Asimov's SF, February 2010 (20 page)

Collingwood's expression was stern. “I wasn't at Trafalgar. Indeed, I have not been to sea for some years. Not since the Phoebean activities on Mars were detected, and the Grand Council urged the government to act, and I was seconded for the project by the Minister of War..."

Mars?
The
planet
Mars? Questions bubbled in my head, but the Admiral was not a man to be interrupted.

"Would I had been at Nelson's side in Trafalgar, or leading the line with him! I saved the man's life, you know, in the action at Cape St. Vincent in ‘97, but I could not save him at Trafalgar. And if I had served we might be keeping the French at bay tonight.” All of which sounded arrogant of the man to me—but who am I to say he was wrong? “Damn this business of the Phoebeans! Sometimes I think it is a diversion we cannot afford—a war on a second front. And yet, if I had not been called home from the sea I would have seen even less of my beloved home—and, who knows? Perhaps Anne and her sisters would never have been born."

"Oh, Papa—"

"And if my own father had been flush enough to afford to purchase me a better career I'd not have ended up in the navy at all, what? Ifs and buts aside, here's a certainty—the Phoebeans struck once before, in ‘20, and they will venture beyond the ice line to strike again—unless we make a stand now. And that's what this is all about, Hobbes.” I understood nothing of this. “And how goes the French war in America?"

I shrugged. “I've been away some years. You must know better than me. Napoleon has his marshals camped around Manhattan. He extracts our wealth to pay for his ventures elsewhere. Every spring a new army is raised, but if we've dislodged him yet I've not heard it."

"It's a bitter conflict, so I'm told. A case of strike and run, and no quarter given. So it must be when a war is so uneven. I was in Boston in ‘75, if you want to know. Yon rebels were a damn sturdy lot, I'll give them that, who ran the redcoats ragged. But the revolt was an upsetting of the sensible order of things, which I have always seen as my duty to prevent contaminating the English body politic. And what has been born of the French and their own dreams of liberty? The Corsican, that's what! I wish you Americans well, you are a sturdy young nation, but it's to be hoped you never birth a Napoleon of Boston or Rhode Island.” He glanced at his daughter and at Clavell, who looked grey with fatigue. “We really must try to sleep. Here, Clavell, there are blankets in the trunk under your seat, and flasks of water and whisky, and I think some biscuits..."

So we talked no more, and ate and drank a bit, and settled under our blankets as separate as bugs in their cocoons. And as we clattered through the English night, I dreamed of Collingwood's strange blue eyes, and Anne's brave prettiness, and the French fire descending on the country behind us, and I thought of the Phoebean as it rose from the sea under me—and of Mars! I wondered how all these strange elements would shape my life from hereon—if, indeed, I could stay alive.

VI

We arrived in London before the dawn, yet the city was already busy.

We went in search of orders and information to the Foreign Office, and then to Downing Street, and across Horse Guards to the Admiralty, and then through St. James's to Piccadilly. Having seen no city grander than Baltimore, I found my head quite turned around as we ran about that mausoleum of smoke and marble. All these offices of government and the military were as busy as you would expect, with runners dashing to and fro with messages, and Collingwood himself was called into Downing Street to speak to Pitt, the Prime Minister. I got a great sense of urgency, of a hub of empire thrown into crisis. But it was alarming to see carriages and broughams being loaded up with boxes of papers and elderly ministers, evidently in preparation for flight.

And yet away from the great temples of government, as the city woke, it must, I sensed, have felt like any other morning—the carts and drays rumbling over the cobbles, the news men and milk men yelling their wares, the water wagons spraying the streets to keep the dust down—even though Bonaparte was already charging up from the coast, and by nightfall none of this might be the same.

At last we reached Albemarle Street, where, Collingwood's main home being in a northern town, he kept a house that had been bequeathed him by Nelson himself. Little was made of it while I was there, but in the days that followed, detail by detail, I deduced something of the relationship of the two famous sailors—Collingwood the senior by ten years, grave and competent, physically stronger and less prone to illness and heat, and Nelson the vain one, the glorious and imaginative one, who had had to be saved by his brother in arms more than once. How Collingwood missed him! [
I have published a full account of my father's life and achievements, including his relationship with Nelson.—A.C.
]

Collingwood led us to a spacious drawing room where more military men waited, and the air was laden with wig powder and cigar smoke, and empty decanters stood about, for they had evidently worked through the night. A table was covered in maps, and Collingwood made straight for it with his bits of news garnered from the ministries, and he and his fellows immediately began to draw bold charcoal lines on the charts. They spoke gravely, these men of privilege and power—and every so often they would lapse into French, for many of them shared an education in a country now their enemy. As they worked runners would come bearing more messages, and Collingwood and the others would scribble notes to be taken away.

One oddity in this company was an older woman, plainly dressed and plain of face, perhaps in her fifties, who sat quietly by a window, her hands folded on her lap. I scarcely noticed her at the time. She was, I would learn, Miss Caroline Herschel, sister of the famous astronomer.

And in the middle of all this a dog bounded in, a big, loose-boned mongrel who made straight for Collingwood, to be greeted by a tickle from that stern admiral. This was Bounce, and much beloved.

There were a few domestics hovering, and Anne snapped out orders for breakfast, coffee and a replenishment of the whisky decanters. Then she turned to me. “You will be a guest here—at least for now; I don't know how long we will stay. Make sure Parsons serves you with an adequate breakfast. If you need to sleep, a change of clothes ... I myself will bathe, I think, while I have the chance.” She glanced at her father, his reading glasses on his nose and leaning on the table as if bringing relief to rheumatic joints. “As for asking
him
to rest, I know it's futile. If you will excuse me, sir—"

I nodded, too weary to cheek her, and she withdrew.

Clavell was at my side. “Can you read a map, Yankee?"

At the table, I recognized a detailed plan of the south of England, but I waved a hand. “Not with all this scribble. What's the news?"

"That the Corsican has landed. Well, you knew that.” He pointed to blocks of scrawl at the Channel ports. “Seven army corps, all more or less deployed around London. Each corps comprises infantry, cavalry, artillery. The first under Bernadotte is at Chatham. The fourth and fifth under Soult and Lannes came in via Dover and Folkestone, the second and third under Marmont and Davout came through Portsmouth, and the sixth and seventh under Ney and Augereau landed at Plymouth. We believe all of these are bound for London, save Ney, who is driving north, probably intent on Bristol."

"And what of your defenses?"

He pointed to more scribbled blocks. “Here are our army groups, as of a few hours ago, at least. You have Sir Hew Dalrymple facing west, Sir John Moore in the east, and in the centre Colonel Wellesley waiting for the second and third corps."

"A colonel?"

"Probably a battlefield general by now, I shouldn't wonder. A good man, from Irish nobility. Made a name for himself out in India—though his brother was governor-general there. Well, we'll know the wisdom of that appointment soon, for I expect battle to be closed within hours, if not already. The French like to march without a baggage train; they provision themselves from the country, and it makes for a rapid advance."

And, I knew from experience in America, it was hellish to have your family and your home in the way of such a locust-like advance. “What are your prospects?"

"As long as we had supremacy of the sea, we were protected by the Channel. And if Nelson had been at sea yesterday, perhaps Napoleon would have launched his armies east, not west, for one day there will be a reckoning between this ‘usurper’ who killed a Bourbon prince, and the crowns of Prussia and Austria and Russia ... But he is not in Germany; here he is in England, for he evidently means to settle his western flank before he confronts the east. Do you Americans still call our soldiers ‘lobster backs'? England's a lobster with a tough shell—but it's damn thin, and once breached what's inside is pretty soft."

"You ain't hopeful."

He shrugged. “Look at their faces—look at Collingwood's. I am confident England will survive this brutal assault in the long run. I am less confident about the course of this day."

Now Anne rejoined us. She was out of her mannish jacket and leggings, and wore a sober but flattering dress of rich purple velvet, and with her blonde hair up and powder on her face I was struck by her attractiveness—I don't say beauty, for she was no Venus, but she had a strength and composure in her regular features, and a spark in her eyes not unlike her father's icy blue that quite caught the breath.

Clavell bowed to her and asked after her health—but she took
my
arm, and I felt a quite unreasonable surge of pleasure. “Now I'm refreshed we have much to discuss,” she said.

I ventured, “You're the first English girl I ever met, you know, and not at all what I expected."

"Am I to be flattered or insulted?"

I glanced at her boldly. “Right now, in this fancy room, in that dress, you look the part. But not twenty-four hours past you were hauling me from the wreck of my
Nautilus
."

"You can blame my father for that,” she said. “The Admiral never wanted his daughters to embrace the life of a gentlewoman—a round of elegance, housekeeping, dress, of neighbors and dance and music and the season—a life of nothingness.
He
encouraged us to study geometry and languages and the philosophies, and the practical arts—he wanted us to learn how to survive, he said."

"If the Ogre is loose in England, he was wise. Well, I find it blasted attractive."

She raised an eyebrow. “Be careful, sir. This is an English drawing room, and you are very forward.” She glanced at John Clavell. “You don't want to be dueling over my honor, do you?” [
I may remark that this is an abbreviated account, turned to the author's favor, of a rather more coarse conversation.—A.C.
] I had a reply ready, but she cut me off. “Ben, you must pay attention. I suspect we have little time before the Napoleonic storm hits, and it is important you begin to learn what is asked of you. Come—meet Miss Herschel."

I was brought to the middle-aged lady who sat by the window, and she stood, grave, composed, her rheumy eyes very sharp. After we were introduced, she said with a sharp Teutonic accent, “You have never heard of me, but you have heard of my brother William."

I gathered this was a standard opening salvo from the old battleaxe. I could not fail to know of the astronomer, immersed as I had been in engineering circles all my adult life—and you know him, he is the man who discovered the planet Uranus, a globe beyond Saturn that is the first new world to have been found since the ancients first counted the wandering stars—which is a remarkable thing. “Odd. I always imagined he was English!"

"We are from Hanover,” she said. “Refugees of French aggression, under the old regime. My brother found work as a musician first, actually. But gradually he developed his interests in astronomy. And when I joined him we began to make significant observations, and discoveries."

Anne said, “Mr. Herschel's most recent telescopic observations have a bearing on the case of the Phoebeans. Indeed, they were mandated by the Grand Council."

I nodded. “Very well. So why am I meeting the sister rather than the brother? Where is he, at this time of crisis?"

Anne and Caroline shared a glance. “Not here,” Caroline said. “Fled to the north, where the Cylinder is being built.” Which was the first mention I had heard of this device! “But it is of no matter. I can explain the Martian observations to you as well as he could have. After all, it was I who made the bulk of them, and analyzed the rest."

I got a whiff of the sibling rivalry which dominated the household of the famous astronomer. With my own experience of Fulton, I sympathized; this Miss Caroline wasn't the only junior to have had her credit stolen by a more glamorous partner. But I was growing impatient, and picked on the key word. “'Martian'?"

VII

It had all begun with the first descent of the Phoebeans.

I learned that far from being inviolate since the Norman landing in 1066, England had suffered an invasion as recently as 1720, and not by the French or any human enemy, but by Phoebeans, a foe from beyond the sky. The key truth of these creatures is that they are animals of the cold, not the warm; they can barely stand our earthly temperatures, and it was the thaw of a spring day that year that halted their advance, not any human action. Still, after the Ice War, they persisted in the cold fastnesses of northern lands where the ice never melts.

The Phoebeans had fallen in a shower across the world's northern latitudes, and other battles were fought, though England took the brunt of it. In other lands, though, across intervening decades full of the usual famine, war, pestilence, and revolt, the strange episode of the Phoebeans was largely forgotten—not in England, though. And even here their great splashing across the north was made a secret—the incident was ascribed instead to the fall of a comet—because it was hoped that the Phoebeans could be harnessed to Britain's national interest. Typical English!—I thought.

Anne said, “Even as that first assault ran its course, the government established a Grand Council of philosophers to study the issue—Isaac Newton was its first president. Ben, your own ancestor, Sir Jack Hobbes, was involved in the ‘20. Accounts vary, but it seems he saved Newton's life! And that was why he was knighted. He became a rich man, but briefly..."