by K. W. Jeter
"Well…" I searched my brain for some half-forgotten explanation. "It's the vibrations, isn't it? Um. Reverberations, or something. If all the men went marching across in step, the bridge might start to vibrate along to the rhythm of their pace. And – let's see – if they kept on marching over it, the bridge's vibration would be reinforced, and would grow stronger, and – possibly – the bridge would eventually shake itself to pieces beneath their feet."
"Oh, not just possibly, my boy – it's happened many times in actuality. Miliary practice is not derived from mere intellectual speculation, you know; destroying something is really the best way to learn. No, the best method of crossing a bridge is something that has been proven on the field, as it were."
Seaweed; beings from other worlds; now correct marching drill. I felt sadly perplexed by this evidence of incipient senility. "Yes, well… fascinating, I'm sure. Um… perhaps we should be getting back… rejoin the others… tea, perhaps-"
He shook his head impatiently. "You will admit, then, that through this principle, an item of considerable mass – say, a bridge – can be destroyed by the precise action of a smaller mass – such as a troop of marching soldiers?"
"Yes; I suppose so…"
"And can you conceive of any reason why that destructive principle should not hold true, regardless of the relative disparity between the larger and smaller mass?"
"Well… I've never really thought about it-"
Lord Bendray pressed on, his wrinkled face tightening with excitement: "Provided – of course! – that you can determine the exact rhythm of pulsations to apply to the larger mass… Eh? What say you to that?" he concluded triumphantly.
I shrugged. "Sounds reasonable to me." Best to go on humouring him, I supposed.
He whirled about at the edge of the precipice, raising his arms in adoration of the stone pillars. "That, my boy, is the purpose of this, your father's magnum opus!"
The hairs at the back of my neck began to stand up, as I sensed a madness even greater than I had at first suspected.
Glancing over his shoulder, Lord Bendray read the awful surmise visible in my face. "Yes – you've got it – you've got it, my boy! Exactly so! The senior Dower was a master of that Science properly known as Cataclysm Harmonics. Just as the marching soldiers transmit the vibrations that bring the bridge tumbling into bits, so this grand construction-" He gestured towards the stone pillars stretching down into the pit. "Your father's greatest creation – so it is designed to transmit equally destructive pulsations into the core of the earth itself. Pulsations that build, and reinforce themselves – marching soldiers! Hah! Yes – until this world is throbbing with them, and shakes itself to its component atoms!" The vision set him all a-tremble. "The bridge collapses; the world disintegrates… Just so, just so." He nodded happily.
I stared up at the construction, appalled by the old gentleman's fervour. Could it be? I was struck with a dread certainty that he had spoken the truth. My father's creation… Surely there could be no doubting it. If such a thing were the product of his genius, then, for good or ill, it very likely was as potent as all else that had come from his hand and mind.
"But-" I looked to him, baffled. "What would be the purpose of such a destruction?" A terrible vision centred itself in my thoughts, of mountains splitting in twain, deserts shivering as the oceans welled up in their midst, the grinding of splintered stone and the shrieking of women. "What cause would it serve?"
He gazed at me with patient benevolence. "Why, that of which we were just speaking," he said. "That of contacting those wise, advanced beings on the other worlds. What possible signal could be better? Surely, creatures that are capable of shattering the world on which they live, would be perceived by those intelligences as beings worthy of respect and attention. It stands to reason."
His calm voice, speaking in measured tones of annihilation, echoed inside my skull. "But – but if what you say is true… there won't be any contacting these beings – or anything else! We'll all be dead!"
"Pooh! You worry yourself needlessly. Come over here." Lord Bendray strode away from the chasm's edge, towards another section of the laboratory. I followed behind him, glancing over my shoulder at the awesome machinery containing the earth's demise in its gears.
"Here we are." He slapped a curved wall of brass, that rang hollow beneath his hand. "The Hermetic Carriage I'm proud to say that this, at least, is all my own design."
I followed the direction of his gesture, and found myself gazing at a great riveted sphere, looming up to the stone ceiling. Various excrescences – round windows, lanterns, and incongruously, a large Union Jack on an articulated metal arm-studded the polished brass.
"Quite a thing, eh?" Lord Bendray beamed at me. "Come up here – this way."
Our boots clattered on a flight of metal steps that led to a platform halfway up the sphere's circumference. Lord Bendray tapped one of the small windows. "Observe," he said. I pressed my face close to the thick glass and saw a reduced version of a gentleman's sitting room: a thickly upholstered chair and ottoman, a wall of books close by, a humidor and small rack of bottles. The curved walls were clad in tooled morocco, the floor covered with an antique Tabriz. The only inappropriate notes, in this picture of comfort were various metal flasks linked to each other by coils of tubing.
"See – those are for the breathing supply." Lord Bendray pushed his face close to mine, the better to point out the details inside the sphere. "Food and other essentials in those cabinets over there. The controls for the signalling lanterns and other external armatures… Rather well thought out, don't you agree?"
I drew away from him. "I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this device."
"Well, it's really all very simple. When the earth shatters apart, something like that can't fail to come to the attention of beings from those other worlds. They'll surely come to investigate the debris. And when they do, I'll be able to signal to them, as though from a lifeboat bobbing about over a sunken ship. Once they've ascertained my peerage and citizenship, I imagine they'll take me back to the place whence they came for long discussions and consultation." He rubbed his chin meditatively. "I would think… Mars. Yes; very likely to Mars."
The platform's handrail grew damp in my grasp. "But what of the earth? And all the people on it?"
"Tut, tut. We can't let mere sentiment intrude. This is Science ."
"But all of Mankind destroyed? In one final cataclysm?"
"None of that," scoffed Lord Bendray. "Look at those camp beds in there. I'll have you know I've made extensive provision for several of my household staff to come along with me. A gentleman couldn't very well travel without them, could he?"
I swayed backwards, dizzied by this calm discussion of death and horror. "This is madness, and you know it! Yes!" I seized the front of the old man's coat. "No one could actually contemplate such a deed – that's why you've never set this hideous machinery into operation!"
He brushed my trembling hands from his lapels. "Hardly," he said with lofty disdain. "The fact of the matter is that the device was left incomplete at your father's death. The great structure is there, set to hammer its destructive rhythm into the earth's core; but what has been lacking is the subtle regulatory device necessary to determine those pulsations and set the machinery into the appropriate motion. Lacking until now, that is."
Retreating from his words – for my heart had already plummeted, knowing what they would be – I came close to falling down the metal steps, retaining my balance only by my grip upon the rail.
"Yes," said Lord Bendray, smiling at me. "Now the great work can be completed. You have brought the Regulator to me."
I turned and fled, headlong down the metal steps, away from his quavering soft voice and benign smile, and into the maze of stone arches before me.
9
An Interrupted Recital
"The man's insane – we have to stop him! Before he destroys the world!"
Even through the blue lenses, Sc
ape's pitying glance was clearly readable. He tilted a bottle of port, identical to that private stock from which Lord Bendray had served me, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Did he lay that tired old wheeze on you? What a jerk." He shook his head in disgust.
I was still out of breath owing to my panicked flight from Lord Bendray's subterranean laboratory, my hands bruised from collision with the stone arches. Guided only by desperation, I had blundered my way up into the Hall itself, and had at last found Scape in one of the upstairs rooms, sitting in his shirtsleeves on the corner of a bed. My brain was still awhirl with the quavering voice and its words. "Don't you understand?" I cried. "The cataclysm – everything, bits and pieces – like marching soldiers-"
Miss McThane wandered in from an adjoining bathroom, her arms bare as she rubbed her damp hair with a towel. "What's all the shouting about?"
Scape pointed his thumb at me. "Ol' Bendray just told Dower that he's planning on blowing up the world."
"Oh, that." She drifted back out of the room.
I grasped him by the shoulder. "But, we have to do something-"
He shook me off. "Simmer down, for Christ's sake. I can't believe you just now flashed on the fact that Bendray's crazy."
"But – the machine – underneath the Hall-"
"Cause he is nuts, you know. Completely round the bend. I could tell that the first time I ever laid eyes on the sucker. That's where all that stuff about blowing up the world comes from – right out of his little loosescrew skull."
I took a step backwards. "You mean… it's not true?"
"Shee-it." The bottle lifted to his mouth again. "He couldn't crack an egg with that pile of junk. Your old man was running a fraud on Bendray – one of several, actually. Did he give you that line about people from other planets zipping around in the sky? Yeah, well, I got my suspicions about where he got that one from, too. Him and the rest of his buddies in that dingbat Royal Anti-Society of theirs; if one of 'em wanted anything from a perpetual motion machine to a – whatever; pogo stick that worked on the ceiling, or some damn thing – your father would throw one together for 'em. Most of these old boys are so senile they wouldn't notice if any of it worked or not."
"Really…" I stood amazed. This was an aspect – or the imputation of it – to my father's character that I had never encountered before. "I can scarcely believe it."
"Come on, Dower. Two minutes ago, you were running around here, quacking that the whole world was gonna go bang. You gotta get hold of yourself, man."
My thoughts, that had been so agitated, began to settle into some form of order. 'Then the Regulator – the device that you had me bring with us from London…'
"No sweat," said Scape. "Granted, the old boy's been looking for it, but he's not gonna be able to turn on that giant cuckoo clock in the basement with it. I mean, after all; one of the reasons tried to swipe that gizmo out of your shop was because I knew Bendray wanted it. You really think I would've sold it to him if I thought he was gonna be able to blow up the world with it?"
"I suppose not," I mused. "Just a moment – how did you know that I had the device?"
"Jesus, Dower – what kind of business do you think I'm in? I'm supposed to find out about stuff like that. I got ways."
I nodded, undisturbed by this frank admission of criminality of his part. A great sense of relief had come over me; whatever mysteries still surrounded me, they were at least not compounded by the imminent annihilation of the earth.
"Maybe you better go lie down or something," advised Scape. "You look wiped." He stood up and guided me by the elbow to the doorway, from where he pointed out the room farther along the hallway that had been designated as mine. "Get some rest, man – Bendray's head butler told me there's a dinner party tonight; some of the old boy's Royal Anti-Society bunch are coming over."
"Who are they?" I had been mystified by the term when I had heard it before from Lord Bendray.
"Nobody." Scape gave me a push towards my room. "Just a buncha old geezers. Crackpots. Nothing to worry about." The door closed in my face before I could ask any more questions.
I found Creff laying out my clothes upon the bed. The dog Abel was curled asleep upon the pillow; his ears pricked up on my entrance, but he made no other motion. "Rum lot round here," grumbled Creff as he pulled more items from the trunk. "Never seen such queer coves, have I."
Weary, I sat down in a convenient chair. "You little know," I said, "how true you speak." I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.
I awoke some hours later, with the gas-mantles lit to dispel the evening gloom. Creff was prodding my shoulder. "There's people arriving soon, sir. For some sort of to-do."
"Um… yes. Quite." I tasted my sour, dry mouth, and pushed myself up in the chair.
A vigorous application of soap and water brought me back to full consciousness. As I dressed, I felt an oddly familiar weight in the waistcoat pocket of the suit Creff had laid out. I drew out the Saint Monkfish crown and stood gazing at it for a moment.
How far had this mere bit of metal brought me, and yet no closer to answering the riddles it posed! That day on which the Brown Leather Man had given me the coin in payment seemed ever more from another time, another life. I had set out in blithe curiosity to ascertain this mysterious saint's identity, and to what end? The coin had bought me only the witnessing of two deaths – poor Fexton, and that dark-skinned progenitor of so many enigmas – and the threat of my own in the chill waters of the Thames. Those who promised to answer my queries, such as Lord Bendray, did so only by interjecting fresh conundrums.
There had to be an end to this. I re-pocketed the coin, resolving that if my demands for clarification were not met in the course of the evening, then I would strike out on my own for London, and have nothing more to do with these "queer coves", as Creff so aptly called them. An honest confession of my folly would be my shield against whatever spurious charges were being laid against me.
"Jesus H. Christ!" An out-of-breath Scape collided with me when I stepped out of my room. "Quick!" he said, and pulled me back into the doorway. "Now listen to me-"
I drew back from his flushed and panting face. "Whatever's the matter?"
He clutched my arm tighter. "I'm trying to tell ya, all right? Just listen, okay? I didn't know these people were gonna show up here tonight. So you gotta-"
"Who?" My resolve extended to refusing to be chivvied about by this excitable character. "What people?"
Scape brought himself under control, lowering his voice. "A guy named Wrath. Okay? Sir Charles Wrath, and his wife. They're the ones. I got told that Bendray had invited some of his Royal Anti-Society bunch over tonight, but nobody told me it was gonna be friggin' Wroth. So what you have to do-"
I peeled his hand fram my sleeve and dropped it. "I don't have to do anything," I said testily. "Unless I'm given a bloody good reason. What's so significant about this – Wroth, or whoever it is?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell ya, Dower." Scape's voice constricted to a hoarse whisper. "He's kind of… another client of mine. So to speak. You get what I mean?"
"You mean," I said coldly, "you engage in some sort of criminal activity on behalf of this gentleman."
"Well… yeah! Jeez!!" His words went up in pitch. "Give me the firing squad for trying to make a buck, you smug sonuvabitch!" He mastered himself again. "Look do me a favour, will ya? When you talk to the guy, just act natural. Okay? But don't-"
"Dower! There you are – come and meet my guests."
Scape was interrupted by Lord Bendray. The old man, returned to an apparent state of sobriety, came down the hallway and fastened on to my arm, by which he pulled me towards the stairs. "I'm sure you'll find them most interesting," he said. "Sir Charles has a keen interest in all things Scientific."
Beside me as we walked, Scape leaned close to my ear and whispered: "Just be cool, okay?"
As was often the case, I remained baffled by his puzzling syntax. I took it to be some sort of warning, bu
t of what I had no idea.
I shortly found myself in a chandeliered banqueting room, under the inspection of a figure whose grey-haired age was belied by his upright military bearing. "I hope you'll excuse me," said Lord Bendray. "Small matters to attend to." He then scurried away.
Sir Charles leaned forward, peering at me even more intently. "Marvellous," he murmured to himself. "Really quite extraordinary." Surprisingly, he prodded at my chest with one finger. "Most lifelike. Do you speak?" he suddenly addressed me.
I was somewhat taken aback by this odd query. "Well, yes. Of course." Behind him, I saw Scape making a variety of surreptitious hand gestures to me; they puzzled me enough to keep me from saying anything more. Beyond this, I was disturbed by an odd familiarity to Sir Charles' voice; it seemed to me I had heard him speak some time before, but I could not imagine where.
"'Of course,'" repeated Sir Charles with a smile. "Very droll, that." He turned round to Scape, who hastily ceased his signalling. "My congratulations – you've produced it here in remarkably fine operating order."
Scape shrugged modestly. "Yeah, well… we try our best." Miss McThane, her hair in an upswept coif, had entered the room, and stood beside him, smiling graciously.
A woman, younger than Sir Charles, and of considerable beauty and startling decolletage, stepped from beside him for a closer look. "Yes," Mrs Wroth said huskily, reaching up to run a silk-gloved hand down the side of my face. "Very… lifelike." Her hand trembled as it smoothed the curve of my shoulder; her eyes, limpid cerulean, narrowed in the manner I had observed before in Miss McThane. J could not speak for the sudden congestion of my pulse in my throat; Sir Charles seemed oblivious to the evident nature of her interest in me.