The Shadow Conspiracy II

by Phyllis Irene Radford

  “Do automata snore?” I whispered to Stiffy for, the more I listened, the more that’s what the noise sounded like.

  “I don’t know,” whispered Stiffy. “Do pigs snore?”

  I had no idea. The syllabus at Eton is strangely deficient in these matters.

  I turned down the wick of the lantern and we both crept closer to the shadowy building whence the noise appeared to emanate from. I thought I could make out a figure lying by a doorway. We crept closer still, stepping lightly through the long grass. It was definitely a man and he was definitely snoring. I could see a large jug next to him and the air was heady with the smell of beer and pig. He had to be Pomphrey’s pig man. It looked like he’d passed out drunk while on pig guard duty.

  We eased our way past him and looked over the stable door into what, unless my nose was mistaken, had to be the piggery. I stared into the abyss, holding up the lantern, its soft light beginning to illuminate the low-ceilinged sty...

  “Hello,” said the pig. “You’re not here to feed me, are you?”

  I started, involuntarily taking a short step backwards and almost tripping over Stiffy and the supine pig man. Not only was the pig talking but it was enormous! The size of two pigs. Two very fat pigs.

  “Hello?” said the pig again, its voice most unpig-like. Not a single oinck or snort. And there was a definite Scottish lilt to its speech. It sounded rather like my old History master at Eton, Donald Farquharson-Fleck.

  I looked at Stiffy and he looked at me. We were both marooned in boggledom.

  Presently, I gathered sufficient wits to step forward once more.

  “What ho, pig,” I said. “Do you mind awfully if we borrow your steam outlet?”

  The Colossus looked confused. “What steam outlet?”

  I looked once more at Stiffy. He stepped forward. “The steam outlet that feeds you, you know, keeps you topped up?”

  “There’s my trough,” he said. “You can borrow that if you’d like, but I must warn you it’s full of the most revolting swill.”

  I could see the trough at the back of the pen and, raising the lantern higher, I could see the swill.

  I gave Stiffy the eyeball once more. “Are you sure automata are fed on steam? It looks to me like this one is doing very well on swill.”

  “I’m not an automaton,” said the pig, shaking his massive head. “I’m a Promethean. There’s a difference.”

  “There is?”

  “Oh, yes. An automaton is a purely mechanical construct. We Prometheans are flesh and blood.”

  “You’re a real pig?”

  The pig raised a front leg and wiggled a trotter. “Yes and no. I’m made from pigs. Sir Jasper collected parts from champion fat stock pigs all over Europe. My head’s a Landrace. My left rump’s a Black Berkshire. Then he commissioned some mad scientist to sew me together and breathe life into me. I think something went wrong. I appear to have the soul and intellect of a man.”

  This was rummy. “Do you have any memories of being a man?”

  “Vague ones. Ones where I’m up on two feet. Faces that I feel I should know, but don’t. Places far away from here, where there are mountains and high moors. Food that wasn’t this dashed awful swill.”

  We Woosters are not made of stone — nor metal, nor the prime parts of deceased Woosters.

  “You must come with us,” I said. “We can take you to Crandle or you can run free in the woods. Whatever your wish.”

  “Can I have roast pheasant? And some cheese. I’d die for a good strong cheddar. Anything to rid the taste of this vile swill from my mouth.”

  “You shall eat cheddar. And roast pheasant.”

  I was feeling much moved by the occasion. As was the Colossus, his eyes were positively moist. I opened the sty door and stood back to let him out.

  “Wait,” said the pig. “Doesn’t one of you need a top up? Sir Jasper has to have something up at the Hall. Most of his servants are automata.”

  “Isn’t there a steam boiler here?” asked Stiffy. “Reggie said there was.”

  “It’s next door,” said the pig. “But I think it’s only used to boil swill.”

  Stiffy and I slipped next door to make sure. The Colossus followed. He was right about the swill. There was a giant copper filled to the brim with the foul smelling stuff, but it wasn’t being heated by the boiler. The copper had its own coal fire.

  Stiffy took the lantern from me and, turning the wick up, dangled it in front of the boiler.

  “Look,” he said. “There! A steam outlet. It’s the same design as the one my uncle has.”

  “Your uncle’s an automaton?”

  “Ass! My uncle has it for his servants.”

  “So we can plug Reeves in!”

  “Once we fire it up.” He touched the boiler. “It’s lukewarm at the moment. Grab a shovel, Reggie. We need to get the pressure up.”

  I’d never shovelled coal before. I found it a much overrated experience, and decidedly dusty. If I’d known I was going to spend the evening dashing across fields and shovelling coal, I should have dressed accordingly. The Colossus tried to help, rooting through the pile of coal with his nose and nudging lumps of the stuff onto my shovel.

  When the fire was blazing and the pressure rising, Stiffy and I left to fetch Reeves from the car. Five minutes later, the three of us returned.

  “Help me stand Reeves in front of the boiler, Reggie.”

  We hoisted him forward until he was standing a yard away.

  “How do we plug him in?” I asked.

  “The steam outlet’s attached to a rubber hose. We pull out the hose and plug it into Reeves. Now, help me with his trousers.”

  “What?” I had a sudden and terrible thought. “Where exactly are you going to put that hose?”

  “His belly button, of course.”

  Phew. I helped Stiffy loosen Reeves’s belt and pull out his shirt-front. Stiffy undid the bottom three shirt buttons and, voila, there was Reeves’s belly button. I’d never seen one with a screw thread before.

  Stiffy connected him up, and threw a lever. Seconds passed. There were gurgles, a whooshing sound, and...

  Reeves coughed and a piece of turbot flew across the room and struck the boiler.

  “I beg your pardon, sirs,” said Reeves.

  “Never mind that, Reeves.” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much improved, sir. Though I fear I may be seeing things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “A giant pig, sir.”

  “I’m a Promethean.”

  “Giant talking pigs, sir.”

  “That’s all right, Reeves. We hear him too. He’s the Colossus of Blackwater.”

  I brought Reeves up to speed viz. pigs, Prometheans and Lord Twyneham’s opinion of automata.”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble,” said Colossus. “But didn’t someone promise me some cheese?”

  “You shall have a whole cheese, my good pig,” I said. “The finest cheddar.”

  But how were we to get to Crandle? There wasn’t room in Stiffy’s car for three men and a giant pig. I looked to Reeves. With all that extra steam, and a portion or two of turbot, his little grey cells had to be positively whizzing.

  “I believe there is a short-cut to Crandle across the fields,” he said.

  “Excellent! Reeves. Lead on.”

  “Alas, sir, I am unaware of its location.”

  “Do you need more steam, Reeves?”

  “No, sir.”

  “More turbot? A sardine?”

  “It’s not a question of brain power, sir. It’s one of knowledge.”

  “I know the way,” said Colossus. “Sir Jasper and his pig man sneak over to Crandle now and then to spy on the Princess. I’ve heard them talking.”

  “Lead on, then, kindly pig.”

  We followed the Colossus along a path through a wood. After ten minutes I espied a light up ahead. It couldn’t be Crandle, as we hadn’t reached the lawns yet, but it coul
d be the gamekeeper’s cottage, or maybe the pigsty.

  We advanced with caution, dousing once more our trusty lantern. As we approached closer, I recognised the building as Lord Twyneham’s pigsty — no one could visit Crandle without being inveigled by his lordship into paying homage to the Princess. The light was coming through the open door, and there, draped bonelessly over the lower half of the stable door, was a figure.

  It couldn’t be Lord Twyneham — unless he was wearing an ankle length nightshirt. I approached closer, using a clump of bushes for cover to get within thirty feet of the door. It was a woman and, by her height, it had to be Josephine Smith. What was she doing at his lordship’s piggery in the middle of the night? Had I stumbled upon the reason for Aunt Bertha’s ire — was Miss Smith a pig rustler?

  She didn’t appear to be rustling. If anything she looked more like his lordship — a pilgrim paying homage at the Princess’s shrine.

  I inched forward for a better look. A twig snapped.

  Miss Smith sprang upright and turned, looking a little shaken. “Who’s there?” she said, staring into the night.

  This was a situation that needed careful handling. A man last seen hiding in a young lady’s room while she was getting undressed cannot afford to burst in upon her a second time.

  “It’s only me, Miss Smith. I’m with Stiffy.”

  “You’re what!”

  “I’m with Stiffy in the bushes.”

  “Allow me, sir,” said Reeves. “I am Reeves, miss. Mr. Wooster’s man. We are here in the bushes with Mr. Trussington-Thripp.”

  “Good Lord. Are there any more of you in there?”

  “Only me,” said the pig.

  “Who are you?”

  “He’s Mr. Pomphrey’s pigman,” said Reeves.

  I think the turbot had added extra pep to Reeves’s speed of thought.

  There was a rustle in the shrubbery to my right and, before I could stop him, the Colossus waddled into the clearing.

  “Do you have any cheese?” he asked Miss Smith.

  Miss Smith was strangely quiet on the subject of cheese, preferring to stare, open-mouthed, at the giant pig as he waddled towards her. But she didn’t scream, or faint, or mistake the pig for a love token from Reginald Wooster and regard herself as immediately engaged — as was the habit of most young ladies of my acquaintance. As the initial shock evaporated, she appeared even to warm to the giant pig.

  “How are you able to talk?” she asked, circling the Colossus and observing him from every angle.

  “I’m a Promethean,” he said. “Do you have any food at all? Perhaps a banana?”

  Reeves emerged from the bushes.

  “Good evening, miss,” he said, raising his bowler. “We were on our way to the Castle to obtain food for the Colossus. May I be so bold as to ask for your assistance in this matter?”

  “I will help in any way I can.” She reached out and touched the Colossus on the shoulder. “So, you’re the Colossus of Blackwater, are you? Has Sir Jasper been mistreating you?”

  “Have you ever lived for ten months on a diet of swill, swill, and more swill? You don’t have an apple on you, do you?”

  “If you would be so kind, miss, as to wait here with the Colossus, the young gentlemen and I will fetch sustenance from the Castle.”

  We left Miss Smith deep in conversation with the pig and set off at a brisk pace towards the Castle.

  “May I suggest, sirs, that, with the Colossus’s escape certain to be discovered upon the morrow, it would be preferable if Mr. Trussington-Thripp’s car was not found in the vicinity of Blackwater Hall?”

  That turbot was working wonders. Reeves said he’d procure the food while I drove Stiffy back to Blackwater Hall to fetch his car. He even offered to see to the pig himself and carry a couple of hampers out to the woods.

  “Young gentlemen need their sleep, sir, and you have had a long and trying day.”

  Reeves was a valet without peer.

  I was feeling dashed pleased with myself as I opened the door to my bedroom that night. I may not have solved the Aunt Bertha problem — yet — but, in the course of my sleuthing, I’d liberated a giant talking pig. Even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t say that.

  Then I saw the folded piece of paper on the carpet. Someone must have slipped a note under my door while I was out. I picked it up.

  “Darling Reggie,” it read. “See you at breakfast.”

  It was signed ‘G.’

  I decided to skip breakfast and take a stroll to the pigsty instead. I got as far as the east terrace when I was accosted by my cousin, Herbert. He was redder in the face than usual and much agitated.

  “Can you believe it!” he said.

  I probably could. A man who’d conversed with giant pigs could believe almost anything.

  “What is it, old chap?” I asked.

  “It’s Josephine. She’s left me. Run off with a pig!”

  “She’s run off with a pig?”

  “Yes!”

  “As in ‘stolen the pig?’”

  “No! They’ve eloped!”

  “What?”

  “It’s all here in her letter. Look.”

  He waved the letter in front of me.

  “And not only has she left me. But she says here she’s not even English!”

  “Belgian?” I asked.

  “No, not even Belgian. She says she’s a Promethean. And I don’t even know where Promethea is!”

  “Well, I didn’t see that one coming. Did you, Reeves?”

  “I had my suspicions upon observing them last night, sir. I had occasion to converse with them while the Colossus ate his cheddar and roast pheasant.”

  “Pally, were they?”

  “Very, sir. The young lady seemed remarkably well-informed upon the subject of Prometheans.”

  “Like seeking out like, I suppose. Tell me, Reeves, do you feel any sentimental attachment to other machines? A grandfather clock, perhaps, that might have caught your eye?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How are you for steam at the moment? Need a top-up yet?”

  “I think not, sir, though I believe my pressure warning governor needs adjustment. It should have informed me that my pressure was dangerously low.”

  “Fourteen years in a cupboard can’t be good for pressure warning governors.”

  “Indeed not, sir.”

  “Do you think Aunt Bertha knew Miss Smith was a Promethean?”

  “I could not possibly say, sir.”

  “Aunts do have extraordinary abilities, you know, Reeves. Aunt Bertha has an inquisitorial eye. One look and she can see right through you. I expect she gave Miss Smith the once over and recognised an arm belonging to a dead relative.”

  “Quite possibly, sir.”

  “Reggie, darling!”

  The early morning peace was shattered by the piercing soprano of Lady Georgiana, accompanied by a bout of excited, high-pitched yipping.

  Dogs! I braced myself, girding the Wooster loins, expecting to be struck from behind by a pack of wild Pomeranians.

  “Your fiancée is hailing you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Reeves,” I said, giving him the stern eye.

  I, as generations of Woosters had done before me, then turned to face the enemy with a merry smile and a raised hat.

  “What ho, Georgie.”

  The Lady Georgiana, with dogs at foot, dogs circling, and dogs terrorising the shrubbery, strode towards me with the look of a woman who’d just raised a pheasant and now had him in her sights.

  “Have the bags packed and meet me at the car,” I whispered to Reeves.

  “Sir? Would you not prefer I remain and assist you with your extrication?”

  “Leave this one to Reginald, Reeves. I have a plan.”

  “I say, have you heard the news about Miss Smith?” I asked, trying to keep my plan on script while my trousers were being sniffed, rubbed against and slobbered over.

  “Is it really true?” asked Georgie. “It’s
not some tale she spun Herbert, is it?”

  “I was there. I saw the pair together. Love at first sight.”

  “No! When did you see them?”

  “Last night as I took my bedtime constitutional stroll around the grounds. Opened my eyes, I can tell you. People running off with animals. Whatever next?”

  One of the Pomeranians had discovered my trousers contained a bone — an anklebone — and was trying to get his teeth around it.

  “Sebastian! Leave Reggie’s leg alone. Go!”

  Sebastian gave my ankle a parting nip for luck, then slunk off.

  “Mind you,” I said. “I think I can understand it. Must be something in the air around Crandle this year. Don’t you find the farm animals attractive? A ewe with a well-turned leg? A mare with a firm fetlock?”

  She gave me a look. “Reggie?”

  “Dashed attractive dogs you have there.”

  The rummy thing about plans is that they never play out in real life as they do in one’s head. Even a perfectly sound one can founder on the smallest rock.

  I’d expected Georgie to break off the engagement and flounce off, not set her dogs on me!

  Did I mention that Pomeranians were deceptively swift?

  About the Authors

  CL Anderson has been known to tell people she lives in a stately Victorian home on a windswept island in Lake Superior with her three sisters and their pet wolf Manfred. She has also been known to tell people she is a science fiction writer living near Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband, son and cat. What is known is that her first novel, Bitter Angels, winner of the 2010 Philip K. Dick award, is now out from Bantam Books and she’s delighted to have some of her short fiction available exclusively through Book View Cafe.

  Maya Kaathyrn Bohnhoff is addicted to speculative fiction. For this, she blames her dad and Ray Bradbury. She’s authored six fantasy novels and short fiction that’s appeared in Analog, Amazing Stories, Interzone, and others, and been short-listed for the Nebula and British SF awards. Her current project with writing partner Michael Reaves (co-author of Mr. Twilight), is a new addition to the Star Wars universe.