Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (3 page)

Rubicon broke free of their cover and began to clamber up the rocks, Darwin struggling behind him. Before they had gotten halfway up, three figures appeared from the other side, then a phalanx of sailors carrying rifles. Darwin felt tears begin to fall uncontrollably down his face.

There was a broad man with a beard, wearing a white shirt and with the bearing of a sea captain. Beside him was a younger man, thin and tall with dark curls cascading down his shoulders. The third was a corpulent, huffing, pasty-faced figure, frowning into the sunlight and coughing with displeasure.

“Professors Stanford Rubicon and Charles Darwin, I presume?” called the younger man as the sailor began to descend to help the pair. Darwin sank to his knees on the rocks, all his strength having deserted him.

Rubicon called back, “You are most correct, sir! To whom do we have the utmost pleasure of addressing?”

The young man gestured to his right. “This is Captain James Palmer, whose fine ship the
Lady Jane
has brought us to your aid. My companion is Mr. Aloysius Bent, a journalist currently attached to the periodical
World Marvels & Wonders
.”

Even as Darwin's strength fled, Rubicon's seemed to return with renewed vigor. He closed the gap and grasped the young man's hands firmly. “And you, sir?”

The fat journalist who had been introduced as Bent spoke up. “This is Mr. Gideon Smith. He's only the Hero of the effing Empire.”

“We are saved!” gasped Darwin, and collapsed in a faint on the piles of gently smoking rubble.

*   *   *

Darwin came to as one of the sailors put a canteen of glorious fresh water to his parched lips. He feared that when he opened his eyes it would all have been a dream, but there was Rubicon, talking to Captain Palmer, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Bent, as the crewmen with the rifles fanned out around them, their guns trained on the jungle.

“But how did you find us?” Rubicon was asking.

“A survivor from the wreck of the
Beagle II,
” said Palmer. “He drifted for many days, clinging to a piece of timber. He was picked up by a Japanese whaler and languished in a prison near Osaka, accused of spying, for four months. He was freed as part of a diplomatic exchange with the British government, and when he returned to England he was able to pinpoint the
Beagle II
's last position, give or take a couple of hundred miles. We sailed out of Tijuana at the bidding of the Spanish government two weeks ago. If it hadn't been for your beacon, I think we would have missed you completely.”

“And did you find your lost world before you were wrecked, Rubicon?” asked Bent.

Darwin sat up with some effort. “You are standing in it, sir.”

Gideon Smith looked around at the jungle rearing up before them. “You don't mean … prehistoric beasts? Here?”

Rubicon nodded. “Such as you have never imagined, Mr. Smith. And half of 'em would have you for breakfast … some of 'em with one gulp!”

“But how did you survive?” asked Smith.

Darwin tapped his head. “With that which separates us from the monsters, sir. Intellect. Invention. The will to live. Survival of the fittest, you see.”

The fat one, Bent, surveyed the jungle. “These beasts…”

“All around us,” said Darwin. “Your ship is just over these rocks…?”

Captain Palmer nodded. “Aye. We should be away.” He turned to address one of the sailors. “Mr. Wilson, please go back to the
Lady Jane
and have the mate prepare us for sailing.”

He turned to address Rubicon. “Sir, I understand your mission was to bring samples of these monsters back to London. I can tell you now that I will have no such business on my ship. We are here to rescue you, not transport a menagerie from under the noses of the Japanese.”

“Understood,” said Rubicon. He cast a glance back to the jungle. “Before we go … I would just like to collect something.…”

Darwin looked at him quizzically, but Rubicon promised he would be back within five minutes and jogged back into the dark trees.

“But how are they still alive, these dinosaurs?” asked Bent.

Darwin shook his head. “Whatever evolutionary occurrence or, perhaps, natural disaster that occurred toward the end of the Late Cretaceous epoch did not, seemingly, affect this island. It has remained untouched ever since, apart from the world, out of time. The creatures have thrived for more than sixty-five million years. It is a living museum!”

“And one we shan't be returning to,” said Palmer, frowning. “We are right in Japanese waters here, gentlemen. If we get back to Tijuana without being seen it shall be a miracle. This could cause a major diplomatic incident.”

Smith looked at the jungle. “Where is Professor Rubicon?”

Darwin tried to stand but fell again as the earth shook. He looked at Captain Palmer. “Your bombardment continues?”

Palmer narrowed his eyes. “No…”

The ground shook again, and again. There was a shout and Rubicon broke through the trees, running as fast as he could, waving at them. “Go!” he yelled. “Get out of here!”

“What the eff…” said Bent, and then there was a roar that made Darwin feel as though his eardrums had burst. The trees behind Rubicon splintered like matches and from the dark greenery burst a fluid brown streak, all yellow eyes and teeth like kitchen knives.

“Oh Lord,” said Darwin. “A Tyrannosaurus rex!”

Smith and Palmer took hold of Darwin and hauled him up the rocks, as Bent scrabbled after them and Rubicon joined the climb. Darwin glanced at him but Rubicon kept his mind on scrambling over the blasted boulders as the seamen behind stood their ground and let loose a volley of bullets at the beast, forty feet from nose to whipping tail. It bent its head low and roared at them again. Darwin heard a scream, and Palmer cursed. He looked over his shoulder as they crested the boulders to see the beast shaking one of the sailors in its vast jaws.

“Pull back, men!” cried Palmer, leading them down the shale to a rowboat bobbing in the shallows. Ahead of them, anchored a hundred yards offshore, was the steamship the
Lady Jane
.

As they bundled into the rowboat, Darwin noticed the sun-bleached, seawater-bloated timbers of the wreck of the
Beagle II,
still caught in the savage rocks that surrounded the island. There was another scream: another lost sailor. After a further volley of shots the remaining crewmen skidded down to the small beach and piled into the boat, immediately pulling on the oars to take the men, painfully slowly, away from the island.

Then the tyrannosaur loomed into the jagged gap between the high walls, its claws scrabbling for purchase on the loose boulders. It sniffed at the unfamiliarly salty air, swiveling its blazing eyes to fix upon the frantically rowing sailors. Its brown tail, crested with black, whipped back and forth as it seemed to consider the vast, oceanic world that lay beyond its hidden lair.

“We are safe,” said Darwin, as they closed half the gap to the
Lady Jane
. “I do not think the beasts can swim.”

Bent puffed alarmingly beside him. “You don't
think
? Can't you be surer than that, Darwin? What the eff is that thing, anyway?”

“I told you,” said Darwin. “Tyrannosaurus rex. The tyrant lizard. Dark master of the Cretaceous.” He paused and glanced at Rubicon. “I wonder what made it attack us like that. What alerted it to our presence?”

*   *   *

The beast remained on the beach, stalking up and down and staring out at the
Lady Jane
as the crew helped the men aboard. Rubicon graciously declined help with his satchel, which he kept close to him as he climbed onto the deck.

“We'll make steam for Tijuana,” said Captain Palmer. “As far away from that thing as humanly possible. We'll need to go swiftly and quietly, avoiding the shipping lanes until we get to Spanish-controlled waters.” He looked at Darwin and Rubicon. “I dare say you gentlemen would like a bath and some good food, and a soft bed to sleep in.”

Darwin began to weep. “I thought we would never be rescued. Thank you, kind sirs.”

Palmer nodded toward Gideon Smith. “He's the one you want to thank. He's led the mission. Like our Mr. Bent said, Mr. Smith's the Hero of the Empire.”

“I thought that particular appellation belonged to Captain Lucian Trigger,” said Rubicon, “though I do not doubt that Mr. Smith is fully deserving of the title also.”

“A lot has happened in the six months you have been missing,” said Smith. “Let's go to Captain Palmer's quarters and I'll fill you both in.”

“A favor, first, Captain,” said Rubicon. “Could I put my bag in the furnace room, do you think? There's something in here that I would awfully like to keep warm.”

Palmer narrowed his eyes, then shrugged and had one of the sailors take Rubicon into the bowels of the
Lady Jane
. Rubicon dismissed the sailor with his profuse thanks, and when he was alone he gingerly took his satchel and placed it securely between two crates, up against the hot steam boiler. Before he departed he opened the leather flap and glanced inside. There was an egg, as big as a man's head, mottled in purple and pale blue. Rubicon smiled and went to join the others for the promised food, bathing, and news, past the shadowy alcove where he failed to notice the figure of Aloysius Bent watching with interest.

*   *   *

As the ship began to disappear from view, she continued to stalk up and down the beach. She had been aware of them, of course, dimly, in her tiny brain. Creatures like none she had ever seen, like none that had ever lived in her world. They scurried around and hid in caves, nursing flames and harvesting fruits. They were food. Her mate had tasted one, many months ago, but the surviving two had always managed to evade her and her family.

But this was not about food. Food was plentiful, and were not she and her mate the rulers of all they surveyed? All they had surveyed, perhaps, until today. Until this jagged doorway was opened up and this strange, huge, wet world that stretched in all directions came into view. No, this was not about food.

This was about family.

Whatever they were, they were gone with others of their kind.

And they had stolen from her, stolen that which was most precious.

She raised her head to the dull sky and roared, and this time her roar was not reflected back at her by the rock walls of her home, but traveled out for who knew how long and how far? Out into infinity. Out where they had taken what was not theirs.

She dipped a claw into the lapping cold water and recoiled. She grunted, angry with herself. Then she stamped, hard, in the shallows, and left her huge foot there, in the water.

It wasn't so bad.

Taking a step, and then another, she waded out until she could no longer feel the rocky ground. Panicking, she thrashed her tail and reached her head up to the sky, her useless forearms paddling frantically. She pumped her legs and felt herself move forward. Her forearms, perhaps not so useless after all, allowed her to keep her head out of the water. And her tail, as it thrashed, steered her course between the tall, cruel rocks.

Out to the open sea. Out to where those who had stolen her unborn baby had gone.

With the single-minded ferocity of a wronged mother, she howled at the sky again and began to claw her way through the water, heading, though she didn't know it, south and east, in the all but dispersed wake of the
Lady Jane
.

 

3

T
HE
N
EW
W
ORLD

More than two and a half thousand miles stretched between San Francisco and New York, and Jebediah Hart was going to have to cover every damn one of them, somehow. 'Course, they didn't call it San Fran anymore, not since the Japs had taken over back in 'sixty-eight. Nyu Edo, it was now. But Jeb was old enough to remember San Francisco, old enough to know this place where he sheltered from the sun near the South Fork River as Coloma, not Shinzui Hiru. Jeb had only been young when the Californian Meiji was founded, and he'd pulled up stakes with his family and headed back east. But while the British had taken a step back and allowed the Japs to take California without a fight—hell, it was the Spanish who rolled over in the first place, after all—the governors in Boston and New York were only keeping their powder dry. America was a big place, and there was a lot of it to civilize before the Japanese problem had to be dealt with head-on. In the meantime, folks like Jeb who knew California like the backs of their hands were something of a commodity, especially those who didn't mind trekking back and forth into the Meiji under cover of darkness, hiding in orange groves and sneaking through the deserts to keep an eye on what Emperor Mutsuhito was up to in Nyu Edo.

Truth to tell, Jeb had no great problem with the Japanese, save for the fact they'd expelled British-American families from California. They were clean and polite, and San Fran these days was a place of serene gardens and huge pagodas, temples and highways swept by quiet little men in pale robes. The invasion had put out the Spaniards more than anybody, but between their constant feuding with the French back in Europe and their tenuous hold on their territory right down south, not to mention the thorn in their side that was the growing Confederacy down below the Mason-Dixon Wall, there wasn't much they could do about it. So everybody was just biding their time, watching the Californian Meiji from afar, waiting to see what Mutsuhito would do.

'Course, all that was set to be blown right out of the water soon as Jeb got back to New York.

*   *   *

Jeb let his horse rest in the shade of a clutch of tall yellow pines. The bare short stumps that covered the hillside were testament to the speed and efficiency with which the Japanese had identified the natural resources in their new home and made use of them. When Jeb's family had packed up and left San Fran it had been little more than a collection of wooden shacks and dirt tracks; British-American families such as the Harts had been paid a pioneer supplement by the governors back east to settle on the West Coast with the tacit agreement of the Spanish who were struggling to keep a grip on California. It was a good plan, and more and more families would have arrived over time, eventually necessitating a garrison of cavalrymen to protect British interests in the West and eventually persuade the Spanish to give up California for good. Nobody was expecting the Japanese, though. The Spanish weren't strong enough to fend them off, and the British settlers didn't have enough of a claim on the land.