Anti-Ice

by Stephen Baxter

  A stranger, a short man with a round, mocking face, now leaned close to me. “Interesting juxtaposition, don’t you think?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Here, before the fruits of modern, Anglo-Saxon inventiveness, we have the aging generals of the Old World; and even as their armies maneuver toward France they no doubt speculate about how this great American plowshare could be beaten into some mechanical sword.”

  I laughed. “Having got to know these Prussians, I suspect you are right, sir.”

  He held out his hand; I shook it. “My name is George Holden,” he said. He studied me, looking up into my face with a frank, clear stare; I judged him to be about forty, with ruddy, rather coarse features set out beneath a shock of black hair. An Albert watch-chain like a rope crossed an ample belly.

  I introduced myself.

  Holden said, “I am pleased to meet you. I feel fortunate to mingle with such company; I am a mere journalist, reporting on these festivities for the Manchester Guardian.”

  The Prussians had now strolled to the Canadian exhibit. Bismarck picked up a Swiss knife the size of a small book which, a sign proclaimed proudly, bore no less than five hundred blades. A look of wonder on his face, the Iron Chancellor pulled out one outlandish blade after another. “Look at that,” said Holden sourly. “Like blessed children, aren’t they?”

  Actually I thought Bismarck’s boyish enjoyment rather endearing; but I said nothing.

  The party moved on at length to the largest stand—the British. My pulse quickened with anticipation as we approached; but the Germans, no doubt keen to score some obscure point, stalked past the spectacular exhibits quite rapidly, their graying military heads held erect. However, I saw more than one rheumy eye flicker involuntarily sideways; and as for myself, I stared hungrily, anxious to drink in every detail of these marvels.

  The exhibit was dominated by large, gleaming machines which, with their brooding pistons and tall stacks, looked like caged animals in this delicate Cathedral. There was a new form of Light Rail train, with the locomotive shaped rather like a bullet with its stack mouth set flush with its hull. The locomotive looked light and graceful enough to fly, and was mounted on a length of the narrow single rail characteristic of the Light Rail. The novel bullet shape, my new acquaintance Holden told me, was designed to allow the air to slip past the bulk of the locomotive more easily, and so to enable the Light Rail to attain higher speeds. “But,” he explained, “it is the enormous concentration of heat energy provided by anti-ice—and the consequently high mechanical efficiency—which enables the construction of compact marvels like this.”

  A single coach was attached to the locomotive (though a caption informed us that as many as fifty coaches could be hauled safely by this model). Through large picture windows I inspected comfortable couches upholstered in a rich velvet, and the gleam of brass and polished leather made the coach seem as inviting as the finest club lounge.

  Another device which caught my eye was a novel form of digging machine. An enclosed carriage no larger than a gurney was fronted by a disc of hardened steel. This disc was some ten feet across and its face glittered with blades and scoops of all sizes. “This will revolutionize our extraction of coal and other minerals,” Holden said. “Here is another invention impossible without anti-ice; without the compact, clean boilers made feasible by anti-ice a machine like this would require a boiler and stack the size of a railway locomotive, and within the confines of a mine would choke on its own emissions in half an hour.”

  We went on past models of new designs of steam presses and cotton mills. My boy’s imagination was caught by a model of the new King Edward Dock at Liverpool, complete with a shallow pool of water to represent the Mersey, and toy clippers and hauliers which actually floated!

  Now the party paused; and, peering past the Prussians’ ramrod-stiff backs, I could see Bismarck being introduced to a tall, spare man of about seventy. This gentleman wore a battered stovepipe hat of the style of some thirty or forty years previously, and his face, framed by handsome, gray- speckled muttonchops, was a wrinkled mask of scars and burn marks, at the center of which rested an artificial nose sculpted from platinum.

  Blue eyes glittered down at Bismarck, and the Chancellor’s hand was held as if it were month-dead meat.

  I turned to Holden, agitated. “That’s—that’s—”

  He was amused at my excitement. “Sir Josiah Traveller; the great engineer, and the inheritor of the mantle of Brunel—in person.”

  “I didn’t know Traveller was to attend. He is rumored to be something of a recluse.”

  “Perhaps the lure of Presidents and Chancellors has coaxed the great man out of his shyness.”

  I studied Holden briefly; although his tone was world-weary and dismissive, I saw how his eyes were fixed on Traveller with a kind of hunger. Teasing him, I said, “Of course, you journalists tell us that Sir Josiah is overestimated. It is only his virtually exclusive access to that marvelous substance anti-ice which has provided his fame.”

  Holden snorted. “You won’t find this journalist spouting such nonsense. Traveller is a genius, my boy. Yes, anti-ice has made his visions into reality; but those visions could have been conceived by no other man. Traveller’s, anti-ice devices thread silver paths over and under the skin of the globe. Josiah Traveller is the Leonardo of our age…” He rubbed his round jaw speculatively. “That’s not to say, of course, that he is a genius in all fields. Financial and commercial affairs do seem to baffle him; much as they did his famous mentor, Brunel. You’re aware that the launch of the land liner, the Prince Albert, is in doubt?”

  I shook my head.

  “Its fitting-out is virtually complete, but capital to support its operating costs has yet to be obtained by Traveller’s company. I hear a new share issue is planned; and Traveller has also, I understand, approached the Cabinet.” Holden sniffed and tugged at his watch-chain. “Perhaps that explains his presence here. Are you to attend the launch, Mr. Vicars?”

  “I fear I cannot,” I replied gloomily. “Much as I would enjoy it… for several reasons,” I said, thinking of Françoise.

  Holden looked at me quizzically, but did not inquire further.

  I studied the distaste in Traveller’s battered, rather noble face, and imagined his impatience to be done with this and return to his workshops and drafting-tables. “How unfortunate it is,” I remarked to Holden, “that we expect our engineers to be diplomats as well.”

  Holden grinned. “Perhaps it is just as well that we do not also require our diplomats to be engineers.”

  Now the Prussians, ever eager to show how unimpressed they were, turned languidly to a further exhibit, a stand of photographs. Traveller stood alone, his gaunt face blank; and I, on an impulse, approached the engineer. “Sir Josiah,” I said—and then lapsed in confusion, for the gaze which swiveled down from beyond that beak of platinum was at once scornful and searching. “Forgive me, sir,” I went on, and introduced myself.

  He nodded curtly. “So, sir diplomat,” he said, “and what is the diplomatic view of these toys I have presented?” His voice was like the rumble of some vast steam engine, and I wondered if his throat and lungs had been as scorched as his face in the accidents which had left him so marked.

  “Toys, sir?” I indicated the graceful lines of the Light Rail machine, which lay bathed in the blue light of the Cathedral. “But these are achievements of modern rational mechanics, coupled with the potentialities of anti-ice—”

  He leaned down close to me. “Toys, my boy,” he said. “Toys for such as these Prussians of yours. As long as they are distracted it might not occur to them to exploit my anti-ice for other, darker purposes.”

  I thought I understood. “You refer to the Crimea, sir.”

  “I do.” He looked at me with a fragment of curiosity. “Most lads your age are as blissfully ignorant of that ghastly campaign as they are of the Gallic expeditions of Caesar.”

  “Not I.” I described to
him the experiences of my brother Hedley. I told him how, on his return to England scarred but hale, Hedley had moved back into my parents’ home, Sylvan, and now worked quietly as an accountant. He had at last married the lady—formerly a kitchen maid—with whom he had once formed an indiscreet liaison and so become impelled to leave home for the Russian war. Hedley had told me of his impressions of Traveller’s reactions to the deployment of anti-ice. Traveller listened carefully. “And so,” I concluded, “since Sebastopol you have determined that the sole application of anti-ice should be to peaceful projects.”

  He nodded, his blue eyes like diamonds.

  “But,” I went on, “Sir Josiah, this is England, not Prussia. You surely need not fear that the British government would again request the application of anti-ice to such a purpose—”

  “I think,” he interrupted me, his gaze sliding away from me, “that your Prussians have finished their sightseeing here. Perhaps you should join them.”

  Indeed, Bismarck and his companions were moving regally away from the bank of photographs. Seeking something to say as envoi to Traveller, I essayed, “An intriguing photographic display.” In fact it was rather baffling; I peered at a series of curved, shining surfaces set against black backgrounds.

  Traveller leaned close to me again. “Intriguing indeed. Do you know what they show?” I indicated my ignorance.

  “Planet Earth,” whispered Traveller, “from five hundred miles above the air.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I tried to frame a question; but already Traveller had turned away, and I could only watch his stiff back recede into the throng.

  The Prussians stood in a proud row before the exhibits donated by their homeland, and a photographer ducked under his hood of black velvet. Bismarck beckoned to me. “So, Herr Ned Vicars,” he said, “you are not impressed by what we Germans have to offer the world?”

  I stammered an answer. “Sir, your exhibits show a high degree of craftsmanship.”

  He inclined his head and sighed mockingly. “We poor Germans do not have your anti-ice to play with; and so we must make do with better engineers, better craftsmen, and better production techniques. Eh, Herr Vicars?”

  Reddening helplessly I sought a response to this teasing—but then an aide touched Bismarck’s sleeve. The Chancellor listened closely. At length he straightened up, his eyes bright and hard. “You must excuse me.” He clapped his hands once, twice; and the orderly row of Prussians broke up. The photographer came out from under his hood, every sign of exasperation on his face.

  Soon the Prussians had formed into an almost military formation, and off they marched with a great air of urgency toward the exit. My superior for the day, one Roderick McAllister, made to hurry after them; I caught his arm. “McAllister, what’s happening?”

  “Party’s over, I’m afraid, Vicars. The Prussians are cutting short their visit; I’ll have to go and rearrange their transport—”

  “But what about me? What shall I do?”

  He called over his shoulder. “You’re relieved! Take a holiday—” And then he was gone; the Prussians had cut a clear path through the surprised throngs of dignitaries; and poor Roderick hurried like a poodle after them.

  “Decisive lot, aren’t they?”

  I scratched my head. “Quite a turn-up, Mr. Holden. Do you know what’s happened?”

  He looked at me with some surprise, and flattened greased black hair over his scalp. “They don’t tell you diplomatic types anything, do they? The rest of this Exhibition’s alive with the news.”

  “What news?”

  “France has declared war.”

  “Well, I’ll be—On what pretext?”

  He fingered his watch-chain. “That wretched telegram, I shouldn’t wonder. Of course the timing is no coincidence. Trust the bloody French to go to war just when our Exhibition is opened; they’ll go to any lengths to hog the limelight, won’t they?” He studied me. “Still, it’s an ill wind, Mr. Vicars; it sounds as if you have an unexpected holiday. I imagine there is still time to get a place at the launch of the Prince Albert; I’m traveling out that way myself, if you’re interested…”

  At first, distracted, I shook my head. “I think I should report back to work, holiday or no…”

  Then I remembered Françoise.

  I slapped Holden on the back. “On second thoughts, Mr. Holden, what a jolly good idea that is. Will you let me buy you tea, while we discuss the prospect?”

  We made our way across an Exhibition floor that was alive with the talk of war.

  2

  A CHANNEL CROSSING

  The Prince Albert was not due to slip its moorings for another three weeks, and Holden and I resolved to wait before journeying to Ostend. It was a period I spent kicking my heels in and around my lodgings in Bayswater. The company of my friends, as we haunted the coffee shops, restaurants and music-halls, seemed suddenly callow and unworthy; more than once I found myself gloomily nursing a whiskey and soda water in the corner of a club lounge, watching my chums make giddy idiots of themselves—and considering how the elegant Françoise would regard such behavior.

  I returned to the Exhibition, but I did not meet Françoise again. Nor did I find any trace of her in the society columns, assiduously though I searched.

  Thus was I foolishly infatuated after our briefest of encounters…

  But I was twenty-three years old, and doubt that I will ever regard my younger self with anything other than a mildly embarrassed affection.

  At last, on the first of August, I threw together a small carpet-bag and made my way to Dover International Station. Mist still lingered around the docks as I emerged, bleary-eyed, from the mail Light from Waterloo—but there was George Holden, round and bright as a button; he shook my hand and offered me a celebratory nip of brandy from a silver hipflask. At first I demurred; but the hot liquid quickly worked its fiery magic. Our train gleamed on its elevated rail like some aerial fish of wood and brass, and as I stared up at it my prospects seemed tinged with adventure, excitement, and—perhaps—romance.

  …But we were delayed.

  The sun crossed the sky, hot and white. Holden and I drank endless cups of tea and nibbled candied orange peel, and, as that early-morning brandy turned sour in my stomach, we stalked around the confines of the station.

  The trouble was centered around one of the pylons which soared out of the tarmacadam platform to support the Light Rail a hundred feet above our heads. This pylon was cordoned off by a length of greasy rope while police officers inspected every accessible inch. These unfortunate constables, sweating in their thick serge tunics, looked rather comical as they crawled up precarious ladders. One of them thumped his head on a cross-beam and his helmet went flying to the macadam, to a great cheer from watching members of the public. The officer rubbed his balding head and uttered something most unworthy.

  A stout, aging Peeler had been posted to maintain the cordon; his face was a round pool of sweat and his voice was stained with the thick burr of rural Kent. “We suspect the presence of an explosive device,” he said in response to our questions.

  “Do you mean a bomb?” I asked, incredulous. “But a bomb of sufficient strength could wreck the Rail. Dozens—hundreds could die!”

  The policeman looked somber.

  “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Ah.” He tipped his helmet back. “The world is full of Anarchists, Socialists and other lunatics, sir; not everyone is as sensible as you or I.”

  Holden touched my sleeve and drew me away. “Maybe,” he murmured, “your hay-covered friend is right. But I fear there are plenty of other suspects for such an atrocity, any one of whom might seem quite as rational as you or I—or even as Constable Corn-dolly over there.”

  I laughed. “But who?”

  Holden shrugged. “The Rail is a beautiful artifact, is it not? But there are many who will regard it as a threat. Anything new is a danger to the Old Order, you see, my young friend. Anything new demands new ways of
seeing things, new ways of thinking—and, in some parts of our Continent—such revolutions simply will not do.”

  I rubbed my chin and peered up; the gleaming arc of the Rail swept out over the Channel, oblivious of my confusion.

  * * *

  It was after nine of the evening when at last we boarded the Mechanical Staircase which drew us high into the air and to our train. I looked out over the harbor. The sun was close to the water now and the Moon hung high in the sky, a perfect crescent; the Little Moon was a potato-shaped blur that climbed like a cloud into the darkling sky.

  From the Staircase we queued to cross a short bridge. I glanced up the length of the train to the locomotive. The great device lay along its single rail like some great iron panther, its gleaming linkage arms wreathed in condensation. The locomotive was generally cylindrical in layout, like the older coal-fueled designs—although its stack was a mere sketch, a ring of iron barely two inches high. I understood that this locomotive would not expel great volumes of coal smoke; indeed, the mist I saw was not smoke or steam, but condensation gathering around the great Dewar flask which lay at the heart of the locomotive, maintaining its few precious ounces of anti-ice at Arctic temperatures.

  A brass plate riveted to the cylinder bore the engine’s number and a name: Dover Flyer. I smiled at this quaintness.

  I handed my carpet-bag to a porter, who carried it along a terrifyingly narrow footpath to a baggage car, and then I followed Holden into our carriage. The carriage itself was more than comfortable, with broad, well-cushioned couches upholstered with leather dyed the rich purple color of the International Light Rail Company. A steward, a small chap with a face rather like a monkey’s perched incongruously above his clean white coat, brought us drinks—I had a scotch and water, Holden a brandy—and, as we waited for the rest of the passengers to board, we settled into a couch by a broad picture window in order to smoke and talk.