The Sensaurum and the Lexis

by Richard Dee

  “Did you find the place where they were working on those poor people? Or the tent lines and the parade ground?” asked Jessamine.

  “The building where you say the medical work was carried out had been utterly destroyed by a fierce fire. There was evidence of human remains found in the field used by the porkers – that had been released, we assume into the forests. The tents were there yet contained little save a few personal effects. As for Rodney, or anyone from the estate, we know not of their location.”

  “Then what now?” Jackson blurted out. “We have not told you of our adventures since being discovered.”

  Langdon was dismissive. “That can wait till the morning. Your journeying across land and sea, fascinating though it may be are not as important as finding Nethersole and Aldithley. We have watchers everywhere; he is not at the factory, which is working as normal. Nor is he at his house in the city. Somehow, he has an army hidden away, we know not where, or anything about how he will strike next. The best thing you can do is rest and we will resume again in the morning.”

  Jackson and Jessamine went up to their rooms, Jessamine opened her door and Jackson went to follow her inside. To his surprise, she put her hand on his chest and stopped him at the door. “We have to be circumspect,” she said, “and cautious in our shows of affection. Langdon will not hesitate to discipline us for fraternisation; all that is going on will not distract him.”

  It was painful for both of them to spend time apart; sleep did not come easy for either of them, knowing that a few thin walls separated them.

  Chapter 29

  When they convened again in the morning, Oswald was also present. He looked more crumpled and bemused than usual. “Oswald has been working through the night,” said Langdon, “while some were sleeping.” He seemed tetchy, perhaps he had been up all night too?

  “You would not believe the fuss since you’ve been gone,” the scientist said. “We have searched through the records and inspected as many of the limbs that have been fitted or serviced as we could. We have found that all of them have had filaments installed in them during routine inspections at the Prosthesium. This has been going on for several months. Some have experienced problems, some not. Cartridges have been recovered; they were found to contain differing types of filament. This is enough evidence that testing was taking place.”

  “And now we have this new menace,” added Langdon. “A box and its control of many people at once, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have scarce believed it. It would appear that Aldithley has graduated from a simple switch to a more sophisticated system.”

  “This is what we were trying to tell you from Port Lucas,” said Jessamine. “To forewarn you so you could work on the problem before we returned.”

  “I know and I thank you,” said Langdon. “I apologise for my remarks last night, I wish to know all your adventures but I’m rather preoccupied. You did your best in trying circumstances and it is to your credit that you made it back. I’m confused as to how you were followed during all your wanderings, still, that is a problem that we may solve later. As it is, things are coming to a head; the problem is that you do not know all, as I do. I will tell you the other matter, which at first I thought unconnected, now I see that the issues are inseparable.”

  “May I go?” asked Oswald. “I will return but I need to see if my men have finished their tasks, I suspect that this part of the narrative does not concern me.”

  “You may,” nodded Langdon. “Please return once you have completed what you have to do, we have questions for you.”

  “Thank you,” replied Oswald. “I hope to have answers.” He scuttled away, back to the safety of his basement.

  “What other matter?” asked Jessamine.

  “You remember Capricia? How she was sent on a mission?”

  “I do,” she replied.

  “She was to be a children’s nanny, for a lady,” said Mrs Grimble.

  “It was the day we had been fitted for clothes to visit the Prosthesium,” said Jackson.

  “Correct,” said Langdon. “Normally I would not share information on what my agents are about; in this case, you need to know. Her mission was to ascertain the fealty of the Chief of the Watchmen in the city. His wife, who is a prominent member of the Ladies who Lunch, asked me to intervene as she was becoming aware of changes in his behaviour, mysterious meetings, a few extra funds in their accounts. She had suspected that he was either in the pay or under the control of someone; it now appears that person was Rodney Nethersole.”

  Before the visit to Hammerham, that news would have been a shock to Jackson; no more, after seeing Silas he was under no more illusion about the Watch and their supposed impartiality.

  “And there are more implicated,” Langdon was still talking. “Capricia has to be careful. Clearly, she is in danger. This means that I have a problem. I cannot investigate Rodney as I’m being blocked by Honorstan, the Watchman in question. He is preventing me from action; now Capricia reports that he is engaged in clandestine conversations and meetings with persons unknown. I fear that he is in league with Rodney, yet if I pursue the matter, I risk alerting him and losing sight of what Rodney is about. I might also endanger Capricia as well, which I also want to avoid if at all possible.”

  “Can we not infiltrate the factory again?” asked Alyious, who had come in unnoticed and was sitting at the back of the room. “We know that there are the boxes, Jackson has told us. Why can we not just go in and take one?”

  Langdon shook his head, the others were waiting for him to dismiss Alyious, tell him he should not be here. Instead he answered, “If it were only that simple, Alyious. We know not what the situation is inside the factory. It might be filled with armed men, all under Rodney’s control. Not only that, Rodney will have noticed our investigations, I’m sure that by now he has put the pieces together and knows that someone is aware of his machinations.”

  He paused for a moment. “I should not tell you this; I have been warned from investigating Rodney by senior ministers. If anyone connected with me is found in his works, I fear that my tenure of this organisation will be terminated. I cannot take the risk; we are the only thing that stands between this man and his despicable plans. I will not move until such time as there is no other option. Everything we now do must be done in secrecy. It is a fierce quandary and no mistake.”

  Fairview came in at that point. Langdon saw him and raised a rare smile. “Please give me something to work with,” he said. “Have you caught the man we saw at the terminus, the one controlling the mob who followed us?”

  Fairview also had the air of one who had been awake all night. “We have lost the man, I’m sorry to tell,” he said. “He led us through the crowds around the terminus, where we could not apprehend him easily. He must have dodged into some doorway under their cover. We found his hat and coat lying on the ground.”

  “Very well, that is a setback. Now we must wait for Oswald, in the hope that he will have something to add to our store of knowledge.”

  Ten minutes later, one of his assistants came to the room. “Begging your pardon, sirs, ma’am,” he said, touching his cap. “Would you come to the laboratorium? Mr Oswald has something to show you.”

  The group followed the man back to the cellar, where Oswald stood in front of his bench with a triumphant grin. Alyious joined them, as he had not been dismissed. Mrs Grimble was also present, dressed in bloodied green linen.

  “What do you have for us?” asked Langdon.

  “Well, sir, as you know, we have spent the night examining the remains of the poor wretch you brought back from your adventures.”

  “And what can you tell us?”

  “Based on the events you described, we concluded that there must be some sign of that which controls, as well as the physical presence of the thing that exercises that control.”

  “Can you speak more clearly?” asked Langdon. “It seems that the more simplicity we require, the more technical you wish to be.�
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  “Of course,” Oswald replied. “I apologise. To put it plain, we first examined the body. However, the head and neck were badly bruised and we could see nothing obvious. Mrs Grimble then dissected the stomach, to see if any foreign object had been ingested. When that failed, she looked again.”

  Mrs Grimble smiled. “I found it, in the back of the neck. A small scar, just below the base of the skull bone. It concealed a filament, not unlike the one we already knew about, except this was composed of more than one strand, wound together and of course was not in a brass container. It had been implanted at the base of the brain and delicately connected to the nerves of the spinal column, and the brain itself. It’s a really clever feat of surgery, and so precisely done. Our thought is that it can turn certain functions of the brain on and off, as the original one did with the arm, just in a more complex way.”

  “Then does that mean the box we saw is the controller? How is the signal sent through the air?”

  “That, Sir Mortimer, is another work of brilliance,” said Oswald.

  “Give him no credit,” said Langdon. “He is no more than a criminal and a murderer.”

  “Your pardon, I was referring to the application of science by Aldithley. Not its use. As you know I have decoded and read the notes that Jackson managed to obtain.”

  This was news to Jackson, things had moved on during their absence, in more ways than one.

  “Aldithley has married all sorts of diverse scientific advancements,” Oswald continued. “They all appear to be unconnected, yet he has joined them together. The man is clearly a genius. The box uses a novel form of statics as a power source; a combination of lead plates in an acid solution produces the force. As far as I can tell this force is sent as a wave – a signal through the very air, probably through the wire spring that protrudes from the box. This signal is somehow understood by the filament. I can think of no better way of describing it. The power and frequency are designed to activate some clever design in the filament. It appears to be connected directly to the base of the brain, to the part which we always thought controlled sleep. The filament must act like a mesmeriser, one you might see in some cheap entertainment. The filament works by putting the subject into a trance and making them susceptible to commands. It is why I called you to the laboratorium; there is something I wish to try, with your permission of course.”

  “Explain further, and sing no more praises, as far as I’m concerned, the man is a rogue and a criminal, even if a genius.”

  “Yes, sir. If I’m correct, then the filament is being controlled by some sort of statics wave. If you recall the pattern made by the magnet? Naturally I will need to make a box of my own to determine all the details. In the meantime, I have a high power Wasperton-Byler field creator here; I would like to see if the filament that Jackson obtained from the Prosthesium is sensitive to one.”

  Langdon nodded and Oswald turned the machine on. Steam coursed through it as it started to spin. Instead of an unwitting victim’s hands, the two wires were connected to the ends of the filament.

  This filament, now in a brass container was held in a vice. It instantly started to shudder and glow white. The vice it was held in also started to glow; the grease on it began to smoulder. Then it exploded with a sharp noise. The vice was blown apart by the force, fragments whizzed around the room, smashing equipment but missing everyone. There was the smell of burning. Jackson felt a jolt in his foot, which became hot and he yelped and struggled to remove his boot.

  Jessamine was also hopping, trying to do the same. To their relief, they managed to get the boots from their feet, by which time the soles were smouldering and giving off an acrid smoke. Oswald opened the windows and they threw the boots outside; the air was becoming quite tainted with the smell of burning rubber.

  “That’s a shocker and no mistake,” said Mrs Grimble. “More new boots required.”

  “That explains it,” said Oswald, “how you were followed at every turn. Not only is there a mechanism to transmit to the filaments, there must also be a detector, to see when one is near. A person could follow you, far enough away to remain unseen.”

  “But how did our boots acquire a filament?” wondered Jackson.

  Jessamine punched his shoulder. “At the factory, when we had to change before our inspection. They must have been tampered with, when we left them in the locker.”

  “A clever ruse, and one which we could not have predicted,” said Langdon. “Oswald, what could be the strength of the signal?”

  “The coded drawings indicate a range of up to a mile for the transmitting device,” said Oswald. “There must have been a person following them, with a box like this one, except that it merely detects the presence of a filament. As it is unconnected to anything, it cannot be controlled. In that, I would expect its range to be somewhat less.”

  “Is that possible?” Langdon was dubious.

  “According to the theories on the pages, yes,” replied Oswald. “It’s really quite exciting, all this new science. In the right hands, who knows what would not be possible.”

  Jackson thought of the horseman, after they had passed so close that first time, they must have been the followers, keeping their distance, all the way to Port Lucas. It would then have been easy to warn folk at Queinton, they had not kept their destination a secret from the shipping agent.

  “If we had had a Wasperton-Byler machine at the terminus, could we have stopped the mob yesterday?” asked Fairview.

  “Oh yes,” nodded Oswald. “The filaments would have exploded, in the… Oh.” The enormity of it sank in.

  “Well done, Oswald, Mrs Grimble.” Langdon was impressed with the results. “There is one thing though,” he lifted his fingers as he made each point, “thanks to Jackson and Jessamine, we know the word that will activate the throng, but what of the one to stop them?”

  Jackson was confused. “If we have the Sensaurum, can we not just call them to stop?”

  “I’m sorry, I was not clear enough, I meant the word to release them from control. If we just stopped them, the man in control could just restart them.”

  Jackson thought for a moment. He was about to say that surely, the man could then just regain control anyway, but he stopped before he said another foolish thing. In any event, Langdon was still talking.

  “We know not Rodney’s plans. Nor of how many he has under his control. We need one of those Sensaurum boxes. It’s good that we can stop a marching throng, but only by killing them all. It’s crude but I suppose that it will be effective as a last resort. I would much rather have a way to disable the signal, or the filament, without wholesale slaughter. After all, these poor folks are innocent.”

  “They could be everywhere,” Jessamine said. “Just as we encountered some on the Ryde, they might be walking the streets, unaware of their function, till called by the signal from the box.”

  “That is a frightening thought, and no mistake,” Oswald added. “I have examined all the papers that you brought from the Prosthesium, once I managed to decipher them. There is a lot of information on how the signal is generated and transmitted. The principles are fascinating and will be the foundation of much in the world; it’s just unfortunate that Aldithley has decided to use his skill for such evil ends.

  But I think, no I’m sure, that I can create one of these control boxes from his drawings, given time and materials. Possibly even a means to block the statics signal from one. If only I wasn’t continually distracted.”

  “Ignore everything else, you shall have whatever you need and as quickly as possible,” said Langdon.

  “Do you think Aldithley has been manipulated by Nethersole or vice versa?” asked Jessamine.

  “I would say more that their ambitions matched. Nethersole was intent on taking over the factory; I suspect that initially it was for no more than the power and wealth. Then when he learnt of Woolon’s achievements he consolidated his business with the work. After Aldithley’s departure, there must have been a m
eeting of minds, a mutual pact for yet more power. Aldithley was aggrieved, he found a willing patron in the man who wanted control and was able to finance it.”

  “There was another disturbing discovery in the papers,” added Oswald. “It appears that there are others, as well as implanting the filament in the strays taken to Nethersole’s estate, we have found plans for a network of doctors who have been readied to implant these things in people, using some sort of simple technique to place them into the flesh of the neck. It’s all hidden under the guise of a secret trial by the Institute, there are no names and we have no way of knowing if it has begun. I know not all the details, but it may be that large numbers of the population are potentially under Rodney’s control.”

  “I have to go and meet again with the ministers and the Watch. I will plead for Rodney’s factory to be searched and one of these boxes recovered. Oswald, proceed in your attempts to manufacture your own device.”

  “I will, sir, but it takes time, time we may not have.”

  Langdon nodded. “Do your best,” he said as he left them.

  Later that evening, Jackson, Jessamine and Alyious discussed the problem over Char and food.

  “If Langdon has his hands tied, then perhaps it might be better to take a little unofficial action,” suggested Alyious.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, clearly we cannot act with Langdon’s blessing. He has been warned off by the powers that be, but if one of us, say one who is on the periphery of things, should accidentally stray into the factory, and if he should accidentally return with one of the boxes, would that not be a fortuitous thing?”

  “Do you mean one of us? I know where they are,” said Jackson.

  “No not you, you are too close to Langdon, you would be missed. I meant myself. Tell me where they might be found. I may take a little trip, without any of you knowing and see if one does not fall into my hands.”

  Jackson sat down with Alyious and told him everything he knew about the layout of the factory, the way in over the rough ground, the hiding place in the washroom, position of the stairs and the room with the boxes.