The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  Unless it was locked?

  She took a bold step forward and smashed straight into an invisible barrier.

  She fell back and, because she’d discarded her bustle to get through the hole, she hurt her pelvis when she landed on her backside. She sat there with her feet sticking out at a comical angle from her under her rucked up dress.

  There was nothing there, except… the protective glass wall.

  She went round it and over to the control console and tried a switch. Nothing happened, and then she remembered the heavy galvanic connector on the wall. She flicked it, jumped as it sparked, but nonetheless she pushed it home.

  If you slid the slider, she thought, but it needed the jewelled rod to be screwed in place. Uncle Jeremiah had tried to give it to her and she’d seen it in the movable hatch tantalisingly close, but Mrs Frasier had arrived too soon.

  However, when she tried sticking her finger into the hole and moving it, it slid easily enough. Everything hummed and flashed with light, blinding, and then the damage she’d done to the Chronological Conveyor disappeared. Perhaps she had transported it to the past or future, she thought, but when she moving the slider back again, the action recreated the hole she’d made in the dais wall. She tried it again with different settings and found the switch for the humming and another for the flashing light. Soon, she had all the effects turned off and the slider merely changed the view – damage there, damage gone, damage there, damage gone.

  When one conveyor was lit, it could be seen; slide the control and the other became visible. The glass wall either let you see through or see a reflection: yes, it faded from view.

  This was how you saw people literally disappear.

  She could stop the slider just so and see the damage as a ghostly apparition.

  It was that trick they’d seen in the theatre!

  The hairs on the back of her neck and her bare arms stood on end, a rippling of her skin just like she felt when a fancy dessert was served.

  She checked: now the light was shining that way, she could see the alternative Chronological Conveyor down a side corridor. There was another passage opposite with a copy of the control lectern. Each had been hidden in the darkness. When you stood on the dais, then the same lighting effect would fade the view from one corridor to the other.

  But that didn’t explain the stomach churning feeling of Temporal Transference.

  But if this was a trick, then there must be an explanation. The ‘chimney’ she’d crawled into, and then up, had contained huge metal post, gears and cogs and mechanisms and all sorts of things that Georgina would find fascinating. It would – she moved the mechanism in her mind – cause the floor to rise and fall.

  It was a lift.

  Like in the Savoy.

  With a sliding ceiling.

  So, anyone watching would see the person standing on the dais fade from existence.

  For the temporal voyager, they’d see the view fade, be blinded by the bright light, and then, with their eyes persuaded closed, they’d feel a falling sensation and then the corridor would have changed.

  There must be another version of this mechanism in the basement.

  It was a conjuring trick, nothing more.

  She left the control lectern as she’d found it.

  If they really wanted to keep her a prisoner, she thought, they ought to have locked her in one of the cells instead of a store cupboard with a weak ceiling. The cells had been full. Charlotte had vowed never to let herself be locked in a small room again, ever since she was shut into the pantry when she was seven – and that had been Earnestine too!

  She must escape.

  The door to the outside world was locked with both a key and padlocks across the iron bolts. Charlotte glanced around looking for something that might be of service, but there was nothing. She’d have to try another route.

  Going back towards the court and prison didn’t appeal, but that was downstairs. On this level, amongst the mirrors and glass maze of the Chronological Conveyor, she found a side exit. It took her outside and into a small courtyard.

  “Oh!”

  On all sides were the brick walls of the old factory, but ahead, down an alley, was a truly remarkable sight. It was the future, there for all to see, with giant buildings of glass and crystal. High up a Zeppelin of extraordinary design was moored to a rooftop.

  This was the future, it really was.

  And there, in the distance along the Thames, was the clock tower of Big Ben. The real Big Ben. You couldn’t fake that.

  She went forward, her head craned back so she could see the marvels, but, as she moved along the alleyway, her perspective changed. The marvels became flat and distorted, changing in front of her eyes until the illusion became obvious. They were painted walls of wood and models of plaster, the giant Zeppelin was made of canvas, small and hollow, the towers of glass were fake. Only the distant Houses of Parliament were the real MacKay giving the imitation a depth and believability. When she reached the far end and looked back, the view was tawdry and ersatz.

  It was a lie.

  It was like… the theatre.

  All the world’s a stage, Mrs Frasier had said.

  Everyone had been gulled, good and proper.

  Chapter XXIII

  Mrs Frasier

  “Anything?” Earnestine asked.

  “Yes, anything, you can do anything!”

  “In that case, tell me what’s really going on.”

  This was the moment that Mrs Frasier had been dreading: “I keep six honest serving men,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Kipling.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s not published it in your time, but there is an elephant in the class room.”

  “I’m afraid you’re not making sense.”

  “I’m not making sense yet.”

  Mrs Frasier took two narrow cigars from her pocket and handed one to Earnestine. The child took it, wrinkling her sharp nose. Mrs Frasier leaned against the brass rail of the Chronological Conveyor, struck a match, lit the end and took a long inhalation.

  “Their names are – let me get them in the right order: What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. They taught me all I knew.”

  Earnestine didn’t answer, so Mrs Frasier continued.

  “If you ask What, Why, When, How… Where and Who, then you learn everything about a situation.”

  “Oh, I see: Chronological Committee, to save the world… what was the third?”

  “When.”

  “My time and this future; how, with this machine; here and by you and your… Temporal Peelers.”

  “My six and more honest men.”

  “Your thugs.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Mrs Frasier retorted. “Scrutiniser Jones may look like a thug, but he has a softer side and a mind if you look beyond the brawn. They are all good, trustworthy men.”

  “I’m sure. Why don’t we all have tea and cake?”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re happy to sacrifice others, but not–”

  “I am fully prepared to sacrifice myself, the Ultimate Sanction,” Mrs Frasier declared. “I have gunpowder enough to blow everything to kingdom come.”

  “Other people: the past isn’t your playground to do as you please.”

  “The past? Indeed. When is the interesting question?”

  Earnestine checked the dials on the lectern: “The Year of our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine… two years before the millennium, according to this.”

  “I bet they celebrate it early.”

  “That wouldn’t be proper,” said Earnestine. “You said it was seventy five years in the future.”

  Mrs Frasier flicked a little ash away, picked something from her tongue and then took another drag. The smoke curled upwards in a spiral. It seemed that there was more than one trail.

  Mrs Frasier made the decision: she knew it was necessary. She’d have preferred to wait until Quee
n Victoria’s signature on the bottom of the page had dried, but time waits for no man.

  “Do you see that control on the lectern,” she said.

  Earnestine looked: “Which one?”

  “Ah! ‘Which’ isn’t one of the honest serving men.”

  “Look, just tell me which one?”

  “The white one with the round top.”

  Earnestine fussed over the lectern and finally put her hand on the slider.

  “You should smoke,” said Mrs Frasier. “It calms the nerves and thins the blood.”

  “I’m quite calm!” Earnestine snapped.

  “Slide the control and… catch!”

  Mrs Frasier threw the matches to Earnestine.

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine caught them.

  Her hand operated the control at the same time.

  Mrs Frasier had gone.

  It was true.

  And it meant that it was possible to make a better world, to nudge everything forward towards a Utopia. Earnestine felt oddly proud that she was the one who would make it happen.

  Her voice came from nowhere: “Move the slider back.”

  Earnestine did so and Mrs Frasier materialised on the dais from nowhere.

  “So it’s true,” said Earnestine. She’d seen it again with her own eyes and this time hers had been the hand upon the control.

  “Come here.”

  Nervously, Earnestine did so, a step and another, and then strangely her own face materialised within Mrs Frasier’s until she could see both herself and her own future.

  “You see,” Mrs Frasier began, “it’s–” but she was interrupted by a distant scream.

  Earnestine grabbed her umbrella.

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  Georgina saw a ghost: she ran straight into it, and then she screamed and screamed.

  Charlotte threw herself over Georgina and clamped her hand over her mouth: “Shhh, shhh…”

  “Don’t – ow – mmmm me!”

  “It’s all fake.”

  “I know,” Georgina replied.

  “Oh.”

  “And it also means that I’m not expecting.”

  “Not expecting what?”

  “Never you mind,” Georgina said, quickly. “We have to warn Captain Caruthers. He can get a message to Major Dan.”

  “Can’t we just fight them off like last time?”

  “Charlotte, don’t be so foolish.”

  They both got up – Charlotte picking up a small wooden barrel – and they set off in opposite directions.

  “That’s the dormitory!” Georgina said.

  “And over there is the future,” Charlotte replied, “and the gate is too high to climb.”

  “We’ll have to try.”

  “You won’t be able to, Gina, you’re getting pudgy.”

  “I am not.”

  But she knew she was. Her corset had no cord left to tie a knot these days. It was all the pickle she’d been eating.

  “So I thought the main door,” said Charlotte.

  “It’ll be locked.”

  Charlotte hefted the barrel higher: “I’ve got a key.”

  Georgina followed Charlotte and they made their way up some stairs and then along to the Chronological Conveyor.

  “The floor falls away,” Charlotte explained. “And this glass wall here–”

  “Pepper’s Ghost,” said Georgina realising. “We saw it in the theatre.”

  “That’s it.”

  Charlotte kicked the barrel until the wood split and then started to leave a trail of powder.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Georgina asked nervously.

  “It’s only a priming barrel.”

  “That’s not what I asked… quiet.”

  Georgina heard voices: female voices from below. She moved over to stand upon the dais. There was a hole at the side that led downwards. Moving closer, she began to make them out: Earnestine and Earnestine; no, Earnestine and Mrs Frasier. She leaned closer, trying to understand the words.

  “It’s ready!” Charlotte shouted. She sprinted from where she’d left the barrel against the door.

  Georgina jumped: “Shhh…”

  Mrs Frasier’s voice came up loud and clear: “What was that?”

  “Oh lummy,” said Charlotte. “Match?”

  Georgina had a box of Bryant and May in her bag.

  There were only three left, rattling around, so Charlotte took out all of them at once, rubbed them across the sandpaper and they flared brightly. She held them expertly, letting the initial conflagration die down and waiting for the wood to burn properly. She touched the end of her powder trail and that flared just like the match only ten times brighter. The ignition spat and jerked as it took and then the fire began to rush along the line turning the dark powder into ash.

  “That’s jolly quick,” Georgina said.

  “Take cover!” Charlotte yelled.

  They dodged round the corner into the other version of the Conveyor, the one that would appear when the control slider had been moved to change the lighting.

  Mrs Frasier and Earnestine appeared in the first interpretation of the Conveyor. The haphazard flaring of the gunpowder trail flicked them on and off as if they were trying to materialise there.

  The fire reached the barrel, leapt upwards to the damaged area and–

  Miss Charlotte

  Exploded!

  It was fantastically exciting.

  Wow!

  The heavy door split, its planks separated, but held in places by the iron reinforcements, and the ceiling divested itself of a whole heap of plaster.

  Bits everywhere.

  And Charlotte had done it all by herself.

  “Stop! Stop! You don’t understand,” shouted Mrs Frasier.

  “What are you going to do?” Georgina demanded. “Wipe us out? Break into our house and remove us from all our daguerreotypes? We’ve found you out!”

  “Come on!” Charlotte shouted.

  Georgina needed no other prompting and they ran for the door.

  Mrs Frasier tried chasing their reflections.

  “Peelers! Peelers!” she shouted.

  Male voices replied: “Oi!” and “What was that?”

  Charlotte kicked away the last of the debris and jumped through into the daylight.

  Georgina reached it seconds later and stopped. She looked back.

  Earnestine was standing there half way along between her and Mrs Frasier.

  “Earnestine!” Mrs Frasier shouted, “Stop them! Before they ruin everything. The greater good!”

  Earnestine turned back, clearly torn as she gripped her umbrella in both hands.

  “Ness!”

  Georgina held her hand out beckoning.

  Chapter XXIV

  Mrs Frasier

  Earnestine was hesitating: she was in the way!

  Mrs Frasier started to chase them, pushing past Earnestine to do so, but then she realised the foolishness of that.

  “Guards! Guards!” she shouted.

  The squad of Temporal Peelers, panicked by the explosion, were hurriedly fastening on their sword belts as they stumbled into the corridor.

  “Where were you?” Mrs Frasier demanded.

  “Ma’am, we–”

  “Never mind, get after them!”

  “Who?”

  “The Derring–Do Club.”

  Scrutiniser Jones glanced at Earnestine.

  “Not her, the other two.”

  “Other two? But one’s been erased.”

  “She unerased herself – now move!”

  Scrutiniser Jones led the pursuit, rushing into the mist of plaster dust that still hovered over the remains of the door. The others stumbled after him becoming organised as they went.

  When they’d left, the Chronological Conveyor became quiet, peaceful. Mrs Frasier saw that Earnestine was standing with her arm half extended.

  “I want to understand,” Earnestine said.

 
; “You are coming around to my side,” Mrs Frasier replied.

  “But I’m not on your side.”

  “You’re not on my side yet.”

  Chief Examiner Lombard appeared: “What happened?”

  “The Derring–Do Club escaped.”

  “No!”

  “Jones is after them, but… best if we prepare the Ultimate Sanction.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, without evidence who’s going to believe two children?” said Mrs Frasier. She pointed to Earnestine. “Bring her to my office.”

  Chief Examiner Lombard was tall and forceful, his gaunt face brooked no argument, and Earnestine had no choice but to follow Mrs Frasier.

  “Mrs Frasier!” Earnestine shouted.

  Mrs Frasier didn’t look round. Her mind was awhirl. From working along one plan, she was now forced to consider one of the other contingencies.

  “That will be all,” she said, when they reached her office, but the tall Temporal Peeler stayed at attention.

  “Ma’am,” he said.

  “Lombard, I’ve beaten this girl once, I can do it again.”

  “Ma’am,” he nodded and left. “I’ll see to the Sanction.”

  “Good man.”

  Mrs Frasier collected a few papers from her desk and put them in a case. Earnestine tried to stand up straight to regain some dignity. An awful, gory picture of a mad woman in a chariot going into battle stared down at her. There was a dreadful whine in her voice when she finally spoke.

  “This isn’t the future.”

  “No.”

  “This isn’t real.”

  “No.”

  “And you aren’t me.”

  “No.”

  Earnestine let out a breath, a single exhalation: the audacity must have struck home, Mrs Frasier realised: all those people gulled by this fantastic fairy tale.

  “You may applaud,” said Mrs Frasier.

  “Who are you?”

  She twirled her hand theatrically and bowed: “Miss Charity Mulligan at your service.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “Oh! That cuts to the quick.”

  “Why did you do all this?”

  “To make a better world for all.”

  “How?”