As soon at the Iolanthe docked, I pushed my way through the passengers to the disembarkation ramp. We had been underwater for over a week, with only two surfacings in order to replenish our air and take our bearings from the stars, and I was in need of space, light and a stiff gin-and-tonic. And some peace and quiet—the constant deep thrumm of the machinery powering the oars had given me an almost-constant headache.
First, however, I had to get through the American customs system.
“Name?”
“Monkton Wylde,” I said.
The uniformed official didn’t bother to glance up from my passport. “Purpose of visit?”
“Entertainment, respite and recreation.”
“You intending to conduct any business while you’re here, sir?”
“Absolutely not,” I lied. Or, at least, I stretched the truth somewhat. In point of fact, I considered my work to be both entertaining and relaxing. It was, however, not the kind of thing one admitted to in public.
“Address while in the USA?”
I gave him the address of a fictional hotel in the downtown area. He needed something for his records, while I needed a modicum of secrecy, and so we were both satisfied. Or so I thought.
He looked up, and his shrewd gaze met mine. “You look like a professional to me, Mr Wylde. You sure you’re not going to conduct any business here?”
“Very sure.”
“You got a job, back in England?”
“I’m a man of leisure,” I replied. “Independent means.”
“Not an agent of your Government, then?”
“Heaven forfend.”
“And what was the name of that hotel again.”
I recited it back to him. His belief that he might trip me up over something so trivial as the name of a non-existent hotel was touching. I had my cover story memorised forwards, backwards and upside down.
“Only I’ve never heard of that hotel. You sure you got it right?”
“There must be thousands of hotels in New York,” I pointed out reasonably, “with more springing up every day. You seem like a competent sort of cove, but I would be amazed if you’d memorised every single one.”
“And you’ve only got the one bag. You sure you ain’t going to stay on here and try to make a fast buck?”
“I never travel with much luggage,” I said truthfully. “I always buy fresh clothes when I arrive.” I smiled. “It keeps the local economy going, at least. Puts some hard currency into this fine country of yours.”
I’d expected this, of course. It wasn’t that he had any doubts about me personally, or my requirement to enter New York; it was entirely to do with the jealousy that all Americans had for us Brits. We had the technology from the Martians and they didn’t. We weren’t going to give it to them—not without a quid pro quo that they just didn’t have, at any rate. We had taken all the casualties from the Martian invasion, and it was our British bacteria that had finally defeated the callous creatures, so we had a right to keep and exploit whatever they had left behind. To the victor, the spoils. Or finders-keepers. Something like that.
I paused, waiting, and let my fingers tap on the sheet of paper that constituted my passport, roughly where the words were that said: Her Britannic Majesty requires and commands all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary. Eventually he grimaced, and let me through. Small irritations; that’s all they could deliver to us. We just had to grin and bear it, secure in the knowledge that we could travel back and forth to America five times in the time it took them to make one tedious and cramped journey across the Atlantic.
I secured a carriage quickly and directed it to Times Square, where I swapped to a different carriage, making sure that nobody was following me. I had forgotten how debilitating the grinding of the wheels on the hard streets could be: I could feel a dull ache in my lower back where the vibrations had been transmitted. The multiple mechanical legs of British hansoms and growlers were far more relaxing, and far more practical over uneven ground.
I directed a second cab to my preferred hotel—a brownstone overlooking Central Park—and took a suite of rooms. Despite the presence of a personal valet, a trouser press and a collar-starching machine on the Iolanthe I felt distinctly dishevelled—or, at least, some distance from being fully shevelled—so I spent a few hours on Fifth Avenue, purchasing clothes and toiletries. Having changed my clothes and sent the remaining purchases back to my hotel I ate a decent steak and headed off to Barnum’s American Museum at the junction of Broadway and Anne Street—not for entertainment, respite and relaxation, as I had told the customs official, but because that was where I was to meet my contact.
The place was crowded, and stank of body odour and burning gas lamps. I drifted with the crowd, expressing feigned amazement at the two beluga whales and the FeeJee Mermaid, but like everyone else I was heading for the Martian enclosure.
The creature sat in the centre of a fenced podium, with armed guards posted every ten feet around the circumference. They were armed with projectile weapons, of course, which probably wouldn’t have been much use if it had tried to escape and if it had been a real Martian. Fire-throwing weapons such as were used by the British Army would have been far more effective, but we certainly weren’t going to give the Americans any of those. We might want to take the country back one day, and we needed to preserve an advantage in weaponry, as well as in morals.
The Martian didn’t look well—its tentacles lay flaccidly around its leathery body and its eyes were glassy. Every now and then it gave a kind-of shudder, then subsided again. The crowd “ooh”ed and “aah”ed every time it twitched, but I was not impressed.
I felt someone move up behind me. The perfume immediately told me it was a woman of some breeding and refinement. As did her bustle, which pressed against my hip.
“I’m guessing there’s a cow inside,” I said, without turning my head. “Or perhaps an elderly horse. I can see some stitching around the underneath, and the skin has been patchily tanned.”
“Two monkeys,” her rich, contralto voice answered. “Apparently Barnum tried a cow, but it just sat there. At least the monkeys try to get out every now and then, which results in flailing tentacles and a general feel that the thing might leap up and attack the audience. They love that. Everyone loves to be scared.”
“They should try it for real sometime. Maybe they might change their minds.”
Her voice contained the trace of a smile. “You sound as if you are talking from experience. Have you ever really been scared, Mr Wylde? I mean, truly scared.”
I remembered my recent work, tracking down the source of strange transmissions received via the transatlantic cable at Foilhommerum Bay in Ireland, and shuddered. “Miss Bridges, I presume,” I said, turning my head.
She was tall, with coppery-red hair and violet eyes. “It’s ‘Mrs’,” she said, extending her hand to be kissed, “and please, call me ‘Fenny’.”
I took her hand and obliged with the kiss. “I couldn’t possibly do that, Mrs Bridges.”
“You’re in America now. We both are. Unstarch that collar. Unstiffen that upper lip.”
“If I do that,” I pointed out, “nobody will be able to tell that I am British.”
“Well, we are supposed to be undercover, surely?” She smiled. “Oh, I suppose we should go through the tedious identification ritual. ‘We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future’.”
It was the required line from George Bernard Shaw, and I responded with the appropriate, “’Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance’.”
She nodded, suddenly practical. “Where do you want to start?”
“I presume you have the confiscated items in storage somewhere. Are they nearby?”
“Indeed. I will take you there. Have you eaten?”
“I have.”
“Well, I have a hip flask of whisky for the journey.”
“You’ve been researching me. Well done.” I looked at the bustle covering her hips. “I’m expecting quite a large flask, if that’s where you are hiding it.”
She smiled. “And I was expecting you to expect that. I have done my research.”
The items were in a warehouse on the docks, perhaps half an hour’s drive away. I saw no guards, but I thought I saw movement in the tall weeds that surrounded it, and along the guttering that lined its roof, and the glint of metal in the late afternoon sunlight. Some tiny British mechanical devices, scuttling along on eight metal legs, or just pigeons or rats? If the former then I considered it risky, bringing Martian technology to America and risking it being stolen and exploited, but perhaps a decision had been taken at a higher level than mine. And perhaps they would explode in the hands of anyone who stole them, which would simultaneously solve the immediate problem and also discourager les autres.
Mrs Bridges unlocked the padlock which secured the door and gestured to me to enter. Politely, I waved her through first. Well, politely, and in the unlikely event that the place was booby-trapped.
The space inside was buttressed by beams of orange light shining through windows in the roof. Every now and then one of the scuttling guards—or pigeons, or rats—blocked the light as it moved past. I could hear the clicking of claws on the metal cladding high above me.
Several trestle tables had been put up in the centre of the warehouse. I approached them curiously. Mrs Bridges followed.
The first table contained several brick-sized objects with two mushroom-shaped metal projections on top.
“Voltaic cells?” I ventured tentatively.
Mrs Bridges nodded. “Similar, but rather than using a liquid, they are completely solid. We have taken one apart, and discovered that it comprises a number of thin sheets of metal of two different types, both unknown, interleaved. We do not know what the metals are or how they work together.”
“And the power output?”
“High—many times that which a Voltaic cell could achieve, even if one could build such a cell at this small size. I am not saying it is comparable with the Martian energy storage devices we use back in England, but they are not too far short.”
“And there is no hint of Martian technology inside?”
“No—these are entirely home-grown. American-built.”
“I see.” I moved on to the next table. The object there baffled me for a moment, and I had to step back and try to work out its form and function. I realised after a while that it consisted of a pair of Army boots, but so surrounded by articulated mechanical skeletons that had been strapped to them, they almost looked as if they were imprisoned. The skeletons were connected via gears, pistons and levers to two flat paddles lying flat on the table. These looked like they were meant to operate as surrogate feet, powered by two of the energy storage devices on the previous table.
“It’s a pantograph,” I said eventually. “Or, rather, two pantographs. Mechanical linkages connected in a manner based on the principle of parallelograms so that a small movement can be exaggerated into a larger one. But what is the point?”
“Imagine infantry wearing these devices in battle,” she said darkly. “They could move faster and further than the equivalent British soldiers. And imagine it then extended to a harness around the shoulders and arms, allowing for heavier loads to be picked up and moved around. Imagine, if you will, a troop of soldiers each of whom could individually carry and fire a Gatling gun, or a Maxim gun.”
“A frightening thought,” I said. “The technological gap between England and the United States is necessary for world peace. If they look like they are seeking to bridge it then a war might result, before they become too much of a threat to us.”
“Which is, I presume, why you are here,” she said. “To find the source of this technology, and quash it.” She frowned—a sweet expression on her perfectly formed face. “Or quell it. Quash or quell? Which is correct?”
“If these items come from some furnace burning with the white heat of American technological knowhow,” I said, “then I shall quench its fire with all the vigour I have. So—quench, I think.” I moved to the next table. “And what is this monstrosity?”
It was an object the size of a barrel, made I believe from teak or mahogany, surrounded top and bottom by a circular arrangement similar to the metal oars on the Iolanthe but much smaller. They were obviously designed to spin around a central axis instead of beating against the water in a regular rhythm.
“We believe it to be a flying device, powered again by the energy storage devices. There is space inside for a considerable amount of explosive, but what we actually found inside was this.” She gestured to the next table, where a mechanism like the interior of a clock sat: all gleaming brass, cogs, gears and springs. Several tubes ended in glass lenses, and right in the centre I thought I saw a wax cylinder.
“A recording device,” I ventured, “but one which records light rather than sound, encapsulating it in wax. How incredibly clever.”
“These things might fly above our troops, observing their formations and their movements, and take that information back to the Generals who ordered their use,” Mrs Bridges murmured. “And then they might fly back filled with explosives.”
“Horrifying,” I said, and I meant it.
I retrieved a magnifying glass from my coat and examined the brasswork carefully, my gaze moving from rod to strut and gear to cog as slowly as an ant would walk. “The components have been machined well,” I murmured. I reached out and touched one of the gears with my little finger, then put the finger in my mouth to taste it. “And the lubricant used is not the superior substance we use in England, derived from the Martian red weed, but having said that it’s not a type of oil with which I am familiar. Have you had it tested?”
“No,” Mrs Bridges said, and I thought I detected a hint of chagrin in her voice.
“You should. I venture it will be a previously unknown substance with a high thermal tolerance and low leakage.” I returned to my observations. “No screws, I notice. All of the junctions where two bits of brass have been fastened together appear to use glue. I can see where some small beads of the chemical have been squeezed out under pressure, and have hardened.”
“Glue?” Mrs Bridges pushed me out of the way and leaned in to take a closer look. “How could an adhesive possibly take the strain of this device operating? The vibrations should break the connections straight away.”
“A normal glue would not take the strain, I agree, but there may well be glues which we have not yet discovered. Or, at least, which one person appears to have discovered but kept the information to himself.”
She straightened up and rearranged her bustle, then turned to me with her perfectly formed lips compressed in frustration. “A new form of battery, a new lubricant, a new adhesive, and mechanisms designed to take full advantage of this new chemistry—and none of it Martian in origin. What are we dealing with here?”
Instead of answering, I moved back to the teak—or possibly mahogany—barrel. I had seen a small brass plate fastened to one of the staves—glued, rather than screwed, of course. There was something about it that had registered in my brain previously, but I had filed it away for later while I continued my investigations. “There is a design of some sort engraved on this plate, along with some numbers.”
“I had noticed them, but I didn’t recognise them. An item identifier, perhaps, and a maker’s mark?” She shrugged. “If we have no reference material to compare them with then they are of no help, surely?”
“Perhaps we need to expand our references.” I examined it closer. “The design appears to be the Greek letter omega.”
“A Greek letter? What does it mean?”
“In electrical theory, it is called the ohm and it represents “resistance’. Here I think it represents the same thing, but in a more general sense. ‘Resistance against t
he English domination of technology’, perhaps.” I thought for a moment, marshalling my thoughts. “I shall need several children, aged between ten and twelve, of the kind that in England we would call ‘street Arabs’ or ‘urchins’.”
She stared at me with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “For what reason, may I ask?”
“Nothing nefarious. Bring them to my hotel.” I smiled at her raised eyebrow. “You may attend as a chaperone, if you are worried about my motives.”
We returned to the Central Park area, leaving the warehouse secured, and, while Mrs Bridges set about rounding up the children I needed, I sated my hunger with a lobster thermidor and a bottle of Montrachet in the hotel’s restaurant. By the time I was availing myself of a cigar and a glass of port, she returned. She was not looking happy.
“I have them outside,” she said. Her hands unconsciously brushed at her sleeves. “An unwashed, underfed and uncouth rabble they are too. I have no idea what you want with them, but I suggest that you do not touch them without gloves if you wish to remain free of disease and lice.”
Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds Page 27
