Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (15 page)

After a minute passed, however, and then another, with still no break in the humming sound of the device or the emergence of any of the society members, Bernard grew concerned. Why weren’t they trying to escape? Perhaps they were trying to complete their work on the device, but there was also the chance that these rapscallions were eager to martyr themselves as Richard had and relishing the thought of leaving charred remains behind. Idly, Bernard wondered if the device was even vulnerable to fire, or if burning it might have some catastrophic effect, but supposed it was too late now.

Another long moment passed, the whole side of the building and part of the roof now on fire.

Bernard let out a long sigh as the front door of the manor suddenly flew open, loosing a veritable pillar of smoke in the process, and coughing, ash-covered men, all of them staggering to safety before collapsing on the sandy ground. A half dozen of them, apparently well-dressed before the fire ruined their clothes. Bernard walked over and pulled the nearest of them away from the fire, keeping the rest of the group covered with his revolver all the while. The building burned merrily, but it was not until the roof collapsed a bit later that the hum finally stopped.

Around the same time, a shivering, bedraggled Arthur walked up from the direction of the surf. He surveyed the prisoners, now ringed in a sullen half-circle as they watched their ambitions drift away on the smoke, his teeth chattering so loudly it sounded like dice clattering inside a cup. “D-D-Did we stop it?” he asked.

“Judging by the state of things here?” Bernard removed his topcoat and suit jacket, and placed them around the young man’s shoulders. “I’d certainly say so.”

“A-A-Are you s-s-sure? I’m s-s-soaked. D-D-Damn b-boat cuh-cuh-capsized on me.”

“Of course,” Bernard said, casually pointing the pistol at a man attempting to scoot a few more feet away. He left it pointed until the conspirator sulkily moved back to his original place. “Just look at the place. No, keep it on. Jacket’s already ruined anyway. Might as well ensure you are not ruined either.” The agent gave the young researcher the barest of nods, and yet Arthur felt as though he had been granted a tremendous sort of honour along with the suit jacket.

“So what happens now?” Arthur asked, letting the heat of the blaze wash over him.

“I expect the local authorities are already on their way, so it will be time for me to use the identification the Ministry arranged just to smooth things over a bit, put this lot in custody, and arrange for proper transportation back to Britain. I expect this lot have an interesting trial in their future.”

“I see,” Arthur said. A long moment passed as they watched as another timber collapse into the inferno. “You weren’t supposed to burn the building down, you know.”

“Oh, I do.” Bernard replied, a pleasant, slightly faraway smile on his face, the blaze reflecting on his spectacles so that it looked as though his eyes were aflame.

“Yes, well, that device I gave you? I designed it to be a smoke bomb for misdirection while I rowed out to deliver the counter-insulator to the cables. In a matter of moments the device would have been useless anyway, without further property damage.”

“Oh, I know. And you did instruct me not to throw it at the building directly.” Bernard shrugged. “I decided we needed a contingency.”

“And your contingency is to burn down the whole building? Device inside?”

“The world is better without that monstrosity in it,” the agent answered.

Arthur didn’t protest. Bernard chose to omit his suspicion a search of Richard’s house might provide plenty of material to reconstruct one. That would be for his higher-ups to determine.

“I see.” Arthur heard a whistle, turned and saw a party of men bearing lanterns heading their way from back in the direction of town. The two Ministry agents waved cheerfully. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Agent Entwhistle.”

“You too, Mr Kraft.” Bernard furrowed his brows, clearly thinking something over. “Oh, and regarding that application you mentioned before? I think I’ll be putting in a word when I return. I do believe you might be put to better use closer to the home office. We could always use more men with your eye for detail and quick hands in the lab.” He cracked the barest of smiles. “Or a new strong back for the office rowing team, at least.”

“The home office? Are you serious?” Arthur’s eyes went wide with almost childlike surprise. “Of course. I’d be delighted!”

“Good,” said Bernard, removing his identification from his pocket. He glanced over his shoulder as the far wall pitched forward into the flames, sending a shower of sparks skyward. “Because it would be delightful working together, and…”His sentence was punctuated by a roar as the last of the building collapsed behind them. Yes, Doctor Sound would have a few words with him about
clandestine
operations overseas. “… and I have a feeling I may not be leaving Britain again for some time.”

Where the River Shines

Dan Rabarts

based on characters created by Grant Stone

Tarawera Ranges

North Island, New Zealand

With a sick gasp and the stink of burning metal, the tractor’s propane motor rattled to a halt.

“Uh-oh.” Barry Ferguson’s voice filtered into the hansom. Lachlan King heard the young man hop down from the cab with a squelch of mud, probably sinking up to his knees in the quagmire that had once been the track they had been following.

Lachlan popped open the hatch of the covered hansom, and peered out into the downpour. “Ferguson? What’s the hold-up? We have a thief to catch, remember?”

“Well,” Barry called over the rain hammering against his oilskin coat and soaking his hair, “see that smoke there?”

Lachlan squinted. “What about it?”

“That’s meant to be steam.”

“That’s bad, I trust.”

“I’d say so, sir, yes.”

“Not a good place to break down, lad.” He cast his eye over the ranges, shrouded in mists that were older than the hills, older than time. The primordial long white cloud.

“Leave it with me.” Barry threw Lachlan what could, under the circumstances, only be described as a jaunty wave. “You know where the lever is if you need it.”

As the clankerton trudged around the tractor with his toolbox in hand, Lachlan tugged the hatch shut, comforted only slightly by its hollow metal clang. He might have been encased in iron, but that didn’t mean to say the warriors of Ngai Tohai couldn’t drag him out into the mud and carve out his heart, or whatever it was they did to their prisoners.

But he needed the Ngai Tohai, however absurd an idea that was, to help him track down Frances Ascot and bring back what he had stolen. It would not serve him well to continue thinking of them as the enemy.

He listened to Barry, clanging and whistling away in the mud, a colonial farm boy as happy as a pig in muck. Lachlan could think of nowhere worse to be.

Other than his father’s house,
he groused silently. But how long before the old man was no longer around?

Unconsciously, he patted his breast pocket. He had read the letter from London so many times he knew every word by heart, yet still he wondered if it could be real. So the old man’s sickness had finally caught up with him, and he probably wouldn’t last out the London winter. Meanwhile, the Ministry had a position free for Lachlan King in the office when he was ready to return. England, her cool rains in the summer and the comfort of soft snows blanketing the hedgerows in winter. How he missed her white cliffs, her lilting songs. England, a world away, where he belonged.

Nevertheless, it was somewhat disturbing to have people in high places keen on your every dark blasted secret. If the Ministry knew of the schism within the King family, what else did they know?
Maybe,
he thought ruefully,
it’s not that I belong in England. Maybe it’s that I belong
to
England, or to her eyes and ears, at the very least.

A sudden rapping on the hansom startled Lachlan, and he cranked open the hatch. “All done, Ferguson?”

“Ah, that might have to wait,” Barry said. “If you’d be so good as to pull the lever, sir...”

Dark indistinct figures were emerging from the
punga
trees, weapons of carved wood and stone held low. “Oh,” Lachlan said. “I see.” He wrenched the lever.

“There’s a good chap,” Barry quipped as he hauled himself up and began tugging on handles and dials.

Metal slid and slammed around them as air lines hissed. The hansom walls shifted, opening slits wide enough for a pistol, while a set of gears on the back of the hansom cranked and a telescopic handle-set and eyepiece dropped in front of Lachlan. Polished brass grips and guards fitted smoothly into his palms, his fingertips resting lightly on triggers. He peered into the periscope as his chair craned up, allowing him to swing the entire contraption and look, as it were, down the barrels of the twin machine-cannons now bristling from the top of their battle-tractor.

However, he was not here to start a war. There was plenty of that going on already. He was a gentleman, and would not fire the first shot. He would not use the Empire’s hot lead to cut down men armed only with sticks and stones unless he had absolutely no other choice. His family had been knights, not so very long ago. Lachlan King knew a thing or two about honour. He swung left and right, searching. Bodies slipped between the trees, coming ever closer.

“Dammit! Stupid army clankerton hardware!”

Barry’s words were followed by the sudden heavy squelching of his boots slurping through mud.

“Ferguson? Get back in the tractor, lad! They’ll tear you to shreds!”

Lachlan swung the cannon mechanism in wild arcs, trying to get a view of the track, but the machine did not swing that low. It would be folly to think he could wait for the enemy to come to him. By the time they reached the tractor, the guns wouldn’t be able to turn to face them.

Then he saw Barry. Like a farm boy who has never seen war, the lad was trudging out through the mud towards the enemy, nary a weapon upon his person, waving his hands over his head, and shouting.

“Ferguson?” Lachlan muttered. “What the blazes are you doing?”

This became clear moments later, as Ngai Tohai warriors flowed from the trees and pushed the boy to the ground.

Barry Ferguson was surrendering.

With his hands over his head, and with consequent awkwardness, Lachlan pushed open the hansom door and climbed down. His feet sank into the muck, sucking at his boots as he stepped away from the battle-tractor.

Around him, several wide-eyed Maori warriors stalked closer, knees extended, tongues tasting the air, weapons shivering in their hands—long heartwood
taiaha
and carved stone
patu
. More men knelt among the trees, black iron muskets poised. Barry was being hustled back towards him, the lad’s grimy hands held above his head, that indefatigable grin plastering his muddy features.

“Surrendering to the enemy isn’t exactly Ministry protocol, lad.”

“Better this way, sir. It’s not the Maori way to kill non-combatants out of hand. Mind you, if we’d tried fighting them we might be dead by now.”

“So, you just saved my life?”

Barry shrugged. “Sorry, sir. I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”

“Never mind.” He sighed, his attention turning from the circling warriors to a figure approaching from the treeline. “Good day!” Lachlan called, trying to coax some good humour to his voice. If they were to be prisoners, they may as well try to get off to a friendly start with their captors.

The approaching man paused, inspecting the
pakeha
. White hair sprang from beneath his battered bowler hat, his face a pitted landscape lined with the dark tracing of many
moko
. He might be fifty years old or ninety, for all Lachlan could tell. He walked with care, as if he fancied the preponderance of making the prisoners wait. Only a mischievous twitching at the edges of his thin lips hinted that the old man might be making a game of what was, in Lachlan’s view, a most serious business.

However, Lachlan was not here to dally. He was on the trail of a dangerous criminal. In all the flurry of failing engines and enemy advances, he had not lost sight of his mission. Stopping short of the muddy track the old man looked them over, his eyes twinkling. The rain streamed in small, shifting cascades off the rim of his hat, and rolled away down his feather cloak. Lachlan resisted the urge to wipe streaming rivulets from his own face.

“Aue,”
said the old man, eyes roving over the battle tractor, its twin machine-cannons hanging limp over the hansom. “What do you call this, then?”

“It’s a Massey York-Class tractor, modified by the British Army for all-terrain field operations,” Barry jumped in, complete with predictable enthusiasm, an equally predictable lack of tact, and a complete absence of understanding over the imminent danger. “But put me in a room with the guy who designed this piece of junk and I’ll teach him a thing or two about how to build a tractor. Needs a secondary low torque gearset for starters, and maybe a cooler fuel source, or else the propane regulator overheats when you lose traction. Especially with all that extra weight on the back.” Ferguson jerked a thumb at the cannons and their steel-plated armatures while the old man stared at him intently. “Mind you, firing the boiler with propane has its advantages—saves us hauling a trailer of coal around, you know.”

“Thank, you Mister Ferguson,” Lachlan forced through gritted teeth. “‘It’s a tractor’ would have sufficed.”

The elder glanced to Lachlan, then back to Barry. “So you can make it go?”

“I’ve got some ideas,” returned Barry.

Lachlan huffed. “But without tools and a workshop—”

“Actually sir—”

The elder held up a hand for silence. “You, your name?”

Lachlan straightened. “I am Lachlan King, here on the Queen’s business—”

“You are a king?”

“What?” Lachlan shook his head. “No, you misunderstand.”

The elder grinned, showing that he did not in the least bit misunderstand. “Then you must come meet our
rangatira
, our king, certainly? Whoever thought a king of the pakeha would come to our humble forests, riding a tractor?”

“No, no I—”

“
He
will stay here and fix the machine. It is a suitable gift, from one king to another.” Without another word, the
tohunga
turned towards the trees. Before Lachlan could protest, two men grappled his arms and propelled him after the elder.

“Ferguson!”

“Don’t mind me, sir,” Barry replied, “I’ve got this covered!”

Lachlan twisted around, trying his best to express to the boy by eye contact alone that he needed to escape and get help, even though he knew that help would never arrive in time to save him from the Ngai Tohai.

But just before he was spun about and forced into the bush, Lachlan was most certain that the lad winked.

“You ought to know that this will not be viewed well by the Governor,” Lachlan said over the old man’s shoulder as bristly punga trunks gave way to lean
rimu
and mighty
totara
. Somewhere ahead, Lachlan could hear a dull roar, as of a waterfall. “I am the Queen’s servant, and your people have signed a treaty.”