Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 (10 page)

The officer nodded slowly. "The Grand Tour, eh? That's fine, Mr. Chapman. No need to be nervous." He smiled, exposing stained teeth, and, returning the passport to Orphan, said, "Enjoy your stay."

"Thank you," Orphan said, "I have no doubt I will."

He stepped past and joined Herb, who was waiting for him, and they left the glum arrival area and stepped out to the shore. To Orphan's relief Herb did not comment on his name.

The coast was dark, save for a few isolated gas lamps scattered around the mainly abandoned docks. The air smelled of seaweed and a short way away a solitary stand lit by embers offered up the aromas of frying garlic and the hiss of spattering fat. There was something else to the air, too, Orphan thought. A wildness, indefinable, intangible, that wrapped itself into the wind and now teased his senses. He looked sideways at his companion and could see the same reaction in his eyes.

Herb laughed and shook his head. "It is awfully strange," he said, and Orphan nodded. He felt a tension ebb away from him that had been his companion for so long that he no longer noticed it. Only now, as it was slowly flowing away from his muscles and his mind, did he feel it. Freedom.

And then he wished Lucy was there to experience this new shore with him, and the tension returned and settled over him like a leech.

"Come!" Herb said. "We'll be late for the train to Paris if we dawdle here too long."

Orphan agreed, and they set off, following the gas-lamps away from the dock. There were very few travelers besides them. A couple passed, speaking quietly in French, then a heavy-set man draped entirely in heavy dark cloth. When they reached the station it turned out to be not much more than a wooden shack planted beside a single railway track. The place had an abandoned feel, and Herb, tugging a little nervously at his moustache, said, "It feels like a ghost town."

"I guess there is not much demand for a railway here," Orphan said. "Considering."

"Yes," Herb said. "But I do hope..." he fell silent, not finishing the sentence. Instead he peered into the darkness that lay beyond the tracks and consulted his pocket watch. "The train is late," he said.

"Just like home, then," Orphan said, and his companion laughed. "Indeed."

The detective, Fix, Orphan noticed, was already on the platform, and kept glancing at his watch with an irritated air. He caught Orphan looking at him and scowled, his small eyes filling with suspicion. Orphan turned his head and said to Herb, "I wonder who he's after."

The uncomfortable thought percolating inside him was that it was he himself that the detective was pursuing, but he quickly banished the idea from his mind as nonsensical.

"Look," Herb said, pointing. "The train's coming."

Cutting through the darkness, the lights of the oncoming train illuminated the platform.

"It has no driver!" Orphan said.

The driver's car was empty. It came to a stop beside the platform and the doors opened with a whoosh.

"They have Babbage engines running French trains," Herb said, and his eyes sparkled. "Amazing!"

Orphan took a dubious look at the empty driver's car. "Is it safe?" he said.

But Herb was already climbing on to the train and, after a moment's hesitation, Orphan joined him. They took seats by the window, and then the doors closed by themselves and the train pulled out of the station. The lights of Calais slowly disappeared in the distance.

Two: La Convention du Monde de Roman Scientifique

They arrived at the Gare du Nord in the midst of night. The great dome of the train station was a lattice-work of steel and glass, a giant cobweb spun over an intricate maze of tunnels and rail-tracks, lit up with hundreds of electric lights that were strewn high against the ceiling.

"Magnificent!" Herb said, and grinned with delight. Orphan, who was also impressed, said, "It looks like Charing Cross."

"Right," Herb said.

They disembarked. The detective, Fix, had already disappeared. Good riddance, Orphan thought. He turned to Herb. "I guess this is goodbye. Where are you staying in Paris?"

"The Hotel Victoria, I believe," Herb said. "That's where this convention's taking place—what is the matter?"

"Odd, odd," Orphan muttered. He felt confused, and a little worried. "That's my destination, too."

"Excellent!" Herb said, and, as they stepped out of the station with their meager possessions, added practically, "We can share a cab then."

I don't understand this, Orphan thought. He felt the way he had back home, haunted by the Bookman's unseen presence. Books, he thought. I am bound by walls of books.

"Yes," he said, a little ungraciously, "I suppose we can."

Outside, the streets were mostly empty but for several barouche-landaus that stood waiting in a row and were quickly claimed by hurried passengers. They were long, sleek vehicles, with black unadorned chimneys and a single driver-cum-stoker at the front.

"Hôtel de Victoria," Herb announced to their driver, and settled in the cozy interior of the cab, while Orphan clambered after him and sat opposite. The seats were burgundy, worn yet comfortable, and the windows were large and clean, allowing the two passengers to easily look out onto the sleeping city.
"Rue de la Bûcherie."

The car purred and moved away from the station, making its way through the narrow streets of Paris.

Orphan felt tired, and still uneasy. Why there? he thought. And who am I meant to meet? Almost, it had seemed to him that it might be Herb himself who was to be his contact, and that the young man was only toying with him by meeting him in that way on board the
Charon.
But no, he thought. He couldn't picture the cheery young man as the mysterious figure that was the Bookman's agent in Paris. Perhaps...

But he didn't complete the thought for, at that moment, with the Seine on their right, they could see the great cathedral of Notre Dame rising from its half-island; and the thought of that strange and disturbing edifice, of what it symbolized, made Orphan turn and watch it with horrified fascination.

"I never thought..." Herb said, his face, like Orphan's, glued to the window.

The cathedral rose out of the Ile de la Cité like a giant, alien egg frozen in the process of hatching. It was made of the greenish, outlandish material that was brought from Caliban's Island by Les Lézards, the same glowing metal that, back home, formed the Queen's Palace. If the Gare du Nord was a testimony to human ingenuity and materials, clean-lined and well-lit, then the cathedral was its opposite: an eerie glow surrounded it, and above, surrounding the rim of its open roof, strange and disturbing gargoyles glared at the city below, their lizardine bodies frozen in the midst of indescribable actions.

Notre Dame, Orphan thought with a shudder, was impossible to ignore. And as he thought that the barouche-landau stopped, almost directly opposite the island, and announced, through the speaking horn fixed into the wall of the carriage—
"Rue de la Bûcherie."

They disembarked and paid the driver. Orphan took one more look at the cathedral and turned away. In front of them was the Victoria Hotel. It was a modest, four-story building, set amidst a multitude of brasseries, in a cobbled street just off the main thoroughfare that ran parallel to the Seine. They walked up the short steps to the doors and entered the building.

The reception hall was wide and spacious. A fire was burning in the hearth at one end, and a group of men stood around it with drinks in their hands, talking in French. The reception consisted of a long wooden counter, a large register-book, and a sleepy clerk who took down their names and assigned them keys without comment. Above their heads, in bold, rather Gothic letters, a banner proclaimed this to be the setting for
Convention du Monde du Roman Scientifique.

Orphan, suddenly thinking of nothing but a bed to call his own, parted from Herb with a "Goodnight, and sleep well," and ascended the stairs to his room, which turned out to be small, yet comfortable, with a window overlooking Notre Dame (he closed the blinds) and a single bed on to which Orphan fell as soon as he had taken off his shoes. He subsided almost immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he woke up the room was hot and Orphan was hungry. He left the room and made his way downstairs, locating the dining room by the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the air.

The dining room was nearly empty and so Orphan sat on his own by the window with a cup of hot chocolate, a croissant, butter and jam. He chewed on the pastry in a desultory fashion—he was worried of events about to unfold, of the man he had to meet, and of the journey he was expected to take. He wanted to be back home, poring over innocent books of poetry, not going off to a forbidden island, to fight against a presumed threat that wasn't his concern. His attention, however, soon wandered, as a boisterous trio of young people entered the dining room and loudly called for the waiter. They took a long table near to him, directly in his line of sight, and it was only natural, then, that he began, almost against his will, to listen to their conversation. To his surprise, each of the men had a name-tag pinned to his breast pocket.

Members of this convention, Orphan thought. And, on listening to their conversation—of course. They are writers. He smiled to himself.

"I've read your latest story in
Terrible Tales,
" said one, a young, barely sixteen, boy with quick, nervous movements—he had almost knocked away his coffee as he spoke—"and I thought it was
marvelous,
Arthur."

"Oh, Al, that small thing?" said the man he had addressed, a man not much older than twenty-five. He had a Welsh accent. "I hardly thought anyone would buy it off me, it was such a trifle." He beamed at the table, obviously pleased.

"Modesty doesn't suit you, Arthur," said another, of roughly the same age. "I've seen the review in this month's
Diabolique,
and they went so far as to call you—what was it—" he consulted a large magazine which Orphan examined with interest, the cover garish with a painting of a bug-eyed monster (it reminded him with a shiver of the Bookman) chasing a young maiden—"Ah, yes." He cleared his throat theatrically. "Arthur Machen is a rising new star in the field of weird literature. His short fiction is startlingly original, the horror palpable, the speculative element always thought-provoking. It is to be hoped there will be many more stories from the pen of this talented young writer."

Arthur grinned and the younger boy, Al (his name tag identified him, in nearly illegible handwriting, as A. Blackwood) looked up at him admiringly.

"Well, Montague," Arthur said, "Unlike you, I am not nominated for any awards this year, so there!"

"So there, what?" said the man (whose name tag said, in rather precise, clear handwriting, M.R. James), "You're bound to be up next year with that novella you had in
Cosmic Tales of Adventure,
the one about the squids in space. It was most effective."

"Oh, do stop it, Montague," Arthur said. "It was pure hack work, and you know it. I mean, squid in space—honestly!"

"I thought it was great!" the younger man (boy, really)—Al—said.

"Perhaps," murmured Montague, "you should have written about lizards in s..."

He was silenced by a look from Arthur, whose smile had evaporated. "There's a difference between truth and fiction," he whispered, quite loudly. "Please do not mention your speculations here."

"This is France, not home," Montague pointed out calmly.

"Nevertheless," Arthur said, shaking his head. "Nevertheless."

The three fell silent and attacked their breakfast instead. Orphan did not recognize any of their names, but they were obviously writers, and of that—what had the reviewer called it?—
weird fiction.
Orphan, who was drawn mainly to poetry books, was not aware of the apparent proliferation of specialist publications dedicated to the genre.
Diabolique? Terrible Tales?
He sighed. They sounded unpleasant.

"Orphan!" he heard a voice cry and, lifting his head, saw Herb come bouncing into the room, a brand-new name tag pinned to his suit. "You're only just up? Did you sleep well? I'll join you for coffee," he said and was about to sit down opposite Orphan when the three men noticed him and the youngest, Al, called out, "Herb? Herbie Wells?"

Orphan smiled to himself as Herb remained standing and said, "Yes?" in the kind of way that authors do when they suspect they are being recognized, but are not sure if they are in for a compliment or a lecture as to the lack of merit in their work.

"I'm Al. Algernon Blackwood? We exchanged letters some time back?"

"Oh,
Algernon,
" Herb said. "Of
course.
You wrote to me regarding
The Chronic Argonauts.
"

The boy blushed with pleasure at being remembered. "I thought your idea was so original! No one has written that before!" He turned to his companions and said, "This is Herbert George Wells."

"Wells, Wells," Montague murmured. "The book about the time machine, right?"

"Good stuff!" Arthur said, "Wells! Come and join us!"

Herb stood hovering uncertainly between Orphan and his new friends, looking a little like a moth caught between gas lamps. Seeing it, Orphan smiled again, and Arthur Machen, his eyes twinkling, said, "Bring your friend over, too."

Herb looked to Orphan, who nodded and stood up, and the two of them went to join the table of writers.

"So who else is here from across the channel?" Herb said once they were seated. "I've not even had a proper look at the program yet."

"Let me see," Montague said, "on the professionals' side there's yourself, Arthur, myself—though really, I am more of an academic, you know—our young friend Algernon here... who else? Stevenson is
tentatively
scheduled to be here—he is doing a book tour on the continent at the moment for
The Black Arrow,
have you read it?— and I think I saw George Chesney about—he's only been invited because of that
Battle of Dorking
of his, you know."

"I loved
The Battle of Dorking
when I was growing up," Herb said. "If I knew he was coming I'd have brought a copy for him to sign."