Prehistoric Clock

by Robert Appleton

  They headed northwest, by the steam car wreckage and the crumbling terrace Miss Polperro’s men had just finished looting. Sections of the quagmire beyond, where the Thames water had drained into the soil, were now brick dry, a kind of murky green-grey colour. The top of the tree-line fidgeted, and she thought she heard crowing noises coming from the forest.

  “So what would you like to ask?” Embrey’s well-defined upper body muscles were glazed with perspiration, while a tuft of blond chest hair teased her from beneath the low neck of his vest. A scar ran across his right pectoral muscle and down toward his ribs. Painful. And if she wasn’t mistaken, an animal’s claw had inflicted that injury. A number of her comrades had succumbed to wildlife attacks in Africa over the years.

  “A polo souvenir?” She immediately regretted the jibe.

  He eyed her quizzically, but seemed more amused than insulted. “Colca Canyon, Peru.”

  “Peru? That’s the other side of the world. What on earth were you doing there?”

  “Exploring with my uncle and a few of my old Oxford chums. We found an ancient trail to a derelict settlement—not one of our more prodigious finds, if I’m perfectly honest.” He snorted a laugh. “You look at me as though I’d be lost outside the drawing room without a compass.”

  Verity smiled. “The thought had occurred to me. So how exactly were you wounded?”

  “I had a slight culinary disagreement with a giant condor.”

  “Disagreement?”

  “Yes. He tried to steal my supper. His manners needed mending.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He mended mine instead.” Embrey ran his finger down his scar, all the way from collar to hip. “So you can see why I don’t much care for anything that flies. Present company accepted, of course.”

  Interesting. He’s more adventurous than I thought.

  “My sister visited South America once—Brazil, I think—with the bluecoats. The Amazon scared the life out of her. Insects as big as kites. Apparently some parts of the river are so wide it’s more like crossing a sea.”

  “Very true. This place seems like Kew Gardens and its duck pond in comparison.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Miss Champlain, I’d just like to say, I’m very sorry for your loss. The Benguela attack was despicable, and I can assure you, despite what you might have heard, that neither my family nor myself had anything to do with it.”

  “Oh.” So he wanted to exonerate himself once and for all while she was in a pliable mood, did he? Well, in that case he had some fancy talking to do. He’d answered her question, but it would take a lot more than that—the evidence against his father and uncle had been damning. “Tangeni said you’d try to convince me sooner or later.” Embrey’s brow stitched, as if her tone had been too harsh and she’d wounded him. “He also said I should listen,” she added.

  “Aye, a rare fellow, that Tangeni.” But to her disappointment, he didn’t follow up. Instead, he narrowed his glazed eyes and then looked away to hide his grief. He seemed so lonely, so sad, she hadn’t the heart to press him further just yet. But that time would come.

  “Hey, speaking of adventures, I met Quatermain once.” She tugged his vest.

  “Really?” He blinked rapidly. “Pray tell.”

  “Two summers ago he was leading an expedition into Kukuanaland. We flew over on our way to supply a team of mineral surveyors when he lit a distress lamp. One of his trail guides was crippled with fever, so we had to land and take him back to hospital.”

  “Wasn’t contagious, I hope.”

  “No. And the best part is…the guide had performed heroics along the way…saved a friend of Quatermain’s. And so Quatermain gave him a parting gift. In case the guide didn’t survive, we were to pass the gift on to his family. You’ll never guess what it was.”

  “Not a diamond the size of a cricket ball, by chance?”

  Verity halted him. “How in God’s name did you know that?”

  “I’m good.” Rubbing his stubble, he teased her with a smug-but-really-rather-cute pout. “And it made all the papers in London.”

  “No joking?”

  “No.” Embrey thumbed his braces, seemed more boy than man. Verity’s heart warmed. “To English ears, any tale involving Quatermain or Horace Holly is like rumours of Heracles’s exploits to the ancient Greeks. Storytelling ambrosia. And when King Solomon’s diamonds are involved—”

  “I know.” She tipped her helmet back and suddenly felt more exposed than she was comfortable with. To hell with comfort. This concerns Quatermain. “It was all we could talk about for weeks after. Tangeni even traded with him—gave Quatermain a spare canteen in exchange for one of his rifle bullets. I don’t know how the deuce he plucked the courage to do that.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  Verity leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Don’t tell anyone, but I went as weak as a schoolgirl with a crush.” The heady excitement of being this close to him, close enough to taste his natural, intoxicating scent, dizzied her for a moment.

  He whispered back, “What did you say?”

  “That I…that I…”

  “That you what?”

  “That I loved—”

  A crash of thunder ripped them apart, spun them toward the last building on Parliament Street. Thick dust jets shot out of the windows and open crevices while the structure collapsed. First the rear, then the upper north wall caved in with a rumble. Finally, the entire front of the building buckled and spilled forward onto the road, its mammoth roar making Verity cover her ears. She flinched and stumbled back.

  They watched as the dust and debris fizzed out and settled on the asphalt and the guts of the building were laid bare. Men came running. One or two rummaged through the rubble to reach three or four crushed bodies. Embrey ran to help them. The other men pointed away toward the northwest tree-line, where the upper branches swayed violently. One gent ran back to camp, waving his arms in distress.

  Verity’s vision blurred. Her mouth went dry. Metal? Why did her saliva taste of…metal? A red fingertip after brushing her lips suggested she’d bit her tongue. Then why did—?

  She traced a line of blood up to her nose, then up her nose to her brow. Finally she located an aching gash, where the brim of her helmet should have been if she hadn’t tipped it back. The wound bled slowly but constantly. She didn’t have the strength or the wherewithal to cry for help. Only a memory of strolling about the quarterdeck seemed to keep her from falling.

  Suddenly her eyes filled with diamonds, and she lost consciousness.

  Too many surprises all at once caught up with Embrey as he sat on the kerb near Reardon’s clock parts and rubbed his tired eyes. Four aeronauts kept vigil around the professor, while one rushed to the Empress for bandages and antiseptic ointment. Djimon stayed with Verity in the shade outside the factory. Luckily, she’d come round almost right away after fainting, and Embrey had nursed her in his arms until her men had arrived. How intimate they’d become in so short a time. That talk of Quatermain had cut through their animosity nicely. But how? Why was she so well disposed to him all of a sudden? Because he’d saved her life and she his? Or perhaps Reardon and Tangeni had talked some sense into her after all, made her realise that the British legal system had more holes than a sinking sloop, that his family hadn’t had a hand in her sister’s death.

  Whatever the reason, he loved the change in her. Beneath the prickly Amazon warrior, Verity Champlain had a lasting crush on Quatermain, and the way she’d tugged at his vest, like a little girl wanting to spill a secret—she had a vibrant, playful side he’d like to see more of. When she recovered he would see about resuming their conversation. If she didn’t turn on him again, that was. But in any event, he would not allow a woman who enjoyed adventuring as much as he did to slip through his fingers. No, ma’am.

  “What’s this talk of a royal found in the rubble, old chap?” Reardon called over.

  Yawning, Embrey looked up into the professor’s intense g
aze. “That’s correct. Carswell insists we’ve found the Duke of Kent. His face was smashed and he’s dressed casually, but Carswell recognized two of the other men from the duke’s royal entourage. They all died during the time jump. We haven’t found them until now because they’d been buried in a collapsed upper room. Died drinking port, apparently. Not the worst way to go.”

  Reardon blinked twice and then returned to his work.

  “How goes it, Professor?”

  “Like clockwork.”

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “No.”

  “Anything I can get you? A beverage? A bite to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Want to be left alone, huh.”

  Reardon grunted.

  Cantankerous old bugger. Embrey put on the spectrometer goggles he’d borrowed from the workshop, and lay back on the concrete, feeling wonderfully superfluous. A flock of pterosaurs streaked in front of the sun, their silhouettes no bigger than dragonflies—far, far above—and they didn’t appear to be circling. Nothing to worry about. He folded his arms behind his head, closed his eyes and soaked up the sun’s warmth.

  An hour or so had passed, judging from the sun’s shifted position in the sky. Reardon was still hard at work under the parasol they’d erected, adjusting his mirrors and lenses, checking the angles of sunlight refracting through his various prisms. At least he’d cobbled the pieces together into a few substantial parts now—sizeable, complex mechanisms. One resembled a large Leonardo Da Vinci cryptex filled with several long shafts and rotating lenses. When the professor lifted it, its insides appeared to form a beautiful, multi-chambered kaleidoscope.

  Embrey sat up, yawned and stretched. He saw no sign of Verity. She’d probably returned to her cabin on the ship. He would visit her presently. Polperro’s posse had already laid the five new corpses on Speaker’s Green and was busy digging fresh graves. How many more would there be? Despite Reardon’s unflappable confidence in his machine, could it ever whisk them through time with any degree of accuracy? The professor maintained the first mis-jump was nothing more than a hiccup, but Embrey and Verity had seen his face turn white when confronted with the inexplicable spider’s web. Garrett Embrey was no scientist. Whom, then, should he defer to? The man who’d invented time travel, or the woman whose job it had been to make sure he didn’t invent time travel?

  Both were barking mad.

  It’s all beyond me. I’d better consult with Verity and Tangeni instead. He grinned. Yes, sharing a cabin with the captain might at least help my…perspective.

  He spun at the sound of a high-pitched whistle. But where exactly had it—

  “Lord Embrey! Protect the professor!” one of the aeronauts yelled from Speaker’s Green. “We’re under attack!”

  Polperro’s posse fled from what looked like multi-coloured streaks darting about on the lawn. Several inhuman shrieks wrenched him to full alert. He drew his steam-pistols and shielded Reardon, who picked up his own rifle. The four aeronauts formed a protective line.

  “Anything comes this way, kill it.” Embrey aimed his weapons.

  A creature dashed across the street, as fast as a dog after a fleeing man. It had the general shape and profile of a tyrannosaur, but it was much smaller, about the size of a large wolf. Colourful feathers on its arms, neck and long tail gave it a tropical, birdlike appearance. The bugger attacked with ferocity. Its size belied a hugely powerful musculature. After it bit into the man’s throat, ripping his windpipe out with a single crunch, Embrey shared a trepidatious look with his Africans colleagues. He double-checked the water-acid canisters for both his pistols.

  “What the hell is it? Some kind of pack hunter? Hey—” Reardon had to stop his five bodyguards from stepping back any further and trampling his machine parts. One of the Africans knocked the parasol over instead. “Somebody fire a shot,” the professor said. “Alert the rest of the crew. These civilians are unarmed.”

  He was right. Embrey fired into the air. Two of the dinosaurs dragged a human body from the lawn onto the street, and began squabbling over it. A third took advantage of the kerfuffle, sinking its sickle-like claw and razor teeth into one of the Duke of Kent’s retinue. Perhaps even the duke himself.

  Embrey gagged. A volley of gunfire erupted from the Empress’s direction moments before Reardon swivelled him northward. A hurtful shriek rang in his ears as two feathered predators bore down on them from behind. He aimed and fired both his pistols. One dinosaur fell dead on the cobblestone. The other barged into the machine parts while Reardon and an aeronaut dove out of the way. Its claw caught the arm of a standing African, gouging a deep wound. Embrey shot into the feathers on its spine and hurried away from its thrashing limbs and death-throe shrieks. All six men finished it.

  Another dinosaur leapt from out of nowhere, cleaving the injured man’s neck as it landed on him. He tore fistfuls of feathers but to no avail. By the time they killed the beast, it had bitten through the poor aeronaut’s skull.

  “Son of a bitch.” They were too exposed out here. If a dinosaur pack attacked in full force, the situation would be hopeless. “Come on, we must get indoors.” He yanked Reardon toward the factory but the professor wouldn’t budge.

  “Stop it, man. For God’s sake, is your brain smogged?” Reardon stood his ground, cocked his rifle, glancing every which way—panic jerked him round and round.

  “Men, we don’t have time for this, and we can’t afford to lose him.” Embrey glared at the professor. “Take him by force.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Two of the aeronauts frog-marched him off the street, while the third rushed to fold the blanket over Reardon’s clock pieces. No sooner had he covered the first contraption than the sun-baked road darkened and a giant pterosaur swooped on top of him. The man tried to fling the blanket and its contents out of reach but only succeeded in spilling them.

  “No.” Embrey shot twice but the monstrous flier flapped its wings. Dust and rock pellets hit like a blizzard, forcing him to shield his face.

  A second pterosaur glided low over the rooftops opposite, its malign caws filling London with dread. Reardon tried his darnedest to break free and save his clock, but the aeronauts held him firm. “You stupid sod,” Embrey scolded him. “We need you, damn you. We need you alive.”

  “But my Harrison clock! I’ll never be able to find them without it. Get off me, you heathen bastards!”

  The first pterosaur skipped away as several rifle shots sounded from the north. It snatched the mauled aeronaut up in its beak and rose into the air, dropping the blanket onto the street. The force of its wings kicked up a storm. Embrey winced as the clock parts bounced away and clattered on the concrete.

  Immediately, a pack of feathered dinosaurs assailed the pterosaur. They ripped its wings and brought it down writhing on its back. One last sickening shriek faded to a pitiful groan. The melee ended outside the gentlemen’s club, where the bipedal carnivores gathered for an avian smorgasbord.

  Stunned, Embrey crept out to retrieve the clock parts. After Reardon, they were all that mattered. The hiss of Billy’s tri-wheel car approached from the north. Kibo drove. Tangeni leaned out of the passenger side, waving frantically.

  At me? What on earth has happened now?

  Embrey checked behind him but the feathered predators were all ensconced in their feast at the far end of the street.

  Just a greeting, then.

  He collected the first of the clock parts. Tangeni cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled something unintelligible—he waved again, but this time it seemed to darken the entire sky. Embrey’s blood iced and he glanced up.

  The second pterosaur landed ten yards away and snatched up the shiny kaleidoscopic cylinder in its talon. God, no. He had to shield his face from the hurricane whipped up by its wings. Before he could aim and shoot, the bastard was airborne and flying south, its grip on their future unyielding.

  “Bring it down! What the hell are you waiting for?” Reardon broke
free from the aeronauts. He took a snapshot with his rifle and missed. Embrey’s pistols were empty, so he grabbed one of the aeronaut’s rifles and tried to pip the burglar before it veered over the rooftops, out of sight…

  Too late.

  “Oh, Christ, that’s it now. Lisa and Edmond! I’ve lost them. We’re all lost. We’re all buggered. You stupid bastards have gone and dug our graves. We’re buggered, buggered, bug—”

  “Professor, shut up. You’re giving me a headache.” Embrey turned and sprinted for the tri-wheel car and said to Tangeni, “It’s turned east. We have to catch it.”

  “Who’s the best shot with a rifle?”

  “I am.” Jostling his friend aside, Embrey dove onto the passenger seat and ordered the driver, “Head east, Kibo—as fast as this heap will go. Everything depends on it.”

  “On my way.”

  Under Kibo’s control the car gathered steam far quicker than Billy’s father had accelerated it that night during the storm. It reached upwards of twenty miles an hour as they passed parallel to the Empress, and still it sped up. Kibo had mentioned he used to drive racers on the European circuits. He more than proved it.

  The pterosaur circled over the rocky escarpment, the metallic glint still evident in its right talon. Christ, if it made for the ocean…

  “Where to?” Kibo kept his eye out for rocks on the otherwise flat, grassy terrain, glancing skyward only rarely.

  “East. No, northeast. It’s heading for the coast. Make for the bottleneck through the forest. I’ll have to take a shot from the cliff. And hurry!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Though the pterosaur was capable of much higher speeds, it flew into the wind, which evened the odds for the steam-powered tri-wheel. Twenty feet before the cliff, Embrey yelled for Kibo to stop. Rifle cocked and warm in his grip, he jumped out and took aim, compensating for the wind speed and direction while he rested the barrel on the roof of the car. Hell fire. The sun was in his eyes.