Nathanial looked at Annabelle and then back at the soldier. “I’m sorry,” he said with a frown. “Doctor who?”
“Doctor Fontaine,” the soldier repeated.
“No, I heard what you said. Who is this Doctor Fontaine? And why on Earth would he want me to ‘attend him’?”
“Why on Mercury, surely,” Annabelle corrected him with a smile, but he was clearly in no mood to be mocked, however gently.
Alexander hovered solicitously and took a step back from the door, as if expecting Nathanial to follow him. “He didn’t say, sir. He just asked me to, um, convey the message.” He remained where he was, almost in silhouette in the perpetual twilight of Princess Christiana Station, just a hint of dusklight catching the side of his head.
“And by ‘convey the message’,” said Nathanial peevishly, “I take it you mean ‘escort me to his laboratory’ wherever that might be…?”
The soldier said nothing, and his embarrassment was almost palpable. The only sound was the gentle whirr of the ceiling fan.
“Tell him,” said Nathanial at length, “that I shall attend him, as you so delicately put it, when Miss Somerset and I have finished our unpacking and have a chance to freshen up.”
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said and nodded respectfully to Annabelle. “Ma’am. Sorry to have disturbed you. I’ll let Doctor Fontaine know. I’m sure he’ll understand. I’ll return shortly and wait for you out here, shall I?”
Before either Annabelle or Nathanial could object, Lieutenant Alexander saluted and pulled the door closed.
“Well, well, well,” said Annabelle.
“Well, well, well be damned!” spat Nathanial, a look of utter astonishment on his face. “The cheek of the Devil—having me attend him. Who does this Doctor Fontaine think he is? I’ve never heard of the fellow. Doesn’t say much for his scientific credentials.”
“Perhaps you should take it as a compliment,” suggested Annabelle, picking up the hairbrush and pressing it into Nathanial’s hand as she headed for the door. “After all, you may not have heard of him, but he’s clearly heard of you… And you’re not even a real professor, Professor Stone. Fifteen minutes,” she said as she stepped outside. “Perhaps you should spend time practicing your bowing!”
2.
Of course, Nathanial wasn’t ready in fifteen minutes.
Annabelle had returned from her own hut to find Lieutenant Alexander standing by the door waiting and looking vaguely ill at ease. “Another five minutes he says, ma’am,” he said.
“How typical of a man, to keep a lady waiting,” said Annabelle with a smile and tipped her head back to look at the sky. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s…very different to back home, ma’am. I’ll give you that,” Alexander agreed.
“You don’t think it’s beautiful—in a strange, unearthly sort of way, then?”
Almost directly above her head, stretching from the roof of one of the huts some twenty feet in front of her to where it vanished into the ghostly almost-silhouettes of trees behind her, was the most beautiful dusk—or dawn—Annabelle had ever seen. Shading remarkably quickly from the blackest of blacks on her left to the creamiest buttery yellow it became a dazzling duck-egg blue just before it faded almost to violet below vanishing beyond the absurdly curved horizon on her right.
“I’ve heard tell,” Alexander broke into her reflections, rather sheepishly, “that the reason it’s so narrow—” he gestured upwards “—the dusklight, as they call it—is that the air’s so thin. The atmosphere that is,” he added, as if wanting to impress her with his learning. “Something about it spreading the light.” He gave a nod as if to let her know that his information was accurate and could be trusted. Annabelle stifled a smile.
“But explaining it doesn’t make it any less beautiful, does it? Dusklight, you say? Dusk and twilight combined into one eternal daybreak. Or eternal nightfall. Both, I suppose. Both at once….”
There was a tiny cough and Annabelle turned to see Nathanial standing there, all washed and groomed and with his smartest black suit and tie on. For a brief moment, she wanted to hug him to her—and then, as the three of them stood there in awkward silence, the moment passed and they were just three people, standing outside a little white hut on an alien world.
3.
“What were you doing?” asked Nathanial as Alexander them through the stuccoed huts of the accommodation quarters, past the larger, red brick houses of the officers and senior staff, and to what Nathanial assumed was this Doctor Fontaine’s laboratory.
“Doing?” replied Annabelle.
“Back there—when I came out. You were looking up at the sky. You had a look on your face.”
“A look?”
Nathanial sighed. “Really, it’s not important if you don’t want to talk about it,” he said, sensing her reticence.
“Oh, nothing really,” Annabelle replied, linking her arm through his, as they walked, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I was pointing out that that…” she gestured with her eyes towards the sky “is one of the most beautiful things we’ve seen on our travels. Don’t you think?”
“I can’t say I’d given it much thought. But yes, when you compare it the caverns of Luna and the encampments of Venus, I suppose it is.”
“You really are one of the most unromantic souls, you know,” she laughed, shaking her head.
“It’s just science,” Nathanial retorted, and realised even as the words left his mouth that they made him sound like the most incredible bore. “I mean,” he added, lamely, “not that science cannot be beautiful, obviously. Because it can.” He looked up at the sky. “And yes, I can see how that’s, um, quite enchanting.”
“Oh, Nathanial,” laughed Annabelle as Alexander stepped aside, holding the door to the laboratory open for them. “I’m teasing! Don’t worry so!”
4.
The building, like so many that Nathanial had encountered since he’d left Earth almost two months previously, at the beginning of May, was constructed in an ersatz contemporary style, from red brick (presumably brought at huge expense from Earth) with wooden doors and ornate wooden carvings and mouldings, not to mention glass. He wondered whether the temperatures on the Bright Side of the planet made glass-working here easier or not, or if that, too, was brought from Earth. He had so many questions. As ever, he added to himself ruefully.
The interior of the lab building was coolly simple and the wood-block floor “clucked” reassuringly under their lead-weighted feet.
For a laboratory, thought Nathanial, the room inside was remarkably poorly illuminated. A huge wooden table ran down the centre of the room, piled with rocks and dirt and papers in an unholy jumble that Nathanial felt the immediate urge to begin tidying. Along both long walls lay cabinets and smaller tables, and enormous machines, the purpose of which he could only guess. Some resembled oversized drills, others machines for cutting or polishing. Along the right hand wall there were a couple of desks, huddling in pools of brighter electric light; and it was in one of these that a man sat, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded.
For a moment, Nathanial met his eyes—dark, intense eyes that assessed him and, briefly, Annabelle—before they crinkled up in a smile. Their owner immediately unfolded his arms and propelled himself from his chair like a bullet from a gun.
“Professor Nathanial Stone!” the man exclaimed, rushing forwards and grasping Nathanial’s hand. He pumped it firmly, placing his left hand over the top in a rather excessive manner. The man pulled back, looked Nathanial up and down with a beaming grin, and then, as if he’d only just remembered that Annabelle was also in the room, turned to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her. On both cheeks.
If his name and accent hadn’t given away the man’s nationality, then this display of familiarity towards Annabelle surely had, thought Nathanial, feeling slightly defensive of her. He glanced at Annabelle and saw her eyeing the man with a slight warilness Nathanial could ima
gine what she was thinking: why was a Frenchman—at war with Britain just three years ago—working here?
“And the enchanting Miss Somerset,” the Frenchman said. He had a casual demeanour that Nathanial didn’t imagine would commend him to her.
“You’re too kind,” she said glancing at Nathanial. “Doctor Fontaine, I take it?”
“Please, please,” said the man pulling out a dusty chair for her from beneath a desk and giving it a cursory wipe with a cloth he’d plucked from the equally filthy table. “Call me Arnaud. I do not stand so much on the ceremony, as I think you say, yes?”
“Your English puts my French to shame, Arnaud. And please, call me Annabelle.”
“Doctor Fontaine,” cut in Nathanial.
“Arnaud. I insist.” He smiled. “Otherwise I shall insist on calling you Professor Stone.”
Which would have been fine by Nathanial, but then he remembered how dull and plodding he’d sounded to Annabelle outside. And by contrast with the Frenchman, he’d probably sound even more so. “Arnaud,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “And please—Nathanial will be fine.”
“Merveilleux!” beamed Arnaud. “To have another scientist here from Earth is just the gin and tonic I need. Come, please, sit!” He dusted off another chair—a little less assiduously than he’d dusted off Annabelle’s—and gestured for Nathanial to sit before producing a bottle of brandy and two glasses. A little more hunting uncovered a dusty china cup and saucer which, in a clear attempt at gallantry, he offered Annabelle. “I can have tea brought here,” he said, “if the finest cognac isn’t to your tastes, Annabelle. Perhaps, as the Americaine here, you would prefer the bourbon, non?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“That is indeed a great shame—a little cognac, I think, helps make friends of acquaintances.”
Nathanial felt he couldn’t refuse and allowed Arnaud to pour him a small measure.
“To our meeting!” said Arnaud, and he and Nathanial clinked glasses and drank. “Now,” Arnaud announced, after he’d let the brandy go down. “I am assuming, yes, that your arrival here is not a coincidence.”
Nathanial frowned. “I’m sorry—not a coincidence? Not a coincidence with what?”
Arnaud leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands across his stomach. He was clearly no stranger to good food and wine, for his stained shirt failed to conceal a well-fed frame. He was considerably shorter than Nathanial (but since he was almost seven feet tall himself, most people were) with dark, curly hair and a couple of days’ stubble and full—almost cherubic—lips. A smile tugged at the corner as he seemed to be enjoying Nathanial’s discomfort.
“Oh, come Nathanial.” The smile grew and Arnaud flicked a mischievous look at Annabelle. “One of the most notable British scientists and inventors—and an explorer to boot!—decides to pay a visit to this little ball of overheated rock, just a month past the death of Professor Fournier, and—”
“Fournier?” Nathanial turned the name over in his head for a few seconds. There was a vague familiarity to it, but for the life of him he couldn’t place where he’d heard it. There were few lady professors of note, and he felt sure that, had he encountered her before, he would not easily have forgotten her. “Please,” he continued, “enlighten us. You appear to have been following my, ah, career more closely than I have been following events on Mercury, alas.”
Arnaud unclasped his hands. “Oh please, please—I do not have the intention to cause an offence to you. Your work is becoming—” His fingers fluttered as he struggled to find the right word “legendary, I think is how you say, non?” The smile in his brown eyes made Nathanial suddenly feel very uncomfortable, thinking that people might have been discussing him. A blush rose to his cheeks and the Frenchman obviously sensed his discomfort. “I am sorry,” Arnaud said hastily. “I am making my stupidity worse, am I not?”
Nathanial brushed it away, wishing not to dwell on his own embarrassment but simply return to the matter of this Professor Fournier. “You said she died,” he cut in, a little sharply.
“Ah yes.” Arnaud’s face once again became mournful and he sat back in his chair. “A most terrible death, and at the peak of her career, also.”
“Perhaps if you told me who she was and the circumstances surrounding her passing away…?”
“But of course, of course. Professor Fournier—Maria Fournier—was a most respected geologist. She taught the physical sciences at La Sorbonne—is where I met her. She was one of my lecturers. She had a most enviable reputation—particularly in geology but also in chemistry and physics, and had recently begun to turn her attentions to the science of the other planets. Have you heard of Doctor Bentinck? I believe he is a fellow of the Royal Society.”
Ah! At last, thought Nathanial, a name with which he was familiar. “Indeed I have—and a most…interesting gentleman.” Nathanial had met him several years ago whilst dining at The Clevedon Club, introduced to him by none other than Lord Kelvin. He recalled Bentinck as a sour, irascible fellow with a penchant for foul-smelling cigars and a certain brand of off-colour humour which Nathanial had not taken to. They had exchanged a few words on the nature of the aether and the possible implications for space travel.
Arnaud nodded sagely. “It was Doctor Bentinck who suggested to Professor Fournier that a suitable place to start in her researches might be Mercury. It seems that certain elements of the planet’s composition were puzzling some of the people here, and then there were the rumours of an Austrian research team some time back that…” He smiled and waved it away. “I digress. Bentinck suggested that her knowledge of terrestrial geology—and her wide interests in Mars and Venus—would make her suitable.”
Nathanial nodded and Annabelle took this as an opportunity to jump into the conversation. “Sorry to interrupt, but if you men are going to go all sciencey on me, I think I’m going to go and find Uncle Ernest. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Ah,” said Nathanial, awkwardly. “Not at all, Annabelle.”
Arnaud stood up. “My deepest apologies if our conversation has bored you, Miss Annabelle.”
“Oh, not at all. And it would be nice to see my uncle again. I’ve barely exchanged two words with him since we arrived this morning. Nathanial and his science questions somehow seemed to edge me out.”
Arnaud nodded understandingly and went to open the door for her.
“Thank you, Arnaud,” she said. “I’ll see you two later.”
Nathanial nodded and waited until Arnaud had closed the door. “Are we really that boring?” he said.
“Perhaps a little, yes,” said Arnaud with a grin, sitting back down opposite Nathanial. “Where were we?”
“Professor Fournier…”
“Oh yes!”
Mercury had been, for many scientists on Earth, a far less interesting prize thanVenus or Mars. Its proximity to the sun made it paradoxically harder to reach than the other planets, since a huge amount of energy needed to be expended not only to reach it, but to escape it for the return trip. And the planet’s tidally-locked nature—with one face perpetually facing the Sun and one facing back out into the Solar System—had given the impression that life was impossible in its horrifying extremes of temperature, until Sir Basil Throckmorton’s expedition in ’76 proved otherwise.
Throckmorton discovered, to his delight, that Mercury was mysteriously denser than had previously been expected, and that, as a consequence, it had managed to hold on to an atmosphere, despite the ferocity of the solar radiation blasting it. And Throckmorton also discovered that where the Dark Side and the Bright Side met, there was a positively balmy habitable zone. It was around this ring that the World River ran, propelled by natural Coriolis forces; and it was along the banks of this river that a flourishing—if primitive—environment had sprung up: the animals here were mainly simple and amphibious, ranging from the thumb-sized up to the elephant-sized.
Only once this had been reported back to Earth did people start to take a serious interest
in the planet—especially once it was discovered that Mercury was a rich (if potentially difficult to exploit) source of tin, zinc and other low melting point metals, as well as the ammonia, methane and solid carbon dioxide from the Dark Side. Consequently, the British Empire suddenly found itself in need of experts willing to visit Mercury to investigate its possible uses. Thousands of tons of tin were collected from pools on the Bright Side and then dragged back to Princess Christiana Station for transport back to Earth. And who knew what other valuable minerals and substances might be found on one side or the other?
“So Professor Fournier came here to help work out the planet’s structure and composition?”
Arnaud nodded sadly. “And it was here that she died.” He gave a little shake of the head.
“May I ask,” enquired Nathanial, “how did she pass away?”
“She was exploring some of the caves that had been discovered—beneath our very feet. She was accompanied by a British soldier who had been assigned to her as her assistant. A Corporal Heath, I understand. They went down to obtain some samples—and she was killed by a fall of rocks. The corporal was fortunate to escape with a few of the broken bones.”
“What a terrible end,” Nathanial said, realising how close to death his own investigations had brought him on numerous occasions. But to be killed by something as impersonal and unthinking as a rockfall….
“Your arrival here was well-timed: they are hoping to reach her body tomorrow. They sent an expedition to recover it earlier, but until they could fit props to the tunnel and remove all the rock, they couldn’t reach her.”
Nathanial took a breath, hoping that his next words would not be misconstrued in any way as callous or disregarding of the professor’s tragic demise. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss—and for Professor Fourier herself, of course. But…you spoke earlier as if you thought my arrival here was not a coincidence. Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but, why should the two be connected?”
series 01 03 “THE GHOSTS OF MERCURY” Page 2