by Mark Hodder
He screamed at the horror of all he’d done and all he’d considered doing.
A jagged line of energy lashed out from his helmet and struck the girl in the face.
She was thrown onto the muddy cobbles. She started to convulse.
The younger girl scrambled over to her, shouting, “What have you done? Help! Help!”
Spring Heeled Jack pushed himself to its feet and yelled, “This is your fault, Burton!”
As he paced away along the alley—less a man than a disjointed bundle of possibilities—he was jolted again and again by shocks.
An emergency program in the damaged control unit suddenly activated. A voice in Spring Heeled Jack’s head ordered him to jump into the air. Reflexively, he did so. With its very last resource, the suit flipped him back to where he’d come from, moving him a little to the west to prevent him from colliding with himself.
Thirty seconds after he’d leaped away from Burton, he dropped onto the Alsop field straight into the hands of the retreating Technologists.
“The Technologists have Oxford!” shouted Detective Inspector Trounce as Burton approached. “They’re making away with him.”
Burton peered through the gloom at the battle raging at the top of the field. Policemen, led by Detective Inspector Honesty, together with what remained of the Letty Green villagers, were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a line of Rakes who were holding them at bay while, farther up the field, the Technologists swarmed up the ropes to the rotorship, whose prow was slowly passing over the western line of trees.
Swinburne and his chimney sweeps, swooping around the vast platform, were unable to do further damage to it, having run out of things to throw.
Even as he watched, Burton saw Spring Heeled Jack, who appeared to be unconscious, being hauled up into the massive flying machine.
“If you’re fighting them buggers, we’re with you!” came a voice. He turned and saw an elderly man leading a group of villagers. They were all squinting, their eyes watering as particles of soot drifted into them.
“Old Carter the Lamp-lighter at your service, sir!” declared the man. “We’re from Old Ford, and we’re sick to the back teeth of Spring Heeled Jack!”
“Good man!” said Trounce. He pointed to the struggling men. “Do what you can!”
“Aye, sir! Come on, lads, let’s have at ‘em!”
He led the villagers away.
Burton pulled his shirt from his trousers, ripped a strip from its hem, and, with Trounce’s help, bound his bleeding arm.
He glanced toward the rotorship. He knew what he had to do. There was no question. No doubt. No doppelganger haunting him with alternatives.
“I need a rotorchair,” he told the Yard man. “I’m going to see if I can wave one of them down.”
“Use this,” said Trounce, handing over his police whistle.
Burton ran back to the bottom of the field, where the soot was less dense, and began signalling to the flying machines as they passed overhead, waving his arms and blowing short blasts on the whistle. The fourth to fly by turned and descended.
“Nearly missed you!” announced Constable Krishnamurthy as he climbed out of the seat. “Bad visibility. The lamp caught you, though. You look like the devil!”
“I need your machine!” barked Burton, throwing himself into the leather chair. He pulled his panther-headed swordstick from his belt and pushed it under the seat. “How much fuel?”
“Enough, unless you’re flying to Brighton,” responded the constable.
The king’s agent nodded and eased the machine into the air.
As he gained altitude, the billowing miasma of soot and steam fell away beneath him. It was crawling with light and shadows as the other rotorchairs circled through it.
Ahead, shining silver in the starlight, the Technologists’ ship was slowly picking up speed.
Burton accelerated toward it.
A swan slid up beside his vehicle. He looked over and saw Swinburne waving at him from the box kite. The poet was grinning broadly, obviously enjoying himself. He mouthed something but Burton couldn’t hear above the sound of his machine, so he just gave a thumbs-up and pointed to the rotorship. Swinburne nodded.
They flew on.
By soaring high over the ship’s outspread spinning wings, they were able to avoid the turbulence and descend onto the vast platform. There was a wide railed walkway around the circumference of the oval-shaped vessel and a long structure in the central area. Burton put down on the walkway. For Swinburne, landing was a riskier business. He flew his swan low over the platform and pulled the emergency release strap which cut his box kite free from the bird. Tumbling through the air, the kite hit the deck and slid along it until it brought up hard against the railing. Swinburne shot out of the canvas and disappeared overboard.
With a sick feeling in his stomach, Burton ran over to the rail and looked down.
The poet smiled up at him. He was gripping the edge of the deck with his fingertips, dangling over the long drop.
“Culver Cliff!” he exclaimed as his friend pulled him to safety. “What now?”
“The final reckoning, I hope,” replied the king’s agent, unsheathing his sword. “We can’t allow Darwin and his cronies to continue with their insane experiments. People should have the right to shape their own destiny, don’t you think?”
“Isn’t that a contradiction, Richard?”
“We’ll save the philosophical argument for later, Algy. Right now, we have to get inside this thing. Do you have a pistol?”
Swinburne drew a Colt from his jacket.
With a nod of approval, Burton began to move around the edge of the central structure. The great ship vibrated beneath their feet as the two men peered into portholes, seeing empty rooms with bunks and tables, offices with desks and cabinets, and engineering stations, some of which contained men who seemed to be monitoring gauges or making adjustments to valves.
They passed two doors that opened onto such stations, and these they ignored, for the rooms were too well occupied. The third, though, gave access to a switchboard room in which just one Technologist laboured, and into this they sprang. Burton held his rapier to the man’s throat while Swinburne crossed the room and locked the door.
“If you value your life, you’ll not cry out,” advised the king’s agent.
The Technologist swallowed and nodded, raising his hands.
“Tell me the layout of the ship,” ordered Burton. “Be succinct.”
“Two decks,” the man responded, speaking rapidly. “This one has the crew cabins and various maintenance and monitoring rooms, all arranged around a central corridor with stairs to the main deck at either end. The main deck is much larger. There are eight engine rooms arranged around the central section, which matches the dimensions of this upper deck. The rear third contains the boilers, water tanks, furnace, and coal rooms. The middle third houses the main turbine. The forward section contains the flight cabin.”
“Good,” snapped Burton. “Is Darwin aboard?”
“Yes, in the flight cabin.”
“Brunel?”
“Yes. Probably in the turbine room.”
“Beresford?”
“Who?”
“The ape.”
“With Darwin.”
“Nightingale?”
“Yes. I don’t know where.”
“Speke?”
“Is he the one with the babbage in his head?”
“Yes.”
“No. He disembarked before we left. He’s on a second ship at Darkening Towers. It’s fitted out as a medical laboratory.”
“I see. How do we get to the flight cabin without attracting undue attention?”
“Two rooms forward of this there’s a storage bay with an access ladder leading down to a maintenance corridor between the turbine room and the flight room. It opens onto both.”
“Good. You’ve been helpful.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“I’m
not a killer,” responded Burton. “However, I do have to render you unconscious. Which would you prefer—a crack on the jaw or mesmerism?”
“None of that mind-control hocus-pocus, if you don’t mind!” exclaimed the man.
He stuck out his chin.
Burton hit it.
Swinburne caught the man as he fell and laid him gently on the floor.
“If only they were all so willing!” he mused.
“Algy, I won’t be able to punch them all. You may have to disable a man or two. Try not to kill anyone. Aim for the legs.”
“Understood.”
They unlocked the door and checked the corridor. It was clear, and they were able to get to the storage bay unmolested. The room was filled with huge rolls of soft insulating material. When they climbed down the short ladder to the maintenance passage on the deck below, they saw the same stuff lining the walls behind the pipes and tubes that ran the length of it.
Halfway along the corridor, on either side, the conduits curved up over large double doors, one leading back to the turbine room, the other to the flight cabin. Burton eased the latter open an inch and looked through at the large room beyond.
At its far end—the prow of the ship—in front of large windows, two Technologists were standing at the vessel’s controls. A third was nearby, next to a console, with a speaking tube in his hand.
Darwin was in his metal throne in the centre of the room. Wires and cables connected him to a horizontal wheel-like structure which was affixed to the metal ceiling; it was very similar to the one Swinburne had seen in Battersea Power Station.
A thick cable ran across the floor from Darwin to the automaton that had once been Francis Galton. It was standing next to a trolley to which Spring Heeled Jack had been strapped. The time traveller’s helmet had been removed and lay on a table nearby.
Henry Beresford was lumbering up and down beside the prisoner.
“Why aren’t they answering!” he barked.
“I don’t know, sir,” answered the man at the speaking tube. “But we’re undermanned at the moment and damage to the wings is causing severe instability. I imagine they have their hands full back there.”
“They might, but she doesn’t!” yelled the orangutan. “She’s a nurse, not a bloody mechanic!”
“We have observed that she is infatuated with Brunel,” put in Darwin.
“Pah!” grunted the orangutan. “Go and find her and drag her here by her bloody hair. We can’t allow Oxford to die. We need his knowledge.”
“Yes, sir!” replied the crewman, sliding the speaking tube into its slot. He hurried to the door.
Burton and Swinburne stood back, one to either side of it.
The man stepped through, closed the portal, saw Swinburne, opened his mouth, then emitted a strangled squeak as Burton’s thick left forearm slid around his neck and squeezed. The king’s agent used the fingers of his right hand to apply pressure to points on the man’s neck and, seconds later, the Technologist slipped into unconsciousness.
They dragged him into a corner and returned to the door.
The Galton automaton was pulling off Edward Oxford’s spring-loaded stilts.
“An ingenious design,” noted Darwin. “Though Brunel will appreciate it more than we can.”
“Never mind the damned boots!” exclaimed Beresford. “How long until we reach the mansion?”
“About ten minutes, sir,” answered one of the men at the controls.
“Go faster!”
“That’s impossible, sir. The wings will fly apart if we try!”
“I’m not interested in your confounded excuses!”
“We must keep his body alive until we transfer him to the medical ship,” said Darwin. “After that, it won’t matter; Nurse Nightingale can extract his brain and place it in a life-support container. There will be—”
He stopped. His huge double-brained cranium turned. His beady eyes settled on the two men who’d silently entered the room.
“We take it you’re Sir Richard Francis Burton?” he harmonised. “And the little poet Swinburne we are acquainted with, of course.”
Henry Beresford spun to face the door. He bared his great teeth and made to leap at the intruders.
“The legs, Algy,” said Burton quietly.
Swinburne raised his pistol and fired.
A hole appeared in the bell jar, just above the orangutan’s right eye.
“Oops!” said Swinburne.
Liquid started to stream from the hole.
Beresford stuck a finger into it, halting the flow.
Liquid continued to leak from a second opening at the back of the jar.
Miraculously, the bullet had missed the floating brain.
One of the Technologists at the ship’s controls slumped to the floor. The bullet hadn’t missed him.
“Double oops,” muttered the poet. “My apologies, Richard. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Get the nurse! Get the nurse!” screeched Beresford.
“Or a couple of corks,” suggested Swinburne.
“Move your walking corpse away from Oxford, Darwin,” ordered Burton, striding to the trolley.
The double-brained scientist obeyed the command; Galton stepped back.
Burton looked down at the time traveller. His eyes were wild but recognition flickered at the back of them, and he said to the famous explorer: “You died in 1890. Heart failure.”
A shiver ran down Burton’s spine.
“Sir!” cried the man at the controls. “I can’t do this on my own! She’s losing altitude fast!”
“Where in God’s name is Nightingale!” wailed Beresford.
“Algy,” said Burton. “Step outside and guard the door. Don’t let anyone in. Do whatever’s necessary.”
“But—” began the poet.
“Swinburne!” barked the king’s agent. “You half obeyed my last order. This time I need more. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the poet quietly. He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
“Damn you to hell, Burton,” said Beresford weakly. He collapsed down onto his haunches and sat with a finger in each of the holes in the bell jar. Liquid continued to dribble out. The top third of his brain was already uncovered.
Burton looked down at Oxford. “I know who you are,” he said. “I know what you’ve been trying to do.”
“You died in 1890,” repeated the stilt-man.
“So you say. It doesn’t matter. Everyone dies. What I’m interested in is what makes everyone live.”
“Intriguing,” said Darwin.
“I’ve made extreme decisions in my life,” continued Burton. “I decided to do things that most men would never do. I’ve been driven by I don’t know what to—to—”
“To find your place,” offered Edward Oxford. The madness died from his eyes. “To find yourself. You were displaced by a childhood spent being dragged from one country to another. Ever since, you’ve been looking for points of stability. Things you could associate yourself with. Permanent coordinates.”
“Coordinates. Yes, I see what you mean.”
“They make us who we are, Burton. They give us identity. I made a mistake. I chose as one of my coordinates an event from ancient history which, in my opinion, brought shame to my name. I tried to erase it, and ended up erasing something that made me.”
A tear trickled down Oxford’s cheek.
Darwin chuckled and said, “This is most gratifying. How simple it is to construct a new future. Yes. We are most fascinated. The possibilities are endless. However, we must establish whether one future replaces the other or if they run concurrently. Once we have the time suit, we must construct a method through which this can be ascertained.”
“Don’t let him have the suit,” whispered Oxford. “Free me. I don’t care about myself anymore, I’m a discontinued man, but let me restore history!”
Beresford toppled onto his side.
“Help me, Darwin,�
�� he gurgled. “I feel so drained.”
“I altered one thing,” said Oxford. “Just one thing! But the consequences have changed everything. You’re not meant to be doing what you’re doing now!”
“The problem, Oxford,” replied Burton, “is that although the future isn’t what it used to be, I like it the way it is.”
“Most gratifying. Most gratifying!” uttered Darwin. “Here we see the human organism selecting its own path of evolution!”
Henry de la Poer Beresford whispered, “Free!” and a horrible rattle issued from his throat.
A gunshot came from beyond the door.
“She’s going down!” yelled the man at the controls.
“And if the Technologists get their hands on your suit,” continued Burton, “the very idea of history will become a thing of the past.”
“We’re going to crash!” screamed the ship’s operator, and he made to run for the door, but the Francis Galton automaton was standing behind him and, clamping its hands around the man’s neck, it held him in front of the controls.
“We command you to fly the ship!” ordered Darwin.
“I can’t! I can’t!”
“You must!”
Burton reached down and took hold of Oxford’s head.
“In cold blood?” asked the time traveller.
“Whatever is necessary,” replied Burton.
“What will it achieve?”
Sir Richard Francis Burton looked the man in the eyes. “Stable coordinates,” he said.
“Enjoy your reboot,” whispered Spring Heeled Jack.
Burton yanked Edward John Oxford’s head around, breaking his neck.
“That was a serious mistake,” said Darwin. “However, what’s done is done. Now get us out of here before the vessel is destroyed. Bring the corpse, the helmet, and the boots.”
The king’s agent glanced at the windows and saw Darkening Towers looming large in them.
“No, Darwin,” he said. “The time suit must be destroyed. Your experiments must end.”
“We disagree. Allow us at least to debate the point with you before you act. We propose to you, Burton, that access to time travel will allow us to finally put to rest the great delusion of a God who intercedes in human affairs. We will eliminate the absurd notions of fate and destiny. We will choose our own paths through time. We will place reins on the process of evolution to steer it where we will!”
