifted in his chair and frowned. “You were the one who requested my time, Professor Stone, and insisted you had something of great import to tell me. Surely ‘I know about Project “G”’ is not the sum of it.”

  “It is odd to think,” Nathanial resumed, “that it was going on under our noses when Annabelle and I were at Mercury. The mention of the Austrian geological survey parties, the heavy deep shaft m
ining equipment in evidence, all of this becomes clear now, although at the time it seemed quite innocent. Mercury is mineral-rich for its size. Given the number of schemes in train for its exploitation, one more simply blended into the background. But that equipment was not used to extract metal, was it? Do you even know the material’s name, Bedford? Do you know what makes up that mysterious centre deck of your vessel?”

  Bedford did not know in scientific terms, but he knew its effect plainly enough. He returned Nathanial’s gaze without answering.

  “Commander Bedford has already explained he is honour-bound to remain silent on this issue,” Dumba said.

  Nathanial looked away, his face twisted with contempt. “Honour! There’s a word used to excuse villainy more often than oppose it. Tell Edwin about your honour. Poor Edwin.”

  Bedford was surprised to see Nathanial hastily wipe a tear from his cheek. What had happened to craft this profound a change in the man?

  “Plastik-Schwerkraftmaterial,” Nathanial said, “that’s what the Austrian scientists named it, due to its malleability. Ours call it gravitar, hence Project ‘G’. Remarkable substance! I have, ah, procured all the documentation on it. All other matter we have encountered in the universe exerts a gravitational force exactly proportionate to its mass. Gravitar exerts a force over one thousand times that of its mass. How much of Mercury’s gravitational pull is due to the layer of gravitar deep beneath its surface, do you suppose?”

  “I have no idea, Professor Stone,” Dumba answered. “My doctorate is in law, not physics.”

  “No, but you’ve probably read the reports of your men. They don’t know either. It is certain the entire core of the world cannot be composed of it, given its orbit and apparent mass—whatever mass now means. But circumspection is required in its excavation, is it not? Who knows what the effect of disturbing the planet’s inner shell of gravitar might be?

  “But that is really the least scientifically interesting thing about it. Gravitar’s force is polarized, bi-directional instead of omni-directional. A carefully constructed sheet, one crafted so the crystalline structure is aligned and coherent, exerts a constant gravitational pull in each direction perpendicular to the sheet.”