The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (18 page)

The
Orpheus
was home.
The History of the Future
could not be regarded as a reliable record.

If Burton was correct, that also meant the Cannibals had no further need to plan ahead.

“Maneesh has it in his satchel,” Burton said. “I haven't yet decided whether to hand it over to my brother or not.”

“Why the hesitation?” Gooch asked.

“If it goes to Edward, it goes to the prime minister.” Burton paused. He thought about the history he'd come from and the controversial wars in South Africa and Afghanistan that “his” Disraeli had plunged the country into during the late 1870s. What would the man do now if he knew how history was likely to develop?

“Can I allow such knowledge to fall into the hands of a man with such power?” he mused. His mouth twitched in amusement. “The absurdity is that my brother wrote—or rather, will write—the first part of the document himself.”

Lawless entered the parlour from the library and approached them. “He hasn't said a word. Are we expected to kick up our heels here all day while he reads? There's only so much tea a fellow can drink.”

“He reads as fast as I do,” Burton said. “It won't take him long.”

“I suppose I'll settle with a newspaper, then. Might as well catch up on events.”

“I'm with you,” Gooch said. “I say, Grumbles, is there any danger of toast and marmalade? I skipped breakfast.”

“I'll see to it right away, sir.”

The two men returned to the library to rejoin Krishnamurthy and Raghavendra. The clockwork man departed for the hotel kitchen. Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce were left to themselves. They looked at each other.

“My hat!” Swinburne said. “This is all immensely strange. Is it my imagination or has life picked up a considerable turn of speed? I feel like I left myself behind in Bath. Shall we hop on a train and go back?”

Trounce rubbed his chin. He'd forgotten to shave and his jaw was stubbled. “Tempting, young fellow, very tempting, but—do you know what?—I'm actually looking forward to seeing my office at Scotland Yard. Never had one before but—by Jove!—somehow I know exactly what the room looks like.”

Burton said, “Just as we were told, it's evident that we'll feel at home in no time at all, but let us make a pact. If any one of us suffers in any respect from these unexpected circumstances, then let the other two offer unqualified support. William, you may feel somewhat disadvantaged in that Algy and I were friends in our previous lives whereas you were unknown to us. Let me be frank, the man I've become obviously holds you in very high regard. That opinion is now my opinion. I shall stick by you, you can be certain.”

“Count me in on that,” Swinburne said. “Already, I regard you as family.”

Trounce reddened. “Humph! Well, I wouldn't go that far—that is to say—humph!—I suppose—likewise, likewise.” He paused, frowned, and put his fists to his hips. “Um. While we're on the subject of—er—shared impressions, I—I find myself anxious about a matter that was brought to our attention last night. I wonder whether you feel the same way.”

“Babbage?” Swinburne asked.

“Yes.”

Burton considered this, following a train of thought that, if acted upon, would plunge him even deeper into this strange new world. “There are words that want to spill out of me. Part of me—the old man from Trieste—has no clue what they mean.” He put a hand over his heart. “This new me comprehends their significance. I'm positive you will understand them, too. They are these: Charles Babbage is old, eccentric, and, in my opinion, increasingly mad. Nevertheless, he understands the Oxford equation, upon which the principles of time travel operate. He designed a version of the Nimtz generator that has propelled the
Orpheus
through the centuries, and he is in possession of black diamonds, which make the vanquishing of time's strictures possible. In short, I consider him a loose cannon possessed of extraordinarily powerful knowledge and with dangerous resources at his disposal. The fact of his disappearance, as you say, William, is a matter of great concern. Apparently, I'm the king's agent. I intend to embrace the role. I think I shall take it upon myself to trace his whereabouts. Will you two help me?”

“Absolutely, I will,” Trounce responded.

“Try and stop me,” Swinburne agreed. His left knee spasmodically jerked up.

“Then we have a mission. Perhaps in pursuing it we shall find a release from the disappointments and frustrations of our former lives and, too, our previous existence might help us to weather the damage done to the men whose identities we've occupied. I, for one, already feel a lessening of the crippling pain caused by Isabel's murder. I know I've lived a full life with her. I'm also aware that, at its end, she acted on impulse and destroyed everything I had laboured for years to achieve. Those things combined mean that I have loved her and lost her, but am now free of her. That particular story has ended.”

Trounce gave a curt nod. “And I was correct about Spring Heeled Jack. My instincts have been proven reliable, though they ran counter to the opinion of the whole of Scotland Yard.”

“And I,” Swinburne added, “was transformed into foliage.”

They looked at him. He laughed and hopped up and down waving his arms. “Inspiration! A completely different cognisance of life! My hat! I shall write as never before!”

“It's settled,” Burton said. “Let us throw ourselves into this new world and, as Sadhvi recommended, not look back.”

Hell, if I can deal with the manipulative mountain my brother has become, I can deal with anything.

For the next two hours, they perused the minister's library, read the newspapers, drank tea, then coffee, then brandy, and quietly conversed among themselves.

Grumbles saw to their every need until, at midday, Edward Burton dropped
The Return of the Discontinued Man
onto the floor beside his chair and, raising his voice, demanded that everyone attend him.

They gathered, moved books, and sat down.

The minister glared at his brother. “My department now has five reports concerning Edward Oxford and the consequences of his meddling. Every one of them has been given an absurd title. They are ill written and replete with illogical nonsense and loose ends, and not a single one of them presents anything resembling a proper conclusion. You killed the man. Good. Well done. But how did you do it? Why leave that out? This is not a serial in a penny dreadful, brother. I don't want melodrama and suspense. I want answers.”

“The account tells you everything you need to know,” Burton said.

And you don't need to know that your brother has become the Beetle and I'm an imposter.

“I shall bloody well decide what I bloody well need to know!” The minister lifted a book from the table beside his chair and flung it at his servant. “Grumbles! Will you find the source of that infernal tapping and put an end to it!”

Burton realised that a persistent clicking had started a few moments ago. He said, “Answers close a narrative, Edward. You should be aware by now that we are not dealing with a narrative but, rather, with the elements of a pattern.”

“Tosh! Don't you dare try to pull the wool over my eyes with such blather! How did you drive the Oxford intelligence out of Brunel's body? I demand to know! Grumbles! For pity's sake, I didn't ask you to open the blasted window!”

The clockwork man said, “There is a bird on the sill, sir. It was tapping on the pane.”

“Well shoo the bloody pest away!”

With a flash of colour and a squawked “Slack-lipped peanut heads!” Pox swooped in and settled on Burton's shoulder. “Message from knock-kneed Michael Faraday. Battersea Power Station is being attacked. Help us, you cross-eyed bottom nuzzlers!”

“What the—?” Gooch cried out. “Who by?”

Pox whistled.

“He can relay messages, not answer questions,” Sadhvi Raghavendra pointed out.

“A messenger parrot?” Edward Burton asked. “Here? How? I've never—attacked? The station?”

“We fetched the bird from a parallel history,” Burton snapped.

The minister glared at him for a second then turned to Grumbles. “Take my brother, Swinburne, and Krishnamurthy down to the mews. Gentlemen, you will undoubtedly find rotorchairs there. They belong to guests of this hotel. Commandeer them. I'll settle the matter. Go! Hurry!”

Trounce gripped Krishnamurthy's arm. “No, I'll go.”

“You will not!” the minister yelled.

Burton recalled that Krishnamurthy and his cousin, a man named Shyamji Bhatti, had originally served his brother. It was they who'd rescued him from the beating that, in other histories, had so incapacitated him. Edward trusted Krishnamurthy more than he trusted Trounce.

“It's all right, William,” the explorer said. “Wait here.”

Reluctantly, Trounce stepped back.

Burton addressed Pox, “Message to Michael Faraday. We're on our way. Message ends.”

The parakeet launched itself from his shoulder and out of the window.

“Follow me, please,” Grumbles instructed. He paced across the floor, opened the door, passed through the parlour, and exited the suite into the hallway. Burton snatched his hat, coat, and swordstick from the stand as he passed it. Following the fast-moving clockwork man, he, Swinburne, and Krishnamurthy careened along the corridor, down the stairs, and through a hall that took them past the kitchens and out into the hotel's backyard. They raced across the open space to a long and low wooden structure, the doors of which Grumbles yanked open to reveal a selection of vehicles parked within.

The mechanism stood back as Krishnamurthy plunged past and into the shed. Grabbing the rearmost rail of a rotorchair, the Indian looked back at Burton and shouted, “Help me to drag it out!”

Burton ran forward, and, together, they pulled the vehicle into the open. Swinburne, meanwhile, took a grip on a second chair and said to Grumbles, “Give me a hand, will you?”

The clockwork man didn't move.

“I can't manage it by myself,” the poet protested.

“Here,” Krishnamurthy said, turning from the first chair. “Let me.” He took two steps back toward the shed but was brought up short when Grumbles' left hand shot out and grabbed him by the shoulder. He yelled in pain as metal fingers dug in.

“My sincere apologies, sir,” Grumbles said. “This is perfectly dreadful—not at all in my nature.”

The brass figure whipped up its right hand and delivered a devastating blow to Krishnamurthy's chin. The young man's head snapped back, and he crumpled to the ground.

“What the devil are you playing at?” Burton demanded.

“I really couldn't say, sir,” Grumbles responded.

“Get out of the way! Go back inside!”

“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. Right away, sir.”

He didn't budge.

Swinburne emerged from the shed and bent over Krishnamurthy. “He's out cold. Have you developed a defect, Grumbles?”

“Not at all, Mr. Swinburne. I'm perfectly fine. I'm dreadfully sorry if I've caused any inconvenience. Here, allow me to assist.”

One brass hand closed around the back of the poet's collar, and the other clutched the seat of his pants. Screeching and hollering, Swinburne was hoisted into the air, held above Grumbles' head, and thrown with great force up onto the shed's roof. He hit it with a crash, rolled down its slope, and plummeted back into the yard, landing with a thud in an oily puddle where he lay stunned and winded.

Burton drew the rapier from his cane.

In a pleasant tone, Grumbles said, “I hope you don't mean to assault me with that, sir. I wouldn't want you to break your blade.”

“I'll shove it into your gears.”

“Oh dear. I don't like the sound of that at all, and I fear the minister would object most strenuously were you to damage his property.”

Eyeing the gaps in the plating of the machine's torso, Burton slowly waved the tip of his sword from side to side. He measured distances and considered which might be his most effective line of attack.

Swinburne rolled over and groaned. “I say! I'm soaked through. My clothes are ruined.”

Grumbles rotated his head until the openings in it were levelled at the poet. “I shall attend to your laundry immediately. Remain where you are, please.”

“I'm in a puddle.”

“Indeed so, sir.”

“I hope your pendulum corrodes.”

Burton lunged. Grumbles reacted with a blur of movement, knocked the blade aside, pounced forward, and buried his fist in the explorer's stomach. Bending double and dropping to his knees, Burton retched and struggled for breath.

“Gracious me! I didn't mean to do that at all,” Grumbles said. “This day has taken a very peculiar turn, don't you think?”

Swinburne, dripping, staggered to his feet. “You absolute rotter!”

“I know! I'm as dismayed as you are. Would you like another brandy, sir? The master had a rather splendid bottle of Cognac delivered last week. I don't think he'd mind if—”

“Yes, please.”

The clockwork man stood motionless.

“Well?” Swinburne said. “Jump to it. I'm thirsty!”

“Of course, sir. Right away, sir.”

“You don't appear to be moving. Fetch me a tipple. At once!”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir.”

Burton heaved himself to his feet and was immediately grabbed by the neck. Grumbles pulled him close and, with their heads almost touching, said, “Could I trouble you to unclip the key from my back and wind me up, sir? I have to knock you unconscious, but I fear my spring has become so slack that the blow will prove insufficiently powerful.”

“Go to hell!” Burton croaked.

“Yes, sir. Immediately, sir.”

The pressure on Burton's throat suddenly eased. He pulled himself away and sucked at the air.