by Kage Baker
“Get the oil again,” he whispered. Bell-Fairfax fetched it from the satchel. Ludbridge gestured at the door. Bell-Fairfax oiled the hinges and lock, and a moment later stood to the side and turned the knob. The door opened in near silence. Ludbridge, holding the gun to his shoulder, stepped through quickly.
He stood on an empty landing. Before him, a staircase descended. No rats here, no smell of decay; he caught the scent of food recently prepared. Cigarette smoke, too. Leaning forward, Ludbridge peered over the railing but saw no lights.
With infinite slowness they went down the stairs. Halfway down, one of the treads creaked under their weight, and they froze and waited motionless for what seemed an hour before going on. They reached the next landing at last, where a door stood open.
Weapon ready, Ludbridge sprang into the room.
He muttered an oath. There was a narrow bed against the wall, a chair, a washstand. The bed was empty, the blanket thrown back to reveal the crimson glow of residual warmth. On the floor were a saucer, in which a cigarette smoldered still, a white-hot point of light sending up a lazy trail of coiling smoke, and the faint red thermal track of naked footprints leaving the room, unnoticed until now. Ludbridge and Bell-Fairfax stared at them in horror a moment, before following them out and across the landing. The prints led down the stairs to the next landing, glowing more brightly red in the malachite darkness as they progressed.
“He must have heard us,” whispered Bell-Fairfax. Ludbridge motioned for him to be silent, and slipped past him and down the stairs, following the trail as quickly as he might. Bell-Fairfax followed close behind. Brighter, brighter, the footprints were red as spectral blood now, descending and still descending.
The tracks led them to the ground floor. Here was the front door, firmly bolted; Ludbridge breathed a sigh of relief to note the tracks did not lead to the door. Nor did they lead to the dark kitchen, where a pan of coals still fluttered with waves of white heat across its scarlet surface. They led into a room to the right, where there was a divan, chairs, a table with papers spread out on it . . . all these things Ludbridge glimpsed before registering that the tracks led to a small door at the rear of the room. He grinned. Hiding in a closet?
He went across to the door. “Get ready to drag the beggar out,” he murmured to Bell-Fairfax, before pulling the door open. Without benefit of oil the door opened soundlessly, revealing . . . yet another flight of dark steps descending, marked by brilliant red footprints. At least he’s trapped in the cellar, thought Ludbridge, and angled around to look over the stair-rail.
He saw a bloodred figure on the floor, crouched, working intently at the catches of a trap door. It was the Greek, Arvanitis.
Ludbridge jumped the rail, knocking Arvanitis to one side as he did so. Arvanitis sprang at him. He saw a blade scything up toward his face and dodged, but it grazed his scalp and the fist behind it struck his temple.
The green and scarlet world vanished for a moment, in blinding stars that flashed before Ludbridge’s eyes. He dropped the revolver and grabbed his opponent’s wrists, as thunder seemed to echo from the cellar walls. They grappled there a moment, straining, grunting, before Arvanitis was abruptly jerked away from him and hauled backward.
Bell-Fairfax had grabbed Arvanitis from behind and was simply holding him up. The man shouted and gnashed his teeth, attempting to slash backward with his knife. “Oh, hush, can’t you?” said Ludbridge wearily, and struck the blade from his hand.
“Shoot him!”
“Rather hard to do that just now without hitting you too, and I’d have the devil of a time explaining,” said Ludbridge. He picked up the revolver, reversed it in his hand and hit Arvanitis hard with the butt. Arvanitis stopped screaming and sagged, limp. “At last.” Ludbridge stepped back and looked around for the knife. He found it. “Let’s take him back to his bed.”
Bell-Fairfax backed up the stairs, dragging the unconscious body of the Greek. Ludbridge trudged after them, though he was obliged to stop, panting for breath, at the first landing. He felt the trickle of blood down the side of his face, as the scalp wound bled.
They got to the bedroom at last. “Put him in his bed and hold him down,” said Ludbridge, for Arvanitis had begun to moan and struggle feebly. Bell-Fairfax obeyed. Ludbridge raised the barrel of the revolver and forced the man’s mouth open with it. As Arvanitis opened startled eyes, Ludbridge shot him.
“And that’s done, thank God,” said Ludbridge, in a toneless voice, as Arvanitis trembled and was still. “Put the blanket back over him.”
Bell-Fairfax obeyed without a word. Ludbridge took a dead hand and placed it on Arvanitis’s chest, and pressed the revolver into it. He dropped the knife on the floor beside the saucer. They walked out of the room and Ludbridge sat down on the staircase, sagging forward as he held his hand to the gash on his scalp. “Go up and look in the satchel,” he told Bell-Fairfax. “There’s a medical kit in a compartment in the side. Tin box painted white. Bring it down, won’t you, and I can clean myself up.”
“Yes, sir.” Bell-Fairfax fled up the stairs. When he brought back the kit he attempted to open it himself, but Ludbridge took it away from him.
“No. You go down to the front room and collect all the papers from that table. Fold them up and bring them back.”
By the time Bell-Fairfax returned with the papers, Ludbridge was squinting in pain from the styptic solution he had dabbed on his scalp, but his head was clearer. Having cleaned himself up and wadded the bloody flannels into his pocket, he got to his feet once more.
“Let’s get out,” he said.
At the window he packed the papers in the bag, with the medical kit and the Variable Magnet, less the pushpins. “Now,” he said, “we’re going to do something tricky. Going to leave his friends a sealed house. I’m going up to the roof. You’ll pass the bag up to me. Then you’ll secure yourself on the rope and climb out, and here’s the nasty fiddly bit: you’ll put that latticework back in place and shove the pushpins back in on the inside, from the outside.” He gave them to Bell-Fairfax. “Think you can do it?”
Bell-Fairfax’s goggles made it hard to read his expression, but Ludbridge thought he went pale. However, “Yes, sir,” was all he said.
Once up on the roof with the satchel, Ludbridge stretched out and stared up at the stars. He ran over the events of the last hour in his mind, making notes for the inevitable report, and had not got as far as he had thought he might before Bell-Fairfax hauled himself over the edge of the roof.
“How many pins did you drop?”
“None, sir.”
“What, none?”
“None, sir, I was quite careful. It wasn’t as hard as all that. One had only to reach through the holes in the lattice,” said Bell-Fairfax, untying the rope and coiling it up. “I was able to get the latch to fall into place once I’d closed the shutters as well.”
“Aren’t you the clever boy.” Ludbridge sat up with a groan. “Come along then.”
They crossed to the other roof and went down through the abandoned house, only pausing at the door to remove their goggles. The policeman was still standing at the corner. He looked searchingly at Ludbridge, who nodded. They walked on.
“Won’t the others notice we stole their papers?” murmured Bell-Fairfax, when they were in sight of their hotel. Ludbridge shrugged.
“If they get the chance to search. They shan’t, of course; the police will see to that. No doubt quite grateful for being left a plausible suicide. What the Russians will make of it, of course, is another matter.”
“Ah. I see, sir.”
They walked on together a few more paces, before Ludbridge looked sidelong at Bell-Fairfax and said: “Now, think how much more easily that would have gone if I could have persuaded the fellow not to struggle.”
The Corsican was irritated to see the party of four Englishmen in his establishment once more. They seemed better behaved today, however, or at least subdued; the older gentleman ordered only black coffee, and t
he idiot with the straw hat was willing to accept a glass of raki without a word of complaint. The Corsican assumed they had hangovers, and felt that it served them right.
“Was that Mr. Polemis who came to call this morning, when we were downstairs at breakfast?” inquired Hobson. Ludbridge nodded.
“It looked as though he was taking a package away with him, when he came down,” said Pengrove.
“He was.” Ludbridge blew on his coffee to cool it. He glanced at Bell-Fairfax, who was watching the length of the street. By day it was anything but deserted; merchants led strings of donkeys along it, street vendors with trays wandered up and down crying their wares, Europeans promenaded, hamals toted chests and sacks of goods up from the waterfront.
“Anyone knocking on the blue door yet?”
“Not yet, sir.” Bell-Fairfax turned his glass by its stem, without drinking, as he watched the street. Pengrove turned and glanced idly over his shoulder.
“Oh! I say, Bell-Fairfax, here comes your . . . er . . . lady friend.”
Bell-Fairfax looked along the Cadde-i Kebir and made an involuntary sound of surprise. Ludbridge followed his gaze and saw a Greek girl in trousers and jacket of a distinctive apple-green, thinly veiled in gauze, making her way along the street. Bell-Fairfax turned red and fixed his eyes once more on the side street; but as they watched, the girl turned down it.
Ludbridge leaned a little to the side to follow her progress. The girl walked with elaborate nonchalance, impudently upright, even if years of stern admonition kept her hand automatically up to hold her veil in place. Her hair was dressed with something that glinted through the veil, ornamental pins perhaps. He was aware that, beside him, Bell-Fairfax sat perfectly immobile, watching as the girl stopped before the house with the blue door.
Ludbridge held his breath. But she did not move on; she looked quickly over her shoulder and then knocked at the door.
A long moment passed. She knocked again, and backed away two paces to look up at the windows. She stared, she craned her graceful neck back. They were too far away to see her expression, and of course it was obscured by the veil anyway, but the change in her posture was perfectly eloquent: the saucy confidence fading, the quick movements of agitation and doubt, and at last the droop in her little shoulders as it began to dawn on her that the man for whom she waited would not open the door. Her beloved? Her brother, perhaps? She paced back and forth beside the door in growing bewilderment, and at last fear.
The girl turned and bolted, finally, hastening back up to the Cadde-i Kebir. Ludbridge was too far away to see whether or not there were tears in her eyes, but he imagined that Bell-Fairfax, who sat, white-faced and rigid, at Ludbridge’s elbow, could see.
A policeman emerged from a doorway as she passed and made to go after her. Another stepped forth and stopped him. They conversed a moment, with gestures, and then returned to their place of hiding.
Over the next hour or so, the rest of the story played itself out to Ludbridge’s satisfaction: men would arrive at the blue door, in twos and threes, and knock furtively. Policemen would emerge from the doorways opposite like wasps from a nest, arrest them, bind them, and hurry them away. By Ludbridge’s third cup of coffee, the business was finished.
“Got the whole band, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ludbridge, taking out a cigar.
“Will they hang them?” said Bell-Fairfax.
“Doubt it. The inquest will rule the man committed suicide, after all. But they can hold them on suspicion of murder until then, and I expect they’ll talk a great deal under interrogation.” Ludbridge lit his cigar and puffed smoke.
Mr. Polemis came to their door that evening, with many a bow and a smile, and gave them to understand that his friend was tremendously pleased to loan them the curious book that had so interested them. He offered forth a cedarwood box, which when opened proved to contain the silver-framed codex in its wrappings of silk, the al-Jazari manuscript. Mr. Polemis informed them further that he would call again on the following evening for the manuscript. He wished them a pleasant night and took his leave.
They waited until broad day to attempt to photograph the pages, setting up a table by the open windows. Bright as that made the room, it wasn’t bright enough; Pengrove might shift the table, and crouch as close as he dared with Bell-Fairfax holding his hat on for him, but the images produced were dark and obscure as though seen through a London fog on a winter twilight.
In desperation they took the book outdoors at last, and climbed the hill to the graveyard. There, where brilliant sunlight streamed down in the open areas between the cypresses, they experimented with laying the pages out on the fallen gravestone of a Janissary. Ludbridge and Hobson patrolled while Pengrove knelt before the pages and photographed them, with Bell-Fairfax turning the pages for him. Even so, they were unable to fend off an offended Frenchwoman, who thought Pengrove was mocking the Muslim attitude of prayer and gave him a severe lecture on respecting the customs of others.
But the developed pictures were glorious, as they emerged from Pengrove’s improvised darkroom that afternoon. Sharp and splendidly legible calligraphied text, snaking across pages and under fantastic images: flying chariots, robotic figures, elaborate hydraulic systems, complex geared machines of unknown purpose, magnificent winged engines. And, in the upper left background of each, the same broken inscription on stone imploring the mercy of God upon His faithful servant, Ali Hassan–somebody, who departed this earth aged sixty-two years and was an example to all men.
1850: Young Men Should Travel, If But to Amuse
When the dragoman arrived that evening to reclaim the book, he was accompanied by a younger Greek, in a fez and civilian clothing though very upright and military in his bearing. He was introduced as Mr. Mihalakis.
“And did you find the inventions interesting?”
“We did indeed, sir,” said Ludbridge. “Please convey our gratitude to your worthy friend.”
“I shall. Did you particularly notice the design for the steam turbine engine?”
“I did not, particularly, no,” Ludbridge admitted. “I’m quite sure our associates in Fabrication will be fascinated by it, but my men and I are mere hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
Mihalakis smiled. “But I have an invitation for you from our friend, and please understand that he does not speak to you as a Turk, nor I as a Greek, when we ask whether you would like to see what we have done with the design?”
“The Heron is entirely at your disposal,” said Mihalakis, as they came aboard the next day. Ludbridge looked about dubiously.
“Very nice,” he said, and sincerely, for the Heron was a beautiful craft, long and elegant, with elaborate carvings on her bows, much brasswork chased with ornamental patterns, and what looked to be a spacious saloon and ornamented flag mast aft. Over the entrance of the saloon was painted a green lion with a gilded ball in its jaws.
Ludbridge thought the Heron seemed to be rather underpowered, for all her splendor. What he could see of the engine housing in the waist looked undersized, and her one smokestack was distinctly small for a boat of her size. Nor was there any paddle wheel in evidence. The overall effect was of a pleasure craft designed by an amateur, with little knowledge of what was actually required to move a steam-driven craft through the water.
Mihalakis saw his expression. He waited politely until the porters had finished loading on their trunks. When they had been paid and gone back ashore, he grinned and said: “You do not for a moment imagine this boat will reliably take you to the Crimea.”
Bell-Fairfax, Pengrove and Hobson, who had had no idea what their next destination might be, looked at Ludbridge.
“No, sir, I don’t,” said Ludbridge.
“Understandable. Shall I show you our engine room?”
“Isn’t that the engine?” Bell-Fairfax pointed at the engine housing in the waist.
“That is for show,” said Mihalakis. “It rattles and hisses most convincingly, however.” He led them down a co
mpanionway to the lower deck. Ludbridge descended last, and when he turned round he found the others staring; for the Heron had a rather deeper draft than was apparent from above, and the lower deck, extending undivided by bulkheads from bow to stern, was immense. It needed to be.
Occupying a great deal of the starboard deck was a gleaming shaft and mass of rotors in a complex of pipes, nozzles, valves and blades. Balancing this out, on the port side, was a collection of tanks of polished brass, a row of lockers, and a series of wired boxes that looked as though it was some sort of electrochemical cell array. Several laborers—Ludbridge supposed they must be engineers, though they wore no ship’s uniform—were involved in loading objects into one of the lockers from a crate. The objects seemed heavy for their size, were the color of old bronze, and resembled cubes of some densely compressed material.
“The al-Jazari steam turbine,” said Mihalakis, waving a hand. “Somewhat improved. A great deal more efficient than a reciprocating engine, even a multiple expansion design. It powers screw propellers. It requires neither coal nor wood, while we have the compacted fuel.” He pointed to the crate of cubes.
“What’s that stuff?” inquired Hobson.
“An invention of the Magi. Think of it as a more useful version of Greek Fire,” said Mihalakis. “But permit me to direct your attention to the tanks. They distill fresh water from the sea. Eminently practical for a vessel powered by a steam turbine, yes?”
“I should say so,” said Ludbridge. “Can you drink it as well?”
“The water? Yes. Quite unnecessary to store casks of water aboard. And she has attained speeds of up to thirty-five knots, though of course it was necessary to test her at night.”
“At night?” Bell-Fairfax looked up from examining the distillation tanks. “How did you prevent her from colliding with anything?”
Mihalakis held up his index finger. “Ah! That is an even more remarkable device. Kindly follow me.”