Revenge of the Brotherhood (Book 3 in the Tom & Laura Series) (3 page)

“Miss Mann and I will be tying the knot in three weeks time at St Giles’. Your invitation is in the post.”

“Quite, quite. I understand Her Majesty will be present.”

“Among others. There will be a significant military presence to provide for her safety.”

“And is that why you have come to see me? MM3 can provide additional protection if required.”

“There are two matters. I would like you to arrange for Laura Young and Daisy Drew to attend the wedding. They are family friends and I cannot get in touch with them.”

Baxter pursed his lips and then smiled. “I am sure that can be arranged. And the other matter?”

Trelawney dropped his voice to a whisper. “There is a matter of significance to MM3 concerning a man called Snood. Perhaps you have seen his name in the records?”

“Snood is dead, as I understand matters.”

“I cannot talk about it here. Walls have ears. But if you and your secretary were to come to my house at 2 o’clock tomorrow, we could discuss what I know at some length.”

Baxter’s face took on a sneer. “You still believe in all this Brotherhood nonsense?”

“Humor me, Sir Anthony. Is that too much to ask of an old servant of the state?”

“Why should Harris attend?”

“If you plan to take notes yourself, I have no objections to you coming alone.”

Sir Anthony put out his hand. “Until tomorrow then.”

“It is some kind of trap,” Harris said when Baxter told him what had transpired.

Baxter shook his head. “What possible kind of trap? Do you think he is going to kill us in his own house?”

“Trelawney is the most subtle and devious spy the world has known. He probably suspects we work for the Brotherhood.”

Baxter slapped his desk in sudden anger.

“Of course he knows we work for the Brotherhood. Only a fool would think otherwise, given what happened to him. But he cannot prove it or he would have done so during the hearings. We were lucky. If Parliament had wanted to get at the truth we would be in jail. But politics required McBride to be exonerated.”

“We should find an excuse not to go,” Harris said firmly.

“Who knows what he has uncovered about Snood? The man was always a loose cannon and he may have left a diary or other evidence against us. He worked for the Brotherhood for years and knew far too much.”

“So we have to go?”

Baxter nodded. “We have no choice.”

Arnold was bored out of his mind. St Giles was a small church at the top of The Strand, but it seemed it was big enough to require a lot of preparations and an enormous amount of floral decoration. Belinda asked his advice on everything and half the time he had no idea what flowers she was talking about.

It had been going on for hours and it was late in the afternoon when a couple of dozen boys ran into the church, laughing and shouting in the way young boys are wont to do.

“The choir has arrived,” Belinda said in delight. Arnold groaned and slumped deeper into his pew. Perhaps if he kept his head down nobody would notice him. If he closed his eyes, the kids would think he was praying and leave him alone.

Closing his eyes meant that he did not see Belinda slip into a changing room, nor see the boy that followed after her.

The boy was just entering puberty and looked awkward as if his limbs were too long for his body.

“’ave you got it for me then?” he asked.

“In the big brown paper parcel, David. You know what we want?”

“I goes to MM3 and takes a file with a blue stripe on it from the safe in Trelawney’s office.”

Belinda patted the boy on the shoulder. “If there was anyone else who could do it, we would not ask you to take this risk.”

The boy grinned. “But there ain’t, is there? I’m a eunuch, that’s what I am.”

Belinda’s eyes widened in surprise then she smiled. “You are
unique
. A eunuch is something completely different. You would not want to be one of those, David.”

“Why don’t you call us, Tricky? Not even me mum calls us David.”

“Quarter past two tomorrow, David. Not before and don’t be late either. Sir Ernest will be keeping the new Director and his secretary busy.”

“Anything to get at them what took us.”

 
“And avoid Arnold if you see him outside. He could recognize you.”

“’ees snorin’ like a pig,” Tricky said. “Not as bad as Alice, mind.”

Tricky left the room and then the church, tiptoeing past Arnold and ignoring the other boys. It was not like he could sing in any case.

3.
  
Hubris

Success! We have discovered an infinite reserve of Elitos in Kansas. I have prevailed on her majesty and the military to provide the funds required to continue the research and to seize the land from those upstart colonials. Scientific endeavor always produces casualties, none more tragic than that of young Emma Franks, and it is always gratifying when I see positive rewards for those I have sacrificed on its altar. It is strange to think that investigating the properties of Dantium will result in the accomplishment of man’s greatest dream.

- From the notebooks of Lord Alistair McBride 1859

Tom woke and it took him a few moments to remember where he was. Dougal had provided him with a room in his mansion at the fort. The mansion had been incongruous and slightly disturbing. A stone mansion built within the confines of the wooden walls of a military establishment. Tom looked out of his window and saw soldiers patrolling. He went to his luggage, still unpacked, and took out a clean uniform.

“Ah Tom, I trust you slept well?” Dougal asked when he entered the breakfast room. Tom’s eyes were instantly drawn to the beautiful blonde girl sat at the breakfast table. She looked up and he saw her vivid blue eyes.

“Well enough. I thought that I was your only guest?”

Dougal’s eyes twinkled with good humor as he saw Tom’s prolonged stare at the girl.

“And I thought you had eyes for none but Laura. Shame on you, Thomas Carter.”

The girl’s face reddened and she stood up to speak.

“Since Lord McBride will not introduce us, I shall defy convention and do it myself. I am Lieutenant Antonia Wright, Telepath Grade One, on detachment to this madhouse.”

Tom’s mouth fell open. Grade 1 telepaths were extremely rare and were always assigned to the most strategic places in the Empire. Her presence indicated that LTA1 was highly important to somebody.

“The young man with his tongue out and drooling is Lieutenant Thomas Merlin Carter, Healer Grade Three, though don’t be fooled by that. Tom is much more than he seems.”

Antonia looked taken aback. “There can’t be two men with such a name who are healers. He is one of those who killed your father.”

Dougal smiled. “I do not hold it against him, but you might want to take note that it was only after my father was extremely rude to him.”

“Still teasing the ladies, my lord?” Tom asked as Antonia’s face took on a deeper shade of red. He gave Antonia a military style bow as she had not offered her hand to him.

Antonia realized her lapse and dithered, uncertain whether to offer her hand or leave it where it was.

Dougal laughed, “Now do you see how important this place is, Tom? Not only do we have a Grade 1 Telepath, but we have the prettiest and easily the most embarrassable one in the entire world.”

Antonia decided she could take no more; with a curt ‘excuse me’ she left the room at a run.

“Eat up, Tom. I want to show you what is in the construction shed before you are taken from me to attend to bee stings and the like.”

Arnold entered the MM3 building wondering what he had done now. An urgent message delivered by runner that morning had ordered his immediate attendance. He made his way to the Director’s office.

“You are late,” Harris said dryly.

Arnold felt like complaining that it was barely nine o’clock. However, experience had taught him not to answer back to superiors in the new MM3.

“Traffic was dreadful.”

Harris ignored his answer and waved him into the inner office, following behind him.

Sir Anthony Baxter was hardly any friendlier.

“What have Trelawney and Mann been up to?”

“Nothing,” Arnold said truthfully. “Sir Ernest takes a walk in Hyde Park each morning, then has luncheon at his club before going on to the British Library. Miss Mann has been handling the wedding preparations.”

Baxter thumped his desk. “And yet he took time out yesterday to visit me here.”

Arnold’s surprise showed on his face.

“Why did you not know of that?” Baxter asked. “It is your job to keep me informed on what he is up to.”

“He never said a word.”

“And yet, somehow, he has discovered something about Dominican Snood. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Arnold found his mind leaping back to memories he’d been trying to forget, to dead friends and slaughter most foul.

“Well?” Harris prompted.

“Dominican Snood was a teacher at Hobsgate for a few months when I was there. He appeared to be working for the Americans who took us prisoner, but then he sacrificed his life to kill the ringleaders. His body was never found.”

“You saw him die? You were there?” Baxter asked sharply.

Arnold nodded.

“Tell me about it. We have only the reports.”

“The Americans had a strange boat that floats almost underwater. After they failed to kill us, Captain Wayne and Miss Pruitt used the boat to escape. Snood was hiding on the boat and we saw him use a bind that sucks the life out of the air. It must have killed all of them.”

“But you didn’t see Snood die?”

“We had to run; the bind was large and would have killed us too.”

Baxter pondered this new information. The report had only stated that Snood had sacrificed his life to kill the enemy.

“Go back to Trelawney and continue to watch him closely,” he ordered.

When Arnold left the room, Baxter turned to Harris.

“I knew Snood a little. There is no way on Earth he would have sacrificed his life to kill anybody.”

“He used a bind that got rid of the witnesses.”

“Then he disappeared. The Brotherhood would have chased him if we thought he was alive. He knows far too much about us.”

“How did Saunders miss this? He knew Snood better than anybody else.”

Baxter considered. “He probably had no time to investigate. The girl was the primary target and Lord McBride had been most insistent she be taken.”

“You believe Snood is alive?”

Baxter nodded. “This gives us even more reason to visit Trelawney. He may know where we can find him.”

The shed was even bigger than Tom had thought. Over a thousand feet long, several hundred feet tall and wider than it was tall. As they approached it, Tom’s awe increased.

“Your father built this?”

Dougal laughed. “Not personally. To my knowledge he never visited this site. He did, however, specify the mansion for his scientists. You missed out on meeting two of those, by the way. They leave for work at dawn.”

“But what do people do here?”

“We perform miracles, or at least one very large miracle. It would have come to my father if he had not died. It is complete and ready to start outdoor tests.”

“My God.” The doors on the side of the building were almost half the height of the building. Tom found it inconceivable that such doors could open. There was a much more reasonable door, only ten feet tall built into the first door.

“I was impressed when I first saw them,” Dougal admitted. “Even by Glen Russell standards this is an impressive building. The doors are surprisingly easy to open. Have you ever heard of a metal called aluminium?”

“That’s worth more per once than gold?”

“It was, but my father found a scientist who could extract it with ease using electricity. The method is an Empire secret, but before long aluminium will be cheaper than steel. He needed it to build the toy inside. And typical of my father, what he wanted, he obtained.”

Tom remembered Lord McBride’s father and shivered. The man had been insane for all his brilliance. “I wonder how many people he killed?” he whispered.

Dougal stopped as he took hold of the door knob. “It was his way and I wish I had known, Tom. Many people died developing dantium, only one that I know of died to give him the special gas he needed for this monster. Her name was Emma Franks and she was fourteen years old.”

Dougal opened the door and they stepped through.

A strange sausage shaped object dominated a vast empty space. Way above them, Tom saw hoists hanging from the ceiling, but they weren’t holding the sausage thing up. In fact, there were dozen of ropes strung across the room holding it down.

“That is HMA Hubris,” Dougal said with awe in his voice. Her Majesty’s Airship Hubris, that is.”

“It’s a balloon. Why would you make a balloon that big?” Tom knew something of lighter than air balloons and knew the Americans were developing them for warfare. But they were filled with hydrogen and a single bullet could cause them to explode.

A worker walked across the far end of the room and Tom was horrified because he was smoking a clay pipe. Double followed Tom’s gaze and laughed.

“Don’t worry, the ship will not explode. Not even if you were to set it on fire.”

“You have found something to mix with the hydrogen to make it safe?”

“We are in this God forsaken wilderness because of what can be found here if you drill beneath the surface. My father called the gas Elios. Elios is given off by dantium in tiny quantities. Spellbinders concentrated it and poor Miss Franks used her gift to locate more of it. Unfortunately, the exposure to dantium killed her.”

“What good is such a large balloon? They can’t be steered.”

Dougal set off along the side of the ship and Tom saw that the skin of the vessel was stretched over a frame. When they got to the end, Tom saw two massive propellers, one at either side of the ship. Pipes connected the propellers to a huge lead box at the far end of the ship. Though the ship was off the ground, the box was firmly on it. There were slots in the box above the pipe work, as though the ship had been lowered into the box.

“I don’t understand?”

Dougal grinned at his friend. “This is a powered balloon. The problem my father had was that though you can make a small dantium engine, the weight of its shielding would make its use impractical on a balloon. He solved the problem by removing the engine’s shielding.

Tom took a step back from the box. Dantium killed by damaging every cell in the body and making those cells fight against each other.

“The dantium engine makes steam, which powers a pump, which drives those propellers using pressurized air. The crew are located in the cupola at the front of the ship, far enough away from the unshielded engine to avoid its deadly effects. Ingenious isn’t it? When the ship lands, it will be lowered over lead boxes like this one, which will protect those on the ground.”

“And what will this Air Ship be used for?” Tom asked.

Dougal sighed.

“Oh, for war, Tom. What else? Mr. Gatling has provided two of his prototype rotary guns to us along with an engineer. The truly refreshing thing about Americans is they will sell anything to anybody if the price is right.”

Alice Short helped Tricky into the telegraph-boy costume. He was not pleased with the fit.

“She’s made mi trousers too short. Cutting into mi nadges sumat rotten they are.”

“I measured you mi-self. You must’ve grown. ’sides, it’s not like you got any use for them.” Alice said as she slapped at his hands for playing with his collar. She thought he looked good in uniform and she hoped the trousers wouldn’t do him any permanent damage. She had Tricky marked as husband material. As her mum was always saying, ‘You have to think ahead.’

“’slucky we’re only missin’ ethics. Becket ’ud cane us fer sure.” Becket was their mathematics teacher and liked to cane at least one pupil, girl or boy, every lesson. It was unusual to be taught in a mixed class, but then the school was unusual. Only children with variant magical gifts attended it.

“Things we do fer MM3,” Alice agreed.

“T’aint even them. It’s fer ’is lordship. If I’s caught, it’ll be the drop for me.”

Alice frowned, as this was a real possibility.

“Don’t get caught then,” she said tartly.

Tricky strode into the reception of MM3 as though he owned the place. He ignored Miss Talbot and went straight for the stairs.