The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection (Pax Britannia)

by Jonathan Green

  "Keep up!" Ulysses darted a glance back at the encumbered parapsychologists. Emilia was at his side, the rest of the curious party following after Smythe and Wentworth.

  At the foot of the polished staircase opposite the front door of the house, the ghost turned, following a narrow tiled passageway that ran alongside the stairs. At its end, Ulysses could see an archway, leading under the stairs themselves.

  "Where's he taking us?" he asked Emilia as they kept pace with the ghost.

  "The cellar," she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

  Ducking under the archway, Ulysses found himself at the top of a draughty flight of steps that led down into the damp and cold of Hardewick Hall's cellars. At the bottom of the staircase, the unearthly luminescence of the apparition illuminated a padlocked door. The ghost gave them a melancholic look and placed a hand on the lock.

  A shaded wall light behind Ulysses fizzed and faded, then flared magnesium bright. Smythe cursed. There was a fizzing crack, and a burst of sparks erupted from the box of tricks. With an audible pop the detector shorted out and the entrance to the cellar was plunged into darkness as the apparition vanished.

  Ulysses swore, punching the plaster beside him. "I really thought we had it then," he said.

  He looked at Emilia. The sadness in her eyes was heart-breaking. He looked back at the door, making out the padlock in the gloom, now he knew where to look, the after-image of the apparition remaining as a grey smudge on his retina for a moment until he blinked it away.

  "Why's this door padlocked?" he asked. "What's down there?"

  "My father's lab," Emilia said plainly, her voice dulled with sorrow. "I've kept it locked since his death."

  "Well I think it's about time it was unlocked again, don't you?"

  The doddering Caruthers came with a key, the padlock was removed and, with a confident gesture, Ulysses flung open the door.

  The party followed in Ulysses' wake as he led the way, with wary steps, into the darkened cellar. A moment later the gloom was banished as someone managed to switch on the lights. Electric bulbs fizzed into life, illuminating patches of the brick-built cellar, revealing intriguing silhouettes and the hint of unfathomable pieces of equipment, until Alexander Oddfellow's laboratory was revealed in all its glory. The distant grumbling of the storm could be heard, even here.

  Between archways of crumbling brick a space the size of a ballroom was filled with the inventor's forgotten, half-finished contraptions, masterpieces in the making left to rust and gather dust in the musty gloom.

  Amidst all the cluttered workbenches and abandoned mechanisms, on the far side of the cellar, against a wall all by itself, a waxy tarpaulin lay draped almost haphazardly over something that Ulysses could see was large and roughly spherical.

  "And what do we have here?" he asked aloud, approaching the tarpaulin, the excitement of discovery flashing in his eyes. Emilia and her guests followed in a timid, yet morbidly fascinated, huddle.

  Boldly he grabbed hold of a corner of the covering, making ready to tug it free.

  "Wait! Stop!"

  Ulysses was so surprised to hear Emilia utter the command that he immediately halted. "Why, Emilia? What's under here?"

  "Don't you understand? This was where it happened. This was where he died." She cast her gaze at the ground, as tears welled in her eyes. "Under there is the sphere; the project he was working on when he died."

  "When you believe he died," Ulysses corrected.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Emilia challenged, melancholic sorrow suddenly becoming the anger of the grieving, raging at the injustice of it all.

  "Hey, steady on, Quicksilver!" added Dashwood, coming to his cousin's defence.

  "I know this is hard for you," Ulysses said, dropping the tarpaulin and taking a step towards Emilia, clasping her shaking arms with his strong comforting hands, "but all along it has been assumed that Alexander Oddfellow died here, working on his latest project, and yet his body was never found."

  "There were witnesses, Quicksilver, you fool. My uncle wasn't alone when the last test run of the device back-fired. They saw the explosion. He was atomised - I'm sorry, Em, really I am - but he must have been. There can be no other explanation."

  "There, you've said it yourself. These witnesses of yours saw a disappearance. They did not necessarily witness Alexander Oddfellow's death."

  "Then, if he's not dead, where is he?" Emilia demanded.

  "That's what I plan to find out." For a moment Ulysses and Emilia just looked at each other.

  "You know, Em," Dashwood said, interrupting their unspoken conversation, "I think Quicksilver might be onto something here."

  "Really?" Emilia said in surprise.

  "Really?" echoed Ulysses. "You've changed your tune."

  "Yes, I think you might actually have something there, old boy." There wasn't even an undercurrent of sarcasm to Dashwood's words. "Tug away."

  With a dramatic flourish, Ulysses took hold of the tarpaulin and pulled it free.

  As tall as a man and half that again, supported on a claw-footed base, stood the concentric rings of a gyroscope. The broken rings described a void in the shape of a sphere at the heart of the machine. Thick vulcanised rubber sheathed bundles of wires trailed from the strange device to the control panel of a logic engine.

  Smythe and Wentworth both immediately approached the machine, placing their own useless device on the floor, running excited hands over the control levers and dials, unable to hide their boyish delight.

  "So, Quicksilver," Dashwood said, "what's your theory?"

  "What?"

  "I was too hasty before. Tell us what you think happened."

  "Yes, Herr Quicksilver," Sigmund Faustus joined the discussion, "go on. I would like to hear more about your theories myself. I am intrigued to learn how my learned friend Herr Oddfellow might have survived the accident, and where he went."

  Emilia stared at Ulysses in bewilderment, looking like she had been knocked for six.

  "Well," Ulysses paused, giving himself time to formulate how he was going to back up his hunch, having been caught off guard by Dashwood's dramatic change of heart towards him. "To be honest, I have no idea what it is that Oddfellow was working on when he vanished, but I am certain that this device, this sphere, was right there at the heart of it. For a start, has anyone else noticed that this thing is still on?"

  Everyone looked towards the curious contraption again, and in the silence they all heard the electrical hum coming from the weird mechanical workings. Dusty yellow light glowed behind the glass dials of the controlling logic engine.

  "Erstaunlich!"

  "That's a good point," Ulysses mused aloud, turning to the German. "Herr Faustus, could you tell us what Oddfellow was working on?"

  "I wish that I could," the philanthropist sighed, his expression one of open disappointment. "I am afraid I was only his sponsor, not his confidante."

  "Really? You would fund an operation like this," Ulysses said, taking in the contraption with a sweep of his arm, "without having any idea of what he was attempting to do?"

  Others among the party were considering the German philanthropist now, Dashwood frowning at him, as if he were trying to read his emotions and judge whether Faustus was telling the truth or not.

  "I am a philanthropist, Herr Quicksilver," Faustus replied curtly. "You know what that means? I act - how do you say? - with benevolence towards my fellow men. I do not choose to judge them. I knew enough about Herr Oddfellow's successes in the past to know that it was worth sponsoring his latest project. His word was good enough for me."

  His eyes still narrowed in suspicion, Ulysses turned to Emilia. "Can you shed any light on this mystery?"

  "What? No. Father was always very secretive about his work."

  "But you're his daughter. Surely he would have confided in you?"

  "I didn't like to pry," Emilia said, surprised and affronted by Ulysses' challenge. "What are you trying to say?"

  "I
just find it incredible that nobody here - people who were close enough to your old man that they should be invited to a séance held in the wake of his supposed passing - has any idea what this machine is for, particularly when it's still running three months after it supposedly killed its creator!"

  "That might explain the power drains and flickering lights around the house," Smythe threw in, as if someone might be interested to hear his theory.

  "Power drains. Lights," Wentworth repeated.

  "Then where do you suggest we go from here?" Emilia challenged Ulysses, her voice only one step away from becoming a scream.

  "We run it up to speed again and see what it does!" he said, a manic gleam in his eye.

  "You can't be serious?" Emilia rebuked him instantly. "Didn't you hear my father's warning? His last words to us were 'fear the sphere'."

  "If that was what he was saying. There was a lot of distortion."

  "He was warning us away because that was what killed him."

  "Supposedly killed him, you mean," Ulysses corrected her.

  "What?"

  "That has yet to be proven."

  "Oh, for pity's sake!" Emilia shrieked. "You're impossible! You haven't changed one bit!"

  "I'm sorry, was I supposed to? Only I didn't think I was your problem anymore."

  Faustus coughed politely, diverting everyone's attention onto him. "Herr Quicksilver, I think you should listen to Miss Oddfellow. I would also warn against that course of action."

  "You would, would you?" Ulysses' voice was almost a snarl as he turned on the quivering German. "And why is that, I wonder?"

  "Simply because it was working on that machine that killed Herr Oddfellow as our hostess here was having pains to point out."

  "I ask you again, Herr Faustus, what you know about the operation of this machine?"

  "And I have already answered that question. Nothing!"

  "Gentlemen. Gentlemen, please." It was the usually aloof Dashwood who interrupted the bickering this time, his soothing calm pouring oil on troubled waters. "We're not going to get any closer to solving this mystery if we don't do something."

  He looked from the fuming Emilia to the furious Ulysses to the shaken Faustus and back to his flush-faced cousin.

  "I have it," he said, an unaccustomed smile brightening his face. "Let's put it to a vote." He glanced round the cellar-cum-laboratory, performing a quick head count. "There are six of us who I would say are eligible to vote," he said, ignoring the servants. "So come on, all those in favour of running the machine up to speed?"

  Ulysses confidently put up his hand straight away, although he continued to eye Dashwood with as much suspicion as he had Faustus. Dashwood also raised his hand, as did the two boffins Smythe and Wentworth, managing to tear their attention away from the wonderful machine for a moment.

  "Is that everyone? All right, then. All those against."

  Emilia defiantly stuck her own hand in the air, Faustus following her example, although rather more tentatively.

  "Right you are then," Ulysses said sourly. "Let's get this thing going."

  In light of their intensive analysis of the control console, with the excited assistance of both Ulysses and Dashwood, Smythe and Wentworth set about reactivating the sphere.

  Emilia retreated almost as far as the cellar door, as if in defiance of the decision taken by the others to power up the machine, but not quite able to leave them entirely to it by themselves. Her father's patron joined her, putting a flabby arm around her slight shoulders to comfort her, but he too was unable to tear his eyes from what Ulysses and the others were doing.

  Dials were adjusted, levers cranked and switches thrown. The broken metal circles of the gyroscope began to rotate, slowly at first and then, as the machine drew more power, faster and faster. The spinning rings began to sing, a harmonic whirring hum rising in intensity as the rings hurtled quicker and quicker.

  The cellar lights began to pulse and fade as the machine pulled more energy from the house's generator.

  In the near darkness of the dusty laboratory, the sphere at the heart of the machine could be seen, delineated by the whirling strands of light, a solid ball of darkness beneath.

  Static electricity charged the air. The device was acting like some huge Vander Graf generator. As he stared into the heart of the gyroscope Ulysses could feel every hair on his head stand on end. A glance around the cellar revealed the same had happened to everyone else, making them all look as terrified as many of them were surely feeling. But Ulysses felt only the adrenalin rush of excitement.

  He glanced at the control panel next to him. One switch - large and gleaming brass - remained to be thrown. Ulysses seized the handle.

  "Well, here goes nothing!" he announced, somewhat recklessly, and flipped the switch.

  A fuzzy ball of light glowed into life, like a blown ember, at the heart of the void-sphere. It rapidly began to take on a recognisable shape as Alexander Oddfellow materialized, suspended within the spinning gyroscope.

  He appeared more solid than on either of the two previous occasions when he had manifested within the house. Looking through the whirling barrier of light, squinting as if he was struggling to focus through the distortion, he fixed his gaze on Ulysses and Ulysses saw a glimmer of recognition there.

  "Ulysses Quicksilver," Oddfellow's voice wafted to him as if he were speaking to the dandy from another room. "What are you doing here?"

  "Oddfellow," Ulysses said. "What is this thing? You've caused no end of problems, disappearing like that. There are questions that need answering."

  "You can hear me?"

  "I can hear you."

  "Then listen carefully. I do not know how long we've got. I've been trapped here for... it feels like... I don't know how long."

  "Where?"

  "Within this damnable machine; inside this wretched containment field," Ulysses heard Oddfellow's strained words a split second after he saw them form on his lips. It was as if image and sound were fractionally out of sync.

  "What was it designed to do?"

  "What you see before you is the experimental prototype of Oddfellow's Matter Transmitting Device."

  "A teleport?"

  "That's what it was supposed to be, only something catastrophic occurred." Oddfellow seemed to peer past Ulysses, taking in the others gathered within the cellar-lab, before adding, "A spanner in the works, you might say."

  "So where did it teleport you to?"

  "Nowhere. Limbo? I don't know. All I do know is that I'm still trapped within it. If the power were to fail, I don't know what would happen; where I might end up. I rather suspect my component atoms would be spread across the ether, never to be reunited."

  "Well, Smythe was right, it does explain the power drains and the problem with the lights," Ulysses said, half to himself as he tried to make sense of what the unreal Oddfellow was telling him. "But if you're trapped in there, how come you appeared to us during the séance? And how did you lead us here in this incorporeal form?"

  "I have wondered the same thing myself," the floating Oddfellow admitted. "I can only presume that some other device was used to focus my signal and project me to those locations in this wretched form. But I don't know of such a device."

  "I can help you there," Ulysses exclaimed excitedly, "Smythe and Wentworth's Patent Paranormal Anomaly Detector! That crazy gizmo of theirs must have inadvertently focused the signal." The lights in the cellar dimmed still further and bulbs on the panel of the sphere's control console flickered and faded. "But I rather suspect that we do not have much time. Just wait there. Don't go anywhere," Ulysses instructed the hovering ghost.

  The dandy turned to the two technical whizzes working the logic engine next to him.

  "This thing requires massive reserves of energy," Smythe said, looking anxious. He and Wentworth had been listening in on Ulysses' communion with the dead.

  "Massive reserves."

  "It's soon going to drain everything the house generators have g
ot, and then it will conk out again."

  "Never mind that," Ulysses snapped dismissively. "If you could couple your detector to the sphere, do you think you could lock onto Oddfellow's signal again, but this time extract it from the device?"

  Smythe stared intently at Ulysses from behind his spectacles, the dying lights of the control panel dancing on the lenses. "It might be possible."

  "Then do it," Ulysses commanded.

  "But this thing's using up a great deal of power as it is," Smythe countered. "I don't think we'll be able to keep it running like this for much longer."

  "We don't have time to think. Just do it."

  Without another word, and only a nod to his partner, Smythe did as Ulysses commanded and the two parapsychologists set to work.

  And it was then that the machine died. With a gut-wrenching sound of rapid deceleration that set a numbing chill in Ulysses' stomach, the whirling rings slowed, the last Christmas tree lights of the control panel winking out one by one.

  Smythe's hypothesis had been all to accurate; running the sphere up to speed had drained Hardewick Hall's power supply, killing the generator.

  The rings stopped spinning and the cocoon of light they made evaporated into shadow. The ghostly image of Alexander Oddfellow faded into oblivion too, and the cellar was plunged into total darkness. There were startled gasps from the gathered guests.

  "Damn!" Ulysses swore. "Just as we were getting somewhere."

  "If this is going to work, we're going to need another source of power," Smythe said his voice loud in the hushed darkness.

  "Indeed," Ulysses growled. "But from where?"

  Somewhere, far above the crumbling pile, thunder rumbled and lightning bathed the entire estate in a flickering flash of monochrome light.

  The storm had broken.

  "Are you quite sure this is a good idea, sir?" Nimrod asked, leaning far out of the garret window, a bulky length of vulcanised rubber-sheathed cable in his hands.

  "Don't fuss, old chap," Ulysses chastised his manservant as he danced along the apex of the rain-slicked roof tiles. "It makes you sound like Nanny Fitzgerald. We've been in worse scrapes than this."