Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy)

by Appleton, Robert

  But any theories of political conspiracy put forward by the author were, in his own words, mostly hearsay and speculation. Rumblings of whisperings of rumours heard through upturned drinks glasses pressed against unspecified walls. The Atlas Club clearly limited its membership by necessity; the fewer complicit, the safer the secret. Its supposed influence, though, stretched much farther than Meredith had imagined, to the far ends of the globe: Africa, Asia, the Far East, Canada, the rich plantations and mines of Brazil and other South American countries, and of course Europe, especially Portugal, Britain’s old ally.

  “Yet by that same token, factions of the rebel underground movement known as the International Coalition for Free Nations, more commonly referred to as the Coalition, have sprouted in every one of those regions, often violently, in direct response to the perceived threat of Leviacrum dominance. Increasing distrust among colleagues in political spheres has resulted in thousands of reported cases of espionage behaviour, kidnapping and blackmail in Britain alone, and the trend looks to continue.

  “Foremost among those industries on the list of suspected Leviacrum interests are military weapons manufacturing, oil and gas distribution, steel manufacturing, steam-methane reforming, and psammeticum energy research. The latter, still in its infancy at time of writing, is a closely guarded endeavour and is believed to be linked to several speculative scientific hypotheses. No further information is available at present.”

  Indeed, time travel had not yet escaped halfpenny fiction at the time of writing, 1893.

  “As a postscript to this chapter, it is worth noting Dr. Joao Pinto’s claim in the Portuguese newspaper, Jornal de Noticias--reportedly a Coalition-sponsored journal—that ‘a monopoly on scientific patents is currently held by organisations almost certainly in bed with the Leviacrum Council of Great Britain, and a consensus of leading independent European physicists shares this opinion.’”

  Temple columns of fact and history towered over her sleepy reasoning as she yawned repeatedly and returned the book, her notes and the pocket watch to the bottom drawer. A puzzle to be resumed tomorrow...with help of course. But not in Southsea or Portsmouth. No, London was clearly the place to be if one wanted to figure out what made the world tick in 1914.

  But what would Sonja say if her big sister upped and left like that?

  My God. A chasm gaped before her, wider and deeper than she’d ever seen coming. It had sneaked up on her, and now separated her from Sonja in frightening, uncrossable ways. The future had come calling. Its knock was insistent, inevitable.

  She made for the stairs, halted on the spot where Mother’s projected apparition had eased the world wide open in ways she could not have dreamed, mere days ago. Then it hit her bittersweetly, an uprooting that had already taken place, silent and gentle, from that to which she had belonged so unequivocally from birth.

  Home.

  For the first time she knew what it would feel like to be without it. On the outside looking in. And Meredith hated that she had to force the tears out.

  But when they came, they flooded and would not stop.

  Chapter Eight

  An Offshore Wind

  “I know very well what you’re about.” And Sonja found herself surprisingly willing to discuss Derek Auric, the ins and outs of the match, their prospects for happiness. Aunt Lily and Lady Catarina were both perched like especially well-groomed birds of paradise on the edge of the plain settee, watching her closely. She jumped onto the armchair opposite them and crouched askew. “Well, who wants to go first?”

  “Sonja, sit up straight.” A weary rebuke from Aunt Lily. She’d flown home from her friends in Scotland at short notice, and hadn’t indulged a much-needed lie-in.

  Sonja let her feet slide to the carpet and, conscious of being scrutinized by their beautiful aristocratic guest, made sure her petticoats didn’t make an appearance. “Have either of you met Mr. Auric?” She guessed, no, hoped they hadn’t—she wanted to frame their opinion of Derek with a sweetening touch of her own. She’d looked at the match from every conceivable angle, with as much objectivity as she could muster, and had convinced herself nothing trumped the way she felt about him and the way he seemed to feel about her.

  “I have had occasion to meet Mr. and Mrs. Auric, but I can’t recall having the pleasure of meeting their son.” Lady Catarina’s posture could best the right angle on any protractor, while her application of rouge and lipstick and eye shadow and whatever blemish-masking powder she used would take Sonja ten lifetimes to perfect. Yes, she could learn a lot from this woman, this house-sitting Aphrodite. “Mr. Auric has a reputation of some note as a businessman,” the lady added. “In stationary, I believe. One of those things one rarely gives a second thought until one runs out. Where would we all be without pen and ink?”

  “And paper,” said Aunt Lily.

  “And pencil sharpeners,” added Sonja, at which point everyone seemed to lose their train of thought. “I have to say, this is very riveting and all...”

  “What’s he like, this Mr. Auric you’ve been seeing?” Aunt Lily played with the settee’s frilly arm cover.

  “I haven’t been seeing him. He saved our lives that night in the Lake District, and we happened to meet at the Steam Fair.” Sonja gauged their reactions—the hints of canny smiles, as though they could see right through her coyness. “He’s lovely. Quiet and reserved as a rule, but wait till you see him with his dander up. And we have so much in common. At lunchtimes—” She watched for signs of objection, saw only captivated gazes, “—we talk about everything from biology to adventure novels to politics, and never an unkind word between us. I’m pretty sure he disagrees with a lot of my theories, but he never shoots them down—it’s sweet how he lets me ramble on, then puts a twist on what I’ve said, to get me to see things from a different point of view. He’s incredibly bright. About to start an apprenticeship in the Leviacrum, you know. And he’s about the most handsome teacher I...” She didn’t want to overdo it.

  “He does sound lovely.” Both women agreed, yet the wistful inflection in Aunt Lily’s voice suggested she had more to add.

  “But?”

  “And he wishes to call on you this weekend?”

  “Yes. Saturday afternoon. But?”

  “And he’s discussed you with his parents, I take it?”

  Sonja shrugged. “Who cares? He’s old enough to—”

  “He might be, but you are most assuredly not.” The musical indignation of Aunt Lily, as cloying as it was rhythmic.

  Sonja made an especially rude and unmelodic noise.

  “Sonja McEwan!”

  “Lily McEwan!”

  “You’re not helping yourself. Lady Catarina and I are trying to explain something to you, something that might not have occurred to you.”

  “Astonish me.”

  Lady Catarina inched closer to Aunt Lily. “As much as we want you to be happy, Sonja, you have to understand the delicate social implications of a union of this sort. I’m sure Mr. Auric is a fine gentleman, and if his parents are any indication, there can be no doubt of that, but—” Ah, the but at last, “the fact is that Mr. Auric, Senior has close business connections that are deeply embroiled with the government. You said so yourself, your Mr. Auric has just been awarded a prestigious scientific situation in the tower itself.”

  “Which I am in complete favour of.”

  “Are you, though? Are you really?”

  “Um, unless I’m speaking a language I’m not aware of, that would be a yes.”

  Lady Catarina tilted her head. “Bearing in mind, in society as well as politics, one is far more than one’s person; friends, affiliations, family: these are the shared organs of one’s reputation, no matter how unfair that may be. Your Aunt Lily has worked tirelessly to mend the damage done the McEwan name by slanderous rumours, but those rumours still persist. One’s social currency rises and falls on how one is perceived by others. Unfortunately, your father’s success has won him more enemies than frien
ds, powerful enemies, especially within the Leviacrum Council; and even more unfortunately, those enemies are hostile to the McEwan name, to whomever bears it.

  “Clochefort was immensely popular and his suicide was not easily forgotten. His colleagues exert enormous influence in the media, in government, and especially in social circles. Neither you nor Meredith experience its full brunt because you don’t live in London. But if you were to marry Mr. Auric, you would have to move there as per his new situation, and you would be taking the McEwan name with you, forcing him to defend it alongside you. His family would also inherit that animosity by association.

  “Now, we don’t wish to scupper your happiness, Sonja, far from it. If your heart is set on Mr. Auric, and his on you, then the words of two unmarried women should be taken for what they are—friendly advice, nothing more. You’re almost seventeen now and the choice is yours alone. Your father has asked us to guide you as far as we are able, to see that you marry for the right reasons.”

  “I was just wondering about that: why aren’t you two married? Surely you’ve had a million offers each by now.”

  “Let’s just say we’re very demanding on that score,” said Aunt Lily. “You’re lucky to be so young and to have found a man you’d even consider marrying for love. We’re here to help you make the best of it, but also to guide you through the broader picture.”

  “I appreciate that,” Sonja replied. “It’s what Mother would have wanted.”

  “I know.” In the softening of Aunt Lily’s gaze, a glint of utter selflessness took Sonja aback. As a parental figure, she’d failed miserably over the years, taking no more than a passing interest in her nieces, rarely bothering to get to know them beyond how they were doing at school, making sure their manners were up to snuff during outings—that would be a no, never—and had always turned any conversation back onto herself, her own experiences, her own tastes (or lack of). This sudden slobbering of concern had no precedent. But neither was it unpleasant to see.

  “Say I do accept his proposal, can you help me?”

  “Of course, sweetie. Lady Catarina and I will do our utmost to arrange any introductions. That’s no problem.”

  “It isn’t just that. It’s—well, I want to be a lady for him.”

  Another tacit nod between the two women. How had they seen this moment coming while Sonja had gone to such lengths to avoid it?

  “You’ll teach us? Merry and I?”

  “We’ll teach you all we know, certainly. It will be our pleasure.” Lady Catarina glanced behind her to make sure no one was listening in. “But I rather think Meredith has other things on her mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “She hasn’t told you? Oh dear. Maybe I should have waited.”

  “It’s all right,” Aunt Lily assured her friend. “It’s all happening so quickly, isn’t it.”

  “What’s to do with Merry?”

  “She’s leaving, sweetie. For London, in a few days. Lady Catarina’s putting her up in a little two-up, two-down on the edge of Vincey Park.”

  Mist. Empty rooms and grey forest paths. Gnawing loneliness. For one of them, both of them, there would be no turning back from this. She’d done it to Merry. Driven her away, betrayed her. In following her own heart, she’d broken her sister’s, and nothing she could ever do would heal things between them.

  “Where is she?”

  “Out.”

  “When will she be...back?” The tip of a shadow jabbed across the carpet, one Sonja was sure had belonged to the hat stand in the hallway. It had been there all the time they’d been talking. Now it lolled and thickened and suddenly grew slender before it reached across the carpet toward the stairs. Merry didn’t even look in as she passed. She climbed the stairs slowly, proudly, not letting on what she’d heard—everything?

  Sonja wanted to run after her, throw her arms around her big sister, tell her nothing was going to change and that they’d always be inseparable. Insuperable. Like the heroines of Moon and Meridian.

  But that just wasn’t true. Not any more.

  From here on, nothing would ever be the same.

  ***

  “What will you do in London?”

  Her eyes having grown accustomed to the dark, Sonja slid the bedclothes down to her waist to cool herself off. Sweating over what would happen to Merry, what Derek’s family would say when he broke the news to them, what Father was up to on his expedition, whether she could really ever be a lady fit for polite society—indeed, did she want to be one, other than for Derek’s sake?—was a sure prescription for an unpleasant night of tossing and turning, so she leapt up and thrust the window open.

  “Merry?” Her sister was definitely awake; Merry never slept on her back without snoring, and she was staring soundlessly at the ceiling. “You’re set on solving your riddle, aren’t you?”

  “Dead set.”

  “But you’ll be moving back once you’ve finished?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  A melancholic sickle swiped through her. “Well I’m sure they’ll flock to you like bees to pollen in London. The men, I mean. You and Lady Catarina will make all the headlines.”

  “That isn’t why I’m going. We’ll have to see.”

  Sonja frowned so intensely, held it for so long in the dark her brow began to ache. “This feels wrong. It feels too sudden. Why don’t you wait awhile?” I don’t want to go through this entirely on my own. “It’s bound to be crazy when Derek’s family gets involved. How could we not enjoy mocking them?” It sounded desperate, as though she was trying every low trick in the book to appeal to their sisterly rapport.

  “Telephone me whenever you like. It’s not as though I’m following Father into the underworld. We can update each other regularly, mock anyone we like at any time, you know. This is something I have to do, just as that’s something you have to do. I...need to get away.”

  “Then do something for me—be careful.”

  “I will. And you...don’t let them change you into something you’re not. I mean that.”

  “Fly my own flag, you mean?”

  “Uh-huh. And keep your own heading. And all the other nautical things you can think of. Derek’s interested in you for who you are, not who you ought to be. Remind Aunt Lily of that when she forgets.”

  “Aye.” A cooling, soothing draught circulated the bedroom, exciting Sonja’s open pores, making her shiver pleasantly. “You think we can make a go of it...Derek and I?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Promise you’ll come back soon to meet him?”

  “I’ll meet him, I’m sure.” Merry got up and snapped the window closed, killing the draught. With it went the cool and pleasant air between them. A strange energy began to build up in the room. No longer the tension of previous days, that charged, oppressive gulf; in its place was a sort of grudgingly happy expectation, as if a haunted river was about to burst its dam and flood the room and whisk them both away to shores unknown. Only ever a telephone call away from one another, but out of sight, out of earshot, beyond winking distance.

  Minutes passed before Sonja found the words she hoped would keep the conversation going well into the night: “I wonder what Mother would say.”

  “I wonder,” Merry answered, then slowly turned onto her side, away from Sonja. That was the last time they ever spoke in the bedroom they’d grown up in together.

  Chapter Nine

  The Sky on His Shoulders

  Derek Auric upturned the collar of his top coat and cinched the two ends together under his chin. He scanned the faintly crackling mist that hung shin-high over the gothic netherworld hitherto known as Whitehall and Westminster. Hell’s Foyer, as some called it, was something of a scientific conundrum. Its famous buildings, including Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, had been wrenched from existence several years ago and deposited, if survivors were to be believed, some hundred million years into the past. Only one building, Reardon’s factory, had in fact returned,
along with a dozen Londoners, several African aeronauts, and one gigantic dinosaur, a baryonyx, which had rampaged for miles through London’s outlying boroughs before being brought down by an artillery division on a Hampshire estate.

  Crowds from all over the world had jammed the streets around this denuded area at the time. Millions of photographs and miles of film had recorded it for posterity, while Leviacrum scientists of all disciplines had scoured the ruins and the Thames bed for months, questing for that elusive microbe, that residual energy particle (other than psammeticum, the original catalyst), that paleontological or paleobotanical specimen, that localised atmospheric anomaly to usher in a new field of scientific study. Much had already been made of the baryonyx’s biology, and a curiously flawless spider’s web Agnes Polperro had described in the factory before the dinosaur had destroyed that section of the building.

  But really, those were all trifles compared to the mind that had conceived such a staggering temporal dislocation in the first place. Professor Cecil Reardon, former research supervisor in the Leviacrum tower, had retired from that post when his wife and son had been tragically killed on Christmas Eve, 1901. He had poured all his time, effort, ingenuity and immense wealth into bending nature’s laws to his own personal absolution. Alas, he had not managed to reunite with his loved ones, but had at least proved that it was possible to turn back the clock, and on a grand scale.

  With greater refinement of his process, few doubted that Reardon, if given free reign and the unlimited resources available to the Leviacrum, would be able to capture that elusive dream of accurate, solo time travel, there and back at will, to any date, for any purpose.

  A frightening prospect, especially with so many power players sponsoring said institution. But Derek had just spent two hours in Professor Coleman’s human biology department in the tower, chatting with future colleagues, and even one or two heads of other departments—Agnes Polperro herself had made a brief appearance—and he was impressed by the breadth of creativity fostered there. This was science on an Amazonian scale, experimenters hacking away at the obfuscating undergrowth of ignorance in search of fresh rivulets, tributaries, river systems of knowledge to discover and explore. Surely there was no institution anywhere in the world more conducive to human ascendancy, more geared toward the mastery of man over Nature.