Caroline Lamb hardly ever appeared in public any more, let alone in situations where a stray word might embarrass her husband, the Queen’s Prime Minister. Why on earth has he brought her here? It was beyond comprehension. But then, it was beyond Ada’s comprehension why Lord Melbourne remained married to the woman who had so publicly cuckolded him when he was merely William Lamb.
Ada glanced toward Mr. Babbage, trying to catch his eye, but he, of course, was already deep in conversation with the Home Secretary.
“....But do you really believe you will be able to create sympathetic action without a sympathetic form?” the Home Secretary asked.
“The automatic sciences are not black magic, Home Secretary,” Ada said, boldly stepping into one of the few areas of conversation where her mother and the Furies could not follow. “Mr. Babbage’s analytic engine will respond to pre-designed commands given in the correct order, no matter what shape houses them.”
“Just so.” Babbage puffed out his chest ever so slightly. Indeed, it had been easier to create a working codex for the ship than for a human shaped automaton, but since they first entered into partnership, Charles had insisted they begin with what he called ‘the golems.’ “They are so like the toys people are used to, no one will object to them,” he had said. “Once they have been accepted, we can move on to the truly useful engines.”
“And what of the question of the soul, Lady Byron?” asked a man she didn’t recognise. He wore a bowler hat and a badly-tailored brown suit.
“I beg your pardon?” She looked down her nose at him, an expression she had learned from her mother.
But the man did not flinch, nor did he offer to introduce himself. “The soul. You’ve heard the reports, I’m sure—automata falling in love with their owners, or the mechanical valet running off into the woods in Scotland. People are saying your thinking machines are growing souls of their own. What sort of soul could a steamship house?”
“People say all manner of ridiculous things,” snapped Ada. “But no transference of soul from natural to mechanical form has ever been reliably recorded.”
“Then you don’t believe it?”
“I believe people mistake form for function.” Her voice was growing warmer than she intended. “They see a face and believe they see a human being, and ignorantly attribute a broken codex to voluntary control.”
“Well, I know I very much look forward to the demonstration,” interrupted the Home Secretary, drawing Ada’s attention from the bowler-hatted stranger.
“As do I,” said Lady Melbourne. Her voice was low and husky, with a velvet quality to it. “It is so wonderful to see what form your father’s gifts have taken in you, Lady Lovelace.”
“Are we ready to begin?” inquired Lord Melbourne, a little too hastily.
Mr. Babbage took Ada’s arm and positively hustled her down the quay with its red carpet and row of solemn, blue-coated sailors, away from Mother and her rival, toward the waiting ship.
Tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of steel, brass and teakwood had gone into the New Britannia’s construction. Her high-efficiency boilers could stand pressures higher than any ship on the Thames. Her steel prow was sharp, and her stern broad enough to hold the three enormous paddles, freshly improved on the basic design of America’s Mr. Fulton. The deck was wide and flat as a barge, but where an ordinary barge would have had a pilot house, there waited an enormous metal and glass enclosure for the analytic engine and its command console. There was a wheel and speaking tubes, in case of emergency, and hand-brakes for the paddles. Captain Wedderburn had insisted on them.
“It is not that I don’t trust you, Mr. Babbage,” he’d said brusquely. “But you’ll not find a sailor willing to take command of a ship he can’t turn should he have a need.”
Which was the truth. Babbage had looked for such a man and come up empty-handed.
On a working ship, the analytic engine would be housed more practically below decks. But New Britannia was the showpiece, and Mr. Babbage insisted it be grand and beautiful. So the columns and gears and bearings that were the brain of the ship gleamed beneath crystal windows for the world to see.
“All correct, George?” Mr. Babbage asked the engine foreman as they and the keyman entered the pilot house.
“As you left it last night, sir.” George nodded to the line of men and boys with their bare feet and stained clothing. “I’ve had them up with the sun, running the checks. She’s sound and she’s ready.”
The New Britannia was not the largest of what people were coming to call ‘Babbage engines’—not like the great Westminster Engine or the Defence Engine in Dover—but it was the most complex and delicate. As Mr. Babbage gazed upon the gleaming construct, Ada watched the rest of the world fall away from him. Here was the work of his hands, here was his heart, his fortune, his future.
At last, Mr. Babbage blinked and moved to the codex console, a brass and teakwood cabinet beside the ship’s wheel and, like the rest of the ship, larger and gaudier than it needed to be. “Lady Lovelace, if you please?”
Ada drew a small key from her reticule and handed it to Mr. Babbage, who opened the chest Bastion held. He folded back the white linen to reveal the first of the golden command cards. Ada lifted out the card. It was more like a piece of gilded lace than an important piece of a steam engine. She inspected the carefully aligned holes in their complex patterns, so familiar to her eye.
Ada slotted the first card into its rack in the console, then the second and the third, through to number ten. She closed the housing and stepped back. The crowd on the dock saw her motion and set up a cheer that reverberated through the windowpanes.
Captain Wedderburn drew a deep breath. “Are you certain you will not return to the dock, Lady Lovelace?”
Ada faced the weathered man and mustered her best smile. “Captain, this is a test of confidence as much as of the mechanism. If the engines fail, at worst we will have to be towed back to shore.” She raised her brows. “Or are you expecting a more dramatic situation?”
“Not at all, Madame. I have every confidence in your success here today.” But his eyes would not leave off searching hers.
“Then I suggest we proceed.”
“Very good, Lady Lovelace. Mr. Babbage, if you are ready?”
Mr. Babbage raised his hands with the air of a church organist taking his place in front of his instrument. “With your permission, Captain?”
“Granted, sir.”
Mr. Babbage waved to George. George herded the under-engineers and the steam monkeys to the starboard side of the pilot house. He turned one wheel, then another, opening the valves. The steam hissed out into the already moist air. Mr. Babbage cranked the key over, once, twice, three times.
The decking creaked. The analytic engine ticked and clacked and clanked. The hull shuddered as if the ship were waking from its sleep. Charles tweaked the valves once more.
The deck dipped slightly as the windlass turned, drawing in the great anchor chain. The cheering on the dock redoubled, and the crowd became a sea of waving flags and hats tossed into the air. The clang reverberated through the hull as the anchor slotted into place.
Slowly, ponderously, New Britannia slid from the dock, her paddles engaging smoothly. The steam hissed, and the analytic engine gears clacked in staccato rhythm. Underneath their chatter, Ada heard the delicate bell-like ring as the codex rack rotated, bringing the second card into place. Needles ticked and pricked as they read the patterns. Smaller gears chinged as they communicated motion to larger gears and larger yet. In the belly of the ship, chains strained to raise the hoppers of clattering coal to feed the furnaces that heated the boilers which drew their water directly from the Thames. Behind her, George watched the gauges like a hawk. He ordered the steam monkeys up among the gears and the bearings. They tended the mechanism, but they did not command it.
New Britannia, without a human hand to guide it, sailed upriver through the heart of London Town.
Overhead, t
he dirigibles unfurled swaths of red, white and blue bunting, and the fliers released tinted streamers of smoke. Ada saw the waving crowds on the shore, but she could hear nothing except the ticking, the chiming and the long dragon hisses that were the voice of the machine answering her commands.
The captain, foreman and engineers crowded around Mr. Babbage, shaking hands and offering their congratulations. But Ada stayed where she was at the gaudy codex console, communing with the sounds of the analytic engine, for one moment alone and content.
“We’ve done it, Ada,” said Mr. Babbage, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Whatever happens after today, we’ve done it.”
The chime of the card changes rang again, and Ada tilted her head. Too soon? She checked the watch at her waist.
A moment later, a wave slapped the bow, and the deck pitched, just enough to make Ada stagger.
“Ahoy! Ahoy the tug!” cried the lookout overhead.
Ada whirled around to face the bows, but she could see nothing past the expanse of the New Britannia’s deck. Fear constricted her chest. She gathered her skirts and ran up the spiral ladder to the lookout’s post above.
“...Where did it come from?” a lieutenant demanded as she entered the house. “This section of river was supposed to have been cleared!”
Ada snatched the spyglass from his hand and put it to her eye.
A battered wooden tug boat looked like a blocky minnow beneath the shadow of New Britannia. But it chugged steadily onward, oblivious, or at least unconcerned about the larger, faster ship.
What’s the matter with them? Why don’t they get out of the way?
“With respect, Lady Lovelace,” the lieutenant said from behind her. “Is it part of the test?”
Footsteps rumbled up the ladder behind them and the hatch slapped open again. “Mr. Babbage! I should have been informed...”
Something’s wrong.
“This has nothing to do with the test!” cried Mr. Babbage. “This was a preliminary trial only...”
The shape’s not right. The pilot house is wrong...
“Where’s the damn captain!” cried the sailor beside her.
Where’re the crew? Where’re the crew?
“It’s unmanned!” she cried. “It’s an automatic ship!”
“We’re going to ram it!” cried the sailor.
“Turn off the engine!” commanded Captain Wedderburn. “I must have the wheel!”
Ada flung herself down the ladder to the pilot house right behind Mr. Babbage and Captain Wedderburn. She jammed the key into the codex console lock and cranked it around hard to stop the rack and freeze the cards in place, unlocking the gears and returning command of the rudder to the wheel on the bridge.
Captain Wedderburn grabbed the wheel, wrenching it around, bellowing at the mate to reverse the paddles. What few sailors there were rushed to the rail.
Then came the sickening crunch of wood, and the deck bobbled and shuddered. They all stared at each other, white in the face. New Britannia had plowed the smaller ship under.
“The paddles!” shouted Mr. Babbage. “If any of that flotsam gets jammed in them...” He dashed out the cabin door, running for the stern with George hard on his heels.
All around her men and boys shouted questions to which there was no answer. Ada looked over to Captain Wedderburn, but the captain’s eyes fixed straight ahead as he bellowed into the speaking tube to the lookout.
What was it? A competitor? A Luddite trick? What is going on? Why would anyone build an automatic boat, then deliberately send it out to be destroyed?
The answer came immediately: No one would. This was something else. A distraction? To slow the ship and get us all looking ahead...
Then what’s behind?
“Mr. Babbage!” Ada whirled and ran out onto the deck. The wind slapped against her face. Her thin-soled shoes skidded on the slick planks and she had to grab the rail.
“Mr. Babbage!”
The howl split the air a second before she rounded the corner of the cabin. She looked upon a nightmare.
A black and dripping tentacle towered over the ship’s railing. Before Ada had time to blink, it wrapped around Mr. Babbage’s waist and yanked him from the deck. George cried out in horror. The lieutenant fired his side arm wildly, uselessly.
For one instant, Ada saw Mr. Babbage held up in the air. She saw his mouth shape her name.
“Canto Thirteen!” she screamed. “Canto Thirteen!”
And then the tentacle hauled him down, below the rail, out of sight. Then a loud splash.
The world narrowed to a single point of light. The decking hit her knees, her shoulder, her head.
Darkness.
V
Hands supported her. Voices babbled, blending into a single incomprehensible stream of sound. She was passed from the deck of New Britannia, to the quay, to the carriage, to her own room. Something was put to her lips. She drank it because she could not stop it.
After that, she did not so much sleep as wait, suspended in darkness as Mr. Babbage was suspended in mid-air in front of her. She screamed command after command, all of them useless.
William came in with the morning and her maid. Very gently, for him, her husband told her she was needed in the salon and insisted she rise. But she could not. It was as if her inability to command the release of Mr. Babbage had cost her the ability to command her own limbs.
After a few moments, William gave up and left.
Eventually, her mother came in.
“Ada, I will not have you disgracing me in this manner,” Lady Byron announced. “There are decisions which require your consent. You will compose yourself and do your duty.”
To Ada’s shame, her mother’s orders did what her husband’s chiding could not. She rose. Mother stayed, her face stony, while Ada’s maid dressed her in solemn grey. Then, Mother walked three paces behind her down the corridor, as if afraid Ada might bolt.
The grand salon was filled with a crowd of sober men interspersed with all of Mother’s Furies. She recognised the head of the police force and Home Secretary Lord Normanby among them. The men parted and bowed as she entered the room and sat down.
“Lady Lovelace, I know you are as shocked as we are at this terrible tragedy,” Lord Normanby said. “But our first thought must be that this was only an initial attack and we need to secure the facilities at Camden.”
She could not, however, fix her thoughts on this point. “There was a stranger,” she told Lord Normanby. “A man on the quay I did not know. He spoke to me...”
“All appropriate inquiries are being made,” said William. “Ada, the Home Secretary requires your attention.”
Ada stopped, and tried again. “The boat that cut across our path was an automatic...”
“They are aware of that, Ada,” said William. “Please, try to concentrate.”
The Home Secretary nodded his thanks to William. “No one wishes to appear indelicate, Lady Lovelace, but we cannot give whoever committed this heinous act any opportunity...”
Ada knew she was supposed to listen, but she could not. She knew these men wanted her consent to take over the Camden factory. They’d require a written direction to the manager, Mr. Eldrige. That was simple enough.
A deeper part of her mind would not be shifted from the deck of New Britannia.
I thought they wanted us looking forward, I thought it was a distraction, but it was a trap...
“...Therefore must ask you to surrender the...”
The tentacle was dripping. So black. Wrapped tight around his waist...
“...pro forma of course, but a written direction from you...”
“Vulcanised rubber,” said Ada abruptly.
Lord Normanby blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”
“Vulcanised rubber. That’s how the tentacle was made so flexible, and waterproof. We use it for gaskets on the engines, but our people have been experimenting with other applications.”
“Of course. Now, i
f I might...”
Ada got to her feet. “You were mistaken, Madame,” she said to her mother. “The decisions have already been made. Lord Normanby, my man will deliver the written direction you require within the hour. Excuse me.”
She left the saloon without looking back. It was imperative she think. She could not think down there, not with Mother looking on and all those politicians gabbling.
Ada reached the workroom door and undid the lock. She walked inside, and stopped dead.
A man in a rumpled brown suit stood at her marquetry writing desk. His collar was askew and a dented bowler lay on the table.
Her hidden drawer gaped open, all its contents laid out neatly on the desktop.
The man turned to see who had interrupted him.
“Lady Lovelace.” He bowed.
Outrage blossomed inside Ada, burning away the grey fog that had divided whole portions of her mind since the incident. “Who are you? What gives you the right to paw through my personal things?”
“Damon Worth, m’lady,” the man in the brown suit replied calmly. “Special adviser to Her Majesty the Queen. And the kidnapping of Mr. Charles Babbage gives me the right, m’lady, as I’m sure you’ll realise once you’ve given it a moment’s thought.”
Memory snapped into place, of a brown suit and ridiculous questions about machines and souls. “You were on the quay. Before.”
“I was, m’lady.”
Ada pressed her hand against the nearest tabletop, oddly dizzy. “Special adviser to the queen?”
Mr. Worth bowed again. “Her Majesty is aware that the automatic sciences are reshaping the world. She desires that a close eye be kept on new developments.”
Blocks of thought tumbled into place slowly, clicking one against the other. “Is my loyalty under question?”
“Not at all, not at all. But, as one of the geniuses behind the Empire’s new industry, it was necessary that you be kept under surveillance, for your own safety.”
“Were you also keeping Mr. Babbage under surveillance for his safety?”
“Of course.” Mr. Worth held up his hand, forestalling her next words. “You cannot reproach me worse than I have reproached myself, Lady Lovelace. I already attempted to hand in my resignation, but have been refused.” He spoke calmly, but his words grew clipped, hardened, as if he were struggling to hold back his emotions.
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