Shadow Conspiracy (11 page)

“Not at all, Madame. I have every confidence in your success here today.” But his eyes would not leave off searching hers.

“Then I suggest we proceed.”

“Very good, Lady Lovelace. Mr. Babbage, if you are ready?”

Mr. Babbage raised his hands with the air of a church organist taking his place in front of his instrument. “With your permission, Captain?”

“Granted, sir.”

Mr. Babbage waved to George. George herded the under-engineers and the steam monkeys to the starboard side of the pilot house. He turned one wheel, then another, opening the valves. The steam hissed out into the already moist air. Mr. Babbage cranked the key over, once, twice, three times.

The decking creaked. The analytic engine ticked and clacked and clanked. The hull shuddered as if the ship were waking from its sleep. Charles tweaked the valves once more.

The deck dipped slightly as the windlass turned, drawing in the great anchor chain. The cheering on the dock redoubled, and the crowd became a sea of waving flags and hats tossed into the air. The clang reverberated through the hull as the anchor slotted into place.

Slowly, ponderously,
New Britannia
slid from the dock, her paddles engaging smoothly. The steam hissed, and the analytic engine gears clacked in staccato rhythm. Underneath their chatter, Ada heard the delicate bell-like ring as the codex rack rotated, bringing the second card into place. Needles ticked and pricked as they read the patterns. Smaller gears chinged as they communicated motion to larger gears and larger yet. In the belly of the ship, chains strained to raise the hoppers of clattering coal to feed the furnaces that heated the boilers which drew their water directly from the Thames. Behind her, George watched the gauges like a hawk. He ordered the steam monkeys up among the gears and the bearings. They tended the mechanism, but they did not command it.

New Britannia
, without a human hand to guide it, sailed upriver through the heart of London Town.

Overhead, the dirigibles unfurled swaths of red, white and blue bunting, and the fliers released tinted streamers of smoke. Ada saw the waving crowds on the shore, but she could hear nothing except the ticking, the chiming and the long dragon hisses that were the voice of the machine answering her commands.

The captain, foreman and engineers crowded around Mr. Babbage, shaking hands and offering their congratulations. But Ada stayed where she was at the gaudy codex console, communing with the sounds of the analytic engine, for one moment alone and content.

“We’ve done it, Ada,” said Mr. Babbage, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Whatever happens after today, we’ve done it.”

The chime of the card changes rang again, and Ada tilted her head.
Too soon?
She checked the watch at her waist.

A moment later, a wave slapped the bow, and the deck pitched, just enough to make Ada stagger.

“Ahoy! Ahoy the tug!” cried the lookout overhead.

Ada whirled around to face the bows, but she could see nothing past the expanse of the
New Britannia’s
deck. Fear constricted her chest. She gathered her skirts and ran up the spiral ladder to the lookout’s post above.

“...Where did it come from?” a lieutenant demanded as she entered the house. “This section of river was supposed to have been cleared!”

Ada
snatched the spyglass from his hand and put it to her eye.

A battered wooden tug boat looked like a blocky minnow beneath the shadow of
New Britannia
. But it chugged steadily onward, oblivious, or at least unconcerned about the larger, faster ship.

What’s the matter with them? Why don’t they get out of the way?

“With respect, Lady Lovelace,” the lieutenant said from behind her. “Is it part of the test?”

Footsteps rumbled up the ladder behind them and the hatch slapped open again. “Mr. Babbage! I should have been informed...”

Something’s wrong.

“This has nothing to do with the test!” cried Mr. Babbage. “This was a preliminary trial only...”

The shape’s not right. The pilot house is wrong...

“Where’s the damn captain!” cried the sailor beside her.

Where’re the crew? Where’re the crew?

“It’s unmanned!” she cried. “It’s an automatic ship!”

“We’re going to ram it!” cried the sailor.

“Turn off the engine!” commanded Captain Wedderburn. “I must have the wheel!”

Ada
flung herself down the ladder to the pilot house right behind Mr. Babbage and Captain Wedderburn. She jammed the key into the codex console lock and cranked it around hard to stop the rack and freeze the cards in place, unlocking the gears and returning command of the rudder to the wheel on the bridge.

Captain Wedderburn grabbed the wheel, wrenching it around, bellowing at the mate to reverse the paddles. What few sailors there were rushed to the rail.

Then came the sickening crunch of wood, and the deck bobbled and shuddered. They all stared at each other, white in the face.
New Britannia
had plowed the smaller ship under.

“The paddles!” shouted Mr. Babbage. “If any of that flotsam gets jammed in them...” He dashed out the cabin door, running for the stern with George hard on his heels.

All around her men and boys shouted questions to which there was no answer. Ada looked over to Captain Wedderburn, but the captain’s eyes fixed straight ahead as he bellowed into the speaking tube to the lookout.

What was it? A competitor? A Luddite trick? What is going on? Why would anyone build an automatic boat, then deliberately send it out to be destroyed?

The answer came immediately:
No one would. This was something else. A distraction? To slow the ship and get us all looking ahead...

Then what’s behind?

“Mr. Babbage!” Ada whirled and ran out onto the deck. The wind slapped against her face. Her thin-soled shoes skidded on the slick planks and she had to grab the rail.

“Mr. Babbage!”

The howl split the air a second before she rounded the corner of the cabin. She looked upon a nightmare.

A black and dripping tentacle towered over the ship’s railing. Before Ada had time to blink, it wrapped around Mr. Babbage’s waist and yanked him from the deck. George cried out in horror. The lieutenant fired his side arm wildly, uselessly.

For one instant, Ada saw Mr. Babbage held up in the air. She saw his mouth shape her name.

“Canto Thirteen!” she screamed. “Canto Thirteen!”

And then the tentacle hauled him down, below the rail, out of sight. Then a loud splash.

The world narrowed to a single point of light. The decking hit her knees, her shoulder, her head.

Darkness.

V

Hands supported her. Voices babbled, blending into a single incomprehensible stream of sound. She was passed from the deck of
New Britannia
, to the quay, to the carriage, to her own room. Something was put to her lips. She drank it because she could not stop it.

After that, she did not so much sleep as wait, suspended in darkness as Mr. Babbage was suspended in mid-air in front of her. She screamed command after command, all of them useless.

William came in with the morning and her maid. Very gently, for him, her husband told her she was needed in the salon and insisted she rise. But she could not. It was as if her inability to command the release of Mr. Babbage had cost her the ability to command her own limbs.

After a few moments, William gave up and left.

Eventually, her mother came in.

“Ada, I will not have you disgracing me in this manner,” Lady Byron announced. “There are decisions which require your consent. You will compose yourself and do your duty.”

To Ada’s shame, her mother’s orders did what her husband’s chiding could not. She rose. Mother stayed, her face stony, while Ada’s maid dressed her in solemn grey. Then, Mother walked three paces behind her down the corridor, as if afraid Ada might bolt.

The grand salon was filled with a crowd of sober men interspersed with all of Mother’s Furies. She recognised the head of the police force and Home Secretary Lord Normanby among them. The men parted and bowed as she entered the room and sat down.

“Lady Lovelace, I know you are as shocked as we are at this terrible tragedy,” Lord Normanby said. “But our first thought must be that this was only an initial attack and we need to secure the facilities at Camden.”

She could not, however, fix her thoughts on this point. “There was a stranger,” she told Lord Normanby. “A man on the quay I did not know. He spoke to me...”

“All appropriate inquiries are being made,” said William. “Ada, the Home Secretary requires your attention.”

Ada
stopped, and tried again. “The boat that cut across our path was an automatic...”

“They are aware of that, Ada,” said William. “Please, try to concentrate.”

The Home Secretary nodded his thanks to William. “No one wishes to appear indelicate, Lady Lovelace, but we cannot give whoever committed this heinous act any opportunity...”

Ada
knew she was supposed to listen, but she could not. She knew these men wanted her consent to take over the Camden factory. They’d require a written direction to the manager, Mr. Eldrige. That was simple enough.

A deeper part of her mind would not be shifted from the deck of
New Britannia
.

I thought they wanted us looking forward, I thought it was a distraction, but it was a trap...

“...Therefore must ask you to surrender the...”

The tentacle was dripping. So black. Wrapped tight around his waist...

“...
pro forma
of course, but a written direction from you...”

“Vulcanised rubber,” said Ada abruptly.

Lord Normanby blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“Vulcanised rubber. That’s how the tentacle was made so flexible, and waterproof. We use it for gaskets on the engines, but our people have been experimenting with other applications.”

“Of course. Now, if I might...”

Ada
got to her feet. “You were mistaken, Madame,” she said to her mother. “The decisions have already been made. Lord Normanby, my man will deliver the written direction you require within the hour. Excuse me.”

She left the saloon without looking back. It was imperative she think. She could not think down there, not with Mother looking on and all those politicians gabbling.

Ada
reached the workroom door and undid the lock. She walked inside, and stopped dead.

A man in a rumpled brown suit stood at her marquetry writing desk. His collar was askew and a dented bowler lay on the table.

Her hidden drawer gaped open, all its contents laid out neatly on the desktop.

The man turned to see who had interrupted him.

“Lady Lovelace.” He bowed.

Outrage blossomed inside Ada, burning away the grey fog that had divided whole portions of her mind since the incident. “Who are you? What gives you the right to paw through my personal things?”

“Damon Worth, m’lady,” the man in the brown suit replied calmly. “Special adviser to Her Majesty the Queen. And the kidnapping of Mr. Charles Babbage gives me the right, m’lady, as I’m sure you’ll realise once you’ve given it a moment’s thought.”

Memory snapped into place, of a brown suit and ridiculous questions about machines and souls. “You were on the quay. Before.”

“I was, m’lady.”

Ada
pressed her hand against the nearest tabletop, oddly dizzy. “Special adviser to the queen?”

Mr. Worth bowed again. “Her Majesty is aware that the automatic sciences are reshaping the world. She desires that a close eye be kept on new developments.”

Blocks of thought tumbled into place slowly, clicking one against the other. “Is my loyalty under question?”

“Not at all, not at all. But, as one of the geniuses behind the Empire’s new industry, it was necessary that you be kept under surveillance, for your own safety.”

“Were you also keeping Mr. Babbage under surveillance for his safety?”

“Of course.” Mr. Worth held up his hand, forestalling her next words. “You cannot reproach me worse than I have reproached myself, Lady Lovelace. I already attempted to hand in my resignation, but have been refused.” He spoke calmly, but his words grew clipped, hardened, as if he were struggling to hold back his emotions.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Ada forced herself to ask the question calmly.

“I do. The question is, what do his abductors want of him?” Mr. Worth met her gaze. His eyes were a bright pale blue, like glass. “If it is him they wanted.”

Ada
’s throat seized tight. She had not stopped to consider she might have been the actual target of this bizarre kidnapping.

No, I did not
permit
myself to consider it.

“Was it the Luddites?”

“We don’t think so. The Luddites would have been more likely to destroy the
New Britannia
or murder Mr. Babbage outright. And they do not have the funding to build a mechanism like the one employed in this case.” He laid the paper down. Her father’s memoirs. He was reading her father’s memoirs and discussing so calmly the abduction of Mr. Babbage.