The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (37 page)

“By gad! The man will go down in history as one of the foulest fiends ever born.”

“The problem with history,” Murchison interjected, “is that it clips along at a deucedly fast rate. When I was a nipper, the greater majority worked the land, and the most reliable farm implement one could purchase had four legs, ate hay, and provided manure. But these past few years—merciful heavens!—how we have sculpted nature to our own ends! Would any person of my childhood years have believed the metals of the earth could be fashioned into—” He flung out a hand toward Laughing Boy, “—into such as
that
? Would any give credence to the idea that a government—a
British
government, I say!—would so divide its people that those who labour can never shake off their yoke, that those who pursue leisure have the means to indulge their every whim, and that those who exist in the strata in-between are eliminated?
Eliminated
, I say! For I feel certain that we are subject to just such a cull. All this, within a single lifetime. History is accelerating, and now I fear it is out of control.”

“Bravo!” Bradlaugh mumbled. “He's seen the light.”

“It's despicable!” Murchison barked. He stood, stamped to the door, and bellowed, “I demand to be let out of here! I demand an explanation! I know my rights! I am president of the Royal Geographical Society!”

“Here he goes again,” Hunt groaned.

“I serve on the Royal Commission for the British Museum!”

“You're director-general of the British Geological Survey,” Bendyshe observed.

“I'm director-general of the British Geological Survey!”

“And director of the Royal School of Mines.”

“And director of the Royal School of Mines!”

“And of the Museum of Practical Geology.”

“And of the Museum of Practical Geology!”

“And you're to be a baronet.”

“And I am to be made a baronet!”

“And you're a gigantic pain in the backside.”

“And I'm a gigan—How dare you, sir!”

“Sit down, Sir Roderick,” Monckton Milnes said. “Matters are sufficiently dire without you ranting about the place.”

Murchison levelled a finger at Burton. “I blame you for this. You've always been a troublemaker. Always too outspoken for your own good.”

“Richard is as much a victim as the rest of us,” Murray objected.

“Pish-tosh!” Murchison spat dismissively. “He's been hoisted with his own petard, and we've been dragged up with him.”

“Blown up,” Burton murmured.

“What?”

“One is not dragged up by a petard. One is blown up by it. A petard is a small bomb.”

“It doesn't bloody well matter what it is!” Murchison yelled.

In a flash of inspiration, Burton suddenly realised that it mattered very much.

Sooner than expected, his chance had come.

Giving every indication that he'd lost his temper, he leaped to his feet and thundered, “I've had just about enough of you, Murchison! You've been a thorn in my side ever since Speke betrayed me.”

Murchison looked taken aback. “Speke? What the blazes are you talking about?”

Burton didn't know. Speke had died in Berbera. There had been no betrayal. The man was a fallen colleague, nothing more, nothing less. Why think otherwise?

He had no answer, and this was not the moment to dwell on mistaken memories.

“You know damn well what I mean!” he yelled. “You've blocked me at every opportunity. I found the Nile's source despite you, and you've hated me ever since.”

“Good God, man! Have you lost your wits? What the devil are you gibbering about?”

“Ease up, Richard,” Monckton Milnes put in, but then saw the explorer wink at him, and added, “Murchison is a snob and an ass, and you'll not change that by shouting at him.”

“What did you say?” Murchison practically screamed. “A what? A what, sir?”

“Sit down,” Laughing Boy commanded. “Disruption will not be tolerated.”

“I've always considered you a blackguard,” Monckton Milnes went on. “Not deserving of the positions you hold, that's for certain. Did you bribe your way to the top?”

Murchison's eyes widened. His mouth worked, but only a strangled whine emerged. His face took on a deep-crimson hue.

“Steady on,” Ashbee said. “I think this is going a little too far.” He, as Monckton Milnes had done, received a wink from Burton, who snarled, “Oh, be quiet, Ashbee. You aren't qualified to comment. You're nothing but a cheap hack.”

“To hell with you!” Ashbee roared, jumping to his feet.

“Sit down!” Laughing Boy repeated. The mechanism rose and took two steps forward. “Cease this immediately or guards will be summoned.”

“Oh, shove it up your pendulum housing!” Bendyshe shouted.

The clockwork man paced past Burton and Monckton Milnes into the middle of the room.

Brabrooke and Bradlaugh, both catching on, got to their feet and engaged in a mock dispute.

“I'm sick of your fat, bearded face!” Bradlaugh screamed.

“Because it reminds you of your mother!” Brabrooke countered.

Burton crept backward, reached up, and unclipped the oil lamp from its wall bracket. As soon as he drew it down, shadows sprang up on the opposite walls and arced across them. Laughing Boy, reacting to the altered illumination, turned. Without the slightest hesitation, the explorer smashed the lamp against the contraption's head. Oil splashed, splattering through the three facial openings, and ignited.

Burton stumbled away, his left hand and sleeve on fire, and fell onto a bunk, quickly smothering his limb with the blanket.

“Push it into the corner!” he yelled, his voice harsh with pain.

“Emergency!” Laughing Boy wailed. “I am being attacked! Assistance requested!”

Brabrooke, Bradlaugh, and Ashbee hurled themselves across the cabin and barrelled into the machine. Knocked backward, it reeled into the corner, its head aflame.

“Alert! Alert! Assistance requested!”

Though it was verbalising its distress, Burton thought it highly likely that the machine possessed the internal communications he'd seen demonstrated by Grumbles, Sprocket, and the SPG units. Assistance was no doubt already on its way.

“Bunk!” he croaked. “Pin it down. Quick.”

Monckton Milnes, instantly understanding what the explorer meant, grabbed Hunt and hauled him over to the bunk opposite Burton. Together they pushed it, were quickly assisted by Brabrooke, and sent it squealing across the floorboards to crash into the brass man, slamming the machine against the wall.

The door opened and a mechanical guard stepped in.

“Stop!” it commanded. “You are ord—”

Murray threw himself down in front of it. The machine tripped over him and clanged face first onto the floor.

With an ear-splitting clap, the booby trap in Laughing Boy's head triggered. The explosion cracked the planks of the timber wall and shattered half of the bunk bed. Fragments of brass, wood, blankets, and straw showered across the room. Hot twisted metal scored a groove across Burton's forehead. Another piece stabbed into Ashbee's thigh.

Burton pushed himself up, careless of the blood streaming down his face, clutched at Monckton Milnes's arm, and shouted into his ear, “Don't follow. You'll be safer here.”

“Here? Are you joking?”

“It was only me they wanted to torture. Stay. I'll come for you, I swear it.”

With a last look into his friend's eyes, Burton turned, ran at the burning wall, and pitched his full weight shoulder first into it. The planks, blackened, burning, and bulging outward, gave way with a splintering crash. With flames licking at his prison uniform, he plummeted out into the fog, hit the ground, rolled, regained his feet, and ran full pelt up Green Park's slope.

The timing was perfect. The fog was thicker than he'd ever seen it, the guards were preoccupied with the men being herded onto HMA
Eurypyle
, and when he came to the fence, he found himself almost at the exact midpoint between two of the new watchtowers, both of which were completely obscured by the foul cloud. Furthermore, there was a tree less than four feet from the barrier.

He took an instant to slap at his burning clothes—his shirt was a tattered, bloodied, and charred mess—then calculated distances, ran at the tree, jumped, hit it left foot first, and kicked out, launching himself upward and outward toward the lip of the fence. His hands caught it but his body smacked down against the wood with such a bang that he felt certain he'd been heard.

Speed was essential.

Though the breath had been knocked out of him, he heaved himself up and over and fell onto the top of the wall that had originally bordered this part of the park. From there he toppled down onto the pavement of Piccadilly, landing with a painful thump.

What the hell am I doing? This can't be right. Life is not meant to be this way.

“Any bones broken, mate?” came a voice.

Burton looked up and saw a man with a broom standing less than six feet away.

This has happened before. I'm repeating actions over and over.

“No,” he said. “But I'm having a very bad time of it.”

“Aye, it looks that way. Don't worry about me, fella. I ain't seen nuthink. You'd better scarper, an' good luck to you.”

The man stepped into the road and started to sweep the horse manure from it, somehow immune from the danger posed by the steam spheres, velocipedes, and carriages that passed to either side of him.

Burton got to his feet, feeling his bruises and scrapes complaining. He wiped blood from his eyes, suddenly aware that his burned hand was a constant agony, and moved away. As he limped along, he tried to gather his thoughts, to formulate some sort of plan. He had to get to Norwood, but hiring a cab would be next to impossible—he was hardly dressed like a gentleman, and he was penniless, too. Walking through the concealing fog, despite the distance, would probably be easier.

He headed toward Piccadilly Circus, ducking away from other pedestrians, keeping to the shadows, and wishing he possessed some means to summon Monty Penniforth.

Send Pox now, Algy! Send Pox now!

Frequently, he heard the
clump clump clump
of clockwork men. Those he glimpsed stamping through the pall were of the ordinary brass variety but, nevertheless, he avoided them.

There were so many. They were everywhere.

He thought about what Murchison had said.

History is accelerating.

Sirens sounded behind him.

He heard police whistles.

Again and again he tried to steer a course southward but at every turn he saw metal figures. Despite his every intention, he was forced in the opposite direction, dodging down side streets, flitting past Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square, thinking that maybe he could skirt westward around Hyde Park then down into Chelsea.

Clump clump clump.

Blue-black machines with batons extended to the left of him.

Duck into an alleyway.

Emerge onto Oxford Street.

Risk the traffic to get across.

Yells. Curses. Hissing steam.

A synthetic voice: “Stop that man!”

Portman Square.

Gasping for breath, choking on ash, his hand incandescent with pain, he fell into the patch of greenery at its centre, crawled across grass, scrambled to his feet, and collapsed onto a bench beneath a tree.

The fog billowed around him.

If he could just catch his breath.

If he could just ignore the blistering skin of his hand.

Montagu Place. The mews. Get my rotorchair and fly over the fog to Norwood. Yes. Yes. Yes.

A throbbing paradiddle overhead. He looked up just as a searchlight clicked on, its beam slicing down through the branches of the tree, blinding him.

“Don't move,” an amplified voice instructed.

Burton leaped up to run, but his knees gave way. Dark figures moved through the cloud all around him. A clockwork constable marched into sight, truncheon raised. “You are under arrest. Submit immediately.”

The explorer had no strength to resist. On his knees, swaying, he looked up at the machine as, without provocation, it swiped its weapon at his head.

Pain.

Failure.

Darkness.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE