The Difference Engine

by William Gibson

  The day's second appointment, in Jermyn Street, was a severe disappointment to Mallory. He had come to the Museum to confer about his speech, but Mr. Keats, the Royal Society kinotropist, had sent a telegram declaring himself very ill, and Huxley had been dragooned into some committee of savant Lordships meeting to consider the emergency. Mallory could not even manage to cancel his speech, as Disraeli had suggested, for Mr. Trenham Reeks declared himself unable to make such a decision without Huxley's authority, and Huxley himself had left no forwarding address or telegram-number.

  To add salt to the wound, the Museum of Practical Geology was almost deserted, the cheery crowds of schoolchildren and natural-history enthusiasts depleted to a few poor sullen wretches clearly come in for the sake of cleaner air and some escape from the heat. They slouched and loitered under the towering skeleton of the Leviathan as if they longed to crack its mighty bones and suck the marrow.

  There was nothing for it but to tramp back to the Palace of Paleontology and prepare for the night's dinner with the Young Men's Agnostic Association. The Y.M.A.A. were a savantry student-group. Mallory, as lion of the evening, would be expected to make a few after-dinner remarks. He'd been quite looking forward to the event, as the Y.M.A.A. were a jolly lot, not at all as pompous as their respectable name might suggest, and the all-male company would allow him to make a few unbuttoned jests suitable for young bachelors. Mallory had heard several such, from "Dizzy" Disraeli, that he thought very good indeed. But now he wondered how many of his erstwhile hosts were left in London, or how the young men might manage to gather together, if they were still so inclined, and worst yet, what the dining might be like in the upstairs room of the Black Friar pub, which was near Blackfriars Bridge and just upwind of the Thames.

  The streets were visibly emptying. Shop after shop bore CLOSED signs. Mallory had hoped to find a barber to trim his hair and beard, but he'd had no such luck. London's citizenry had fled, or gone to earth behind tight-closed windows. Smoke had settled to ground-level and mixed with a foetid fog, a yellow pea-soup of it everywhere, and it was difficult to see the length of a half-block. The rare pedestrians emerged from obscurity like well-dressed ghosts. Fraser led the way, uncomplaining and unerring, and Mallory supposed that the veteran copper could have led them through the London streets blindfolded, with near as much ease. They wore their kerchiefs over their faces now. It seemed a sensible precaution, though it rather bothered Mallory that Fraser now seemed gagged as well as reticent.

  "The kinotropes are the sticking-point," Mallory opined, as they tramped up the Brompton Road, the spires of its scientific palaces obscured by foetor. "It wasn't like this before I left England. Two years ago the damned things were nowhere near so common. Now I'm not allowed to give a public speech without one." He coughed. "It gave me a turn to see that long panel back in Fleet Street, mounted in front of the Evening Telegraph, clacking away like sixty, over the heads of the crowd! 'Trains Closed As Sand-Hogs Strike,' the thing said, 'Parliament Decries State of Thames.' "

  "What's wrong with that?" Fraser asked.

  "It doesn't say anything," Mallory said. "Who in Parliament? What state of the Thames, specifically? What did Parliament say about it? Wise things or foolish things?"

  Fraser grunted.

  "There is a wicked pretense that one has been informed. But no such thing has truly occurred! A mere slogan, an empty litany. No arguments are heard, no evidence is weighed. It isn't news at all, only a source of amusement for idlers."

  "Some might say it's better for idlers to know a bit than nothing at all."

  "Some might be damned fools, then, Fraser. This kino-sloganry is like printing bank-notes with no gold to back them, or writing checks on an empty account. If that is to be the level of rational discourse for the common folk, then I must say three cheers for the authority of the House of Lords."

  A fire-gurney chugged slowly past them, with weary firemen on its running-boards, their clothing and faces blackened at their work, or perhaps by the London air itself, or perhaps by the streaming stinking soot of the gurney's own smokestacks. To Mallory, it seemed a strangely ironic thing that a fire-gurney should propel itself through the agency of a heap of blazing coal. But perhaps there was sense in it after all, for in weather like this a team of horses would be hard put to gallop a block.

  Mallory was anxious to soothe his raw throat with a huckle-buff, but it seemed smokier inside the Palace of Paleontology than out. There was a harsh stench, like burnt linen.

  Perhaps Kelly's imperial gallons of manganate of soda had eaten through the pipes. In any case, this Stink seemed to have finally defeated the Palace guests, for there was scarcely a soul in the lobby, and not a murmur from the dining-room.

  Mallory was looking for service in the saloon, amid the lacquered screens and red silk upholstery, when Kelly himself appeared, his face taut and resolute. "Dr. Mallory?"

  "Yes, Kelly?"

  "I've bad news for you, sir. An unhappy event here. A fire, sir."

  Mallory glanced at Fraser.

  "Yes, sir," the concierge said. "Sir, when you left today, did you perhaps leave clothing near the gas-jet? Or a cigar still smoldering?"

  "You don't mean to say the fire was in my room!"

  "I fear so, sir."

  "A serious fire?"

  "The guests thought it so, sir. So did the firemen." Kelly said nothing of the feelings of the Palace staff, but his face made his sentiments clear.

  "I always turn out the gas!" Mallory blurted. "I don't recall exactly—but I always turn out the gas."

  "Your door was locked, sir. Firemen had to break it in."

  "We'll want a look," Fraser suggested mildly.

  The door of Mallory's room had been axed in, and the warped floor was awash with sand and water. Mallory's heaps of magazines and paper correspondence had blazed up very fiercely, thoroughly consuming his desk and a great blackened swatch of the carpet. There was a huge charred hole in the wall behind the desk and the ceiling above it, with naked joists and rafters gone to charcoal, and Mallory's wardrobe, replete with all his London finery, burnt to cindered rags and smashed mirror-glass. Mallory was beside himself with anger and a deep foreboding shame.

  "You locked your door, sir?" Fraser asked.

  "I always do. Always!"

  "May I see your key?"

  Mallory handed Fraser his key-chain. Fraser knelt quietly beside the splintered door-frame. He examined the keyhole closely, then rose to his feet.

  "Were there any suspicious characters reported in the hall?" Fraser asked Kelly.

  Kelly was offended. "May I ask who you are to inquire, sir?"

  "Inspector Fraser, Bow Street."

  "No, Inspector," Kelly said, sucking his teeth. "No suspicious characters. Not to my personal knowledge!"

  "You'll keep this matter confidential, Mr. Kelly. I assume that like other Royal Society establishments you take only guests who are accredited savants?"

  "That is our firm policy. Inspector!"

  "But your guests are allowed visitors?"

  "Male visitors, sir. Properly escorted ladies—nothing scandalous, sir!"

  "A well-dressed hotel cracksman," Fraser concluded. "And arsonist. Not so good an arsonist as he is a cracksman, for he was rather clumsy in the way he heaped those papers below the desk and the wardrobe. He'd a skeleton bar-key for this tumbler-lock. Had to scrape about a bit, but I doubt it took him five full minutes."

  "This beggars belief," Mallory said.

  Kelly looked near tears. "A savant guest burned out of his room! I don't know what to say! I have not heard of such a wickedness since the days of Ludd! 'Tis a shame. Dr. Mallory—a foul shame!"

  Mallory shook his head. "I should have warned you of this, Mr. Kelly. I have dire enemies."

  Kelly swallowed. "We know, sir. There's much talk of it among the staff, sir."

  Fraser was examining the remnants of the desk, poking about in the litter with the warped brass hanger-rod from the wardrobe. "
Tallow," he said.

  "We carry insurance. Dr. Mallory," Kelly said hopefully. "I don't know if our policy covers exactly this sort of matter, but I do hope we can make good your losses! Please accept my most sincere apologies!"

  "It scotches me," Mallory said, looking about the wreckage. "But not so great a hurt as perhaps they hoped! I keep all my most important papers in the Palace safety-box. And of course I never leave money here." He paused. "I assume the Palace safe remains unrifled, Mr. Kelly."

  "Yes, sir," Kelly said. "Or rather—let me see to that at once, sir." He left hastily, bowing.

  "Your friend the Derby stiletto-man," Fraser said. "He did not dare dog you today, but once we'd left, he crept up here, cracked the door, and lit candles among your heaped-up papers. He was long and safely gone before the alarm was raised."

  "He must know a deal about my schedule," Mallory said. "Knows all about me, I daresay. He's plundered my number. He's taken me for a cake."

  "In a manner of speaking, sir." Fraser tossed the brass pole aside. "He's a trumped-up amateur. Your skilled arsonist uses liquid paraffin, which consumes itself and all it touches."

  "I shan't make that dinner with the Agnostics tonight, Fraser. I've nothing to wear!"

  Fraser stood quite still. "I can see you face misfortune very bravely—like a scholar and a gentleman. Dr. Mallory."

  "Thank you," Mallory said. There was a silence. "Fraser, I need a drink."

  Fraser nodded slowly.

  "For Heaven's sake, Fraser, let us go somewhere where we can do some genuine, blackguard, poverty-stricken drinking, with no false gingerbread glitter thrown over everything! Let us away from the fashionable Palace, to a house where they don't mind letting in a man with nothing left but the coat on his back!" Mallory kicked about in the rubble of his wardrobe.

  "I know what you need, sir," Fraser said soothingly. "A cheery place to let off a bit of steam—where there's drink and dance and lively ladies."

  Mallory discovered the blackened brass toggles of his Wyoming military-coat. The sight of this stung him deeply. "You wouldn't be trying to nanny me, would you, Fraser? I suppose Oliphant told you to nanny me. I think that would be a mistake. I'm in a mood for trouble, Fraser."

  "I don't mistake you at all, sir. The day has been very unkind. But then, you've yet to see Cremorne Gardens."

  "The only thing I want to see is the stiletto-man in the sights of a buffalo-rifle!"

  "I understand that sentiment perfectly, sir."

  Mallory opened his silver cigar-case—at least he still had that possession—and lit his last prime Havana. He puffed it hard, until the calm of good tobacco hit his blood. "On the other hand," he said at last, "I suppose your Cremorne Gardens might well do in a pinch."

  Fraser led the way, far down Cromwell Lane, past the great pile of pale brick that was the Diseased Chest Hospital: a nightmarishly dire place this evening. Mallory could not help but think.

  A vague notion of medical grimness continued to prey on Mallory's mind, so much so that they stopped at the next public-house, where Mallory had four or possibly five shots of a surprisingly decent whiskey. The pub was crowded with New Brompton locals, who seemed quite cheery in a cozy, besieged sort of way, though they kept slipping tuppenny bits into a pianola that tinkled "Come to the Bower," a song Mallory loathed. "There was no rest for him here. In any case, it was not Cremorne Gardens.

  They came across the first sign of real trouble a few blocks down New Brompton Road, by Bennett & Harper's Patent Floor-Covering Manufactory. An unruly crowd of uniformed men milled at the gates of the sprawling factory. Industrial trouble of some sort.

  It took Fraser and Mallory some time to discover that the crowd actually consisted almost entirely of policemen. Bennett & Harper's produced a gaily patterned water-proof stuff made of burlap, ground cork, and coal derivatives, suitable for trimming and gluing-down in the kitchens and baths of the middle-class. They also produced great volumes of effluent from half-a-dozen stacks, which clearly the city would temporarily be better off without. The first officials on the scene—or at least they claimed that distinction—had been a group of inspectors from the Royal Patent Office, pressed into emergency industrial duty by a Government contingency plan. But Messrs. Bennett and Harper, anxious not to lose the day's production, had challenged the patent-men's legal authority to shut down their works. They were soon confronted by two more inspectors from a Royal Society industrial committee, who claimed precedent. The local constable had been attracted by the uproar, followed by a flying-squad of Bow Street metropolitans arriving in a commandeered steam-bus. Most 'buses had now been seized by Government, along with the city's cab-fleet, in accordance with contingency measures intended to deal with rail strikes.

  The police had immediately shut down the stacks, fine work and a credit to the Government's good intentions, but the manufactory's workers were still on the premises, idle and very restive, for no one had mentioned a holiday with pay, though the workers clearly felt they deserved one under the circumstances. It also remained to be seen who was responsible for guarding the property of Messrs. Bennett and Harper, and who would be responsible for giving the official word to start the boilers again.

  Worst of all, there seemed to be dire problems with the police telegraph-service—routed, presumably, through the Westminster pyramid of the Central Statistics Bureau. There must be trouble there from the Stink, Mallory surmised. "You're Special Branch, Mr. Fraser," Mallory said. "Why don't you straighten these dullards out?"

  "Very witty," Fraser said.

  "I wondered why we hadn't seen officers patrolling the streets. They must be snarled up in the premises of factories all over London!"

  "You seem awfully pleased about the matter," Fraser said.

  "Bureaucrats!" Mallory scoffed cheerily. "They might have known this would happen, if they'd properly studied Catastrophist theory. It is a concatenation of synergistic interactions; the whole system is on the period-doubling route to Chaos!"

  "What does that mean, pray?"

  "Essentially," Mallory said, smiling behind his kerchief, "in layman's terms, it means that everything gets twice as bad, twice as fast, until everything falls completely apart!"

  "That's savantry talk. You don't presume that has anything to do with real matters here in London, do you?"

  "Very interesting question!" Mallory nodded. "Deep metaphysical roots! If I model a phenomenon accurately, does that mean I understand it? Or might it be simple coincidence, or an artifact of the technique? Of course, as an ardent simulationist, I myself put much faith in Engine-modeling. But the doctrine can be questioned, no doubt of it. Deep waters, Fraser! The sort of thing that old Hume and Bishop Berkeley used to thrive on!"

  "You're not drunk, are you, sir?"

  "Just a bit elevated," Mallory said. "Squiffy, you might say." They tramped on, wisely leaving the police to their squabbling.

  Mallory suddenly felt the loss of his good old Wyoming toggle-coat. He missed his canteen, his spyglass, the snug stiffness of a rifle over his back. The look of a cold, clean, wild horizon where life was fully lived and death was swift and honest. He wished he were out of London, on expedition again. He could cancel all his engagements. He could apply for funding to the Royal Society, or better yet, the Geographical. He would leave England!

  "You needn't do that, sir," Fraser said. "Might make matters worse, actually."

  "Was I talking aloud?"

  "A bit, sir. Yes."

  "Where could a man get a first-class game-rifle here in town, Fraser?"

  They were behind Chelsea Park now, in a place called Camera Square, where the shops offered fancy optical goods: talbotypes, magic-lanterns, phenakistoscopes, telescopes for the amateur star-gazer. There were toy microscopes for the boy-savant of the house, boys often taking a strong interest in the wriggling animalcules in pond-water. The minute creatures were of no practical interest, but their study might lead young minds to the doctrines of genuine Science. Stung by sen
timent, Mallory paused before a window displaying such microscopes. They reminded him of kindly old Lord Mantell, who had given him his first job tidying-up about the Lewes Museum. From there he'd moved to cataloguing bones and birds'-eggs, and at last to a real Cambridge scholarship. The old Lord had been a bit eager with the birch-switch, he now recalled, but likely no more than Mallory had deserved.

  There came an odd whizzing sound from up the pavement. Mallory glanced in that direction and saw a queer half-crouching ghostly figure emerge from the fog, clothing flapping about it with speed, a pair of walking-canes doubled up under its arms.

  Mallory jumped back at the last possible instant as the boy shot past him with a yowling whoop. A London boy, thirteen or so, on rubber-wheeled boots. The boy turned swiftly, skidded to an expert stop, and began to pole himself back up the pavement with the walking-sticks. Presently, an entire pack of boys had surrounded Mallory and Fraser, leaping and yelping in devilish glee. None of the others had wheeled shoes, but nearly all wore the little square cloth masks that Bureau clerks donned to tend their Engines.

  "Say, you lads!" Fraser barked, "where did you get those masks?"

  They ignored him. "That was dead flash!" one of them shouted. "Do it again. Bill!" Another boy cocked his leg three times with an odd ritual motion, then jumped high in the air and crowed "Sugar!" Those around him laughed and cheered.

  "Calm down, you," Fraser ordered.

  "Vinegar phiz!" a wicked boy fleered at him. "Shocking bad hat!" The whole pack of them burst into raucous hilarity.

  "Where are your parents?" Fraser demanded. "You shouldn't be running about in this weather."

  "Nuts and knuckles!" sneered the boy in wheeled shoes. "Forward all, my hearty crew! Panther Bill commands!" He jabbed his walking-sticks down and off. The others followed, yelling and whooping.

  "Far too well-dressed to be street-arabs," Mallory remarked.

  The boys had run off a short distance and were setting up for a game of crack-the-whip. Swiftly, each boy grabbed the next by the arm, forming a chain. The boy on wheels took the tail-end.