The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (39 page)

I'm very familiar with the ship, Doctor Baker. We sailed her to the Nile's headwaters. We landed her beside the vast lake in Central Africa. Poor Speke was right. The Nyanza is the source. I thought Tanganyika, but that lake's waters run westward. Tell me, old fellow: have the swallows all gone? There was one tapping at my window the other day. It's a bad omen.

He yelped.

“Sorry,” the medico said. “Your hand is rather badly burnt. I'll make a poultice for it later but, for the moment, it'll be best to let the skin breath. Just a light bandage to protect it.”

He got to work smearing a greasy substance onto Burton's back and neck. The patient was made to swallow a glass of dissolved powders, a small bottle of foul-tasting potion, and, to his relief, a very large measure of brandy.

Burton felt his weight continuing to shift disconcertingly as the
Orpheus
banked and veered, and at one point he saw through the nearest porthole a burning vessel plummeting past.

Twenty minutes later, the ship levelled out and flew more steadily, and he divined that it had outrun its pursuers.

Edward sat and drank ale and stared scornfully and wordlessly at his sibling.

Pryce returned to the lounge. “We're clear and out over the Channel. Captain Lawless is going to keep us here until nightfall. We'll fly back in without lights at about three in the morning.” He hesitated before adding, “No lights and the prospect of landing in a thick fog. I'll admit I'm a mite nervous.”

“Attend to your duties,” the minister responded.

A further two hours passed before Burton felt fit for conversation. Having been bandaged, provided with a loose white linen shirt, dark trousers and soft shoes—all from his old quarters in the ship—and supplied with a Havana cigar and another glass of brandy, he was functional, if nothing else.

He sat and contemplated his brother.

The two men were now alone in the lounge.

“Edward, when did you become aware of Disraeli's plans?” he asked. “Obviously, he had some sort of scheme in place even before the
Orpheus
returned from the future. I suspect it started with his and Babbage's meeting in October. Am I correct?”

Edward nodded, his chins wobbling. “Babbage's notion that labourers could be replaced was foolish. The working classes of the empire are far too numerous to supplant, and what would they do with time on their hands? But just as Babbage disdains the common man, so too does Disraeli disdain the far less numerous middle class, whose recent emergence and engagement with politics is, in his view, potentially destabilising.”

“Why?”

“Because they will never vote to maintain the
status quo
. Always, they'll demand more. Always, they'll support policies that promise to improve their lot. Thus will economics be thrust forever on the back foot. Babbage's proposal gave the prime minister the solution. Don't replace the lower class; replace the middle. They are much fewer in number, and their function, in terms of employment, can be reduced in description to matters of appraisal, allotment, division, and distribution, all of which can be handled with aplomb by probability calculators. Your account of future history provided the impetus to get the project started, for it revealed to him that such a class of people could weaken the empire to such a degree that its leaders would become utterly impotent.”

Burton frowned and winced as the laceration on his forehead gave a pang. “He's aiming at the wrong target.”

“Your view of the aristocracy has not been ignored. What perhaps you don't realise is that you brought back with you a solution to the decay you perceive in them; a means to bestow upon them a strength and permanency that will endure beyond even the far off future you visited.”

“I did? To what are you referring?”

“To this ship's Mark Three babbage. It has provided an example of how crystalline silicates can be employed in the same manner as the black diamonds. I know we are accumulating the latter at a ridiculously prodigious rate, but they nevertheless remain relatively scarce. This material from the future solves that problem. It is easily manufactured and offers the same capacity to store subtle electromagnetics as the gems.”

“I don't understand.”

“Disraeli is having the minds of the aristocracy transferred into silicates and the silicates fitted into the babbages of clockwork men.”

Burton's jaw dropped. In a flash, he realised that Flywheel had not been Henry Thomas Hope's private secretary at all, but Hope himself.

Grabbing at his brandy glass, he gulped at the liquor. He coughed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Madness!”

“Immortal rulers at the top,” his brother intoned, “whose experience and skills can only grow and improve; synthetic intelligences in the middle, requiring no reward and offering nothing but tireless service; and workers at the bottom, whose quality of life will gradually improve as the social and economic structure refines itself.”

“You cannot possibly be serious.”

“Disraeli is.”

“And what does the king think about all this?”

“I rather expect that our formerly blind monarch is delighted with his newfound visual acuity. The mechanical sensory apparatus is, apparently, more acute than natural vision.”

Burton was speechless. He made to stand—he felt the need to pace—but his back had tightened, and the movement caused such a stab that he loosed a groan and fell back, the brandy glass falling onto the carpeted floor from suddenly numb fingers.

Edward cast him a look of uncharacteristic sympathy.

“Stay put, Richard. You need to rest. Close your eyes. Forty winks. It'll be a while before we head for Norwood.”

Burton nodded wearily. Gazing at his bandaged hand, he asked, “Why did you flee? Where did you go? Why didn't you contact me?”

“The prime minister would have attempted to procure my involvement. I preferred to observe from afar in order to better gauge the merits or otherwise of his scheme. I fled to a secret location, which I've maintained for some years. When one is involved with the underbelly of British politics, as I have been, it is wise to keep a bolthole. From there, I summoned Lawless. He was in high dudgeon after the
Orpheus
was ordered to put on some manner of cheap show for public entertainment, so he and his crew were more than willing to abscond with the vessel and join me.”

“You've become a singular and rather frightening man.”

There came a pause. The minister's eyes didn't, for even an instant, stray from Burton's.

“Perhaps I have. The same might be said of you. Are you ready to tell me the truth, Richard?”

“Truth?”

“About how your expedition ended. About whatever or whoever you brought back with you, aside from what you've admitted to.”

Burton frowned. He didn't understand what his sibling meant, though he felt as if he should.

“You know everything I know.”

“And the inconclusive final chapter of your document?”

“Perhaps my descriptions lacked clarity. Events were rapid and confusing.”

“Lawless says much the same, and also claims not to have been present when you confronted Spring Heeled Jack.”

“He wasn't. He stayed on the ship. Do you want me to rewrite the report?”

“That won't be necessary. Go to sleep.”

The couch was sufficiently long that Burton was able to stretch out on it. He did so, lying face down, and quickly eased into a state of suspended consciousness, a daze wherein his eyes remained half open, but his mind ceased to function. He saw Edward take up his two walking sticks and sit with his hands propped on them and his eyes shut as if meditating. He saw a crewman enter and silently clear glasses and ashtrays from the table. Another refilled decanters. A third crossed to the door that led to the passenger cabins and observation deck but found it to be locked. Snapping his fingers irritably, as if kicking himself for forgetting, he retraced his steps and departed.

Bhatti appeared, leaned over the minister, and whispered in his ear. Edward, without opening his eyes, gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Like a drug slowly seeping through his veins, a faint perturbation infiltrated Burton's mind.

Wake up. Think. Observe. What has disturbed you? What is making you uneasy?

He remembered that, when the clothes he was currently wearing had been collected from his old cabin, the crewman had carefully unlocked the door before entering the passenger section and relocked it after exiting.

Why was that part of the ship secured?

The question struggled for his full attention but exhaustion held sway, and sleep overwhelmed him.

He was gently shaken out of it by Bhatti, who murmured, “It's four in the morning. If we've calculated correctly, we're right over the cemetery. Will you come to the bridge?”

The explorer sat up, his stiffened muscles and purpling bruises complaining. He looked at his brother, who hadn't moved and whose eyes remained closed.

Bhatti ushered him out and along the passage that led to the ship's prow. Burton realised the young Indian had slowed his pace to match his own painful shuffle, and a fleeting and totally incongruous memory touched his mind: a doctor, named Greenfall or Gresswell or Grenfell or similar, walking slowly beside him in a garden that overlooked the Mediterranean. The image came then was gone and instantly forgotten.

They entered the bridge. Burton looked up and saw the empty framework that had held the Mark III babbage.

Nathaniel Lawless, turning to greet him, said, “I never thought I'd ever want the confounded thing back again, but that brain, for all its arrogance, would be a blessing right now.”

“Why so, Captain?” Burton asked.

“It could land us safely. As it is, we're going to have to do the job ourselves and, as you can see—” He stepped to the curving glass that half-encircled the room. Burton joined him and looked out and down. “—the ground is completely obscured.”

It was a moonless night. Lights shone from the
Orpheus
's hull and illuminated, about a hundred feet below, the top of a flat blanket of fog.

“We'll do it just as we did in Africa,” Lawless said. “Our riggers and engineers are dangling at the end of ropes outside the ship. We'll vent gas from the dirigible and sink inch by inch. The rotors will blow the pall out of our path, so the men will see anything that stands in our way and signal up to us so we can make the necessary adjustments. When their feet touch the ground, they'll peg the lines and we'll be safe and sound. Nevertheless, it's a hair-raising prospect. I thought you might like to watch.”

Burton raised an eyebrow. “You consider me such a masochist?”

“You collect injuries like one.”

“Ha! I can't deny that.”

“Shall we proceed?”

“The ship is yours, Captain.”

Burton had noticed with considerable puzzlement that since he'd stepped onto the bridge Lawless had subtly but assiduously avoided making eye contact. He wondered why.

The airman turned to his chief engineer, who was standing at the communications console. “Are your men standing by, Mr. Keen?”

“No, sir, they're just hanging about.”

“Well, let's not keep them in suspense.”

It was an old and not very good joke, established in Africa, and here repeated as if rehearsed. To Burton, it sounded hollow and mirthless.

Something is wrong with all this.

Lawless addressed the helmsman. “Take us down, Mr. Wenham. As slow as you like.”

“Right you are, sir. Here we go.”

Burton watched through the window as the
Orpheus
started to sink almost imperceptibly toward the cloud. As it drew closer, the vapour became agitated and swirled away, streamers of it curling and raggedly dissipating.

Moving closer to the captain, he whispered, “I understand my brother has been questioning you with regard to the events we experienced in 2202.”

Lawless ran his fingernails across his bearded chin. “He asked about your fight with Spring Heeled Jack, and I told him the truth, which is that I didn't witness it. He also asked—again—whether we brought anything or anyone back with us.”

“And you said?”

“The additions to the ship's brain. Nothing more.”

Burton felt a sense of relief and satisfaction. He briefly gripped Lawless's elbow then stepped back.

After five minutes, Keen, who was holding a speaking tube to his ear, barked, “Stop!”

“You heard the man, Wenham,” Lawless snapped.

“Done, sir,” the helmsman responded.

“There's a church spire to starboard, sir,” Keen said. “We're on the mark but we need to shift thirty feet to port.”

“We're in your hands, Mr. Wenham.”

“Adjusting position, sir,” Wenham responded. “There we are. Venting more gas.”

“They can see the ground,” Keen reported. “Almost done.”

“Count me down,” Wenham said.

Keen relayed the request to his engineers and riggers. Moments later, he said, “Eight . . . Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . . That's it! Boots on the ground. All stop.”

“All stop,” Wenham confirmed.

“Securing lines,” the chief engineer said.

“Stabilising position. Engines idling. Buoyancy—wait a moment—there! That's got it. Position fixed. All right, Captain, we're all set for our new passengers.”

Bhatti, who'd observed the operation from the doorway, said, “I'll accompany you to the catacomb, Sir Richard.”

Burton offered Lawless a nod of appreciation. The captain returned it, swallowed uneasily, and turned away. The explorer stared at the back of his friend's head for a moment then followed Bhatti off the bridge. In the corridor, Second Officer Pryce was waiting with five crewmen. All were armed with pistols.