The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Damn and blast! So convenient to murder someone when there are whores about to blame for it. I suppose now we’ll have to run all screaming and hysterical to the butler and report it. Jane and Maude will have firm alibis, at least. First, however, we’ll need to report to the missus.” Dora set a bucket of water on the fire.

  “She isn’t in her room,” explained Lady Beatrice.

  “No? I suppose it’s possible she did for his lordship.”

  “Would she?”

  “You never know; I should think it was a bit treasonous, wouldn’t you, offering an invention like that to other empires? She may have made the decision to do for him and confiscate the thing for the Society. If she did, she may be out making arrangements to cover our tracks.”

  “Let’s not go running to Pilkins yet, then,” said Lady Beatrice. “What became of the rest of the Dessert?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Dora. “Pantry?”

  They left the silent kitchen and, following a trail of cake crumbs and blobs of crème anglaise, located the remaining Dessert in the pantry, as expected. Thoroughly ruined now, it lay spilt sideways on the flagstones, its grain carrier leaning against the wall.

  “Once more, damn and blast,” said Dora. “Where’s the marvelous flying thing? The box or plank or whatever it was Pilkins carried in?”

  “Not here, at any rate,” said Lady Beatrice.

  “You don’t suppose the missus took it?”

  “Might have, but—” Lady Beatrice began, as a prolonged bumping crash came from above. They looked at each other and ran upstairs, Lady Beatrice lifting her skirts to hurry. Dora, being nimbler in her present state of undress, arrived in the great hall first. Lady Beatrice heard her exclaim a fairly shocking oath, and upon joining her discovered why; for Arthur Fitzhugh Rawdon, Lord Basmond, lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the great staircase.

  The two ladies stood there considering his corpse for a long moment.

  “Frightfully convenient accident,” said Lady Beatrice at last.

  “I think it will look better if you do the screaming,” said Dora, with a gesture indicating her nudity.

  “Very well,” said Lady Beatrice. Dora retreated to the kitchen. Lady Beatrice cleared her throat and, drawing a deep breath, uttered the piercing shriek of a terrified female.

  Mrs. Corvey paused only to switch on the night-vision feature of her optics before advancing down the tunnel. Instantly she beheld the tunnel walls and floor, stretching ahead into a green obscurity. She had expected the same neat brickwork that distinguished the laboratory building, but the tunnel appeared to be of some antiquity: haphazardly mortared with flints, here and there buttressed with timbers, and penetrated with roots throughout, threadlike white ones or gnarled and black subterranean limbs.

  As she proceeded along the tunnel’s length, Mrs. Corvey noted in several places the print of shoes. Most were small, not much bigger than her own, but twice she saw a much larger track, a man’s certainly. Moreover she perceived strange and shifting currents of air in the tunnel. About a hundred yards in she spotted what must be their source, for a second tunnel opened where some of the flint and mortar had fallen in, creating a narrow gap in the wall.

  Mrs. Corvey studied the tunnel floor in front of the gap. Someone had gone through in the recent past, to judge from the way the earth was disturbed. She turned and considered the main course of the tunnel, which ended a few yards ahead where a ladder ascended, doubtless to the tower above. Yielding to her intuition, however, she turned back and slipped through the gap into the second tunnel.

  Here the walls seemed of greater antiquity still, indeed, scarcely as though shaped by human labors at all; rather burrowed by some great animal. There was an earthy damp smell and, distantly echoing, the sound of trickling water. Mrs. Corvey peered into the depths and spotted something scarlet ahead in the green gloom, an irregular mass against one wall.

  She lifted her cane to her shoulder and went forward cautiously, five feet, ten feet, and then there was a sudden burst of hectic illumination and a blare of – sound? No, not sound; Mrs. Corvey was at a loss to say what sensation it was that affected her nerves so painfully. She swayed for a moment before regaining her balance. Two or three deep breaths restored her composure before she heard a groan in the darkness ahead. And then:

  “You know,” said a male voice, “if I’m to die here I’d much rather be shot. All this blinding me and chaining me to walls and so forth is becoming tedious.”

  THIRTEEN:

  In Which Mr. Ludbridge

  Tells A Curious Story

  The scarlet mass had shifted, and resolved itself now into the shape of a man, slumped against the wall of the tunnel with one arm flung up awkwardly. As she neared him, Mrs. Corvey saw that he was in fact pinioned in place by a manacle whose chain had been passed about one of the ancient roots.

  “Mr. Ludbridge?” she inquired.

  His head came up sharply and he turned his face in her direction.

  “Is that a lady?”

  “I am, sir. William Reginald Ludbridge?”

  “Might be,” he said. She was within a few paces of him now and, opening a compartment in her cane, drew forth a lucifer and struck it for his benefit. The circle of dancing light so produced proved to her satisfaction that the prisoner was indeed the missing man Ludbridge. “Who’s that?”

  “I am Elizabeth Corvey, Mr. Ludbridge. From Nell Gwynne’s.”

  “Are you? What becomes of illusions?”

  “We dispel them,” she replied, relieved to remember the countersign, for she was seldom required to give it.

  “And we are everywhere. If you’re wondering why your match isn’t producing any light, it’s because of that damned – excuse me – that device you tripped just now. It’ll be at least an hour before we can see anything again.”

  “In fact, I can see now, Mr. Ludbridge.” She blew out the tiny flame.

  “I beg your pardon? Oh! Mrs. Corvey. You’re the lady with the . . . do forgive me, madam, but I hardly expected the GSS to send the ladies’ auxiliary to my aid. So the flash hasn’t affected your, er, eyes?”

  “It does not appear to have, sir.”

  “That’s something, anyway. Er . . . I trust you weren’t sent alone?”

  “I was not, sir. Some of my girls are upstairs, I suppose you’d say, entertaining Lord Basmond and his guests.”

  “Ha! Ingenious. I don’t suppose you happen to have a hacksaw with you, Mrs. Corvey?”

  “No, sir, but let me try what I might do with a bullet.” Mrs. Corvey set the end of her cane against the root where the manacle’s chain passed over it, and pressed the triggering mechanism. With a bang the chain parted, and white flakes of root drifted down like snow. Ludbridge’s arm fell, a dead weight.

  “I am much obliged to you,” said Ludbridge, gasping as he attempted to massage life back into the limb. “What have you found out?”

  “We know about the levitation device.”

  “Good, but that isn’t all. Not by a long way. There’s this thing in the tunnel that makes such an effective burglar catcher, and I suspect there’s more still.”

  “What precisely is it, Mr. Ludbridge?”

  “Damned if I know, beg your pardon. You saw the laboratory, did you?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Ludbridge, I entered that way.”

  “So did I. Crawled through and had a good look round. Took notes and made sketches, which I still have here somewhere . . .” Ludbridge felt about inside his coat. “Yes, to be sure. Had started up the other tunnel when I heard the trap opening above and someone starting down the ladder. Put out my light in a hurry and ducked into what I’d assumed was an alcove in the wall, hoping to avoid notice. Bloody thing crumbled backward under my weight and I fell in here.

  “I heard quick footsteps hurry past, in the main tunnel without. When I felt safe I lit my candle again and looked around me. This place is only the entrance to a great network of tunnels, you know, quite a
warren; it’s a wonder Basmond Hall hasn’t sunk into the hill. I could hear water and felt the rush of air, so I thought I’d explore and see if I could find myself a discreet exit.

  “That was two weeks ago, I think. I never found an exit, though I did find a great deal else, some of it very queer indeed. There’s a spring-fed subterranean lake, ma’am, and what looks to be some of the ancestral tombs of the Rawdons – at least, I hope that’s what they are. Midden heaps full of rather strange things. Someone lived in this place long before the Rawdons came with William the Conqueror, I can tell you that! I’m ashamed to admit I became lost more than once. If not for the spring and my field rations I’d have died down there.

  “Having found my way back up at last, I was proceeding in triumph down this passageway when I ran slap into the – the whatever-it-is that makes such a flash-bang. I was knocked unconscious the first time. When I woke I discovered I’d been chained up as you found me. That was . . . yesterday? Not very clear on the passage of time, I’m afraid.”

  “Clearly Lord Basmond had noticed someone was trespassing,” said Mrs. Corvey.

  “Too right. Haven’t seen him, though. He hasn’t even come down to gloat, which honestly I’d have welcomed; always the chance I could persuade him to join the GSS, after all. Just as well it was you, perhaps.”

  “And what are we to do now, Mr. Ludbridge?”

  “What indeed? I am entirely at your disposal, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Corvey turned and looked intently at the floor of the tunnel. She saw, now, the braided wire laid across their path, and the metal box to which it was anchored.

  “I think we had better escape, Mr. Ludbridge.”

  FOURTEEN:

  In Which Lord Basmond Is Mourned,

  With Apparent Sincerity

  He must have fallen,” declared Sir George Spiggott.

  “A lamentable accident,” said Ali Pasha, looking very hard at Sir George. So did Jane, who had trailed after them clutching her chiton to herself.

  “What becomes of the auction now, may I ask?” said Prince Nakhimov.

  “He had bones like sugar-sticks,” said Pilkins through his tears. He was on his knees beside Lord Basmond’s body. “Always did. Broke his arm three times when he was a boy. Oh, Lord help us, what are we to do? He was the only one with . . . I mean to say . . .”

  “The only one with the plans for the levitation device?” said Lady Beatrice. Pilkins looked up at her, startled, and then his face darkened with anger.

  “That’s enough of your bold tongue,” he shouted. “I’m not having the constable see you lot here! I want you downstairs, all of you whores, now! Get down there and keep still, if you know what’s good for you!” He turned to glare at Dora, who had just come up in a state of respectable dress from the kitchens.

  “Suit yourself; we’ll go,” she said. Looking around, she added “But where’s Maude?”

  “Where is the Count de Mortain? He cannot have slept through such screams,” said Prince Nakhimov.

  “Perhaps I’d better go fetch her,” said Lady Beatrice, starting up the stairs.

  “No! I said you were . . . were to . . . oh, damned fate,” said Pilkins, drooping with fresh tears. “Go on, get up there and wake them up. And then I want to see the back of you all.”

  “Happy to oblige,” said Jane, striding past him to go downstairs. Lady Beatrice, meanwhile, ran up the grand staircase and along the gallery, where the faces of Rawdons past watched her passage. The moonlight had shifted from her portrait, but Hellspeth Rawdon still seemed to glimmer with unearthly luminescence.

  Lady Beatrice knocked twice at the door of the bedroom that had been allotted to the Count de Mortain, but received no response. At last, opening the door and peering in, she beheld one candle burning on the dresser and Maude alone in the bed, deeply asleep.

  “Maude!” Lady Beatrice hurried in and shook Maude’s shoulder. “Wake up! Where is the count?”

  Maude remained unconscious, despite Lady Beatrice’s best efforts. Lady Beatrice sniffed at the dregs remaining in the wine glass on the bedside table, and thought she detected some medicinal odor. There was no sign of Count de Mortain in the room.

  When this fact was communicated to the parties downstairs, Sir George Spiggott exclaimed, “It’s the damned frog! I’ll wager a thousand pounds he pushed Lord Basmond down the stairs!”

  “You had better send for your constabulary now, rather than wait for morning,” Ali Pasha told Pilkins.

  “In the meanwhile, perhaps someone would assist me in getting Maude downstairs?” Lady Beatrice inquired. Prince Nakhimov volunteered and brought Maude, limp as a washrag, down as far as the Great Hall; from there Lady Beatrice and Dora carried her between them down to the kitchen.

  “How awfully embarrassing,” said Jane, from the hearthrug where she was bathing. “We were supposed to be the ones administering drugs!”

  “We ought to have expected this,” said Lady Beatrice grimly. She went to the sink and pumped a bucketful of cold water. “I should think the count drugged her and then killed Lord Basmond, meaning to steal the device.”

  “What?” Jane looked up from soaping herself. “I thought his lordship fell down the stairs.”

  Dora explained that Lady Beatrice had found Lord Basmond dead in his bedroom before his body had been flung down the stairs. Jane’s eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t be so sure the count was his murderer,” she said. “Mine was in a towering temper – did me only once, quite rough and nasty, and kept telling me it was a damned good thing I was English. At last he got out of bed and left. I asked him where he was going and he told me to mind my own business. He wasn’t gone above ten minutes. When he came back he looked a different man – white and shaking. I pretended to be asleep, because I was tired of his nonsense, but he didn’t try to wake me for any more fun. He tossed and turned for about twenty more minutes and then leaped out of bed and ran from the room. He was only gone about five minutes this time, and very much out of breath when he came back. Jumped into bed and pulled the covers up. It seemed only a moment later we heard you screaming.”

  “Did he ever seem as though he paused to hide something in the bedroom?” asked Lady Beatrice, upending the bucket’s contents over Maude, who groaned and tried to sit up.

  “No, never.”

  “He might have killed his lordship, but that doesn’t mean the device has been stolen,” said Dora, crouching beside Maude and waving a bottle of smelling salts under her nose. Maude coughed feebly and opened her eyes.

  “Damn and blast,” she murmured.

  “Wake up, dear.”

  “That bastard slipped me a powder!”

  “Yes, dear, we’d guessed.”

  “And we’d had such a lovely time in bed.” Maude leaned forward, massaging her temples. “Such a jolly and amusing man. He’s got no money, though. Told me he was delighted to accept a night of free food and copulation, but isn’t in any position to bid on the levitation device.”

  “Have you any idea where he’s got to?”

  “None. What’s been going on?”

  The other ladies gave her a brief summary of what had occurred. In the midst of it, Mrs. Duncan came shuffling downstairs in tears, clutching a candlestick.

  “Oh, it’s too cruel,” she sobbed. “What’ll become of us now? And the Basmonds! What of the Basmonds?”

  “Bugger the Basmonds,” said Maude, who was still feeling rather ill.

  “How dare you, you chit! They’re one of the oldest families in the land!” cried Mrs. Duncan. “Ruined now, ruined! And there he went and spent all the trust fund— What’s to happen now?” She sank down on a stool and indulged in furious tears.

  “Trust fund?” asked Lady Beatrice.

  “None of your bloody business. It’s the end of the Basmonds, that’s all.”

  “There aren’t any cousins to inherit?” inquired Dora sympathetically.

  “No.” Mrs. Duncan blew her nose. “And poor Master Arthur neve
r married, on account of him being – well—”

  “A fairy prince?” said Jane, toweling herself off. Lady Beatrice winced, for it was hardly a tactful remark, but Mrs. Duncan lifted her head sharply.

  “You been reading in the library? You wasn’t allowed in there!”

  “No, I haven’t read anything. I don’t know what you mean,” said Jane.

  “That’s in a book in the library,” said Mrs. Duncan. “About the Rawdons having fairy blood. Old Sir Robert finding a girl sitting up there on the hill in the moonlight, and she putting a spell on him. And that was why, ever since . . .” She trailed off into tears again.

  “What a charming story,” said Lady Beatrice. “Now, if you’ll pardon a change of subject, my dear: I notice the levitation device has been removed from under the cake. Do you happen to know where it was put?”

  “Wasn’t put anywhere,” said Mrs. Duncan. “I pushed the nasty thing into the pantry like it was and left it for morning. You mean to say it’s gone?”

  FIFTEEN:

  In Which Our Heroine Is Obliged

  To Exert Herself

  Mrs. Corvey, upon inspecting the box on the passage floor, discovered a switch on one end. Cautiously, using her cane, she pushed the switch to its opposite position. A humming noise ceased, so faint it had been imperceptible until it stopped.

  “I believe we may now pass safely, Mr. Ludbridge.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Ludbridge said, wheezing as he tried to get to his feet. “Oh – ow – oh, bloody hell, I’m half crippled.”

  “You may lean on me,” said Mrs. Corvey, taking his hand and pulling his arm around her shoulders. “Not to worry, dear; I’m a great deal stronger than I look.”

  “As yet I’ve no idea what you look like at all,” replied Ludbridge. “Ha! The blind leading the blind, although in our case it makes excellent sense. Lead on, dear lady.”

  They made their way out again into the main tunnel, and hurriedly down it to the laboratory. Ludbridge was able to crawl through the hole in the window easily enough, but was obliged afterward to sit and catch his breath.

  “It seems a lifetime ago I went in there,” he said, gasping. “By God, the night air smells sweet! Rather odd nobody noticed the pane missing in all that time, though.”