Shadows Against the Empire (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 1)

by Ralph Vaughan

  “We want to make sure there is nothing more to it than that,” Folkestone said. “Absolutely sure.”

  “And we can’t do that if we’re run out to Venus, now can we, Baphor?” Hand snapped.

  Baphor-Ta sighed heavily. No segir, no matter how lively the fire-worm at the bottom of the smoky bottle, was worth this.

  “I have more than enough work to do on real cases,” the Martian investigator protested. “The Red Prince directed me personally to…”

  “You read the report of the Old Cydonia incident,” Folkestone said. “I was there in Cydonia and saw…”

  “Keep your voice down,” Baphor-Ta hissed urgently, darting his gaze about to see if they had attracted any unwanted ears. “Of course I read the bloody thing. Just the fact that a human was sent into those ruins…”

  “That’s not important.”

  “It is to Martians, even the majority who now embrace the new sciences – prick a Martian and he bleeds that good old religion. Old Cydonia is still sacred.”

  Folkestone leaned across the table and said so quietly that Baphor-Ta had to meet him halfway: “If me being there would get their knickers in a twist, what do you think would happen if they learned that Thoza-Joran proclaimed the Dark Gods are on their way back?”

  “Shut it!” Then the Martian sighed. “What do you want?”

  “Just nose around a bit.”

  “Nose…”

  “Investigate,” Folkestone snapped. “You’re an investigator, so investigate. Mainly, I want to know if anyone is talking to Daraph-Kor when he’s not there.”

  “You think, then, there might be others like Thoza-Joran?”

  “That’s what we’re afraid of, mate,” Hand interjected.

  “Crazy or not,” Folkestone said, “think about how much turmoil someone could cause, yammering about Dark Gods.”

  “It would be a bloody riot!” Hand said.

  Baphor-Ta settled back against the bench, pushed away the tumbler of segir he no longer wanted, and rested his pointed chin on his palm. Sergeant Hand disposed of the segir too good to waste.

  “All right, I’ll ask around, but quietly, and you will owe me for this.” He waved his hand negatively over the table. “And I don’t mean your so-called free drinks.”

  “If this plays out to anything, we may all be in your debt.”

  Baphor-Ta stood, started to walk away, then turned back. “It may, as you say, ‘play out’.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The chief investigator of the Court of the Red Prince rested both knuckles on the rough table top and leaned so far forward that his head was between Folkestone and Hand, his lips close to their ears. The collar of the investigator’s tunic dropped just enough to reveal the uppermost portion of his gleaming brass chest.

  “Temple desecrations are on the rise, the kind that make priests insecure, that make them have secret meetings with the Red Prince,” Baphor-Ta admitted. “And it’s never good when priests are made insecure in their faith. Good day, gentlemen.” He scowled at the sergeant. “I hope you enjoyed my drink, Hand.”

  When they were alone, Hand asked: “If there is anything to find, Baphor will dig it up.”

  “I know,” Folkestone said. “I am hoping he doesn’t.”

  “As am I, sir.”

  “Well, as the Admiral told me, it’s out of our hands now.”

  “Are you going to tell him about Baphor-Ta?”

  Folkestone shook his head. “It’s the Red Prince’s concern, not the Admiral’s. I think the Admiral said the same thing.”

  “Sound tactical move, sir.”

  “Besides, he’s given us the task of helping his friend Charles Mallory,” Folkestone said. “Best to let him think that is our only concern.”

  “Who is Charles Mallory?”

  “A Dutch-English planter,” Folkestone replied. “He has a large plantation in Venus’ southern hemisphere, and right now he’s having a spot of trouble with the local lizard folk.” He glanced at his wrist-chronometer. “I’ll brief you in the steam-hansom on the way to the aetherport.”

  “Venus,” Hand muttered. “Well, at least it’s not France, and maybe I can get some really good segir.”

  Chapter 5

  “Well, it’s Martian, isn’t it?” Gustav Maaten said. “Damn old though. Verdammit old! The lines are old, is what I say, but of new hands made, yes. May I ask, Chief Inspector, how you came to have this Gotze, where you found this?”

  Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter of Scotland Yard frowned, as much because of the nature of the information as from the difficulty of deciphering Maaten’s thick Teutonic accent.

  “No, you may not!” Slaughter shot back. “Official police business.”

  The German antiques dealer looked crestfallen.

  “However, were I to tell you that this here idol might – and I stress might – have been pried from the cold hands of a dead Lascar in a ha’-penny flophouse down in Spitalfields, what would you make of it?”

  Slaughter watched the balding old man carefully.

  The German brightened and returned to examining the outré stone carving with a great glass. “Had the Lascar been to Mars?”

  “No.”

  “Venus?”

  “Thought you said it was Martian, Gustav.”

  “Oh, Martian it is, yes, of no doubt, of hard red planet stone,” Maaten assured him. “But, see, in the cracks between the claws, you see…” He offered the idol and the glass. “You see,”

  Through the magnifying glass Slaughter saw a kind of pale ash caught in the crevasses.

  “What is it?”

  “The eye not reveal for sure…the nose.” He gestured upward with his hands and made a sniffing sound.

  Slaughter brought the idol close to his nose and sniffed. It was faint, very faint, but discernible, and unmistakable.

  “Dream-spice.”

  “Ach, you see...Venus…unless…”

  Slaughter raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “I know that opium is reaching Venus and Mars…but dream-spice on Earth. Verdammit. Gift!”

  “Gift?”

  “Poison.”

  “Learn to speak English, Gustav,” Slaughter snapped. He wrapped the loathsome idol in thick muslin and stuffed it into a bag. “Thanks for the information.’

  “But, Chief Inspector,” Maaten protested as the police detective headed for the door of the shop in Tottenham Court Road. “Dream-spice on Earth!”

  “Don’t be daft!” Then he lowered his voice and said evenly. “And Gott im Himmel help you if I ever trace any rumour of dream-spice back to you.”

  “Yes, Chief Inspector…I mean, no, Chief Inspector Slaughter!” the old man stammered. “I am the soul of discretion!”

  Safely away from the dilapidated but chock-full antiques shop, Slaughter allowed himself a wry smile. God how he loved the Germans!

  He had been careful about how much information he imparted to the German, but he wondered still if he had given too much; though he had known Gustav Maaten for more than twenty years, and owed him for contributing to the solutions of a half-dozen mysteries, the man was still a foreigner, and, besides, after three days of following leads in the Lascar’s death through all the darkest holes of the East End, prising information from the close-lipped tight-knit populations there – Chinese, Indian, Martian, Polish, Venusian and Romany – he was more than a little leery of anyone not a born-and-bred subject of Her Majesty the Queen.

  He climbed the stairs to the platform of the Tottenham Steam Monorail Station, more than a little preoccupied by what Maaten had told him of the idol’s provenance. He did not like the fact that it was Martian – it was bad enough that he suspected the advent of yet another interplanetary demon-worshipping heathen cult in London – but he liked even less that Venusian dream-spicers might also be involved.

  The Venusian dream-spice was one of the most addictive substances in the Solar System; what created a strong dependency in the humanoid Venusians
engendered a death-lock addiction in the inhabitants of Earth. Compared to dream-spice, opium and cocaine were aperitifs for the gentry. To the human imprudent enough to become involved with the drug spawned in the dense lowland jungles of Venus, it was always a race to one form of death or another – a mind shattered by searing hallucinations, or a body shaken apart by ecstatic convulsions.

  Dream-spice was forbidden for import to Earth, but there was always some fool trying to walk the contraband out of the Croydon Spaceport after a Cook’s Tour of Venus.

  Outside the influence of the Empire, however, and even in the wilder outposts of civilisation, avarice and moral decrepitude often overtook common decency and rule of law.

  And, despite what he had told Maaten, the discovery of dream-spice remnants on the idol did open another avenue of investigation…right here in London.

  Mars, Venus, Earth – somehow those three planets figured in the murder of a Lascar who died clutching this hideous fetish. He had no evidence that would satisfy a Queen’s Counsel, nor any proof that it was more than just another violent crime in an area of London where life was cheap and the paths to death myriad.

  A keening wail took his attention, the whistle of the monorail nearing the station, and the crowd waiting for the transport surged a little forward.

  As he was carried by the crowd anticipating the approaching monorail, he suddenly felt a large strong hand against his back propelling him to the edge of the platform. At the same time, someone grabbed the bag containing the damned idol and tried to rip it from his grasp.

  Slaughter struggled against the shoving hand and nearly lost his grip on the bag; yanking back on the bag, he rapidly neared the platform’s edge. He would have gone over the edge straight away, but his unknown assailant was ignorant of how much resistance a brass-reinforced spine added to a struggle. Not for the first time was he thankful to the team of artificers and surgeons that laboured upon him after he prevented Her Majesty Queen Victoria's airship from being hijacked by that Russian anarchist, who did not fare as well.

  Vaguely he heard people shouting that he was too near the onrushing monorail, but in the press of the crowd no one seemed to notice the source of his peril. To them, Slaughter was naught but a lunatic late for an appointment with death.

  Men were shouting.

  Women were screaming.

  The whistle of the nearing monorail mixed with the shrieking rush of steam.

  Abruptly Slaughter fell forward, tucking shoulder under and tightening his grip on the bag containing the Martian idol. The hand that had been trying to take it away could no longer reach it, and the hand that had been pushing him toward the monorail suddenly had nothing to push. Then Slaughter saw the truth of what had been apparent from nearly the beginning – two assailants. The potential thief dropped back and moved quickly to vanish into the throng; the would-be murderer lurched forward, tripped over Slaughter’s curled up body, and vanished over the edge of the station platform just as the monorail shuddered to a halt.

  Hands were laid on Ethan Slaughter, but he had no idea whether they were continued attacks, attempts to help him to his feet or defenders of the law to apprehend him for the supposed murder of the other man. Consequently, he remained tucked tight as a pillbug protecting his evidence. He only relaxed when he felt an authoritative grip that could belong only to a London constable.

  “What’s going on here?” the tall moustachioed officer demanded. “All of you get back! You – on your feet!”

  The constable released his iron grip when Slaughter showed him his warrant card.

  “Take charge of the scene, Constable…”

  “Burgess, sir.”

  Slaughter said. “Gather what witness statements you can, and I will use the area call-box, Constable Burgess.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “But I doubt you’ll come up with much, as it was very crowded and everyone was surging forward,” Slaughter said. “There were at least two, a little fellow who was trying to separate me from evidence in a murder investigation; the other was a taller fellow, but he came out of it rather poorly.” Slaughter glanced toward the blood-splattered undercarriage of the monorail and shook his head. “It’ll be a potter’s field slab for that unclaimed body, or what’s left of it”

  “I expect so, sir.” He moved the crowd back with nothing more than a few gestures from his club, a tribute as much to the innate authority of the London bobby as to the natural yearning for law and order of the British citizen. “You’ll need seek medical care, will you not, sir?”

  Slaughter shook his head. “No, I cheated the Devil completely today, eh, Burgess?”

  “If you say so, sir,” Burgess replied, a faint note of disapproval in his voice.

  But Slaughter was already headed away, knowing this station would be shut down for at least an hour. He watched carefully for further signs of danger but the death of the one had apparently scared off the other. He summoned assistance for the beleaguered Constable Burgess using the terminus call-box, then exited the Tottenham Station and hailed a cab.

  The cabbie reached down from his high perch and pulled the lever that caused the front panel to swing back. Slaughter stepped on the projecting step that allowed him to avoid the steam engine mounted at front of the hansom, where, only a generation ago, a horse would have stood and strained. It was a ridiculous arrangement, Slaughter reflected as he settled back, the panel closed and he raised a protecting handkerchief to his nose and mouth, but London in the year of Our Lord 1882 was as bound by the chains of tradition as it was wracked by the forces of the emerging sciences.

  “Where to, guvnor?”

  Slaughter gave an address in the East India Docks, then changed his mind and told the driver to take him to the British Museum. Now that he knew this idol was valuable enough to kill for, and that it had to do with Mars and Venus, he knew he needed an expertise that even Maaten, with all his experience with treasures of elder civilisations, could not provide. Besides, his investigation down by the shadowy East India Docks and in the East End would best be carried out under the cover of darkness when this idol was safely ensconced away.

  The hansom pulled smoothly into the heavy flow of traffic rushing along the cobbled street, and within moments the conveyance was rushing through the great metropolis at a velocity that would have caused a horse’s heart to burst. Though Slaughter seemed lost in his own thoughts, he kept careful watch for any sign he was being followed.

  At the British Museum, he identified himself and was conducted to a small office crammed with the artefacts of four worlds. A bespectacled man not much over five feet tall looked up at the detective’s entrance.

  “Ethan!”

  The little man jumped from behind his desk, nearly toppling a stack of books topped by the skull of a Venusian Naga, and pumped Slaughter’s hand enthusiastically. “How are you, my dear fellow? I haven’t seen you, it seems, for a donkey’s years, certainly not since that most unpleasant incident involving the cannibalistic statues of…”

  Slaughter made a quieting gesture and motioned subtly with his chin toward the guard who had conducted him.

  “Oh, yes, of course…thank you, Wilkins, that will be all.”

  “Very good, Professor Early.”

  “I suppose,” the scientist said, “there really are some things for which the world will never be ready.”

  “Likely not, Professor,” Slaughter agreed.

  “It’s damn good to see you, old fellow,” Professor Early gushed. He cleaned away stacks of papers and artefacts, revealing a long-hidden chair. “Pray have a seat. I hope you have brought me something truly interesting.”

  “I believe I have, as a matter of fact,” Slaughter replied, opening the drawstring of the bag that had been, he believed, the object of the attack at the Tottenham Monorail Station. “I did not know what I had, so I showed it to Maaten.”

  “Good man…for a German.”

  “And he told me I had hold of something Martian,”
>
  “Well, he would be able to tell you that much.”

  “So, I knew I needed to see you.”

  A small measure of disappointment showed on Professor Early’s features as he considered all the trinkets brought back from Mars by British tourists, but that disappointment was transformed into wonder and excitement and a measure of fear as the idol emerged from its wrappings.

  “Good God, Ethan,” he murmured. “And I mean our God, not this god. This god is not a good god at all, but a bad god, very bad god and thirsty for blood.”

  “So, Maaten was right about it being Martian?”

  “Yes, but I doubt even he knew exactly what he was looking at,” Early said. “This is…I am surprised to see something like this.”

  “Rare?”

  “It should not exist at all.”

  “Professor, I don’t…”

  “If a Martian were to see this carving, he would have to smash it to pieces,” Early explained, “assuming he did not die of fright first.”

  “Die of fright?” Slaughter frowned. “I don’t follow, Professor. It’s an ugly little bugger, I’ll give you that, but not enough to stop a heart. It does seem, however, worth killing for – I prised it from the dead grip of a murdered Lascar in Spitalfields, just off Dorsett Street, and just before I came here someone tried to pilfer the idol while another tried to push me in front of an oncoming monorail.”

  “Good Lord,” Early gasped. “I’m relieved to see neither attack succeeded. What of…”

  “The would-be cut-purse escaped in the press,” Slaughter reported. “The other fellow…well, he caught the monorail I missed.”

  Professor Early looked squeamish and shook his head.

  “Are you familiar, Ethan, with the Dark Gods of Mars?” Early asked after a moment.

  “Can’t say that I am.”

  “You’re hardly alone in that, and for good reason,” Early explained. “The Martians do not speak of them among themselves, for the most part, and certainly not to outsiders.”