The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (27 page)

“And women, Mr. Wells,” Honesty put in.

“Of course! Of course! Forgive me my antiquated methods of reference.”

“Forgiven. You’re obviously ahead of your time.”

Wells laughed. “I most certainly am!” He slapped his thigh. “Corporeally!”

“But why is America doing the fighting and not us—not the A.S.E.?” Swinburne asked.

Von Lessing answered, “Firstly, because America’s prosperity has come about largely through its alliance with us; an alliance it suspects might crumble if we lose our enthusiasm for the frenzied capitalism it so fervently preaches. Secondly, because there’s a strong independence movement in India, and if we made that country the front line in a war, for sure it would leave the A.S.E., taking our strongest manufacturing regions with it and depriving America of its principal source of trade. And thirdly, because with the U.S.A. doing the fighting, the conflict has a better chance of being contained. If we participated, the hostilities would undoubtedly spread. China detests us, and has done since your time.”

“Thanks to Lord Elgin,” Burton said. “But surely your politicians have tried to make amends for his ill-judged actions? His vandalism occurred over a century ago.”

“Squares don’t apologise. They just make excuses.”

“Squares?”

“The straights.”

Swinburne squealed and flapped his arms. “What in blue blazes are you talking about? Straight squares? Have you ever heard of bent ones?”

“Yeah, man. There are plenty.”

“What? What? What?”

Sadhvi Raghavendra said, “Perhaps you could endeavour to employ rather more traditional language, Mr. von Lessing?”

“Yes, please,” William Trounce grumbled.

“I must confess,” Wells added, “I’m a bit lost.”

Von Lessing held up a hand. “Sure. Sure. I’m trying. Um. So, like, remember how, back in your day, the politicians either came through Oxford or Cambridge universities or were, at least, aristocrats, yeah?”

“Yes,” Burton and Wells chorused.

“That never changed, and those people have increasingly bungled it on the political scene. They’re stuck in their ways, man. Completely out of touch. Following outdated traditions. They don’t know how to work with East Eurasia, whose people they regard as savages.”

“Ah,” Wells said. “You mean the Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government continues to assert itself; there is a great deal of talk and no decisive action?”

“Right on! Exactly that! And it’s like, the middle classes respected these people, ’cos that’s the traditional way of things, so there’s been no challenge to ’em.”

Patricia Honesty added, “The people we refer to as straights or squares, Mr. Swinburne, are the ones who blindly stick with the status quo even if it’s plainly festering and useless; the ones who’re incapable of changing course; who haven’t the guts or imagination to do so. They have no ability to adapt and evolve.”

“And the deviants?” Burton asked.

“Rock ‘n’ roll, man!” von Lessing enthused.

“Good Lord!” Wells exclaimed. “What is
rocking role
?”

“Rock and roll,” Mark Packard clarified, “is where it’s at, and we reckon it’s going to change the world.”

Burton’s brow creased. He looked at von Lessing, who explained, “It’s fast rhythmic music. It came out of the States—America—having evolved from the blues, jazz and swing.”

The chrononauts all stared at him blankly.

Von Lessing continued, “Styles of music that can all be traced back to America’s slave population, which brought from Africa a storytelling tradition accompanied by an intense beat and a sort of call-and-response chant.”

“At last,” Burton murmured. “Something I’m familiar with. The musical storytelling you refer to is—according to legend—said to have originated in the Lake Regions of Central Africa.” He looked first at Swinburne and then at Wells. “The Mountains of the Moon. Significant.”

“Those peaks appear to have an inordinate involvement with human affairs,” the poet noted.

“What?” von Lessing asked.

“We’re piecing together a jigsaw,” Burton told him. “Please continue. What bearing does this music have on the political situation?”

“So, uh, yeah, rock and roll really took off in the fifties and it kinda galvanised the kids, gave them a sort of independent identity, I guess. Made them rebellious.”

“Created the teenager,” Patricia Honesty put in.

“What is a teenager?”

She smiled. “In your day, Mr. Burton—um, I mean, Sir Richard—there was no transition from childhood to adulthood. You were a kid until you got a job, and then you were an adult, whatever your age. Nowadays, between thirteen and twenty, there’s a sort of rite of passage. Teenagers have their own culture, their own music, their own fashion.”

“They think for themselves,” von Lessing said. “And now this freethinking is extending into some of the older generation, too. We’re sick of the establishment, the straights, and we’re making plenty of noise about it.”

Herbert Wells asked, “And that’s the deviation you spoke of?”

Von Lessing laughed. “Yeah, man. You see, this is what happened; the government saw the people were getting restless and losing respect for their so-called ‘betters.’ By sixty-four, Harold Wilson was elected as prime minister. This dude reckoned the only way to keep the populace happy was by making the weakening Empire strong again, to prove our superiority. To do that, he revived a banished technology; one that only the British had knowledge of. He made eugenics legal, and it quickly developed into what’s now called
genetics
.”

Burton gasped. “Eugenics! We’d seen signs that it would return. Had this Wilson fellow no idea of the dangers?”

“I don’t think he cared,” von Lessing responded.

“Interfering with nature,” Jason Griffith muttered. “It stinks, man. Really stinks.”

Wells said to Burton, “I believe it was banished in your age because the early experiments were bedevilled by unexpected consequences?”

“They were,” Burton confirmed. “For every advantage the science’s founder, Francis Galton, bred into his subjects, a counterweight occurred quite spontaneously. He once created a stingless bee. He didn’t anticipate that it would also develop such speed of flight that, when it collided with his assistant, it went through him like a bullet, killing him instantly.”

“No wonder it was outlawed,” Wells muttered.

“And now it’s back,” von Lessing said, “as a part of the futile manoeuvrings of a stagnant leadership. The kids have had enough. They’ve started to protest. They want a revolution. Most don’t know anything about Spring Heeled Jack or your mission to find him, but we Cannibals have started to see signs of him in the new genetically altered—er—
products
. So we recruited this guy, Mick Farren, ’cos he’s a strong voice in the underground movement. He runs an antiestablishment newspaper and keeps careful track of what the government is up to. He’s also in a band, so has influence with the freaks. If it comes to it, we want to be prepared and able to offer some sort of resistance against the mad intelligence.”

“In a band? You mean like a brass band?” Swinburne asked. “How can that possibly work? And what are freaks? Eugenic creations?”

“Ha! No, man. It’s all guitars and drums and singing now. The freaks—the turned-on kids—dig it. Mick’s respected and he has insight. He’s a good cat to have on our side. People would follow him.”

“Literally a cat?” Swinburne asked. “Medically raised to a human degree of evolution?”

“No. Cat. Dude. Bloke. Chap. Fellow.”

“Oh.”

With a glance, Burton and Swinburne made a silent pact to allow certain peculiarities of the future’s language pass them by without further comment.

Burton said, “And Spring Heeled Jack?”

Von Lessing replied, “Today, in London, there’s going to be a mass demonstration against our alliance with America and against American aggression in South East Asia. The police are expected to show up in force. I want you to see them.”

“Why?” Burton asked.

Von Lessing glanced around at his colleagues. “We—we want your opinion of them.”

Detective Inspector Trounce looked puzzled. “Of the police?”

“Yeah.”

“Without preconceptions, I take it,” Burton said. “Except you’ve already indicated that you’ve detected Spring Heeled Jack’s influence. In the police?”

“Yep.”

“You have me intrigued.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to put any ideas in your head, so what say we finish for now and get some grub? Are you hungry?”

Burton wasn’t but felt it impolite to refuse, so the meeting broke up and the chrononauts were served an early—and thankfully small—lunch. Burton wasn’t sure what it consisted of. Some elements of it were laden with salt, others with sugar, and it all left a nasty chemical aftertaste.

Jane Packard told them, “Eddie, Karl and I will go ashore with you at Margate to meet with Mick and travel into London. You have a little while to hang loose before we arrive.”

“Hang loose,” Sadhvi Raghavendra said when they were left alone. “How unpleasantly descriptive.”

“I wonder what their poetry is like?” Swinburne mused.

“I dread to think,” Wells said. “Will we understand a word anyone says when we reach 2202?”

Burton said, “In my visions of Oxford’s native time, everything was perfectly comprehensible and there was some mention of language rehabilitation. New words are introduced as time passes, others go in and out of style, but the foundations remain. In my opinion, it’s the form of society itself that’s more likely to mystify us.”

“It’s already doing so,” Trounce muttered. “Music as a political force? Children defying the government? By Jove! What a madhouse!”

For a further half hour, they discussed what they’d learned from the current crop of Cannibals. Burton felt pride that his brother and Tom Bendyshe had secretly amassed—and so wisely invested—such funds that the organisation could afford the Concorde jump jet. It impressed him beyond measure. Too, he was gratified that his friends, the original club members, had so efficiently passed their cause down to their descendants. This new generation struck him as strange, strikingly unceremonious in attitude, scruffy in appearance, but undoubtedly committed and trustworthy.

After a while, Eddie Brabrooke poked his head into the cabin. “Time to go ashore, folks.”

They put on their coats—but were told to leave their hats, which had gone out of fashion—and followed him up onto the deck. A motorboat was bobbing on the water next to the yacht. Burton looked toward the shore and Margate’s seafront. He’d known the town as a major holiday destination, and it had hardly changed at all except that, even from this distance, it had obviously lost its gloss and become shabby and neglected.

Bidding adieu to those who were remaining behind, Burton and his companions followed Brabrooke, Karl von Lessing and Jane Packard down a rope ladder and into the boat. The woman at its tiller greeted them and introduced herself as distantly related to Richard Monckton Milnes.

She steered them to the side of the town’s promenade and, as they ascended a slippery set of stone steps, said, “See you when you get back.”

Burton stood and examined with interest the people who were strolling along the seafront. Though many of the men were suited, the overall impression was of a major drop in the standards he was used to, both in terms of attire and manner. As for the women, there was a scandalous amount of flesh on display. Dresses and skirts, which never revealed even an ankle in his era, had diminished in size so radically that even naked thighs were unashamedly exposed for all to see.

“Hardly the Utopia I was hoping for,” Wells muttered. “It smacks more of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Indeed,” the king’s agent agreed.

Don’t be judgemental
, he told himself.
Don’t think of them as English. Be the ethnologist.

“There’s Mick,” von Lessing said, waving at man who was striding toward them.

“Lord help us,” Trounce muttered.

Mick Farren was all hair. It framed his face in a great bushy nimbus. The detective inspector couldn’t take his eyes off it.

Burton, whose travels had exposed him to an endless variety of strange sights, was able to look beyond the extravagant halo. He saw a slim youth of medium height, dressed in worn blue canvas trousers—perhaps the uniform of his generation—a black shirt, a short black jacket made from leather, and boots that reminded the king’s agent of those worn by Spain’s
vaqueros
. Farren’s long and, by the looks of it, oft-broken nose might have dominated the face of another man, but in him it was eclipsed by the eyes, which, as he came closer, were revealed to be direct, sullen and challenging.

“Sir Richard,” he said, shaking Burton’s hand.

“Mr. Farren.”

Few people could meet and hold Burton’s gaze. Farren did. The king’s agent felt himself being assessed.

He passed the test.

In a surprisingly soft and cultured tone—Burton was half expecting a cockney accent—Farren continued, “The
Orpheus
was called to 1968 because I recommended it. I hope what you see today will justify my decision.” He turned to the others. “Miss Raghavendra, Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Trounce, Mr. Wells—I’m honoured to meet you all. I expect this time period will strike you as lurid and uncultured. That’s because it is.” He smiled slightly. “If you’ll follow me, I have a couple of cars parked around the corner. We’ll drive you to London.”

“What are cars?” Trounce asked as they followed Farren away from the promenade and into a street lined with shops.

“Diminutive of ‘autocarriage,’” Herbert Wells put in. “They were invented during my childhood as an alternative to the old steam spheres.” He pointed to a yellow metal box at the side of the road a little way ahead. It was mounted on four wheels and had glass windows. “By the looks of it they’ve become rather more sophisticated than the rickety contraptions of 1914.”

As they emerged onto a wider thoroughfare, five of the vehicles whipped past at a tremendous velocity, steam whistling from pipes at their rear.

“Like a landau,” Swinburne observed, “but with the driver and the engine inside.”