Pax Britannia: Unnatural History

by Jonathan Green

"So, doctor," Ulysses said, entering the hallway of the old man's house, "how are you?"

  Doctor Methuselah blinked myopically from behind the bottle-bottom lenses of his spectacles. Despite having obviously made a supreme effort to uphold his usual high standards of dress, being attired in a crushed blue velvet frock coat, moss green satin waistcoat and lilac cravat, with charcoal grey moleskin trousers, the gentleman adventurer did not seem to be quite the same man who had visited him the previous month. He appeared drawn and tired, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken and grey. His skin had a waxy sheen to it.

  "Better than you, by the looks of things."

  The old man shuffled off along the hallway towards the back of the crumbling house, as decrepit in appearance as its badly aging owner. Ulysses followed. After his sojourn in the sewers he was barely even aware of the malingering odour of stale tobacco smoke. Half the time he still thought he could smell the cesspit-stink of the effluent tunnels.

  He might look like death warmed up but it was better than feeling like death, which was precisely how he had felt for the last week. His days and nights had been spent vomiting every few hours, reduced to a shaking wreck following relentless barrages of diarrhoea. For all the mental training and physical healing he had received in the highlands of the Himalayas, they did nothing to alleviate the gut-knotting agony this bout of sickness brought. There was nothing he had been able to do but wait it out.

  On top of that it had taken half a dozen baths since returning to his Mayfair home, scrubbing himself with industrial cleaner to rid himself of the stink of the sewers, and even now he could still sometimes catch the acrid, bile-taste of the chem-polluted water in the back of his throat.

  But on this morning he had actually managed to get out of bed and so, having carried out his ablutions and dressed to impress, bloodstone cane in hand, he had set out to pay a visit to the curmudgeonly Dr Methuselah. And although he didn't want to admit it - least of all to himself - even that simple effort had weakened him.

  "So enough of this small talk, what news?"

  "I take it you mean the sample."

  "Of course." Ulysses tapped the end of his cane impatiently against an overburdened worktable.

  "That was a very interesting little project you set me," Methuselah said, powering up his difference engine. There was a hum as the cathode ray tube came to life. "Look at this." He pointed at the grainy, green and black image coming into focus on the screen.

  Ulysses realised that there was a Petri dish already in place under the magnifying lenses of Methuselah's brass microscope. The image on the screen was obviously a significantly enlarged image of the contents of that dish. At his last visit Ulysses had at least been able to determine that he was looking at the image of cells projected on the screen. This time, however, he couldn't make out a thing.

  "What am I supposed to be looking at, doctor? I can't see anything."

  "Precisely."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There's nothing there to look at."

  "But isn't that the sample I gave you?"

  "Yes, but that's the point."

  "What's the point?" Ulysses suddenly felt incredibly weary. The effort of being up and about was taking its toll more that he had expected. "Doctor, I am tired. Please explain."

  The old man grunted, hawking phlegm into the back of his mouth, and pushed his glasses back up his nose with an index finger ingrained with dirt.

  "It's like this. I maintained close observation of the tissue sample, as requested. And my initial hypothesis proved, in time, to be correct. What started out as a few hairs first took on the qualities of lizard scales, then the cells mutated into those I would expect to find in an amphibian - the Central American axolotl was the closest match I could find. Towards the end of my observations it became apparent that the process of cellular degradation was accelerating. The sample briefly exhibited piscine characteristics and then it simply dissolved into slime. Look."

  Methuselah removed the Petri dish from beneath the microscope and passed it to Ulysses. Where there had once been three reddish-brown hairs there was now what looked like nothing more than a blob of snot.

  "What you're looking at is now just so much biological detritus. The only cells in there belong to the bacteria no doubt feasting on that gunk. It's not even protoplasmic slime anymore. Total cellular collapse."

  "Do you know what could have caused it?"

  "Why, yes." Ulysses looked at the doctor in excited anticipation. "Acute genetic-regression. And I would extrapolate that precisely the same thing happened to the subject the original sample came from. Is that not the case?"

  "Evolution and the modern man, eh?"

  "You're sure you don't want to tell me where these came from?"

  "You know better than to ask," Ulysses chided, remaining tight-lipped. Professor Galapagos might now be dead, having literally turned to slime in Ulysses' hands but this case still qualified as one that was a potential threat to national security.

  "Have it your way," Methuselah grumbled. "So, what happened to you? Did you find the errant professor?"

  "How do you know about that?" Ulysses said sharply, alarm bells ringing in his mind, suddenly suspicious.

  "Don't get your knickers in a twist. You're not the only one with contacts, you know. So, did you?"

  "After a fashion."

  "What was it like? How did it happen?" Methuselah said, almost slavering at the prospect, his interest having been piqued, his eyes alight with eager, almost boyish, excitement.

  Ulysses paused, considering his next words very carefully.

  "It was... messy."

  "Is that all you're going to give me?"

  "That's probably more than I should have told you already," Ulysses muttered, unable to get the image of the overgrown trout-face bearing down on him before turning to milky frogspawn out of his mind. "Now," he said, reaching into a coat pocket and pulling out the curious barbed locket he had recovered from the Galapagos-lizard, "what can you tell me about this?"

  Genevieve Galapagos was standing in the shadow cast by the gleaming golden Albert Memorial. Ulysses realised, with momentary surprise, that she was wearing a full-length dress, pale cream with a lilac flowery pattern. It was the first time he had ever seen her wear anything other than trousers or jodhpurs. Her luxuriant auburn tresses were gathered together beneath a small bonnet. He felt a rush of warm adrenalin in his chest and let out a sigh. She was strikingly beautiful. And then her eyes met his. She looked so... womanly. Not that she had not looked so before, but her appearance now leant her a vulnerable, feminine quality.

  "Ulysses!" she gasped and, despite the restricting nature of the dress, trotted over and flung her arms around him, trapping him in a heartfelt hug. "It's wonderful to see you again." She squeezed him again and then, as if suddenly remembering herself, held him back at arm's length. "Um, I did call but your butler sent me away."

  "Yes he did say. I was sorry not to be able to see you, my dear," Ulysses felt an earnest need to apologise, "but I was... indisposed."

  "So I understand. Nimrod said that you had been through quite an ordeal."

  "Yes, you could say that. But it's in the hands of the police now."

  Much as he resented having to pass the operation into the hands of Inspector Allardyce, Ulysses knew when a situation demanded more than merely he was capable of. He was still intermittently suffering from the dysentery that he had picked up following his foray into London's murky underworld. But the escapade had brought its own benefits as well; the paperwork he had been able to salvage from the clipboard he had rescued from the burning factory, for one thing.

  It was amazing that he had been able to salvage anything at all, considering that the papers had been scorched and then submerged in water as Ulysses, Nimrod and the Neanderthal had made their escape from the flooded Underground, which had necessitated allowing themselves to be sucked through an overflow pipe that ejected them into the Thames.

  After some caref
ul scrutiny, the documents had revealed a crucial part of the terrible plan the Darwinian Dawn had for the capital. They had been intending to use the old Underground network to position the deadly explosive devices they had been developing throughout the city. Had they succeeded in completing their task the cost to the city in terms of collateral damage, as well as the cost in human life, would have been catastrophic. The death toll could easily have been in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands.

  But thanks to Ulysses' timely discovery, their plans had been irrevocably set back and even though it was suspected that a number of the devices had already been put in place, so far none had detonated. With the authorities now in possession of information as useful as a map, having reluctantly already reported his findings regarding the bomb plot to Inspector Allardyce, Scotland Yard had raced to mount a top priority security operation to recover all of the devices. It looked like matters would be brought to a resolution in time for the Queen's jubilee.

  "To think what you went through!" Genevieve exclaimed.

  Ulysses smiled. Despite being every inch the ladies' man, there was something innocent and disarming about the genuine affection and concern Genevieve was showing him. It made what he had to tell her all the harder.

  "I'm all the better for seeing you. Walk with me?"

  "But of course," Genevieve took his proffered arm. "What is it, Ulysses? Your manner is causing me concern."

  The two of them set off, strolling along beneath the beech trees, joining other promenaders, dog-walkers and penny-farthing enthusiasts in their tour of Hyde Park.

  "I have news concerning your father."

  Genevieve stopped. "I knew you would have. I was too afraid to ask." She looked at him again, her eyes shaded beneath the rim of her parasol. "It's not good news, is it?"

  "No, I'm afraid not."

  Genevieve's chin dropped and she gave a sob of heartfelt sorrow.

  "I'm so sorry, Genevieve, I really am. If there had been anything I could have done I would have, you have to believe that. We found him in..."

  "No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. My father died that night at the museum, the night of the robbery. Whatever he had become after that, it was not my father. Not anymore."

  And then she gave in to her tears. Ulysses held her close, Genevieve sobbing into the lapel of his frock coat.

  It had not been so hard in the end. As Genevieve herself had once told him, he was a champion of the truth and no matter how painful the truth might be, it should be known so that it could be faced up to.

  Neither of them cared that the eyes of half the promenaders in the park were on them. For them there was only their shared grief. Genevieve mourning the loss of the father she had never really known, and for Ulysses the knowledge that he had been responsible for causing her such heart-rending sadness.

  Eventually she eased herself away from him, blinking the tears from her reddened, puffy eyes. She could not look him in the face.

  "Here," he said, putting his hand into his coat and removing something from a pocket. "I have this for you."

  He opened his hand. There lay the locket Genevieve had told him she had once given to her father as a gift. A smile of incongruous delight broke through her sorrow-spoiled features. Her bottom lip started to quiver as she took the silvered object, clean now of the muck that had tarnished it on its journey through the sewers.

  She reached up, putting a soft hand to Ulysses' face, caressing his cheek with delicate fingers. "Thank you," she whispered.

  And then, before Ulysses really knew it, they were closer than they had ever been before, her lips only inches from his, her breath warm on his face. The air was heady with the scent of jasmine flowers, the ground beneath their feet dappled with the golden light filtering through the leafy branches, despite the ever-present smog over the city.

  He held that moment in his head, that perfect moment when nothing else but the anticipation of the kiss to come mattered.

  "We aren't close to any Overground lines here are we? Or dinosaurs?"

  Genevieve smiled, her tear-stained cheeks flushed red, and she pulled him closer.

  "Now, now, Mr Quicksilver," she chided. "Do you always put work before pleasure?"

  And then they kissed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A Night at the Opera

  "So, do you think you'll see this woman again?" Bartholomew Quicksilver asked, tucking into his plate of roast pheasant with such gusto that it rather implied that this was the first decent meal he had enjoyed for some time.

  "I don't know," Ulysses mused, looking up from his plate. "I would certainly like to, at least I think I would, but I rather suspect that the ball, as they say, is now in her court. But enough about me. How have you been since I last saw you, dear brother?" This last acerbic comment did not sound quite like the enquiry after his brother's health as the wording of it might have suggested.

  "About that," Bartholomew said, his face reddening.

  "And what would that be?"

  "Look don't make this harder than it already is."

  "Why not? You were certainly planning on making it quite hard for me, all things considered."

  "Look, you have to believe me. I didn't know you were still alive."

  "Patently."

  There was silence between the two of them for a minute.

  "Go on then. With your excuse, I mean." Ulysses had to admit that part of him was enjoying watching his brother squirm.

  For a moment Bartholomew struggled to find the words he needed to express himself. The hubbub of the Savoy rushed in to fill the vacuum left by his reticence.

  The dining room was a sea of hazy lamplight, interspersed with the circular tables of the diners. For a moment Ulysses could almost believe that he had returned to his former life of evening revels and outrageous parties.

  He shook the memory from his mind. That seemed a lifetime away now. Besides, he felt an ambivalent mix of rival emotions, both purposeful resolve and nervous anticipation at the same time. Resolve at needing to confront his brother and nervous as to the effect the rich food in front of him might have on his body. It was the first full meal he had eaten since rising from his sick bed.

  "Look, I acted too hastily. I know that now. But you have to realise that there had been no word from you or any sign of you for eighteen months. I thought you were dead. The world thought you were dead. Would you have had me wait indefinitely for you to return?"

  "And what would you say if I answered your obviously rhetorical question with a 'yes'?"

  "I'd say you were being pig-headed, just like you always were when we were boys and Nanny wouldn't let you get your own way."

  For a moment both of them sat in seething silence again.

  "But look, let's put all that in the past now, shall we?' Bartholomew ventured, at last facing up to the fact that it was going to have to be up to him to proffer the olive branch. For all the grovelling he was being made to do, Bartholomew might as well have been eating humble pie rather than roast pheasant. Taking up his wine glass, he gestured as if to make a toast.

  "To you, eh, Ulysses? No hard feelings?"

  Almost reluctantly Ulysses picked up his own glass.

  "No, to us, Barty, heirs to the Quicksilver name," he said, and knocked back the last of the Pinot Grigio.

  The hubbub of the Savoy returned and the two brothers finished the rest of their main course in a tolerable silence.

  "How's business?" the younger asked at last.

  "Oh, you know, a matter of life and death on a daily basis. How's the world of profit and loss, and fund management?"

  Bartholomew eyed his elder brother coldly. 'Fund management' was a coy euphemism for a compulsive gambling habit of which Ulysses was fully aware. He also knew what sort of situations his brother had gambled himself into over the years, which was why he guarded the rest of his family's fortune with such care.

  Ulysses met the younger man's stare, his brother quickly wilting under the sun
-fierce gaze and suddenly finding something to occupy his attention on the tablecloth in front of him.

  "Well?"

  "Oh, you know how it is."

  "Yes, I rather think I do. Still planning on leaving the capital, or even the planet, anytime soon?"

  "Hmm. Funds won't stretch that far."

  "Now why doesn't that surprise me I wonder," Ulysses said witheringly, shaking his head in disappointment at his feckless brother's mismanagement of his share of their father's legacy.

  "I wasn't going to bring it up," Barty said, an uncomfortably familiar wheedling whine entering his voice, "but as you've seen fit to raise the matter yourself, if you could shout me some cash - consider it a loan - I could purchase my passage on a lunar liner and be out of your way at last, dear brother."

  "And what would you do once you got to the moon?"

  "I've got a few job prospects lined up there, one out at Serenity, another couple of possibles in Luna Prime. You know, friend of a friend kind of things."

  "Yes, I know the kind of thing. And I know the sort of people you curiously choose to call friends."

  "Now, don't start, Ulysses."

  "Well, you said it. If you're not going to look out for yourself, who else will, if not me?"

  "You're not father, you know."

  Ulysses was quiet for a moment, as if wrong-footed by his brother's riposte. "Yes, I know."

  "How's your dinner?" Bartholomew said, obviously uncomfortable and trying to change the topic.

  "Well, the warm roasted wood pigeon salad with black truffle sauce was barely warm and the pigeon not as tender as I would have liked. The wine is not to my palate, the company tolerable. Let's hope the dessert is something more worthy of writing home about. Although, whatever the final outcome of this entire dining experience, I rather suspect that I'll be made to suffer for my excess in the morning."

  "I'm sorry I asked," Barty said miserably.

  The awkward silence returned.

  Neither of them said anything as a waiter cleared their plates away, topped up their wine glasses and then brought them their desserts. Ulysses' chocolate torte was more to his liking, although even as he savoured the last mouthful he rather regretted such a rich choice of dessert.