The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (47 page)

Raising her voice over the incessant sizzling from above, the woman said, “My Lord Speaker, may I, on behalf of the House, express dismay at this unwarranted intrusion and demand to know the identities of these—these—horrible
ruffians!
”

“Hear! Hear!” the crowd cheered.

The woman sat, a satisfied smile on her face.

Lord Speaker banged his wooden hammer again and blinked his large black eyes at the chrononauts. He pointed at Burton. “You, sir. Announce yourself.”

Burton stepped backward until he was beside Bendyshe. Without taking his eyes from the Lord Speaker, he said to the Cannibal, “Are you all right?”

After giving a nod and moistening his cracked lips with his tongue, the prisoner managed a slight smile. “Hello, Sir Richard. It’s good to see you again after all this time, though I—” He gasped and winced. “Though I regret that you find me in such a dire position. Be careful. They are all insane.”

“Sir!” the Lord Speaker insisted.

Burton raised his voice. “I am Sir Richard Francis Burton. My companions are Algernon Charles Swinburne, Detective Inspector William Trounce, and George Herbert Wells. I demand that you release this man.”

The gavel—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
—and, “You are in no position to make demands. You have no authority to be here. Which of the families do you represent? What corporation?”

“None and none,” Burton replied.

In a sarcastic tone, Lord Speaker said, “What are you then?
Lowlies
?”

The crowd laughed.

Swinburne took aim.

“Stun.”

Lord Speaker slumped.

“I’m sorry, Richard,” the poet said, “but he was being rather boorish and I thought it best we assert ourselves.”

“I say! Bad show!” a parliamentarian shouted.

“Aye!” another agreed. “Thoroughly unconventional!”

“Poor sportsmanship, I should say!” a third opined.

Above, the hemisphere of lightning turned a deeper shade of iridescent cobalt.

A man in the front row got to his feet. He was costumed as if participating in a
commedia dell’arte
. “My Lord Speaker appears to be resting, thus I will announce myself. I am Harold John Heck, the Duke of Deptford and Minister for Fashion, Jewellery and Accessories. Sir Richard, I demand that you explain yourself. Why have you interrupted parliamentary proceedings in such an irregular—and, frankly, thoroughly impolite—manner? You may address the House.”

Trounce and Swinburne set about untying the bonds that held their father by his wrists and ankles.

Burton put his sword point to the floor and rested both hands on the weapon’s pommel. He peered into the gloom at the edges of the circular chamber and tried to assess the size of the crowd. At least two hundred, he thought.

“We are here,” he called out, “to rescue this man and to locate a device known as the Turing Fulcrum.”

He saw little point in concealing the truth.

A woman in the front row jumped up. Burton vaguely recognised her but couldn’t think how. “Lady Dolores Paddington Station, the Minister of War, Death and Destruction. The man you refer to, and whom your companions are untethering with absolutely no leave to do so, is an enemy of the Empire. He has attacked us. We have been attempting to establish whether he represents the United Republics of Eurasia or the United States of America. Since you are obviously aligned with him—and are therefore an awfully rotten scoundrel—perhaps you’d care to answer the question. U.R.E. or U.S.A., sir?”

“We insist upon an answer,” someone yelled.

“Spill the beans!” another added.

“If we represent anyone,” Burton responded, “then it’s the majority. We represent the people. We represent what should be, but isn’t.”

“Nonsensical! You’re a bad liar, sir,” someone mocked.

“Surely you don’t refer to the inhabitants of the London Underground?” Lady Dolores exclaimed. “That would be absurd.”

Bendyshe slumped down into Trounce’s and Swinburne’s supporting arms. Struggling to raise his head, he shouted in a hoarse voice, “Neither Eurasia nor America are in any condition to attack, madam, and you bloody well know it.”

“Mind your language, sir. And you are quite wrong. Those empires despise us. They are jealous of our advanced civilisation. We have this information directly from the prime minister. Don’t you think we’re rather more likely to believe him than we are a—a—a
commoner!
” She spread her arms. “Parliamentarians! Plainly, we are in the presence of enemy agents. I call for the death sentence. We must do them in. Slice their necks.”

“Bravo!” someone cheered. “Hanging! Firing squad! Acid bath!”

“Could we construct an electric chair?” another shouted.

“Poison injection!”

“More of the carnivorous nanomachines! They are simply delightful!”

The crowd yelled its approval. “Huzzah! Carnivorous nanomachines! Huzzah! Huzzah!” They clapped their hands and stamped their feet.

Another women—her body and face almost entirely concealed beneath feathery garments—jumped up and cried out, “I object! I object! Let us not be impetuous!”

The hubbub subsided.

She continued, “I am Gladys Tweedy, the Marquess of Hammersmith, Minister of Language Revivification and Purification. Lady Dolores, whilst your indignation is justified, you appear to have overlooked the fact that this man claims a title.
Sir
Richard. If he is, indeed, a knight of the realm, then we must extend to him a modicum of courtesy. We must hear him out.”

Despite a scornful bray of “Liberal!” a number of voices were raised in agreement.

“It’s the done thing,” someone observed. “Though I must confess, I’ve never heard of the fellow.”

A man, wearing a velvet cape and tricorn hat, stood and said, “I am Lord Robert Forest Beresford of Waterford, Minister for Executions, Suppression and Random Punishments. I would hear a full and detailed statement.”

The crowd hooted its support.

“A contrary bunch of nutters, aren’t they?” Swinburne muttered.

Lord Robert said, “You and your fellows have the floor, Sir Richard. Tell us in full why you consider it desirable to release this man—” he indicated Bendyshe, “who has wreaked such terrible havoc in the Empire’s capital. Tell us what this—what did you call it? A Turning Fool? Whatever it is, tell us about it, and why you require it, and why you think we possess it, and what you intend to do with it. Speak!”

“Make it eloquent and compelling, if you please,” another parliamentarian drawled. “I’m weary and my attention is wandering.”

A ripple of laughter.

Lord Robert waved Burton forward, indicating that he should address the audience.

The king’s agent hesitated, irresolute, and turned to his colleagues. “What can I possibly say to these people? They’re like children.”

Herbert Wells said, “May I?”

“Be my guest. Keep them occupied, Bertie. I need time to think.”

“Your representative?” Lord Robert demanded, as Wells stepped forward.

“Yes,” Burton answered. “Mr. Herbert Wells.”

“Then the stage is yours, Mr. Wells.”

The Cannibal cleared his throat. In his thin reedy voice, raised above the fizzling from overhead, he said, “I ask you to consider a preliminary proposition before I answer the questions you have asked. Though you set yourselves apart, though you inhabit these high towers while the rest are teeming below, you are human, all of you. You are human. So it is, you are subject to the wants of our species. You seek to satisfy your hunger. You desire shelter and warmth and good health. You want your families to prosper. No doubt, you also seek the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed something to the world; that your existence will not pass without notice or any effect.”

Someone shouted, “Dreary! Get on with it!”

“Order! Order!” another countered.

Burton moved to Swinburne, Trounce and Bendyshe. “What’s going on here, Tom?”

“They were about to approve the invasion of the rival empires when I was dragged in. My torture has delayed mobilisation.” He managed a weak grin. “At least I know the pain was useful for something.”

“Are you holding up?”

“It comes in waves. I’m all right for the moment, but the nanomechs will start on me again in a short while.”

Wells was saying, “Surely, out of this commonality, it is possible for you to find in yourselves an affinity for your fellow man? I urge you, discover your mercy. Embrace compassion. Ask what there is to admire in a world where the majority are suppressed and monitored and designedly distracted by falsehoods; where a few maintain their privileged position by deceiving the rest, by sucking at them like leeches, by looking down upon them as little better than animals, by jealously guarding their own interests at the expense of the majority. Where is your honour?” He threw up his arms. “Great heavens! My contemporaries had such high hopes for the future! We envisioned a world in which all men and women were equal; where every person would reap the rewards of their efforts and willingly make contributions toward the betterment of all. Can you people not see that the only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have done and what we might have been on the one hand, and the thing we have made and the things we have made of ourselves on the other? Can you not understand that, by such a measure, you have failed utterly and miserably? I beseech you; destroy these terrible divisions you’ve created!”

As a body, the audience burst into raucous laughter.

“Please!” Wells pleaded. “Listen to me!”

Burton stepped forward. “Bertie—”

A deafening roar interrupted him. A ball of ferocious white flame blazed from the black hulk suspended above them. Bullets ripped down and thudded into Wells, shredding his clothes and flesh, crushing him to the floor and smashing the tiles around him.

The fire guttered and vanished. The roar slowed to a rapid metallic clattering then stopped.

Shiny blood oozed outward from the Cannibal’s tattered corpse.

The king’s agent, numb with the shock of it, watched as the life faded from Wells’s disbelieving eyes.

The ministers’ laughter gave way to enthusiastic applause.

Burton looked up and saw two pinpricks of red light in the bulky silhouette. Slowly, the shape descended. He heard Swinburne, Trounce and Bendyshe yelling but he couldn’t process their words.

He saw the gleam of polished brass.

He saw thick legs and an armoured torso.

He saw five arms extended, Christ-like, and a sixth, to which a Gatling gun was bolted, still directed at Wells.

He saw that the red pinpricks were eyes.

He saw, floating down to the floor, with lines of energy cascading from the apex of the domed ceiling into his head, the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

The House of Lords fell utterly silent as the brass man descended.

In familiar bell-like tones, he said, “The Anglo-Saxon Empire is mine. I will not have its Constitution challenged.”

His feet clunked onto the floor. He took a pace forward and looked down at Burton. The king’s agent felt his skin prickling, reacting to the ribbons of blue energy that were pouring from the ceiling into Brunel’s exposed babbage.

“Sir Richard Francis Burton,” the engineer said.

“Isambard?”

Ignoring the enquiry, Brunel cocked his head a little to one side. “So, despite my efforts to prevent it, you have followed me through time. That is unfortunate for you, for now the manner of your demise depends upon the answer to a single question.”

Burton took a step back and hefted his sword, eyeing the huge man-shaped mechanism, observing the gaps between its brass plates, wondering whether there was a part of it so vulnerable that a sword thrust could render the entirety inoperable.

“I shall tell you how I came to be,” Brunel intoned. “Then I shall ask and you will answer. If I am satisfied with your response, you will die quickly. If I am not, you will die very, very slowly.”

Burton remained silent.

“Know this, then, Burton: I have been born seven times, and through each birth this world was formed.”

“Bravo!” a minister shouted.

“My first birth came at nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February 1860. Three hundred and forty-two years ago.” With a quiet whir of gears and hiss of miniature pistons, Brunel closed his arms about himself. He lowered his face and regarded the floor. “No thought. No sensory stimulation. No knowledge of myself. What had its inception on that day was comprised of one thing and one thing only:
fear
.”