by John Booth
“Ah Tom, I trust you slept well?” Dougal asked when he entered the breakfast room. Tom’s eyes were instantly drawn to the beautiful blonde girl sat at the breakfast table. She looked up and he saw her vivid blue eyes.
“Well enough. I thought that I was your only guest?”
Dougal’s eyes twinkled with good humor as he saw Tom’s prolonged stare at the girl.
“And I thought you had eyes for none but Laura. Shame on you, Thomas Carter.”
The girl’s face reddened and she stood up to speak.
“Since Lord McBride will not introduce us, I shall defy convention and do it myself. I am Lieutenant Antonia Wright, Telepath Grade One, on detachment to this madhouse.”
Tom’s mouth fell open. Grade 1 telepaths were extremely rare and were always assigned to the most strategic places in the Empire. Her presence indicated that LTA1 was highly important to somebody.
“The young man with his tongue out and drooling is Lieutenant Thomas Merlin Carter, Healer Grade Three, though don’t be fooled by that. Tom is much more than he seems.”
Antonia looked taken aback. “There can’t be two men with such a name who are healers. He is one of those who killed your father.”
Dougal smiled. “I do not hold it against him, but you might want to take note that it was only after my father was extremely rude to him.”
“Still teasing the ladies, my lord?” Tom asked as Antonia’s face took on a deeper shade of red. He gave Antonia a military style bow as she had not offered her hand to him.
Antonia realized her lapse and dithered, uncertain whether to offer her hand or leave it where it was.
Dougal laughed, “Now do you see how important this place is, Tom? Not only do we have a Grade 1 Telepath, but we have the prettiest and easily the most embarrassable one in the entire world.”
Antonia decided she could take no more; with a curt ‘excuse me’ she left the room at a run.
“Eat up, Tom. I want to show you what is in the construction shed before you are taken from me to attend to bee stings and the like.”
Arnold entered the MM3 building wondering what he had done now. An urgent message delivered by runner that morning had ordered his immediate attendance. He made his way to the Director’s office.
“You are late,” Harris said dryly.
Arnold felt like complaining that it was barely nine o’clock. However, experience had taught him not to answer back to superiors in the new MM3.
“Traffic was dreadful.”
Harris ignored his answer and waved him into the inner office, following behind him.
Sir Anthony Baxter was hardly any friendlier.
“What have Trelawney and Mann been up to?”
“Nothing,” Arnold said truthfully. “Sir Ernest takes a walk in Hyde Park each morning, then has luncheon at his club before going on to the British Library. Miss Mann has been handling the wedding preparations.”
Baxter thumped his desk. “And yet he took time out yesterday to visit me here.”
Arnold’s surprise showed on his face.
“Why did you not know of that?” Baxter asked. “It is your job to keep me informed on what he is up to.”
“He never said a word.”
“And yet, somehow, he has discovered something about Dominican Snood. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Arnold found his mind leaping back to memories he’d been trying to forget, to dead friends and slaughter most foul.
“Well?” Harris prompted.
“Dominican Snood was a teacher at Hobsgate for a few months when I was there. He appeared to be working for the Americans who took us prisoner, but then he sacrificed his life to kill the ringleaders. His body was never found.”
“You saw him die? You were there?” Baxter asked sharply.
Arnold nodded.
“Tell me about it. We have only the reports.”
“The Americans had a strange boat that floats almost underwater. After they failed to kill us, Captain Wayne and Miss Pruitt used the boat to escape. Snood was hiding on the boat and we saw him use a bind that sucks the life out of the air. It must have killed all of them.”
“But you didn’t see Snood die?”
“We had to run; the bind was large and would have killed us too.”
Baxter pondered this new information. The report had only stated that Snood had sacrificed his life to kill the enemy.
“Go back to Trelawney and continue to watch him closely,” he ordered.
When Arnold left the room, Baxter turned to Harris.
“I knew Snood a little. There is no way on Earth he would have sacrificed his life to kill anybody.”
“He used a bind that got rid of the witnesses.”
“Then he disappeared. The Brotherhood would have chased him if we thought he was alive. He knows far too much about us.”
“How did Saunders miss this? He knew Snood better than anybody else.”
Baxter considered. “He probably had no time to investigate. The girl was the primary target and Lord McBride had been most insistent she be taken.”
“You believe Snood is alive?”
Baxter nodded. “This gives us even more reason to visit Trelawney. He may know where we can find him.”
The shed was even bigger than Tom had thought. Over a thousand feet long, several hundred feet tall and wider than it was tall. As they approached it, Tom’s awe increased.
“Your father built this?”
Dougal laughed. “Not personally. To my knowledge he never visited this site. He did, however, specify the mansion for his scientists. You missed out on meeting two of those, by the way. They leave for work at dawn.”
“But what do people do here?”
“We perform miracles, or at least one very large miracle. It would have come to my father if he had not died. It is complete and ready to start outdoor tests.”
“My God.” The doors on the side of the building were almost half the height of the building. Tom found it inconceivable that such doors could open. There was a much more reasonable door, only ten feet tall built into the first door.
“I was impressed when I first saw them,” Dougal admitted. “Even by Glen Russell standards this is an impressive building. The doors are surprisingly easy to open. Have you ever heard of a metal called aluminium?”
“That’s worth more per once than gold?”
“It was, but my father found a scientist who could extract it with ease using electricity. The method is an Empire secret, but before long aluminium will be cheaper than steel. He needed it to build the toy inside. And typical of my father, what he wanted, he obtained.”
Tom remembered Lord McBride’s father and shivered. The man had been insane for all his brilliance. “I wonder how many people he killed?” he whispered.
Dougal stopped as he took hold of the door knob. “It was his way and I wish I had known, Tom. Many people died developing dantium, only one that I know of died to give him the special gas he needed for this monster. Her name was Emma Franks and she was fourteen years old.”
Dougal opened the door and they stepped through.
A strange sausage shaped object dominated a vast empty space. Way above them, Tom saw hoists hanging from the ceiling, but they weren’t holding the sausage thing up. In fact, there were dozen of ropes strung across the room holding it down.
“That is HMA Hubris,” Dougal said with awe in his voice. Her Majesty’s Airship Hubris, that is.”
“It’s a balloon. Why would you make a balloon that big?” Tom knew something of lighter than air balloons and knew the Americans were developing them for warfare. But they were filled with hydrogen and a single bullet could cause them to explode.
A worker walked across the far end of the room and Tom was horrified because he was smoking a clay pipe. Double followed Tom’s gaze and laughed.
“Don’t worry, the ship will not explode. Not even if you were to set it on fire.”
“You have found something t
o mix with the hydrogen to make it safe?”
“We are in this God forsaken wilderness because of what can be found here if you drill beneath the surface. My father called the gas Elios. Elios is given off by dantium in tiny quantities. Spellbinders concentrated it and poor Miss Franks used her gift to locate more of it. Unfortunately, the exposure to dantium killed her.”
“What good is such a large balloon? They can’t be steered.”
Dougal set off along the side of the ship and Tom saw that the skin of the vessel was stretched over a frame. When they got to the end, Tom saw two massive propellers, one at either side of the ship. Pipes connected the propellers to a huge lead box at the far end of the ship. Though the ship was off the ground, the box was firmly on it. There were slots in the box above the pipe work, as though the ship had been lowered into the box.
“I don’t understand?”
Dougal grinned at his friend. “This is a powered balloon. The problem my father had was that though you can make a small dantium engine, the weight of its shielding would make its use impractical on a balloon. He solved the problem by removing the engine’s shielding.
Tom took a step back from the box. Dantium killed by damaging every cell in the body and making those cells fight against each other.
“The dantium engine makes steam, which powers a pump, which drives those propellers using pressurized air. The crew are located in the cupola at the front of the ship, far enough away from the unshielded engine to avoid its deadly effects. Ingenious isn’t it? When the ship lands, it will be lowered over lead boxes like this one, which will protect those on the ground.”
“And what will this Air Ship be used for?” Tom asked.
Dougal sighed.
“Oh, for war, Tom. What else? Mr. Gatling has provided two of his prototype rotary guns to us along with an engineer. The truly refreshing thing about Americans is they will sell anything to anybody if the price is right.”
Alice Short helped Tricky into the telegraph-boy costume. He was not pleased with the fit.
“She’s made mi trousers too short. Cutting into mi nadges sumat rotten they are.”
“I measured you mi-self. You must’ve grown. ’sides, it’s not like you got any use for them.” Alice said as she slapped at his hands for playing with his collar. She thought he looked good in uniform and she hoped the trousers wouldn’t do him any permanent damage. She had Tricky marked as husband material. As her mum was always saying, ‘You have to think ahead.’
“’slucky we’re only missin’ ethics. Becket ’ud cane us fer sure.” Becket was their mathematics teacher and liked to cane at least one pupil, girl or boy, every lesson. It was unusual to be taught in a mixed class, but then the school was unusual. Only children with variant magical gifts attended it.
“Things we do fer MM3,” Alice agreed.
“T’aint even them. It’s fer ’is lordship. If I’s caught, it’ll be the drop for me.”
Alice frowned, as this was a real possibility.
“Don’t get caught then,” she said tartly.
Tricky strode into the reception of MM3 as though he owned the place. He ignored Miss Talbot and went straight for the stairs.
“Stop, young man. Where do you think you’re going?” Miss Talbot said imperiously.
Tricky stopped in mid stride halfway up the first flight. “Telegram to deliver. Urgent, ma’am,” he said holding a telegram up in the air. He didn’t turn as he didn’t dare. Miss Talbot had seen his face on a number of occasions.
“Who for?” Miss Talbot asked suspiciously.
“Mister Smith,” Tricky said desperately. No one had thought to give him any names.
“Which floor?”
“Second, Miss, been there lot’s of times.” Sweat began to gather under Tricky’s collar.
“Then you should know its Doctor Smyth, not Smith, and be quick about it.”
“Doctor Smyth, you’re right, Miss. Got it now.”
Tricky ran up to Baxter’s floor. Then he had to stop and wait for the stitch to go away before he could move on.
He ran past a couple of people on the way to the office. Nobody stopped him or said a word. It was if he was invisible.
“I’m keeping this costume if I’s gets out alive,” Tricky informed himself as he slid into Baxter’s office. “P’vided Alice can stop ’em nippin’ mi nadges.”
Tricky got up on a chair to remove the painting the safe was hidden behind. Its lock was of the tumbler type and Tricky used his gift to watch the tumblers move as he turned the dial. He had memorized Trelawney’s combination, which he was using as a guide on how the lock worked.
“Dolt’s only changed one number,” he said with considerable satisfaction. Even being able to see the tumblers didn’t make it easy to see what was going on as there was so much metal getting in the way. But with Trelawney’s combination to start with, it only took him three tries to get the safe door open.
The safe contained several boxes as well as a lot of money. The folded five pound notes gave Tricky pause. This was more money than he’d seen in his life. It took him an effort to ignore them and investigate the boxes. The boxes contained manila folders marked with different colored stripes. It was only when he got down to the bottom of the last box that he found the folder with the blue stripe.
Tricky put everything back the way he had found it. His fingers lingered over the money, ‘surely nobody would miss one?’ Making up his mind, he closed the safe and replaced the picture.
“We have decided on your first mission,” Annelise told Cam.
“Good, I was wondering when I would get to serve the Empire,” Cam replied in fluent German. If anything, she had a slight Bavarian accent.
Annelise passed a Daguerreotype picture to her. She recognized it instantly and it was hard to suppress a gasp.
“You know him?”
“He looks a little bit like my father. Surely he is too old to be dangerous?”
“That is Sir Ernest Trelawney; he was once the Director of Military Magic Department Three in the British Empire. He was dismissed in disgrace after a recent mission. The mission was a success, but the British like to punish success just as much as they praise failure.”
“Why bother with him now?”
Annelise looked serious and put her hand on Cam’s. “Ingrid, you are young and naïve. We are not the only people who prey on the British Empire. There is an organization that eats at it from within that is known as the Brotherhood. We do business with them from time to time and now they want this man dead.”
“We kill this man so they are in our debt?”
Annelise nodded. “He is getting married in less than three weeks. You speak perfect English and will be able to attend the wedding without attracting attention. You will kill Trelawney and his bride during the ceremony.”
Cam nodded and then looked puzzled. “How will I get out without getting caught?”
“That will be down to your ingenuity. We have no time for agents who cannot look after themselves.”
Baxter settled down in his chair while Harris poured them a drink.
“So Snood is in France or possibly Brittany. Can he speak French?”
Harris handed him a glass and sat in one of the comfortable leather chairs that edged the wall. “Spellbinders write their spells in Latin. That’s pretty close to French.”
“I found Trelawney’s premise that Snood changed himself into a dolphin highly unlikely.”
Harris shook his head. “There were rumors that Snood was a better Spellbinder than his grade suggested. It’s as good a theory as any.”
“I’ll write a letter tonight. Inform the Elders and let them decide what to do. Given our plans, I can’t take the time out to track him down.”
“You note our bigger problem?” Harris asked.
“Of course. Trelawney still has agents reporting directly to him. ‘Saw an article in a French newspaper,’ indeed. He probably had the story planted by the agent who spotted Snood.
The Elders have told me not to worry about Trelawney, but I think I may have no choice.”
The two men sat in silence for awhile. Baxter noticed something and sat up straighter in his chair.
“Does that painting look askew to you?”
He pointed at the large painting that hid the safe. Harris looked at the painting and shrugged.
“Probably knocked by the cleaners.”
“You may be right.” Baxter sat back in his chair, but his pig-like eyes continued to stare at the painting suspiciously.
Tricky handed the folder to Belinda while the choir practiced hymns in the church. She eyed him up suspiciously as his emotions were in turmoil.
“Did something go wrong?”
“You could’ve given us a name in case they asked.”
“Yes, we should have thought of that. I’m sorry.”
“The trousers were too short, nearly cut mi nadges off.”
Belinda nodded; she was sure Tricky was holding something back. “I can’t change that now.”
Tricky gave Belinda a plaintive look. “Alice… Alice…”
Belinda was instantly alert. “What about Alice? Did someone hurt her?”
He shook his head and Belinda felt his emotions take an unexpected turn.
“She… ’sisted on rubbin’ ’em better. I…” Tricky blushed.
“Ah, well, yes, that would explain a lot,” Belinda said in a kindly way and put a sympathetic arm on his shoulder.
4. Progressions
Aberrant Magic
The number of people showing talents aberrant to those set out in the Newton archives is greater than originally thought. The magically talented find themselves with enough problems when they are discovered to volunteer that their talent does not exactly match the norm. Only children whose talent is far from the norm reveal themselves by their actions.
The work carried out under Lord McBride’s auspices located and investigated a number of children: Emma Franks who could detect mineral deposits as part of her Farseer talent, Alice Short, the world’s only transmitting telepath, David Hart who can see through walls, and of course, Ebenezer Sweeting who constantly sees the world five seconds into the future.