The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  Lin studied the ceiling, and seemed to like what she saw. ‘That’s more or less it, funny little human thing,’ she agreed.

  ‘Except, of course, there is one minor problem that may assail us well before this moment of triumph.’

  ‘We’re gonna have a moment of triumph?’ asked Tess uncertainly.

  ‘Of course you are! You and the little Thomas person are going to save Mister Lyle, going to prevent the Machine; going, in short, to overcome your unfortunate evolutionary shortcomings and prove that despite how small you are, despite your complete lack of grammatical control, despite even a shocking propensity for pickpocketing . . .’

  ‘Is prop . . . propen . . . is that anything like “proper”?’ asked Tess.

  ‘Despite all of this,’ Lin went on, unflustered, ‘you are Mother Nature’s improbable final answer, and you are going to do your duty!’

  There was silence while this sank in, before Thomas finally said, ‘Didn’t you mention some sort of minor problem, miss?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘May I ask whether you mean the word “minor” in the same way as we mean “small”, said Thomas primly, ‘or if your ki ... if you have another way of understanding it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lin, ‘the problem is that Augustus Havelock has contacts throughout Her Majesty’s Government.’

  ‘Yesss . . .’ offered Tess. ‘An’ this is bad ’cos ... ?’

  ‘Augustus Havelock will probably soon be aware, if he is not already, that Mister Lyle is under arrest on suspicion of Berwick’s death.’

  ‘An’ . . . I’m guessin’ as how you’re buildin’ towards summat what’s gonna make me cry an’ all, so any time you say . . .’

  ‘Havelock will also be likely to realize that now Berwick is . . .’ Lin waved her hand as a tactful substitute for the word, the weighty, despairing word, ‘. . . and Moncorvo is . . .’ the same gesture, slightly less emphatic, ‘. . . there’s only one person left in the whole British Empire who is capable of completing the Machine.’

  She waited for the realization to hit. Tess looked at Thomas; Thomas looked at Tess. Tate looked at the bowl of chestnuts by the fire and wondered if they were edible.

  Thomas said, ‘I’m sorry, miss, who would that be?’

  Lin rolled her eyes. ‘And this is the future of mankind.’

  Tess nudged Thomas in the ribs.

  ‘Ow!’ said Thomas.

  ‘Don’t be a baby, bigwig,’ muttered Tess. ‘I think as how she might be lookin’ at us for a reason.’ She turned to Lin. ‘It’s that metaphor stuff again, ain’t it? The euphe ... euphemi ... that thing where you says one thing but you really mean another an’ you kinda think as how the person what you’re talkin’ to is goin’ to work it out ’cos they know what you’re talkin’ about even though you ain’t gone an’ said it an’ all.’

  ‘That makes even less sense, Miss Teresa. Not that you don’t make sense, I don’t mean to imply that - I’m sure the fault is entirely mine and wouldn’t want to cause offence at all, but ... could you please explain?’

  Tess looked exasperated. To Lin she said, ‘You’re talkin’ about Mister Lyle, ain’t you? You thinkin’ as how Mister Havelock’s gonna want Mister Lyle to finish the Machine.’

  Lin beamed. ‘And yet inside your respective skulls there ’s so little cranial space for brain!’

  Tess looked at Thomas and shrugged. ‘If summat’s goin’ bad,’ she confided, ‘I always know to blame it on Mister Lyle really.’

  Thomas frowned. ‘Mister Lyle is in trouble?’

  ‘Of course he’s in trouble,’ Lin exclaimed, ‘you strange little ape-descended creature, you!’

  ‘What . . . will this Havelock person do?’

  Lin looked uncertain. ‘I’m hoping that Mister Lyle, acting nicely, won’t betray my people to an ignominious and cruel demise.’

  ‘What’d the big words mean, bigwig?’ hissed Tess.

  ‘Erm . . . something like unfair and nasty. Why shouldn’t he, miss?’ Thomas’s voice was very polite, but there was something hard behind his eyes. ‘Why shouldn’t he help Havelock finish the Machine? After all, from what you’re saying, Moncorvo’ - a scowl - ‘killed - he went and killed - Berwick, Mister Lyle’s friend. Why shouldn’t Lyle finish the Machine?’

  Lin stared at him in surprise, then said in a calm voice, ‘If I were to die right now in front of you, young Master Thomas - if I were to fall down without a sound and die - would you not call for help? Would you stand back and watch and do nothing and have my body buried in an unmarked grave and give it no other thought, simply because of what I am? You are so young, and yet you have already seen such evil, and much of it, I confess, from my kind. I am older than I seem, older than I pretend, and I have seen evil performed by all the peoples of all the empires of this world - the Chinese murdering the Tibetans, the Hindus murdering the Sikhs, the Turks and the Russians fighting for a scrap of land the size of Wales, the English and the French slaughtering each other for a field of opium. Should all the Frenchmen die for fighting you? Should all the Russians be condemned for one Tsar’s interest in the Black Sea? Maybe you think they should. But I like to think, Master Thomas, that you have enough of that insight Mister Lyle values so preciously to see that I am not your enemy, and that if the Machine were to be completed, if I were to die right now in front of you, you would be as shocked and appalled as if a friend were dead.’

  Silence. Tess looked uneasy. Lin added, ‘Oh - and Havelock will probably kill Lyle anyway, once he’s done.’

  No one moved. She smiled grimly. ‘The future of a friend may be in your hands, little humans.’

  A footstep in the corridor.

  A key turning in the lock.

  A shadow in the door.

  Sleeping, waking, dreaming, remembering, doesn’t particularly matter any more.

  A voice.

  ‘Good evening, Horatio. You do seem to be in a conundrum.’

  Lin spells her plan out in full detail.

  This is Thomas’s reply:

  ‘What? I mean . . . no! I’m sorry, that wasn’t very . . . uh ... but it’s ... I mean, surely if there ’s ... uh ... but isn’t that ... Miss, I’m sure you mean well - well, I think you might . . . sometimes . . . mean well, but this is just . . . it’s not as if ... uh ... it’s just not very hygienic.’

  And this is Tess’s reply to Lin’s plan:

  ‘Well, if it’s underground where you’ll be wantin’ to go, I know this very nice lad what owes me a favour. You’ve got somethin ’ big an’ hidden underground, he’ll know where to find it.’

  Tess beams at Thomas, and though Thomas knows, in his heart of hearts, that what’s proposed is absurd, laughable and stupid, he also knows that it’s probably the right thing to do.

  Then Lin adds, ‘Oh, and I think we should really hurry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Mr Havelock will obviously attempt to catch you two in order to manipulate Mister Lyle.’

  Thomas looks surprised. ‘Why would finding us make any difference to Mister Lyle?’

  Lin gives a look and says nothing.

  ‘This is a bit of a pickle.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A bit of a pickle.’ Lyle smiled. ‘A conundrum.’

  Augustus Havelock struck a match to the lamp in Lyle’s cell, and sat down next to him. Choosing his words with care, he said, ‘I saw Berwick’s body.’

  Lyle didn’t reply.

  ‘And Moncorvo’s, broken out of prison yesterday by an unknown stranger, who left a note on a chloroformed guard, and acquired his pick locks and smoke bombs having used a device that could practically shoot through walls.’

  Still Lyle said nothing.

  ‘I also saw the broken remains of the regulator, and the ashes of the drawings for its replacement; and I saw Thackrah, and my servants saw you.’ Havelock lounged back against the wall and said in an almost kindly voice, ‘So, Horatio Lyle, you are my enemy at last.’
>
  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Lyle. ‘I think it was always going to happen.’

  ‘I am glad.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I understand, Lyle, that underneath the naivety and the foolishness and the childish games, there are few others who I would respect more as an enemy.’

  ‘I’m thrilled. I can’t rebuild it, you know.’

  ‘I think you can. I think, Horatio Lyle, that you’ve seen the plans, you’ve seen the regulator, you understand the science. You and Berwick were, after all, friends; he taught you while he worked with your father. I think you can build the Machine, and I think you will.’

  ‘Because,’ sighed Lyle, ‘if I don’t, you’ll threaten the children, won’t you?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me that you will hurt them and anyone and everyone else I’ve ever known or loved, and I’ll be left alone, in the dark and so on.’

  ‘A crude summation. But I think that, in your own way, you understand what I am prepared to do.’

  ‘Except,’ Lyle said easily, ‘there’s only one problem.’

  Havelock raised his eyebrows and waited.

  ‘The thing is, if you so much as touch one of the children, I mean actually hurt them, actually cause them harm, rather than merely threaten and posture, you know and I know that I’d never help you ever in a thousand years and would, in fact, seek to destroy you. It all comes down to a test of wills - you can’t risk causing harm to those I care for, because, if you do, you will lose me for ever. And I can’t risk letting you harm them because I’ll never forgive myself if you do. The question therefore becomes one of who, in this regard, has the stronger will?’

  Havelock thought, then nodded with a concerned look of agreement. Then he stood up, and very calmly hit Lyle across the face as hard as he could. Lyle fell, turning away instinctively and shielding his head with his hands. Havelock waited a few seconds, until he was sure Lyle was listening, then leant down and said quietly, ‘The police will hand you over to me, because in the end I am more powerful than they. The Machine will destroy the Tseiqin because in the end I am more resolute than they. The children will try to help you, and fail because I am more prepared; your friends will wonder where you are, and forget because I am more persuasive than they; and you will rebuild the regulator and you will make the Machine work because, I promise you, the one thing you lack and that I possess without limit, is will. I trust we understand each other, Horatio Lyle?’

  Lyle pulled himself up, one cautious limb at a time, and shuddered, and said nothing.

  And here is London, in the darkness of the night.

  No fog, tonight; for once, the rain has banished it. For a brief, brief moment before it is obscured by smoke rising from the factories that rumble away throughout the night, the air smells fresh. And here is Teresa Hatch, running to catch a hansom cab, remembering old friends and the way into the sewers. She is thinking of machines that churn beneath the city, and Mister Lyle and what he knows and whether he was wise after all, and wondering if maybe this adventure itself was so smart, and whether it’ll end in breakfast after all.

  And here are colliers still carrying coals down from a canal, even though it is night: more coals than burnt even in winter, and not just into the city, but down, into the sewers, into the tunnels and the darkness and the stench below the city where so many new tunnels have been dug: the pedestrian tunnel at Rotherhithe, where ladies of the night ply their trade, and the tunnel at King’s Cross where the new-fangled Underground line wheezes towards Euston Square. In the old sewers that lead out to the river, the tide turns and slushes thick goo out by Woolwich. And somewhere, underneath it all, the Machine waits and burns.

  And here is Old Man White, staring out across the city, suddenly not sure, not knowing: no one has come to report, no one has brought news, not even Lin, who is usually so punctual. He does not know what will happen, nor where, and that is not the way things have worked in the past.

  And here is Thomas Edward Elwick, carrying bags laden with chemicals and tubes and wires and tools and strange bent things that he’s sure Lyle would know how to use and which Teresa pretends she knows how to use but which probably are only useful for those rare and special occasions when you want to dissect the gut of a sheep or carry out some other improbable scientific activity, and which tonight serve only to weigh him down - but tonight, it’s best to play safe. He realizes he’s never done anything like this before - at least, he’s never done anything like this alone. But as Tess rightly says, ‘It’s all right, bigwig, I’ll see that you ain’t too beat up an’ all.’ Maybe not so alone then.

  And here is Horatio Lyle, wishing he was somewhere else.

  It occurs to Lyle that if he had gone safely away on holiday, odds are the Machine would have been completed some time or another, with Berwick or without. It would have been used, and the Tseiqin would have died, and he would never have known nor cared, and would probably never have wondered where the people had gone who a few days ago he regarded as his unmitigated enemies. He wonders at what point everything changed, and whether it can ever be changed back. Probably not, he decides. Life is never that convenient.

  At first they ride in a carriage; he can’t tell where. They blindfold him, and he is amazed, angry, disappointed that the police gave up so easily, even though he knew it would happen. He hears a bobby say, ‘He’s all yours, sir,’ and recognizes awe in the young copper’s voice as he talks to Havelock. He hears the exchange of money.

  They go down. In some areas of the city there are places in the middle of the street where it is possible to descend, via grates across the road, or other access points, to the widest tunnels. He smells the river, then he smells the throat-shrinking, gut-churning stench of the sewers, and feels it as heat on his face, as if the filth under his feet through which he slips and slides, a hand under each elbow to guide his way, is somehow in the air too, coating his hair and skin, sinking down inside.

  They walk. At some points the water is up to his knees, at others he feels the tunnels slope upwards, with dry paving underneath; sometimes he hears the distant pouring of water down a wall; a few times he bangs his head on the ceiling and has to walk bent over double. He knows they’re getting close when he smells smoke and the heat rises and rises past the point where you previously thought it would be unbearable, to the level where it seems to eat all moisture out of the skin, make the hair crackle and the flesh tighten so that when he twitches his fingertips, he can feel the stretching and distending of every cell of skin on his hand. As they get near, he hears the thumping of machinery, the huge whumph whumph whumph of pistons moving up and down, the clatterclatterclatterclatter of tiny gears meeting and parting, the click clack click clack click clack of pins falling into place, the chumphachumphachumphachumpha of steam venting, the featureless roar of furnaces like the breath of a whale-sized snake exhaling, and the fires crackling, and more still. He feels the hairs on the back of his hands rising, on the back of his neck, the bite of static in the air, hears the faint pop as someone who has iron nails in their boots lets off a spark while he walks along a gantry, the loud sizzle as someone who has nothing at all to earth him in his boots lets off a spark from the end of his fingers as he accidentally touches an iron rail and swears.

  Finally they take off the blindfold. Horatio Lyle sees the Machine; and what Berwick failed to mention, what wasn’t explained on the diagrams, was that, for ease of conductivity, all the wires, the miles of wires that wrap around the core of packed explosive contained within an iron shell, the thousands of wires that run together towards the thousands of giant, man-sized capacitors that stand upright like a mummy’s tomb in rows and rows across the gloomy cavern floor, overshadowing the tiny shapes of moving people, hundreds of them turned to insects under the scale of the thing; what no one bothered to explain, was that the wires that lit up the cavern containing the Machine with reflected firelight, and made it glow, were made of solid gold.

 
Havelock said proudly, ‘This is the Machine.’

  Lyle wished he could answer, utter something especially witty or glib, and found he couldn’t speak. Havelock smiled. ‘The capacitors are something you are familiar with, I think - their place in the system is based on your design. It functions well.’

  Lyle let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and pulled free of the two men who had guided him through the sewers. He moved to the edge of an iron platform above the stairs to the sewers, and looked down at the moving buzz of activity a long way below. ‘This must cost . . .’

  ‘The annual produce of India,’ replied Havelock primly. ‘I doubt you can conceive of the wealth or scale. It took an empire to make it viable.’

  Lyle looked up at him. To Havelock’s surprise, Lyle was smiling. ‘Augustus, although you and I personally despise each other and I wish nothing but a prolonged and agonizing downfall for your good self preferably involving kneecaps, I must confess to being very, very impressed.’

  ‘Horatio, I am pleased you begin to understand,’ replied Havelock.

  ‘Of course, the odds are absurdly small that something this big is going to work, that there won’t be a squashed mouse somewhere in the gearings that causes the whole thing to blow up.’

  ‘On the contrary. When you have built something as big as this, it is very easy to see where the problems may lie.’