by Kage Baker
“I say!” Pengrove lowered his hands. “It’s damned intelligent, all the same.”
“It is indeed,” said Ludbridge, helping Hobson to his feet. “Either of you chaps care to tell me how you’ll do for him?”
“Shoot the bastard,” said Hobson, muffled through his handkerchief.
“I think I shall.” Pengrove fetched out a pepper-pot pistol. He took careful aim at the automaton, whose head swiveled round. Its eyes were lit as from within by a hellish glare. It seemed to regard Pengrove closely and then, in the instant before he pulled the trigger, it sprang into the air. Pengrove’s shot struck the far wall and broke a vacuum lamp. The automaton came down immediately in front of Pengrove, and but for Pengrove’s presence of mind in throwing himself backward, it had clouted him in the same way it had attacked Hobson.
“It is Spring-heel’d Jack!” Pengrove cried. “Bloody hell, the lads in Fabrication must have taken him out to Lime house for a few test runs back in ’38, eh?”
The automaton, meanwhile, turned and walked back to the point from which it had started. Pengrove took aim from the floor and fired again, four rapid shots in succession. The first shot knocked the automaton’s hat off. It spun around, neatly dodging the other shots, and bounded toward Pengrove. Bell-Fairfax leaped into its path and swung with his fist, punching its head, which rang like a gong.
The automaton halted, then staggered backward to its starting point. There it revolved smartly on one heel and stood motionless once more. Bell-Fairfax, meanwhile, fell to his knees, clutching his hand and giving vent to a remarkable stream of profanity.
“In the Navy, were you?” remarked Hobson, wide-eyed.
“Broken your hand?” inquired Ludbridge.
“No,” said Edward, shaking it as he glared at the automaton.
“I rather think you must have, from the sound it made.”
“No, sir, I did not. How does the damned thing work? It’s far more complicated than a clock.”
“It is that,” said Ludbridge. “It contains the latest thing in gyroscopes. The ball-and-socket joints are an improved design, with gutta-percha lining and graphite lubrication. There are lenses in the eyes, opening on a sort of camera obscura in the skull. It can receive an image, analyze it, and respond in one of a number of ways. You can’t hear them, but it’s emitting a series of high-pitched notes, and estimating your location from the echoes—”
“I beg your pardon,” said Edward. “I bloody well can hear them. They speed up when one of us moves.”
Ludbridge stared at him a moment. “Then you have an advantage the rest of us haven’t. Find a way to use it, Bell-Fairfax,” he said at last.
“Very well.” Edward got to his feet, clenching and opening his hand. “There; it’s piping again.” He feinted a couple of blows, and the automaton, appearing to watch him closely, swayed from side to side in response.
“I saw a copy of Vaucanson’s Excreting Duck once,” remarked Pengrove, from the floor. “Very lifelike. Wasn’t anything like as dangerous. Though it did excrete rather menacingly.”
“Did it?” said Edward, circling the automaton. His gaze became blank, unsmiling, and he never took his eyes from it. “Hobson, if you’d be so kind—would you walk about it in the opposite direction?”
“Confuse it, eh? Delighted.” Hobson, stuffing his handkerchief in his pocket, proceeded to circle the automaton counterclockwise. It responded by rapidly turning its head back and forth, attempting to watch both men at the same time. Ludbridge folded his arms and observed them in silence.
“Ah; the piping’s getting faster, and irregular. Just like a heartbeat. Now, Pengrove,” said Edward, “if you’d just threaten it with the pistol?”
Pengrove rose on his elbow and waved the weapon. “I say, you! Nasty thing!” As the automaton turned to track Pengrove’s movements, Edward lunged at it. It whirled around, flailing steel fists, but Edward caught it about the knees and toppled it. The automaton fell with a horrendous crash and Edward was on it at once, raining a series of blows on its throat, where a skin of canvas impregnated with gutta-percha seemed to conceal vital pipes and tubing.
The automaton’s siren howled, it thrashed and spat blue flame from its mouth, and at last a shower of sparks shot out. Ignoring all these, Edward struck at it relentlessly, until its head parted company with its neck and rolled drunkenly across the floor. The light in its eyes died.
“That’s quite enough,” said Ludbridge, stepping forward. “Fabrication will weep when they see him. Was it really necessary to tear his head off?”
“How could we be certain we’d killed him otherwise, sir?” Edward got to his feet. He lifted his skinned knuckles to his mouth.
“Yes, but you’ve effectively halted your course of study until they can repair him. Note that it required all three of you to dispatch him! Even if Bell-Fairfax delivered the actual coup de grace. Let’s see that hand, man.”
“It isn’t broken, sir, I promise you.” Edward held it out. Ludbridge inspected it briefly.
“Hm! We’ll let the medicos decide that. You’ll come along with me to the infirmary. Pengrove, Hobson, take our headless friend down to Fabrication. You might want to join us in the hospital afterward, Hobson; get your nose seen to.”
Warily the others lifted Spring-heel’d Jack’s body and strapped it to the wheeled stand. The thing made no protest. Bell-Fairfax followed Ludbridge to the ascending room and they rode it down to the floor on which the hospital was located.
“There’s no need to act the stoic, Bell-Fairfax,” said Ludbridge. “It’s a damned foolish vanity to conceal an injury. You’re not the Spartan lad with the fox.”
“No, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax. The door before them slid open and they emerged into a room furnished with chairs, at the opposite end of which was a counter and window. Several heavily bandaged gentlemen occupied the chairs, placidly engaged in reading copies of The Times, Punch or The Illustrated London News. A young lady in a coif, clearly a nursing sister, was seated beyond the window, engaged in some task or other.
“Hallo, Atkinson,” said Ludbridge to the nearest of the men, who raised his bandaged face. “Trouble with the eye?”
“Broke the damned infrared lens,” said Atkinson glumly.
“Line of duty?”
“No. Went night-shooting in Scotland and the fool bird flew straight into my face. I shall have to be fitted with a new eye.”
“Oh, hard luck! This would be, er, what? Your third?”
“Fifth,” said Atkinson.
“May I be of assistance, Mr. Ludbridge?” inquired the young lady, looking up from her work.
“Yes, thank you, sister.” Ludbridge took Bell-Fairfax’s elbow and steered him to the window. “My friend here requires a radiograph of his right hand.”
“Certainly, Mr. Ludbridge.” The young lady gazed intently into a roundel of blue glass mounted in a cabinet in a brass frame, rather like a ship’s porthole. Her hands moved swiftly over something like a spinet’s keyboard, but with a great many more keys; instead of music being produced, glowing letters appeared and floated in the blue depths of the glass.
“The radiography room is presently unoccupied. I shall send a notice to the technician. What is the gentleman’s name, please?”
“Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax,” said he, with a musical quality to his voice Ludbridge hadn’t noticed before. The sister looked around as if startled. Bell-Fairfax smiled at her. She returned his smile, blushing prettily, and turned back to her keyboard to cover her confusion; but the corner of the smile could still be glimpsed, just beyond the snow-white edge of her coif.
“The hand has not been fractured,” announced the radiography technician. His voice came hollowly from the tiny dark room without which Ludbridge sat with Bell-Fairfax, who had thrust his arm through an aperture in the wall into a box mounted on the other side. Beyond a thick pane of glass they beheld the technician, armored in long coat quilted with lead and a goggled helmet, and a lit image on th
e opposite wall: an immense dark skeletal hand, rendered somewhat less fearsome by the commonplace detail of a shirt button on the wrist.
“Are you certain?” Ludbridge was incredulous. “He smashed his hand into steel.”
“Quite certain,” said the technician, gesturing at the image. “Bruising, yes, and minor abrasions, but no fractures. Observe the abnormally dense structure of the bones.” Edward, who had been smirking rather, looked up.
“What d’you mean by abnormal?” he demanded. The hand in the image clenched into a skeletal fist.
“Precisely what I said,” said the technician. He turned his head to regard them, with the skeletal image reflected in his goggled optics. “Note, further, the superior attachment of the lumbrical musculature. I should very much like an opportunity to study your skeleton, young man.”
“I regret, sir, that I am unable to oblige you at this time,” said Edward, narrowing his eyes.
“Clean bill of health, then, Deane?” Ludbridge got to his feet. “Thank you. Come along, Bell-Fairfax. We’ll just have the sister apply an ointment to those knuckles, shall we? And then, I think, upstairs for a brandy.”
He watched Bell-Fairfax as they rode up together in the ascending room, and thought: He knows he differs from other men, and he doesn’t like it—not for all his arrogance. Could be useful, I suppose.
1849: Scherzo in D Minor
“I believe you’re ready for a challenge, gentlemen,” said Ludbridge. Bell-Fairfax, who had been pounding away at a leather punching bag, lowered his fists; Hobson and Pengrove stood back and removed their fencing masks.
“What sort of challenge?” Pengrove inquired. In reply, Ludbridge went to the vaulting-horse and, using it as an impromptu table, unrolled a map. They came crowding close to look over his shoulder.
“Simply to walk a short distance along the Strand,” said Ludbridge, indicating it on the map. “Without being caught.”
“Ah.”
“What’s the trick, Ludbridge?” asked Hobson.
“You tell me,” said Ludbridge. “Or, rather, don’t. You’ll proceed from Trafalgar Square to Bedford Street along the Strand. There will be five spotters along the route, dressed as policemen, and they will have been furnished with detailed descriptions of the three of you. Any one of them sighting any one of you will collar you forthwith, raising a considerable hue and cry. You will be dragged away in public disgrace.
“Should one of you manage to reach Bedford Street unobserved, you will have my congratulations and the satisfaction of a job well done. Should all three of you accomplish this feat, you will be rewarded with an outing to Nell Gwynne’s.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Edward. Hobson chortled.
“An exclusive establishment,” he said. “The finest in all England.”
“Somewhat more than that,” said Ludbridge. “It might be called Redking’s sister society. Though of course it does provide comforts and refreshment for the deserving.”
“Oh, I say!” cried Pengrove. Bell-Fairfax’s eyes brightened.
“Are there any conditions?” he asked. Ludbridge nodded.
“You are required to traverse the Strand. You may not cut across to Chandos Place to reach the goal. You may not simply take a cab or other conveyance. On the other hand, Fabrication has been instructed to provide you with any assistance or materials you request of them. You have a week to prepare; the challenge must be met on the fifteenth. Good luck, gentlemen.”
On the fifteenth, Ludbridge enjoyed a leisurely breakfast Upstairs and then went for a stroll along the Strand. In Trafalgar Square he noted the first of the spotters in police uniform, an old Residential named Valance, who nodded and tapped the brim of his hat with his truncheon by way of salute.
Omnibuses rumbled along the street, and cabs, with a brisk rattle and clop-clop-clop of horses’ hooves echoing. Crossing-sweepers, small bush-headed children in rags, trailed their brooms as they scouted for women to whom they might offer their services. Delivery-boys hurried, journeymen laborers trudged along to their respective destinations. Traffic was held up for a moment as a shepherd drove his flock through, aiming for Smithfield, and Ludbridge scrutinized both shepherd and sheep keenly.
None were his trainees in disguise, however. Smiling at the idea, he walked along a few yards. There ahead was Roberts, another spotter, staring in suspicion at an immense dustman laboring along under a binful of ashes. Bell-Fairfax, perhaps? With Hobson concealed in the bin? Roberts stepped in front of the dustman and, peering into his face, spoke sharply; the dustman lowered his bin and said something in protest, whereat Roberts stepped back and appeared to be saying something apologetic.
A dozen yards farther on, Simnell was pacing an elderly lady in purple bombazine, the breadth of whose hooped skirts gave her the appearance of a gigantic ambulatory plum pudding. Clearly, he thought one or more compact persons might be concealed somewhere within her architecture, and was in a quandary over how to determine if this was, in fact, the case. At last, darting sideways, he smacked at her lower person with his truncheon. She stopped in her tracks and Ludbridge could hear her shrill protests even from a distance. Simnell stamped furiously at an imaginary insect, tipped his hat and appeared to be explaining his timely and chivalrous actions.
Ludbridge was distracted from this by a commotion farther back along the street. He turned, wondering at the shouts, and saw Roberts turning to stare too. And where was Valance?
“Here! Here’s a constable fallen down in a faint!” an omnibus conductor was shouting. Scowling, Ludbridge ran toward the knot of people that was gathering where Valance lay stretched upon the pavement.
A couple walked in the opposite direction past him, arm in arm. Ludbridge noted the young lady, fluttering her handkerchief in front of her face, while her beau bore on with a bright fixed smile, staring forward. Every instinct Ludbridge had demanded that he turn and look at them again, but he shouldered his way through the crowd and knelt beside Valance.
“Drinking at this hour of the day!” a woman declared. “He’s a disgrace.”
“You never know; might be a fit,” said a pedlar with a tray. “My wife’s brother had them.”
“Give him air, if you please,” said Ludbridge. Valance was pale and sweating, semiconscious, utterly limp. Ludbridge noted the tiny dart protruding from his carotid artery, just above the collar of his uniform. He plucked it out and discarded it, shaking his head. “I believe the man is ill. He ought to be carried into a house and given brandy.”
“We’ll see to it, sir,” said one of a pair of men in nondescript clothes. Ludbridge, glancing up at them, recognized Burdett and Cowle, two of the porters at Redking’s. Grim-faced, they lifted Valance between them and bore him away in the direction of the club. Ludbridge got to his feet, dusting off the knees of his trousers, and had just turned back to see where the young couple had got to when a fresh hue and cry came from ahead. Ludbridge ran, arriving just in time to see Roberts, in the street, trying to rise on one elbow. He groped once, ineffectually, at his neck before collapsing again.
“Here! It’s another policeman fallen down!” cried the pedlar. Ludbridge dropped to his knees and pulled the telltale dart from Roberts’s neck.
“What’s that?” said a sharp-eyed lady’s maid, her arms full of parcels. “Was that a wasp? Was he stung by a wasp? That’ll do it, you know. My cousin—”
“Yes! It’s wasps! A swarm of wasps! Look out, they’re dangerous!” Ludbridge recognized Bell-Fairfax’s voice and scrambled to his feet at once, staring around, but failed to spot him. Women began to scream and men ducked, beating the air futilely. Cursing, Ludbridge grabbed Roberts under the arms and dragged him to the curb, where he propped him against a lamppost. Ludbridge stood and scanned the crowd, wondering how someone as tall as Bell-Fairfax could hide.
“Oh! Oh! I’ve been bitten!” shrieked a woman some distance ahead. “Help!”
“Here’s a wasp!”
“Look out! You’ve got one on y
our hat!”
“Look! Look! Another poor policeman’s been stung!” It was true; Simnell was down in the street, gasping and white-faced. Ludbridge sprinted to his side, narrowly avoiding being knocked down by a hysterical female flailing about with her shawl. A tiny bit of yellow and black fluff flew from her hat brim and landed on the bricks beside Simnell. Ludbridge picked it up and examined it briefly: no more than a bit of cotton daubed with paint, cleverly tied with a couple of twists of fishing line to make it somewhat resemble a wasp.
“The bastards—,” said Simnell, before falling back unconscious. People ahead were running to and fro, yelling, and a cab-horse reared in its traces. Ludbridge dragged Simnell as far out of harm’s way as he was able, and ran on to the next man on watch, Preston. He arrived as Preston fell to his knees, clutching at the side of his neck. Just beyond him walked the young couple, the woman sashaying with the merest trace of exaggeration, her escort stiffly upright.
“Did you see them?” Ludbridge shouted, pulling the tiny dart from Preston’s neck. Preston raised bewildered eyes.
“Who? No—no one—” He sighed deeply and fell back, unconscious. Pulling him from the street, Ludbridge realized that all the darts had come from the south side of the Strand. He looked up at the buildings there to see whether there were not some form of scaffolding or other structure that might have served as a place of concealment, but was unable to discern any. None, at least, where someone of Bell-Fairfax’s size could hide—
“Help! Wasps!”
“Look, here’s another one bit!”
“It’s the Chartists! They’ve gone and loosed wasps on the constabulary!”
Ludbridge glanced ahead and saw Bedford Street. With resignation he walked through the crowd and beheld young Malahyde, the fifth spotter, who had just crumpled to the pavement. He bent, flicked the dart from Malahyde’s neck, and hoisted him over his shoulder as a fire brigadesman might. Making his way on to Bedford Street, he saw the three figures standing behind the railings at the Adelphi Theatre: the odd-looking young couple and a slouching man in the garments of a laborer.
