by Mark Hodder
“You have to warn Disraeli,” Swinburne said. “The signing ceremony is not even two days hence, and is surely Perdurabo’s target. The entirety of the British and German governments will be gathered in Green Park. The royal families, too. He could kill them all in one fell swoop.”
“How, though?” Burton pondered. “The event will be wrapped in the tightest security possible. Even if he has an army of assassins at his disposal, they’d never get past the guards, and the Orpheus will be hovering over the park, too, bristling with her new guns.”
Crossing Trafalgar Square, they steered into Whitehall and parked their penny-farthings. While Swinburne guarded them, Burton entered Scotland Yard. Pepperwick was off duty and had been replaced by the night clerk. The man examined the explorer’s authorization then said, “Can I help you, sir?”
“Are Detective Inspectors Trounce or Slaughter on duty?”
“All our officers are on extended duty tonight due to the unrest in the East End, but I think I saw Detective Inspector Slaughter come in a few minutes ago. Hold on a minute.”
He turned to the speaking tubes, selected the one connected to Room 14, and through it confirmed Slaughter’s presence.
“Go right up, sir.”
Burton found Slaughter in his office nursing a pint of milk. His clothes were dirty, his jacket sleeve torn, and a large bruise marked the left side of his forehead.
“Bloody chaos!” the policeman announced as the explorer entered. “The Cauldron is boiling over. Half the population is frightened out of its wits and fleeing north into Hackney, and the other half is ranting about Germanic perfidy and pushing westward into the city, apparently intent on smashing its way to parliament. We’re trying to hold them back but they’re like wild animals.”
“The League of Enochians Gentlemen’s Club is at the root of it,” Burton said.
“So Trounce told me. Can’t we raid the place?”
“You can. Have your men knock down the doors. You’ll find an underground tunnel connecting the club to the basement of the Brundleweed jewellery shop, so be sure to go in that way, too. Arrest them all.”
“By George!” Slaughter exclaimed. “If we can stop ’em from fanning the flames, that’ll be something. I’ll organize it at once. We’ll have the Enochians behind bars before the night is done.”
Burton rejoined Swinburne and they set off down Millbank. The reek of the Thames assaulted their nostrils.
The Vauxhall Bridge tollbooths were closed at night, so they traversed the river unimpeded and turned right by the Belmont Candle Factory onto Nine Elms Lane.
The rain intensified. Both men were wet through, and Burton felt ice clawing out of the ache in his left forearm and invading his flesh.
Please! Not a fever. Not now.
The four tall copper rods of Battersea Power Station glimmered ahead.
“‘To all the four points it shall batter thee,’” Swinburne quoted. “I hope Abdu El Yezdi is waiting for us. I shall have to take him to task over that childish doggerel.”
“Indeed,” Burton agreed. “Had it been rather more sophisticated, I might have got the message a little sooner. As it was—though it was staring me in the face—I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.”
A stretch of wasteland extended from the base of the station, separating it from the Royal Navy Air Service Station. It was too uneven to drive across, so they dismounted, turned off the engines, and pushed their penny-farthings along. The whole area was illuminated by the lights of the airfield, which even at this time of night was a hive of activity, with ground crew working in and around a truly gargantuan rotorship that dwarfed even the mighty Orpheus.
“The Sagittarius,” Swinburne said.
“So that’s the fist Elgin will use against China,” Burton exclaimed. “Bismillah! The size of it!”
“It’s the biggest warship ever built. Rossetti thinks Elgin will employ it to destroy the Summer Palaces.”
“If he does, it’ll go down in history as one of the worst acts of vandalism ever committed,” Burton said. “And having looked into Elgin’s eyes, I feel quite certain he’s capable of it.”
Swinburne pointed at the power station. “It’s all lit up but the gates are shut. Shall we knock?”
“I’d rather reconnoitre before we present ourselves. Let’s see if we can find an alternative means of entry.”
They leaned their vehicles against the building and examined the huge gates. A normal-sized door was fitted into the right-hand portal but it was firmly bolted. Starting off around the perimeter, they looked up at the lowest windows, which were far too high to reach, even had Swinburne stood on Burton’s shoulders.
“Impregnable,” Swinburne muttered. “This is what Old Wardour Castle must have been like before it was ruined.”
The comment prompted Burton to peer at the upper reaches of the structure. As far as he could tell, there were no ravens squatting atop it. That was a good sign.
After completing a circuit of the station and seeing no possible way in, they stood again outside the gates. Burton looked at his companion, shrugged, moved to the small door, and hammered upon it with the head of his cane. The portal swung inward immediately. A pistol was poked into his face.
“Give me that swordstick and put your hands over your head,” Krishnamurthy said, “and step in. You, too, Mr. Swinburne.”
“Not a constable, then?” Burton growled. “I should have known.”
The two men did as instructed, passing through into a large quadrangle. Montague Penniforth loomed out of the shadows. “Sorry, guv’nor,” he said, and frisked Burton. He removed the pistol from the explorer’s waistband. Swinburne was subjected to the same treatment.
A third man, Bhatti, also brandishing a pistol, closed the door behind them. “If you’ll pardon the language, Sir Richard,” he said, “about bloody time. What kept you?”
“Perdurabo,” the explorer answered. Then, “Ravindra Johar and Mahakram Singh, I presume?”
“Yes, sir, though we go by Shyamji Bhatti and Maneesh Krishnamurthy these days. How is your brother?”
“Fat and obnoxious but alive—thanks to you.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps we can be reunited at a later date. I’d very much like to see him again. For now, though, we can’t afford to lose another moment. Will you start toward the big doors, please?”
Burton looked across the open space and saw the station’s inner entrance. He set off, with Swinburne on his left and Bhatti on his right. Krishnamurthy and Penniforth trailed behind.
“You can lower your guns,” he said.
“All in due course,” Bhatti replied.
Swinburne shrilled, “Are we on the same side or not?”
“We are, Mr. Swinburne, but this meeting has been a long time coming and we need to feel confident that neither of you will do anything silly. We’re cutting it very fine indeed—there’s no room for any monkey business.”
“Would’ve been a lot better if’n you’d turned up a few weeks ago,” Penniforth rumbled. “If I ’ad me own way, I’d ’ave thrown you into me cab an’ driven you here the moment you stepped off the bloomin’ Orpheus.”
Krishnamurthy said, “Now, now, Monty. You know perfectly well that time has its shapes and patterns, and Sir Richard had to come here of his own accord.”
“Yus, but—lord love a duck!—he’s almost too late, ain’t he!”
“Perhaps that is what’s necessary,” Bhatti said as they stopped outside the doors.
“My hat! What the blazes are you blathering about?” Swinburne cried out.
“Patience, my friend,” Krishnamurthy said. He reached up and twisted an odd-looking combination lock back and forth until a click sounded. He pushed the doors open. Burton squinted as an incandescent light assaulted his eyes. As his vision adjusted to it, he saw a cathedral-sized chamber, from the roof of which hung big glass globes. The light radiated out from them, as if they each held captive lightning.
“Thi
s way,” Bhatti said, and led them in and across a vast floor crowded with baffling machinery. There was no steam here; it was all electricity, fizzling, crackling, and popping; sending writhing bolts from one megalithic device to another, filling the place with the tang of ozone.
From among the coils, towers, dials, and showering sparks, a man emerged and approached. Short, plump, and blond-haired, he was dressed conservatively but for an extraordinary contraption slung around his shoulders and buckled over his chest and waist; an extra pair of arms, mechanical and intricate, multi-jointed, and with a number of different tools arranged at their ends. Two thin cables ran from the harness up to either side of his neck. They appeared to be plugged directly into his skull, just behind his ears. The artificial arms moved as naturally as his fleshy ones.
“Daniel Gooch!” Swinburne exclaimed.
“Yes,” the man said. “And you must be Algernon Swinburne. I’m very pleased to meet you. And you, too, of course, Sir Richard.” He addressed the others. “Lower your guns, chaps. Our guests are doubtlessly far too curious to cause us trouble.” He looked at Burton for confirmation and received it in the form of a brisk nod. To Bhatti, he said, “Shyamji, would you tell him? I expect he’ll want to prepare.”
“Rightio.” Bhatti hurried away.
“This way,” Gooch said, gesturing to the right with a metal limb. “Let’s get out of this noise.”
They followed him past a bank of flashing lights, around a dome-shaped contraption of glass and silver rods, and through a central area of workbenches.
“Are you a captive, Mr. Gooch?” Burton asked.
“No. I’m free to leave whenever I want to.”
“You disappeared from an undersea suit.”
“Yes. One of those.” Gooch pointed to the right where bizarre outfits were hanging from a rail; padded rubbery affairs each criss-crossed by harnesses and draped beneath globular metal helmets that had porthole-like openings in their fronts. “It was planned. The suit they raised was not the same one I was wearing. I was collected from the seabed by a prototype submarine boat and brought here. Through this door, please.”
He ushered them into a room furnished with bookshelves, leather armchairs and couches, expensive rugs, a grandfather clock, and tasteful pictures and ornaments. It could have been the sitting room of a manor house, were it not for the tall metal box mounted on wheels in one corner.
A figure, sitting at a desk, rose as they entered. Constructed of polished brass, it resembled one of Charles Babbage’s clockwork men, but was considerably bulkier, possessed six arms, and was more extensively engraved with decorative designs. The front of its head was beautifully fashioned to resemble a human face, though, being immobile, it more resembled a death mask.
Burton recognised the features.
“Brunel!” he blurted.
“Sir Richard,” the mechanism clanged. Its voice sounded like a blending of handbells and a church organ. “Thank goodness you’ve come at last! I wanted to fetch you but he wouldn’t allow it.”
With much whirring and ticking, the metal man stepped forward and extended a gauntlet-like hand. Bemusedly, Burton shook it and said, “‘He’ being Abdu El Yezdi?”
“Correct. He has a baffling obsession with the timing of events. Ah! Algernon Swinburne. It is good to see you. I am Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”
“In a suit of armour?” Swinburne asked.
Brunel produced a tinkling noise that might have been laughter. He tapped the side of his head. “As a matter of fact, I’m nothing but electrical impulses. Unfortunately, my body suffered a stroke and breathed its last this September past. During my final hours, Shyamji Bhatti and Maneesh Krishnamurthy brought me to Charles Babbage and Daniel Gooch, who had this mechanism already prepared for me. My consciousness was transferred into a number of black diamonds of a rather unique nature. They were fitted into a babbage probability calculator—to all intents and purposes an artificial brain—so I live on, I’m happy to say, and in a considerably stronger body.”
“I need a drink,” Swinburne said. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I envy you. I’ve missed my cigars and brandy terribly since becoming mechanical. Well, it’s dashed late, and there’s much to discuss, but I’m sure a tipple won’t do any harm. Daniel, would you do the honours? Gentlemen, take a seat, please. Our host will join us presently.”
Burton, Swinburne, and Krishnamurthy settled in armchairs. Brunel pulled the wooden chair he’d been sitting in away from the desk, turned it around, and carefully lowered himself into it. “I’m still getting used to weighing a ton,” he chimed. “I keep breaking chairs, and if I use an armchair, I have difficulty getting out of it.”
Gooch distributed brandies to all but the engineer, then sat and said, “As you just heard, Babbage is among our little band. Nurse Nightingale is, too. None of us has been harmed and we all remain here of our own free will.”
“Are you certain of that?” Burton asked. “I find it hard to believe that Nightingale would abandon Saint Thomas’s Hospital.”
“I’m certain. She recognises priorities.”
“Anyone else with you?”
“Plenty of engineers and scientists, Sir Richard, but I expect you’re referring to other people who’ve been reported missing, in which case the answer is no.”
“We are all working for Abdu El Yezdi,” Brunel put in. “A situation that will, I fear, soon end.”
“Why?”
“He’s dying. He suffered a serious heart attack on the first of September, and a number of minor ones since.”
“The first of September?” Burton said. “The day the aurora borealis appeared.”
When my friend William Stroyan had his throat cut by Laurence Oliphant.
“And the day a disruptive presence arrived in our world,” Gooch added.
Brunel said, “The point is, he is extremely frail, Sir Richard, and has very little time remaining. He has much to tell you, but it will exhaust him, so, please, could you refrain from challenging him?”
Burton sipped his brandy. “I shall do my best. May I smoke?”
“Be my guest,” Brunel said, and emitted an airy whistle that somehow resembled a forlorn sigh.
After lighting his cheroot, the explorer addressed Krishnamurthy. “For how long have you and Mr. Bhatti known the Arabian?”
“Arabian?”
“El Yezdi.”
“Ah. He approached us in Ceylon, early in ’fifty-six, and told us when and how your brother was going to be attacked. If we saved him, he said, he’d ensure Edward would pay our passage to England. It was an opportunity too good to miss, but we nearly did miss it—we arrived a little late, and your brother was almost killed.”
“Nevertheless, I’m in your and El Yezdi’s debt,” Burton said.
The door opened and Bhatti entered, followed by a stooped and elderly man. Burton instantly recognised Charles Babbage and stood to greet him.
“What’s happening?” the scientist snapped in a querulous tone. “Where are the helmets? Why am I dragged from my work? Interruptions! Always interruptions! Don’t you realize how close I am to completion?”
“Sir Richard and Mr. Swinburne have arrived,” Brunel said.
“About bloody time!” Babbage glared at Burton. “I’ve done the calculations, sir. The probabilities don’t lie. You no doubt received all the required information seventeen days ago. Why did you not act upon it? Why have you delayed?”
“Charles,” Daniel Gooch said, “you know full well that random elements must be factored in.”
“Random be damned! Any man with a clear head can steer the correct path. Random is just another word for muddled thinking!”
Brunel clanged, “I fear we shall embark upon another of our inexhaustible debates if we pursue this any further. You know there’s no time for that, Charles, so please recalculate and join us. Would you care for a brandy?”
Babbage disregarded the question. His brows lowered over his eyes and, i
gnoring the gathering as if it weren’t there, he lowered himself into a seat, mumbling, “Recalculate. Recalculate. Another bloody divergence. Let’s see now—” He raised the fingers of both hands to his high forehead and began to tap them upon it, as if pressing lots of small buttons in a specific but inscrutable sequence.
Swinburne leaned close to Burton, rolled his eyes, and whispered, “First Harris, now Babbage. Cuckoo!”
Bhatti helped himself to a drink and sat down just as the door opened again. Nurse Florence Nightingale entered, pushing a three-wheeled wicker bath chair. She positioned it in the middle of the room, facing them all, then stood by its side.
Burton couldn’t take his eyes off the man sitting in it.
Abdu El Yezdi.
He was swarthy-skinned and sharp-cheeked, with a dark left eye and a milky right. His nose was large and hooked, and his long grey beard flowed down over a very fat stomach. Dressed in the robes of a sheik, he exuded magnetism and authority, but as Burton took in the details, it quickly became apparent that the man was also deep into his final days, if not hours; his hands were shaking, there was a blue tinge about his lips, and he was struggling to breathe.
When he spoke, his voice was thin and weak.
“Algy, it is good to see you again. Are you well?”
“Yes,” Swinburne answered. “But I wasn’t sure whether I’d dreamt you or not.”
“Culver Cliff? No dream.”
The impenetrable eyes flicked to Burton and considered him for what felt to the explorer like a minute, though it was probably seconds. “And you. You have lost—have lost—” His respiration faltered. He gasped in air, waved Nightingale away when she bent toward him, and went on, “You have lost Isabel.”
Burton nodded wordlessly.
“The pain you feel. You deserve every bit of it. Bloody fool.”
“Sir,” Brunel quietly rang. “I don’t think—”
“Shut up, Brunel, I’m speaking. So, Burton, who else has died while you’ve been flapping about like a headless bird?”
Burton glared at the Arabian and snarled, “Why, exactly, must I account to you, sir?”