The Steam-Driven Boy (21 page)

How had he been living? Oddly enough, he’d let out the Steam Barber. Not as a shaving machine, but to a South American republic which used it for executions. It seems they paid him by piecework, and since this republic was threatened by many real or imagined revolutions to be put down, and rebels to be killed, Pemberly’s rent provided a comfortable income.

The reason he appeared to be out of pocket was simply that every spare penny and more had been going into his new invention – the Start-Afresh Calliope.

‘Ever since the Steam Barber affair,’ he said, ‘I’ve longed to scrub out my life like a slate, and start over, as a new man. I might have been anything – a general, a man of God, a successful barrister – but no. The die, as we are so fond of saying, was cast.

‘Or was it? I began to study philosophy, astronomy, logic, monads – and the more I read, the more convinced I became that what is, is not
necessarily
. I threw myself into my work, and I began building the machine that could do the job!’

‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,’ I said, smiling.

‘Then you’re as stupid as the others!’ he cried. I dared not ask what others. ‘Oh, why do I waste my time talking to imbeciles?’

I begged him to explain again.

‘I have discovered that we can take the Path Untaken,’ he said passionately. ‘Like you, I once thought reality to be some rigid isoceles truth, unchangeable as a spoon. But now, nothing is easier to change than
facts
. Life is plural! Reality is not truth, it is a half-truth, a mere epiphany
of snort!’

These extraordinary observations left me as much in the dark as ever, though I dared not show it. ‘I see,’ I said, feigning to catch his meaning. ‘And did your invention succeed?’

‘Oh yes, of course. The physical machine was easy. But learning to play it has been excruciating torture. My mistakes continue to haunt me, and they are innumerable. Just now, for example, I am here to save your life.’

With that, he seized me by the shoulder and flung me roughly to the floor. Before I could ask why, a shot rang out! I looked to the window, saw an uncanny, grinning face – then it was gone.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Pemberly, helping me to my feet.

‘Not at all, old man.’ I glanced to where the bullet had gone. ‘You did indeed save my life.’

‘I wasn’t apologizing for pushing you down, you fool! I was apologizing for trying to shoot you!’

It was at that moment that I began to half-believe in Pemberly’s new invention, and to understand what it was he’d been raving about. Evidently the insidious device allowed him to multiply his body in some manner. Apparently some of his selves were less stable than others – his ‘mistakes’. His real self – if real it was – then had to go about undoing their mischief.

Just then the police called to inquire about the shot. I had to leave the room to deal with them. When I returned, Pemberly was not there.

It was an hour or more before I noticed, on my writing-table, a thick MS. addressed to me in Pemberly’s hand.

‘My dear Fatheringale –

‘How can I ever explain? There is so little time, for in this role, I must soon die. Not that I have regrets about dying, for what regrets could I, of all people, have? I, alone among mortals, have lived life to the full. I have been everywhere, seen and done everything I could possibly desire.

‘Now I want you to have the Start-Afresh Calliope. It will be delivered to you the day after my death. But I must caution you to read the enclosed instructions carefully, and so avoid the costly mistakes I have made. With this machine, you will be able to become whomever you please. But you must realize that not all change is for the better.

‘Your affectionate friend,

‘Gabriel Pemberly’

I turned to the ‘instructions’, fifty-odd pages of closely written formulae and diagrams:

‘Let
x
equal … impermeable haft …
Z
ⁿ
(quoin
B
(
n
*0)) … parseworthy, or … marriage of skull and weight … pars (
x-ln y
)
dy
… times four-stealths 0/ … groined poss … have been the result of … cow … 14 millions … light-averages spoiling rise … nerve-clips? But no! Anti-next … wherein the fast remove …
n
^z
(poss B*) … which I call another haft … star,
Q.E.D.
’

I could not make head or tail of it. Discarding it, I tried to think no more about the awesome possibilities of the machine. Over a week later,
I pointed to a body on a slab at the Morgue, and identified it as that of Pemberly. He had put a bullet in his tormented brain.

‘And the steam-organ?’ I asked.

‘The day after the funeral,’ said the surgeon, ‘Pemberly delivered it to me. In person.’

‘What?’

My shout awakened Lord Suffield, who launched at once into his anecdote again: ‘Sent a servant to the Governor with three jars of jam and a letter, the beggar ate one jar along the way. Explained to him the letter had betrayed him, gave him a damned good thrashing. Next time I sent him with three jars of jam and a letter. This time he hid the letter behind a tree, so it wouldn’t be able to see him eat the jam. Didn’t have the heart to thrash him that time, I was laughing so hard. Oh, by the bye …’

When his lordship was asleep again, the surgeon replied to my question.

It was a younger, hardier Pemberly who delivered the Calliope to my door.

‘I’m not an apparition,’ he said impatiently. ‘And if you’d taken the trouble to read my instructions, you’d understand well enough why I’m here, the day after my own funeral. But never mind, come out and have a look at it.’

‘It?’

‘The Start-Afresh Calliope!’ he declaimed. Leading me out to the street – and so stupefied was I that I ventured out in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves – he showed me a wagon burdened with an immensity of steel and brass.

It did somewhat resemble a calliope. But the pipes stood in no regular order, but branched and twisted in all directions, connecting to a variety of implements. I recognized a clock-face, a pair of bellows, sprockets and weaving machinery. The stops had been marked with some private cipher of Pemberly’s.

After firing the boiler and checking a valve, he took his seat at the keyboard, poised both hands and shouted:

‘Let the Music of Change begin!’

I could stomach no more of this madness. It seemed clear to me that this person had murdered old Pemberly and now sought to impersonate him. I turned back to the house to send for the authorities, saying that I only meant to put on my coat.

‘The Music of Change cannot wait,’ he said, and began to play.

The melody was some popular air, but his arrangement made it uncannily beautiful and terrifying together. Thunder … the wail of a lost soul … the ring of crystal … the snap of fresh lather … no, nothing can convey it. I digress.

Like most surgeons, I have next to my front door a polished brass plate, stating my name and profession. The music caught and stiffened me as I was about to go inside, and I looked at – and into – this plate. I saw
my own startled face, and behind me, the back of Pemberly, hunched like Satan at the keyboard.

He glowed. That is, he gave off no light, but a kind of unearthly intensity. I could look inside him, and see other persons glowing through his skin and clothes.

Here was a younger Pemberly, working at his Steam Barber; an even younger, studying chemistry; a schoolboy; an infant. Here too were Pemberly the financier, barrister, bishop, general –

My focus changed, and I saw the name upon the plate was not my own. The focus changed back, and I saw too that my face was not my own, but the face of Pemberly the surgeon.

‘So that’s it!’ I shouted in his voice.

‘Exactly,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m living off you for a time, old man. Hope you don’t mind.’ He shut off the organ and strolled away, leaving me the accursed contraption and the twice-accursed man you see before you now.

I am forced to live out a life – an immensely successful life –
for
Pemberly,
as
Pemberly. I still know who I am. I have all my own memories, yet I am conscious of another soul inhabiting my body and feeding upon my experiences. And though I know I am Fatheringale, it would appear madness to say so.

I know not how many other lives Pemberly has appropriated, but I meet myself everywhere I go. Perhaps the process will not end until all of humanity is one great, babbling version of him. I can only hope, before that day comes, I shall have the courage to take my own life.

As I had not actually heard the Calliope play, I thought the poor surgeon insane, and I intimated as much to Lord Suffield when the other had taken his departure.

‘Mad? Not old Pemberly. One of the best doctors around, you know. Up for a knighthood, I understand. Or is that some other Pemberly? Daresay two or three’ll be on the Honours List this year. Damned ambitious clan. Always meeting one who’s worked his way up. Met a High Court Justice the other day named Pemberly. Nice enough fellow, but he talked utter rubbish. Two glasses of port, and the fellow started actually insisting he was someone else! Used peculiar words, too: “the chock of choice”, “the scabbard of pork opinion”, the something of … rubbish like that. Funny lot, the Pemberlies, but not mad.’

A servant came into the room, at the far end, to clear the tables. Did he not resemble Dr Pemberly? And did he not move as if animated by a clockwork truss? No, a trick of the light, no doubt, or my weariness. There is no mad inventor playing arpeggios upon the human race. The whole story is nothing but a celery of no compass!

B
Y
H
UGOGRE
N. B
ACKS

(1911 W
INNER OF THE
‘H
UGOGRE
’ A
WARD
)

Chapter I. The Runaway

Ralph 4F, the world’s chief scientific expert, studied the calendar. Today was March 15, 2720. With any luck, his intricate radium experiment should be completed within five days. That would be –

Ralph’s calculations were interrupted by a frantic cry that issued from the
Peer-afar
machine.

‘Help! Help!’

This machine, through a complicated arrangement of scientific apparatus, allowed the inventor to see and hear events which were not actually right before him, but dozens, even
hundreds of miles away.
While the old-fashioned telephone had used wires to transmit only voices, the Peer-afar used
vibrational waves
travelling at high speed through the aether, to transmit voices and images together! Ralph glanced now at the polished mirror plate of the Peer-afar.

He was looking right into the frightened eyes of a pretty young woman, and it was not hard to guess from her surroundings what had frightened her, for she and an elderly man in banker’s clothes seemed to be the occupants of a runaway motorcar! As Ralph watched in horror, the young lady lost consciousness, and the vehicle careered out of sight!

Without wasting a second, the powerfully-built scientific inventor sprang to the controls of his special flyer, the
Hummingbird.
Like its namesake, the
Hummingbird
was capable of flying vertically, sideways, backwards – even of standing still in mid-air, for hours at a time, as though gravity were a mere fancy. In a short time, Ralph had brought the craft to a stop over the runaway motorcar. Then, lowering a powerful magnet, he picked up the car as a child might pick up an iron filing.

Chapter II. Fenster

When Ralph had revived his guests with tablets of artificial brandy, they introduced themselves.

‘I am Jerome V8,’ said the banker, ‘and this is my daughter, Doris XK100. How can we ever thank you for saving our lives?’

Ralph blushed, and dared not glance at the pretty young lady. ‘By allowing me to show you around our city,’ he said. ‘You are both strangers here, I believe?’

Doris smiled, revealing a dimple. ‘Yes, we just got off the “Jet”
aeroplane from Council Bluffs, didn’t we. Dad?’

‘That’s right,’ agreed the distinguished banker. ‘Tell me, Ralph, why is it called a “jet” plane? It certainly didn’t look black to me!’

‘No indeed.’ Ralph, who had invented the “jet”, chuckled with kindly amusement at the old man’s error. ‘I called it the “jet” not because it is black, but because of the way it
jettisons
hot gases from the rear. These, pushing against the air, drive the craft ever forward.’
^*

As he explained, Ralph studied the girl keenly. He felt a deep attraction to Doris, thought he had known her but a few minutes, as measured by his extremely accurate electric clock.

‘But see here,’ he said. ‘You haven’t told me how you came to be trapped in that runaway car.’

Jerome V8 looked serious. ‘I believe it to be the work of an old enemy of ours, a disappointed suitor for Doris’s hand, named Fenster 2814T.’

Chapter III. Sight-seeing

Aloft once more in his flyer, Ralph pointed out to his two guests many of the city’s worthwhile sights. There were the great, smoking electrical power plants, busily turning black fossils into pure light as easily as a cow turns grass to milk. There were sewage plants, waterworks, factories and office buildings, streets, highways and mighty bridges. Jerome V8 expressed interest in the mammoth traffic jams, filled with motorcars of every description. Doris was impressed by the famous ‘skyscraper’ buildings, especially the huge Empire State Building with its giant climbing ape.