Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (56 page)

“I was sent through time to the year 1914, Isambard. What for John Speke was a split second lasted four years for me. Algy was killed in Africa last year, but was present, albeit in a different form, in the future I visited.”

“A different form?”

Burton sat on a leather-upholstered chair and, for the final time, told the full story.

When he finished, the Steam Man raised the letter again.

“Hmm,” he said. “This pyramid construction appears to have the elements of a battery. You say there were other structures of alternating layers in the temple?”

“Yes.”

“And a great deal of quartz?”

“Along with other crystals and gemstones, yes—an almost inconceivable amount.”

“Intriguing. My hypothesis, then, is that the entire temple was constructed to generate and store piezoelectricity.”

“Piezoelectricity?”

“A very recent discovery, Sir Richard. Or so I thought. I now learn that it was, in fact, employed in ancient times!”

“But what is it?”

“Put simply, it is electrical power generated by certain substances, crystals especially, when they are distorted by pressure.”

“Ah. And the temple—”

“Has the weight of a fractured mountain on top of it. That, Sir Richard, is a lot of power. Having it hit you in the head should have been enough to burn you to a cinder in an instant. Yet, instead, it projected you through time.”

“It passed through Herbert Spencer—or rather through the priest K'k'thyima—first.”

“It did. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it passed through the seven stones of the Cambodian Eye. It seems to me that the intelligence in those stones was somehow able to control the force, and, I should think, set the coordinates for your destination in time.”

“Good,” Burton responded.

“Good, Sir Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you've confirmed my own suspicions on the matter. If we are correct, my plan has, perhaps, some small chance of succeeding.”

“You have a plan?”

“Of sorts.”

“Then I think perhaps I had better hear it.”

At four-thirty in the morning, a strong vibration shook the floor of the rooms beneath the Tower of London. It rapidly increased in intensity and a loud rumbling shocked the secret institution's staff out of their beds.

People, wrapped in dressing gowns, ran into the main hallway.

“Earthquake!” someone shouted.

Damien Burke, in a long nightshirt, nightcap, and slippers, yelled: “Up the stairs! Now! Everybody out!”

A guard unlocked the entrance door and the staff quickly filed out.

The floor cracked. A siren started to wail.

Gregory Hare, also in his sleeping clothes, pointed to a lone figure at the other end of the hallway—a woman, white-haired and fully dressed.

“Mr. Burke!” he called.

Burke followed his companion's pointing finger and saw the woman.

“Countess Sabina!” he shouted. “You must leave at once!”

The rumbling grew into a roar.

“I think not!” she mouthed, her voice lost in the din.

The floor in the middle of the hallway bulged and heaved. Dust erupted and filled the air as a spinning metal cone emerged from the ground and expanded upward. The deafening commotion caused Burke and Hare to press their hands to their ears. They blinked against the eddying dust and squinted through watering eyes at the massive drill as it thundered out of the floor and its tip bit into the ceiling. Shredded plaster and masonry exploded outward.

“Mr. Burke! Mr. Burke!” Hare bellowed, but the other man could hear nothing but the cacophonous machine.

The drill buried itself deeper and deeper into the roof, and, as it did so, the main body of the tunnelling machine rose into view. Steam belched out of holes in its sides until the atmosphere of the hallway was so thick that nothing could be seen, though electric wall lamps continued to glow.

Burke groped for Hare's arm, clutched it, put his mouth against the other man's ear, and yelled: “Find your way to the armoury. Bring weapons!”

He felt his colleague move away.

The noise suddenly died. There was a moment of absolute silence, then the rattle of debris as it continued to fall from the ceiling.

A clang and a creak.

Thumping footsteps.

A repetitive wheezing.

The hiss of escaping vapours.

Something moved in the murk—a shadow—then a man stepped out of the cloud. Though the bottom half of his face was concealed by a scarf and the eyes were behind leather-rimmed goggles, Burke recognised Sir Richard Francis Burton.

“Captain!” he exclaimed. “Thank goodness! What's happen—”

He was cut short as Burton's fist shot up and connected with his chin. Burke folded to the floor.

“My apologies, old thing,” the king's agent murmured.

He moved back to the Worm. Two figures—Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Maneesh Krishnamurthy—were standing beside it.

“This way!” he snapped.

He led them toward the far end of the hall but stopped short when someone stepped into his path. He drew back his arm, his fingers bunched into a fist.

“No!” came a female voice. “It's me!”

“Countess! What are you doing here?”

“They've been using me in their campaign against the Prussians, Sir Richard. I can stand it no longer. Besides, I foresaw that you would come. There is a role for me to play. I must accompany you.”

Burton hesitated, then said, “Get into the vehicle, Countess. We'll join you in a minute.”

As she moved away, the explorer strode forward and kicked open the door to the security section. He entered, Krishnamurthy followed, and Brunel squeezed through after them.

“This one,” Burton said, indicating the entrance to Cell 4.

He moved aside as the Steam Man's multiple arms raised cutting tools and applied them to the metal portal. Moments later, Brunel pulled the door from its frame and threw it aside.

“John!” Burton called.

“Dick, what's happening?”

“We're breaking you out of here! Explanations later! Come!”

Speke, still in his shirt and trousers, groped his way forward.

“This way, Mr. Speke,” Krishnamurthy said, grabbing the prisoner's arm.

They hurried back out into the main hall.

A pistol was pressed into the side of Krishnamurthy's head.

“May I ask what you think you're doing?” Gregory Hare asked.

Burton wheeled to face Palmerston's man and cried out: “Hare, it's me! Burton!”

“What's happening here, Captain?”

“I have to take Speke! Hare, trust me, man! The future depends on this!”

“John Speke is a traitor. I can't allow you to remove him. Where is Mr. Burke?”

“Unconscious. I had to—” Burton suddenly shot forward and chopped at Hare's wrist with such force that the pistol went spinning away. He buried his fist in the man's stomach.

The breath whooshed out of Hare. He doubled over but clutched at Burton's clothing. As Krishnamurthy steered Speke out of the way, Palmerston's man yanked Burton backward, threw his ape-like arms around him, and squeezed.

“No!” Burton objected. “You have to—” But suddenly he couldn't say another word; his breath was cut off; he couldn't move. Hare's arms were unbelievably powerful. They tightened around the king's agent like a vice. He felt his ribs creak. Two of them snapped. Agony cut through him. He couldn't scream. Darkness closed in from the edges of his vision.

Then he was free and on his knees, gulping lungfuls of dust-filled air. He coughed and keeled over. Pain stabbed into his side. He saw Hare's face just inches away. The odd-job man was unconscious on the floor. Blood was oozing from his scalp.

Metal hooked beneath Burton's armpits and he was hauled upright, lifted off his feet, and borne to the door of the Worm.

“I rendered your attacker unconscious with a blow to the head,” Isambard Kingdom Brunel explained.

“Wait! Stop!” Burton shouted. “Put me down.”

The engineer complied. Burton clutched his left side and groaned. He pointed to a heavy door, barely visible through the steam and dust.

“The vault, Isambard! Get in there!”

The Steam Man clanged across the broken floor and started to work on the portal.

Burton stood, swaying, waiting. He turned his head to the side and spat. The taste of blood filled his mouth.

The siren was still wailing. He remembered the echoing “Ulla! Ulla!” of the wartime harvesters.

It happened
, he reminded himself.

With a loud
thunk
, the vault door came loose. Brunel stepped aside, carrying it with him.

Burton limped forward and entered the chamber. He looked around and saw things he didn't understand: bizarre biological objects in bell jars; devices that looked like weapons; a necklace of shrunken non-human heads; a mirror that reflected a different room, and, when he looked into it, a different person.

“You were right, Algy,” he muttered, for these things, he felt sure, had somehow slipped through from alternate versions of reality.

A flat jewel case caught his eye. He reached for it, opened it, and saw that it contained twenty-one black diamonds arranged in three rows of seven: the fragments of the Eyes of Nāga.

He snapped the case shut and was just about to leave with it when he noticed a particularly large leather portmanteau. He paced over to it, pulled it open, and saw white scaly material, a black helmet, a metal disk, and a pair of stilted boots inside. It was Edward Oxford's burned and battered time suit; the weird costume that had earned him the name “Spring Heeled Jack.”

Burton picked up the bag and left the vault.

Krishnamurthy's voice came out of the dust cloud: “Hurry! This is taking too long! They'll be back any minute!”

The king's agent found the door of the Worm and clambered into the vehicle. He sat and let loose a sob as his ribs grated together. Brunel's great bulk entered. The Steam Man pulled the hatch shut.

“Are you all right, Countess?” Burton asked.

“Yes,” the clairvoyant answered. “But you're hurt, Captain!”

“It's nothing.”

“Dick—” Speke began.

Burton cut him off: “Let's get out of here first, John. Explanations later.”

They manoeuvred themselves around the cabin until Brunel was comfortably at the controls. He set the engine roaring and reversed the Worm back into the tunnel it had drilled.

With the short legs around its circumference racing, the machine hurtled along underground, passing far beneath the River Thames, following the burrow westward until it angled upward and emerged from the wasteland at the front of Battersea Power station.

They all disembarked, striding and clanking and limping to the main doors, passing through them, crossing the courtyard, and entering the principal workshop.

Technologist personnel gathered around. Brunel ordered them to secure the building.

The group moved over to a workbench. Burton laid the diamond case and the portmanteau on it. Krishnamurthy walked away and returned with the Lee-Enfield rifle. “Here you are, Captain.”

“Thank you, Maneesh. By the way, was Mrs. Angell organising a bonfire when you visited?”

“She was, sir, and she seemed rather distraught about it.”

“If what I have in mind doesn't succeed,” Burton said, addressing all of his friends, “then, at very least, I want the evidence of what has occurred destroyed. Thus I've instructed my housekeeper to burn all of my records.”

“But why is that necessary?” Speke asked.

The Countess Sabina answered: “Different versions of history exist, Mr. Speke—I've seen them—and the boundaries between each are thin. If the wrong sort of person learned of this, they could make a Bedlam of all existence.”

Burton thought of Aleister Crowley.

“We're almost ready,” one of the technicians announced.

The king's agent turned to Speke. “Walk with me, John.”

John Hanning Speke, lying flat on his back on a workbench, allowed Isambard Kingdom Brunel to remove the cover of the babbage in the left half of his skull.

The engineer used a pincer to indicate two hollows in the exposed mechanism.

“See, Sir Richard,” he said. “These sockets were designed to receive two of the Cambodian stones.”