Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (42 page)

“I say, Herbert, is your mind still active when your spring is slack?” Swinburne asked as he prepared their breakfast.

“Yus, lad.” The mechanical man tapped a gloved finger to his scarf-enshrouded head. “The babbage in here interprets the electrical field held in the diamonds an' translates its fluctuations as speech an' movement. In the other direction, it channels sensory information about the environment from this brass body to the gemstones, which the field interprets as sound an' sight. When the babbage has no bloomin' power, I have no idea what's happenin' around me, but I can still think.”

“It must feel like you're trapped. I should probably go mad under such circumstances.”

“You're already mad,” Trounce put in.

One of the horses had died during the night. They redistributed its load, then, after eating, began the trek down the slope to the edge of the jungle. When they reached it, they found the verdure to be extravagantly abundant and chaotic, pressing in to either side of the narrow trail. Speke's party had passed this way recently, but there was very little evidence to suggest it, and guiding the horses past the thorny bushes and dangling ant-covered lianas proved extremely difficult.

“I'll set to with me machete, Boss,” Spencer announced, limping to the front of the party.

He unsheathed his blade and began to swipe at the undergrowth. A man would have been exhausted by this very quickly but the clockwork philosopher's mechanical arm hacked without pause, widening the path, until four hours later they emerged onto a huge flat rock as big as a tennis court, surrounded on all sides by lush green vegetation.

Spencer moved onto it, stumbling slightly, then laid down his blade, pulled a 54-bore Beaumont-Adams revolver from his waistband, and said: “Shall we stop here awhile?”

Burton glanced at Trounce and replied, “Yes, I think William's ulcers are paining him. We'll lay up until the day's heat abates a little.”

“I'm fine,” the Scotland Yard man protested.

“Wow! It is a good place to rest, Mr. Trounce,” said Sidi Bombay.

Pox and Malady, who'd been snuggled together on Spencer's head, suddenly squawked and flew into the trees.

“Yes, William,” the brass man said in his hooting voice. “You should take the weight off your feet.”

He lifted his gun, aimed carefully between Trounce's eyes, and pulled the trigger.

“Oh glory, that we wrestle
So valiantly with Time!”

–R
ICHARD
M
ONCKTON
M
ILNES

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

–O
SCAR
W
ILDE

E
ighteen-year-old PC53 William Trounce had failed to make his first arrest.

He always timed his beat so he'd reach Constitution Hill in time for Queen Victoria's spin around Green Park. He thought the young monarch—who was just three years into her reign—was taking a needless risk with these daily excursions. He understood her need to escape for a few precious moments from the stuffy formality of Buckingham Palace, but there were many who still thought her a puppet of the unpopular prime minister, Lord Melbourne, and they often took the opportunity to jeer and boo as she rode through the park in her open-topped carriage. Trounce considered it one of his essential duties to be there in time to move the naysayers along.

Today he was going to be late, and it was Dennis the Dip's fault. He'd spotted the notorious East End pickpocket on the Mall. The crook was, as usual, dressed as a gentleman and looked entirely at home among the well-heeled crowd that sauntered back and forth along the ceremonial avenue. He scrubbed up well, did Dennis, and easily passed muster as a gent so long as he kept his mouth shut. Were any of his fellow perambulators to hear him speak, though, they would have instantly recognised the harsh accent and mangled grammar of the Cauldron and would most certainly have given him a very wide berth indeed.

As it was, Dennis mingled with his potential victims with nary a glance of suspicion cast his way. No glances—but there was one unwavering gaze, and that belonged to PC53 Trounce.

It would have been a very satisfying first feather in his cap for the young constable if he'd ended the career of this particular villain today, but alas it was not to be. Dennis's eyes flicked from handbag to handbag, pocket to pocket, but his long, restless fingers remained in plain view the whole time, and Trounce had to settle for warning the man away.

“Oh bleedin’ ’eck, I ain't up to nuffink, am I!” Dennis had whined. “Jest givin’ me Sunday best an airing, that's all.”

“It's Wednesday, Dennis,” Trounce pointed out.

The thief objected and wriggled on the spot a little more before finally scurrying off, and Trounce resumed his beat, a mite disappointed that he'd still not “christened his badge” after two weeks on the beat.

At the end of the Mall he passed Buckingham Palace and turned right into the park. He preferred to walk along on the grass rather than on the Constitution Hill path itself; it was better to position himself behind the crowds that often gathered along Victoria's route, for the troublemakers nearly always hid at the back, where they could more easily take to their heels should anyone object to their catcalls.

He saw that Her Majesty's carriage, drawn by four horses—the front left ridden by a postilion—was already trundling along a little way ahead of him. He increased his pace to catch up, striding down a gentle slope with an excellent view of the scene. Despite the mild weather, the crowd was sparse today. There were no protests and few hurrahs.

He jumped at the sound of a gunshot.

What the hell?

Breaking into a run, he peered ahead and noticed a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white breeches walking beside the slow-moving carriage. He was throwing down a smoking flintlock and drawing, with his left hand, a second gun from his coat.

In an instant, horror sucked the heat from Trounce's body and time slowed to a crawl.

His legs pumped; his boots thudded into the grass; he heard himself shout: “No!”

He saw heads turning toward the man.

His breath thundered in his ears.

The man's left arm came up.

The queen stood, raising her hands to the white lace around her throat.

Her husband reached for her.

A second man leaped forward and grabbed the gunman. “No, Edward!” came a faint yell.

The scene seemed to freeze; the two men entwined; their faces, even from this distance, so similar, like brothers; each person in the crowd poised in mid-motion, some stepping forward, some stepping back; the queen upright in the carriage, wearing a cream-coloured dress and bonnet; her consort, in a top hat and red jacket, reaching for her; the four outriders turning their horses.

Christ!
thought Trounce.
Christ, no! Please, no!

A freakish creature suddenly flew past.

Tall, loose-limbed, bouncing on spring-loaded stilts, it skidded to a halt in front of him. Trounce stumbled and fell to his knees.

“Stop, Edward!” the weird apparition bellowed.

A bolt of lightning crackled from its side into the ground and the lean figure staggered, groaning and clutching at itself. Below, the two struggling men turned and looked up.

A second shot echoed across the park.

Mist-enshrouded Tabora was dirty and crowded and filled with oppressively monolithic buildings and bustling, noisy streets. Its many vehicles reminded Sir Richard Francis Burton of hansom cabs, except their steam-horses had been incorporated into the body of the cabin, so the things rumbled along on four wheels with no visible means of locomotion. Bertie Wells referred to them as “motor-carriages.”

The two men were in one now, along with the three Tommies from the
Britannia
, one of whom was driving the contraption by means of a wheel and foot pedals. Burton watched him and thought the operation looked exceedingly complicated.

Upon the rolling sphere's arrival in the besieged city, the king's agent had been hustled out of the ship and marched straight to a rather more luxurious motor-carriage than the one in which he was currently sitting. He'd waited in it for a while before being joined by Wells, General Aitken, and a driver. The latter started the engine, steered the vehicle onto a broad street, and sent it rattling along until they reached the centre of the city. A second conveyance—the one Burton was now in—had followed behind.

He was escorted into a large square building that, from the outside, reminded him of London's Athenaeum Club but which, on the inside, proved far less opulent. Here, he was presented to twelve generals who, along with Aitken, acted in lieu of an elected government. They ordered him to explain how he'd come to be in the Ugogi POW camp and why he was being moved. He answered the first part of the question truthfully. To the second part he said simply: “I don't know.”

The men then requested a full description of Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck and demanded that Burton recount everything the German had said to him. He told them as much as he could without revealing his identity.

Finally, they questioned him about the approaching
L.59 Zeppelin
and its payload, the A-bomb.

When he'd finished explaining, he was summarily dismissed.

Bertie Wells had taken him back outside and to the second car, in which the Tommies were waiting.

They were now on their way to a secret destination.

“We're supposed to be escorting you to Colonel Crowley,” Wells said, “but we're disobeying orders. When he finds out, if we're lucky, we'll be court marshalled and executed by firing squad.”

Burton looked at his companion and asked, “And if you're unlucky?”

“He'll use his mediumistic powers on us. I dread to think how that might turn out. One way or the other, though, this is a suicide mission.”

“Bloody hell!” Burton exclaimed. “Why didn't you tell me that before? I'd rather face this Crowley character than have you sacrifice yourself!”

“Which is exactly the reason I kept it quiet. I'm only telling you now so you'll realise the importance of what we're doing. I trust my editor implicitly, despite his eccentricities, and if he says the future depends on him meeting you, then I'm willing to bet my life that it does. Here, strap on this pistol, you shouldn't be without a weapon.”

Burton clipped the holster to his belt. He watched, amazed, as three smaller versions of the
Britannia
suddenly sped out of the billowing mist and swept past the motor-carriage. They were about eight feet in diameter and lacked the jungle-slicing arms of the bigger ship.

“What are those things?”

“Steam spheres. I suppose the nearest equivalent you had in your time was the velocipede.”

Burton shook his head in wonder, then said, “Eccentricities?”

Wells smiled. “The old man has a rather unconventional sense of style and his, um, ‘living arrangements’ tend to raise eyebrows.”

“Why so?”

“The gentleman he lodges with is, er, rather more than a friend, if you know what I mean.”

Burton threw up his hands in exasperation. “Good grief! It's 1918 and that's still considered unconventional? Has the human race not evolved at all since my time?”

The driver swung the motor-carriage into a narrow side street and accelerated down to the end of it, drawing to a stop outside a plain metal door.

Bertie stepped out of the vehicle. Burton and the Tommies followed. The explorer wiped perspiration from his eyes and muttered an imprecation. Tabora possessed the atmosphere of a Turkish bath.

“Keep alert,” the war correspondent said to the three soldiers. They nodded, drew pistols from their holsters, and stood guard at the door while Wells ushered Burton through it.

“Up the stairs, please, Richard.”

The king's agent passed an opening on his left and ascended. There was an oil lamp hanging from the upper landing's ceiling, and by its light he saw that the walls were painted a pale lilac and decorated with colourful theatre posters, most of them dating from the 1880s. He reached the top and stopped outside a wooden door with a glowing fanlight above it. Wells reached past him and rapped his knuckles against the portal:
Knock. Knock-knock-knock. Knock-knock.

“Code?” Burton asked.

“Open sesame,” Wells replied.

Algernon Swinburne's face flashed before the explorer's mind's eye.

“Come,” a voice called from the room beyond.

They pushed the door open and stepped through into a large chamber. It was lit by four wall lamps and reminded Burton of his study in Montagu Place, for it was lined with bookshelves, had two large desks, and was decorated with all manner of ornaments and pictures and nicknacks.

A crimson rug lay between four leather armchairs in the centre of the room. A heavyset man was standing on it, and, immediately, Burton felt that he'd seen him somewhere before. He was tall, rather fat, and appeared to be in his mid-sixties. His brown hair—which had obviously been dyed, for its roots were grey—was long and fell in waves to his shoulders. It framed a jowly face, with creases and wrinkles around the grey, indolent eyes, and full-lipped mouth. He was wearing a black velvet smoking jacket, inky-blue slacks, and leather button-up boots. There was a long cigarette holder between the pudgy ringed fingers of his left hand.

After a long pause, spent staring fixedly at the king's agent, the man drawled: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”

His voice was deep and mellow and lazy. It possessed an Irish lilt.

Burton almost collapsed.

“Quips!” he cried out. “Bismillah! It's Quips!”

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde grinned, displaying crooked teeth, threw his cigarette holder onto a table, rushed forward, and took Burton by both hands.

“Captain Burton!” he exclaimed. “You're alive and young again! By heavens! How have you done it? I demand to know the secret! To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable!”

Burton gave a bark of laughter. “Still the rapier-sharp wit! The war hasn't blunted that, I see, and praise be to Allah for it! It's good to see you, lad! It's bloody good to see you!”

“Sure and begorra, he's calling me lad now! And here's me a quarter of a century his senior by the looks of it!” Wilde caught Burton as the explorer suddenly sagged. “Hey now, you're trembling all over! Come and sit down. Bertie, in the drinks cabinet—there's a decanter of brandy. Fetch it over, would you? Sit, Captain. Sit here. Are you feeling faint?”