Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (55 page)

“Has Mr. Brunel encountered problems?”

“No, sir, he's still drilling the tunnels. It's a project of immense proportions. These things take time. Isn't that so, Mr. Hare?”

“It certainly is, Mr. Burke,” Hare agreed.

They disembarked at the end of Tower Street and walked around the outer walls to the river-facing Bloody Tower Gate. The stench from the Thames was almost too much for Burton, and he snatched gratefully at the perfumed handkerchief proffered by Hare, pressing it to his nostrils. Palmerston's men appeared unaffected by the foul odour.

After a few whispered words with the Beefeater guards, the two odd-job men ushered the king's agent through the gate, across a courtyard, and into the Great Keep. They entered St. John's Chapel, and Hare opened a door in one of its more shadowy corners, indicating to Burton that he should descend the stairs beyond. The explorer did so.

Oil lamps lit the stone staircase, which went down much farther than he expected.

“You understand, Sir Richard, that the area we're about to enter is not generally known to exist and must remain a secret?” Damien Burke said.

“You can count on my discretion.”

The stairs eventually ended at a heavy metal portal. Hare produced a key and unlocked it, and the three men stepped through into a wide hallway with doors along its sides. As they walked along, Burton observed small signs:
Conference Rooms 1 & 2; Offices A–F; Offices G–L; Administration Rooms
;
Laboratories 1–5; Clairvoyance Rooms 1–4; Vault; Weapon Shop; Monitoring Station; Canteen; Dormitories
.

At the end of the passage, they unlocked and passed through a door marked
Security.
The chamber beyond was rectangular and contained filing cabinets and a desk. There were six sturdy metal doors, each numbered.

A man at the desk rose and said, “Number four, gentlemen?”

Burke nodded. He turned to Burton. “You have thirty minutes, Captain. Mr. Hare and I will wait here.”

“Very well.”

Cell 4 was opened and Burton stepped into it. The door shut behind him. He heard a key turn in its lock.

The chamber looked more like a sitting room than a prison. There were shelves of books, a desk, a bureau, a settee and armchairs, ornaments on the mantelpiece, and pictures on the wall. A door stood open to Burton's right, and John Speke stepped out from what was evidently a bedchamber.

The lieutenant was barefoot, wearing trousers and a white cotton shirt, wrinkled and untucked.

“Dick!” he exclaimed. “I'm sorry, old fellow, I had no idea it was that time already!”

“Hallo, John. How are you feeling?”

“As healthy as a condemned man can expect.” Speke waved toward the armchairs. “Come, sit down.”

As they moved across the room, he leaned in close and quietly hissed: “They'll be listening.”

Burton gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and sat down.

There was an occasional table beside Speke's chair. He took a decanter of brandy from it, poured two glasses, and handed one to his guest.

“Do you consider me guilty, Dick?”

“Absolutely not,” Burton responded.

“Good. I don't care about anyone else. But I must ask your forgiveness. A weakness in my character caused me to take umbrage with you during our exploration of Berbera, and everything we've endured since stems from that act. I thought you considered me a coward. I was angry and resentful.”

“And wrong, John. I never thought of you that way. But if it's forgiveness you need, then consider it granted.”

“Thank you.”

Hesitantly, Speke raised his glass. Burton leaned forward, clinked his own against it, and they drank.

“Do you remember all those dreadful days of illness in Ujiji?” Speke asked, referring to 1857, when they'd discovered Lake Tanganyika.

“How could I forget, John? I thought we were goners for sure.”

“When I was at my lowest ebb, you used to sit beside my cot and read to me from Camoens. Would you do so again? I'd gain much comfort from it. They allowed me a volume of
The Lusiad.”

“Certainly.”

Speke stood, crossed to a bookshelf, and returned with a book in his hand. He passed it to Burton and sat down.

“I've marked a page.”

Burton nodded then opened the book where a loose leaf of paper poked out from the pages. He saw Speke's handwriting on the sheet and glanced up at his friend.

Speke met his eyes and held them a moment. His lens glinted.

Burton returned his attention to the book. He began to read aloud.

“'Ah, strike the notes of woe!' the siren cries;
‘A dreary vision swims before my eyes.
To Tagus’ shore triumphant as he bends,
Low in the dust the hero's glory ends—'”

Such was his familiarity with the Portuguese poet that he continued automatically, reciting the verse, expressively and faultlessly, though his eyes and mind were on Speke's note. He read:

Dick
,

I have told no one of what occurred in the temple. Nor have we ever spoken to each other about it, for we were in no fit condition to converse in the days subsequent to those events, and, besides, I had little recollection of anything other than a bright flash and a deafening gunshot.

But in recent days, the veil of light that blinded me seems to have lifted. What I witnessed has gained clarity in my mind, and I feel instinctively that it might be of importance to you.

I shall try to describe what happened in its proper sequence, though, in truth, these are but facets of an instant.

Dick, this thing that Darwin and his cronies attached to my head, this babbage device, contains antennae of such extreme sensitivity that they detect the electrical operations of a human brain. At the moment the brass man fired his pistol, those sensors were hit by a transmission of subtle electrical force. It was the—I'm sorry, but I know of no other way to describe it—the final mental exhalation of Mr. Trounce. This same burst of energy seemed to activate the downward-pointing pyramid above the altar. It suddenly blazed with light and lost its opacity. I was able, as if seeing through solid matter, to discern that its structure was comprised of alternating layers of material, one denser than the other.

Simultaneously, a pale-blue lightning flashed from the diamond at the tip of the pyramid and jumped to the brass man's head, then from his to yours. In the slightest fraction of a second, your appearance altered—your hair became white, your clothes changed, and a rifle appeared beside you—and the energy then reversed direction, jumping from you back to the brass man, then to the diamond.

As I say, this all occurred in a single moment, and I don't know what to make of it, except—this may be nonsense, but it seemed to me that the clockwork man somehow channelled and directed the force.

I wish I could be of more help to you, but my time has run out.

I cannot forget that we were once as brothers. I hope, when you remember me, you will think of that time, and not of the wicked things I have done.

Your old friend,

John Hanning Speke

Burton continued to recite Camoens, but his eyes flicked up and signalled gratitude to the other man. Surreptitiously, he slipped the letter into his pocket.

The half-hour ended and the door opened. Damien Burke leaned in and said: “Captain?”

Burton closed the book, put it down, stood, and shook Speke's hand.

“Goodbye, old fellow,” he said.

Speke's mouth moved but he could find no words, and with his eye glistening, he turned away.

It was past three o'clock by the time the king's agent left the tower. He whistled for a hansom cab and ordered the driver to take him to Battersea.

“Bless me, sir! That's a relief!” the man said, climbing down from his seat. He took a couple of lumps of Formby coal from the scuttle at the back of the vehicle's steam-horse and put them into the furnace.

“Why so?” Burton asked.

“South of the river, ain't it! A lot less traffic south of the river! Can't move for love nor money on the main roads north o' the Thames, but south—we'll have you on your merry way, no trouble at all, sir. In you go. There's a blanket under the seat if you feel the chill.”

The driver climbed back up to his seat, waited for Burton to settle, then—with an unnecessary “Gee up!”—squeezed the velocity lever and got the hansom moving.

As the cab rattled along Lower Thames Street and turned left onto London Bridge, the king's agent sat back, tied Gregory Hare's perfumed handkerchief around the lower half of his face, and focused on his breathing. Keeping it slow and steady, he imagined each breath entering first his left lung, then his right. He matched his respiration to the rhythm of a Sufi chant:

Allāhu Allāhu Allāhu Haqq.
Allāhu Allāhu Allāhu Haqq.
Allāhu Allāhu Allāhu Haqq.

He started to complicate the exercise, altering the tempo, establishing a cycle of four breaths, visualising oxygen saturating different parts of his body.

At the same time, he listened only to the chugging of the hansom's steam-horse, allowing it to block out all other noises.

By the time the vehicle reached the junction of Bankside and Blackfriars Road, Burton had slipped into a Sufi trance.

His mind drifted.

He saw formless light and colour; heard water and snatches of conversation:

“—According to the evidence John Speke presented to the Society, the Nile runs uphill for ninety miles—”

“—The lake he discovered was, indeed, the source of the Nile—”

The lights coalesced into a single bright ribbon, broad, snaking away through darkness, disappearing into the distance. He flew over it, following its course upstream.

“—Captain Burton! Did you pull the trigger?—”

“—Is there shooting to be done?—”

“—I rather suppose there is!—”

“—The source!—”

“—Don't step back! They'll think that we're retiring!—”

From far off to either side, he saw more ribbons of light. The farther upstream he flew, the closer they came.

“—Don't step back!—”

“—Step back!—”

“—Pull the trigger!—”

“—Step back!—”

“—The source!—”

Shining intensely, as if reflecting the sun, the ribbons began to converge around him.

“—Step back!—”

“—The source!—”

“—Needs pruning, hard against the stem—”

“—How can I reverse the damage?—”

“—You'll find a way—”

“—Is there shooting to be done?—”

“—I rather suppose there is!—”

“—Pull the trigger!—”

“—The source!—”

The bands of light joined into one blazing expanse. It shot upward in front of him. Burton gazed at it and became aware that it was falling water. He looked up and saw a rainbow.

The hansom cab jerked over a pothole, shaking his senses back into him.

He cried out: “Step back! The source needs pruning, hard against the stem! Pull the trigger!”

And, all of a sudden, he knew exactly what had to be done.

The hatch in the roof of the cab opened and the driver looked in.

“Did you say somethin', sir?”

“Yes. Make a detour to the nearest post office, would you?”

“Certainly, sir. We're just comin' up on Broad Street. There's one there.”

A few minutes later, Burton paid for two parakeet messages. He sent the first bird to Commander Krishnamurthy: “Maneesh, hurry to my place and pick up the rifle next to the fireplace in my study. Bring it to Battersea Power Station. Utmost emergency. Great haste, please.”

The second parakeet was sent to Mrs. Angell to alert her to the commander's mission. It went on: “Mrs. Angell, I have an unusual job for you. You must do it at once, without hesitation or protest. Please remove from my study all my casebooks, journals, reports, and personal papers. Take them from the desks, from the drawers, and from the shelves nearest the window. Carry them into the backyard and make a bonfire of them. Do not leave a single one unburned. This is of crucial importance. Destroy them all, and do it at once.”

The king's agent returned to the cab and, thirty minutes later, it delivered him to his destination.

The glaring lights of the Technologist headquarters were turning the thick fog around it into a swirling soup of glowing particles, here a sickening yellow, there a putrid orange, in many places a deep hellish red. Burton picked his way through the murk to the front entrance, hailed a guard, and was escorted to the main hall.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel appeared from amid buzzing machinery and clanked over to greet him.

“An unexpected pleasure, Sir Richard. It's been more than a year.”

“You've corrected your speech defect, Isambard.”

“Some considerable time ago. I'm afraid young Swinburne will be disappointed.”

“Swinburne is dead,” Burton said flatly.

“Dead?”

“Yes. Well, in a manner of speaking, anyway.”

“I'm not sure what you mean, but I am truly sorry. What happened?”

Burton glanced at a nearby workbench around which a group of Technologists was gathered.

“May we speak in private?”

Brunel expelled a puff of vapour. The piston-like device on the shoulder of his barrel-shaped body paused in its pumping, then continued. The bellows on the other side creaked up and down insistently.

“Follow,” he piped.

Burton trailed after the Steam Man, across the vast floor to where two of the huge Worm machines were parked. The explorer marvelled at the size of the burrowing vehicles—and, right there, the main area of difficulty in the scheme that had formed in the back of his mind found its solution.

Brunel reached out with a mechanical arm and opened a big hatch in the side of one of the Worms. He stepped in, gestured for Burton to follow, and pulled the doorway down behind the explorer. Lights came on automatically. The steam man hissed into a squat.

Burton pulled Speke's letter from his pocked and, wordlessly, handed it to the engineer. Brunel held it up with a metal pincer. It wasn't evident what part of his life-maintaining contraption functioned as eyes but something obviously did, and moments later he lowered the paper and said: “What does the alteration of your appearance signify? Does Algernon Swinburne's death relate to it?”