by Kage Baker
“Not at present, thank you,” said Ludbridge. The steward bowed and left them. Directly the compartment door had shut, there were whoops of gleeful laughter from the younger Residentials. Ludbridge looked on benignly.
“Look at this!” crowed Bell-Fairfax. “Oyster patties! Tournedos of beef filets. Fricandeau of veal. Sweetbreads. Terrine de fois gras. Stuffed shoulder of lamb. Terrapin bisque. Asparagus!”
“There’s a wine list on the back,” said Hobson. “Oh, my sainted aunt.”
“I shall wake up soon and find myself back on that beastly barge, with nothing for breakfast but a lump of cheese and a crust,” said Pengrove. “Good God, fancy getting the mud of the Danube off our shoes at last! And a real laundress ironing one’s smalls. Utter bliss.”
“Just don’t make pigs of yourselves,” said Ludbridge. “It’s four days to Aalborg.”
“And . . . this is all some sort of ancient mining tunnel?” Bell-Fairfax peered out the window at the rock walls rolling past.
“No one knows,” said Ludbridge.
“Perhaps the Romans built it,” said Hobson.
“An immense circle from Denmark to France to Wallachia? Bit beyond even their engineers, I should think,” said Ludbridge. “It’s been speculated it’s a natural geologic feature, like one of those, what-d’ye-call-’ ems, lava tubes in the Sandwich Islands. I have my doubts. It’s a bit odd how it’s all one diameter the whole way through, and runs close to underground water sources at just the places one would need them, if one were going to run a system of galvanic water-powered turbines.”
“But what could it be, then?” Bell-Fairfax lowered his menu and stared at Ludbridge. Ludbridge shrugged.
“There are rumors that our Informant—whoever he, or they, might be—built it. You heard the story about the meeting at Ostia, I suppose, when you were first recruited?”
“Some chap visited them from the future, I was told,” said Hobson.
“I, too,” said Pengrove.
“And I,” said Bell-Fairfax.
“Well, there you are. If the Society discovers how to travel through time, at some point in the distant future—and clearly they will—then the first thing they’ll do, quite sensibly, is go back into the past and guarantee that that traveler walks into that house at Ostia on that particular day, and assures the Old Members that they must carry on their good fight. And then, what I would do next—and clearly they have done—is send the annual letters with helpful advice and instruction, based on their foreknowledge of what is to come.”
“Quite true,” said Pengrove. Ludbridge leaned forward, his eyes narrowed.
“But think for a moment about what that means,” he said. “If you had the ability to travel through time, would you stop there? I wouldn’t. If you knew that the very existence of that paradise of technologia in which you dwelt depended on some poor benighted band of fellows struggling along through the past, wouldn’t you give them all the help you could?
“I think they built this tunnel, for our use. If they can travel through time, is it too great a stretch of one’s imagination to think that they also possess machines that can burrow through rock as easily as an earthworm burrows through loam? Who knows what they might or mightn’t be able to do? You think this railway is a marvel, and yet we built it ourselves, simply employing well-known scientific principles our fellow men have been insufficiently visionary to put to use. Can you imagine the machines we’ll build, centuries hence?
“There have always been stories, you know, of mysterious strangers coming to the assistance of Society members who find themselves in difficult straits. Good angels, if you will. They appear at precisely the right moment, they guide one out of danger, they miraculously happen to have money or a fast horse or whatever it is one needs—and then they vanish.” Ludbridge made a sleight-of-hand gesture like a conjuror, and the stump of his cigar vanished from between his fingers.
The others stared at him, openmouthed. Bell-Fairfax in particular, he thought, looked like a child who had just been told about Father Christmas for the first time.
“Sirs?” The steward rapped politely on the compartment door. “May I take your orders now?”
“Yes, thank you.” Ludbridge smiled and handed him the menu card, then produced his cigar from thin air and flicked away a bit of ash. “I’ll have the terrapin bisque, poached salmon and green peas, with your best sauterne. Chaps? Tell the nice gentleman what you’ll have.”
They left their compartment at noon and proceeded along the corridor, past other compartments, to the restaurant car. For all that its windows looked out on black primordial rock, it was elegantly appointed and beautifully lit by vacuum lamps behind tinted shades. Each table bore a single fresh rosebud in a cut-crystal vase; a string quartet played quietly on a raised dais at the rear of the car. The steward conducted them to their table and retired; the moment they had seated themselves, waiters swept in and served their meal, departing with a bow after pouring the wine.
“If I wake from this dream now, I believe I shall throw myself in the Danube,” said Pengrove, considering a spoonful of terrapin bisque.
Ludbridge chuckled. “It’s real enough. Enjoy it while you can; it may well be rather more rough in the Baltic, in autumn.”
“Are we going to Rus sia?” asked Hobson.
“You’ll know when I tell you,” said Ludbridge imperturbably. “Do you often discuss private matters in eating houses, may I ask?”
“Of course not, but surely—” Hobson waved a hand at the other diners in the car. There were a pair of gentlemen in fezzes at the near table, a blonde lady and gentleman—alike enough to be brother and sister—at the table just beyond, and a solitary gentleman in a military uniform seated near the string quartet. “They’re our own people, what?”
“Quite true. Still, it doesn’t do to get out of the habit of prudence, does it?”
“It certainly doesn’t,” remarked one of the gentlemen wearing a fez.
“There, you see?” Ludbridge waved his soup spoon at the man, who acknowledged him with a slight bow. “You never know who might be listening.”
The Galvanic Express carried them on, gliding under Europe so smoothly there was scarcely a vibration in the wineglasses at meals. No scream of whistles, no Dopplering noise anywhere; only the clink and rattle of cutlery and the soothing music produced by the string quartet punctuated the hours.
Each evening, while they were at dinner, their compartment was converted to a dormitory by the steward, for there were ingeniously designed bunks concealed within the walls. The lavatory cabinet included a shower bath, in addition to other remarkable refinements in its fixtures. Their clothes were duly laundered, their boots cleaned, and a barber came and put them in trim—for they had all, as Pengrove expressed it, taken on the appearance of Romantic poets. A repairs technician took Pengrove’s talbotype camera away and returned it the next day in nearly pristine condition, though the lens tube still bore visible dents.
Quite recent editions of the London Times, Punch, and The Illustrated Weekly News were available for their amusement, when they weren’t playing cards. Hobson was given a considerable holiday, for the Aetheric Transmitter could not be used so far under the earth, and when he discovered there was a bar in Car No. Nine he wandered off there of an afternoon and generally returned breathing peppermint fumes. Ludbridge observed him closely, scowling, but said nothing before the others.
“And all good things come to an end,” said Pengrove with a sigh, as they watched the Galvanic Express pull away from the platform. The grinning head and car after car vanished into the tunnel, bound for Calais; the last they saw of it was the fanciful leviathan’s tail fitted on the end car, from which a glowing lantern hung pendant.
“So they do,” said Ludbridge. “Hoist your trunks, then; we’ll have a devil of a climb.”
But even as they were collecting their baggage, a man approached them. He was blond bearded and ruddy, and pushed a baggage cart before him. “Mr
. Ludbridge,” he called. Ludbridge turned and saw him.
“What becomes of illusions?”
“We dispel them,” said the man, wheeling the cart up to Ludbridge’s trunk. His English was excellent.
“And we are everywhere.”
“So we are. Hagen Stemme, at your service.”
They shook hands and Ludbridge added: “So sorry to hear you’re losing Orsted.”
“Ah! So are we. Still, it has been a life well lived. The Kabinet of Wonders welcomes you to the north. Will you please to step this way? We have an ascending chamber to the inn, which is much more con venient than the stairs.”
So they were spared a considerable climb, a fact they appreciated more with every minute that passed in the chamber before it finally bumped to a gentle stop. The door opened and they stepped into what appeared to be someone’s bedroom, with a heavily curtained bed in one corner and old-fashioned dark paneling.
“The guest room,” said Stemme, as a section of panel slid shut behind them. “You have a suite of four. Nicely arranged, is it not? No one ever sees the guests arrive.”
“Where are we?” Bell-Fairfax inquired.
“The Green Lion of Aalborg,” Stemme replied. “It made sense to build it over the railway station. Did you enjoy your journey?”
“Rather,” said Pengrove. Stemme laughed and rolled his eyes.
“Who would go to France in a coastal packet, I ask you, when he could get there in such luxury? I will leave you to unpack. Here are your keys; when you have refreshed yourselves, come down to the private room and have a glass of akvavit.”
When he had left them, Hobson inquired, “What’s the Kabinet of Wonders?”
“Same as the Magi,” said Ludbridge, tossing him his key. “Only not Eastern. Name goes back to the days of old King Rudolf, Holy Roman Emperor in Shakespeare’s day. He was a bloody poor excuse for a king but he loved machines. Kept a whole court of inventors, astronomers, alchemists, that sort of thing. We were rather heavily involved with him—Kepler, for one—and the northern branch kept the name.”
“Why didn’t we try to influence him to be a better king?” asked Bell-Fairfax.
“That wasn’t our job,” said Ludbridge. “We might have used our influence to teach him his job, but what then? If he’d paid more attention to being Holy Roman Emperor, he wouldn’t have spent so much money in the cause of Science. And even if we had expended a great deal of effort trying to make him a virtuous, enlightened prince in the Socratic mold, it would all have gone for nothing once he’d died and a new fellow got the throne. Men don’t last, my boy. Machines do.”
Having unpacked, they trooped downstairs and found themselves in the common room of a bustling waterfront inn. Autumn dusk was falling blue beyond the windows, over the cold sea, and each lamp had a halo of golden fog around it. Stemme was waiting for them, slouched in the entrance to a paneled snug, and waved them over. They saw within seats drawn up to a table, whereupon was a bottle of akvavit, glasses, and a tray of savories.
“Doubtless you are stuffed like geese from your last meal, but the cold makes for a sharp appetite,” said Stemme, closing the door of the snug after them. He poured out drinks and handed them round. “To the great day!”
They drank. Stemme tossed his back like water and set his glass down, looking at them with shrewd eyes. “So, gentlemen! First, I have a message for you from London. The American Breedlove and his men were not apprehended; it is thought they have left Constantinople altogether, and so you are to continue to watch for them.”
“Damn,” said Ludbridge. “I suppose that goes for all field operatives?”
“London was quite specific that you, personally, were to look for them.” Stemme shrugged. “And a message came from Constantinople: it would appear that Breedlove’s group are being hunted by the Franklins. There was some unpleasantness—a death?—and apparently the dead man was one of the Franklins’ party.”
“Sorry to hear it,” said Ludbridge. “Still, good to know they’re dealing with their own embarrassment. And better to know Breedlove’s people haven’t got pyrethanatos.”
“Was that how the Franklins’ man died?” Stemme shuddered. He refilled and raised his glass. “To a dead brother, then.”
They drank again and Stemme set his glass down. “Now. What may the Kabinet do for you?”
“Get us into Kronstadt Fortress,” said Ludbridge.
Stemme leaned backward. “Is that a joke?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Ludbridge.
“Do you know anything about the place?”
“No. I had hoped you would brief us.”
“Then let me show you Kronstadt Fortress.” Stemme turned. Behind him on the wainscoting was a design of carved flowers. He pressed the center of one flower and a section of paneling on the wall opposite the door slid back, revealing a square of pure white canvas perhaps a yard across. He reached up to the pierced tin lamp that hung above the table and pulled; it slid down on a chain quite easily, with a faint ratcheting noise, and stopped at just below head height. He opened its front shutter, revealing a vacuum lamp within. From another concealed panel he drew forth a small box, which appeared to contain magic lantern slides. After sorting through them briefly he selected one and inserted it in the lantern, and turned a switch.
Instantly an image was projected on the canvas, clear and sharp: a map in the modern style, distinct as a photograph. It showed a deep narrow bay, at the end of which sat St. Petersburg. Halfway down the bay, in its center, was an island. It was marked with a small town and a fortress, the fortress having a clear aim across the water to either side of the island. As effective a defense as this was, however, it was augmented by a handful of other, smaller fortresses, squat cylinders of brick rising straight from the water, scattered across the bay to both right and left.
“To begin with, there is not one fortress of Kronstadt. There are all these,” said Stemme. “You would say they are like a chain across the bay, yes? And there are other barriers you cannot see. The bay is shallow. In winter it freezes solid. But even in high summer with a boat of shallow draft, what do you suppose would happen to an enemy ship if it attempted to run the gauntlet of those forts?”
Bell-Fairfax was staring at the map in horror. “It would be madness,” he cried. “Are those gun emplacements an accurate illustration?”
Stemme nodded somberly.
“Sir, it couldn’t be done,” Bell-Fairfax said to Ludbridge. “Nelson himself couldn’t have done it. Not without being blown to pieces.”
Ludbridge nodded grimly, not taking his eyes from the image. “So it would appear.”
“And in any case, getting in is not the issue. All freighters must put in at Kronstadt to have their cargo minutely examined by corrupt officials. The concern for them is getting out; some have been detained there for weeks, for nothing worse than attempting to enter the country with Russian money on their persons. I do not like to think what would happen to anyone they apprehended in the act of sabotage. May I ask why it would be necessary to attempt such a thing?” said Stemme, shutting off the lamp and removing the glass slide.
“You know there’s going to be a war,” said Ludbridge, sitting down. He helped himself to pickled herring. Stemme nodded as he put away the glass slide.
“We have been Informed.”
“It has been suggested that intelligence regarding St. Petersburg’s defenses is a desirable thing.”
“Has it?” Stemme pressed the button in the wainscoting, retracting both the screen and the lamp. “Only intelligence? And desirable for the Society? Or for England?”
Ludbridge chewed deliberately before he answered, and began assembling a sandwich from among the savories and dark rye on the table. “Both, I suppose. Help yourselves, you lot, this is excellent. Eat something, Bell-Fairfax, you’re still white as a ghost. Here’s the way of it, my friend: it is felt in certain circles that a victory for Britain is de facto a victory for the Society. Britain will spre
ad, is spreading civilization through its colonies, all across the world. The Czar’s authority serves only to advance the greater glory of the Czar; our queen’s authority serves to advance the mercantile classes, which promote technologia in their own self-interest.
“However much we may dislike the idea of an empire, for now Britain is clearly the horse to be backed.”
Stemme shook his head. “Slippery. You will be seen as taking sides out of patriotism.”
“I know. I thought the same thing myself, when I received my orders. Orders are orders, however.”
“Our Russian members are unlikely to see it quite that way, you know.” Stemme sat and poured himself another akvavit.
“Well, they needn’t concern themselves; as you’ve just shown us, we’re unlikely to be able to do much more than report back to London that Kronstadt is impregnable.” Ludbridge bit into his sandwich. He made ecstatic sounds. “Mmf! Wonderful!”
“I will pass on your compliments to the cook.” Stemme relaxed a little, smiling. “Is there anything else we can do for you, since you agree that it would be foolish to attempt Kronstadt?”
Ludbridge shrugged, chewing steadily. He swallowed and said, “We could look at a few lesser sites, I suppose. Might you provide us with a boat?”
“Of course. We have a yacht, very well appointed. Where would you like to go?”
“Oh, here and there,” replied Ludbridge, helping himself to the akvavit. “Finland?”
The Orn was a sweet craft, if completely devoid of power sources advanced or arcane. She glided down the Kattegat effortlessly, to the Copenhagen roadstead. At Copenhagen they went ashore with the talbotype and took a few humorous pictures, posing Bell-Fairfax and Hobson lying under the trees at Rosenborg Gardens, clutching akvavit bottles and shamming unconsciousness.
From Copenhagen they continued down into the Baltic and made northeast, standing out well to starboard of Bornholm, north past the Oland light. They went ashore at Gotland and posed Hobson holding his nose in front of some cottages where salt cod were hung out on lines to dry, like washing.