Текст книги "The Return of the Discontinued Man"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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The woman gave a somewhat sardonic smile.

Honesty went on, “Then we have Erik von Lessing, who has many connections in the German government.”

Burton acknowledged the white-haired and smartly dressed man, who returned his nod with a sharp bow.

“And last but by no means least, our resident visionary.” Honesty indicated a tubby little chap who was no taller than Swinburne. “Mr. Herbert Wells.”

“I feel honoured to meet you, Sir Richard,” Wells said. His voice was high-pitched and childlike. “And you, too, Mr. Swinburne.”

Burton frowned. “Herbert Wells? Herbert George Wells?”

“Yes,” Wells responded. “You’re no doubt remembering the fellow Abdu El Yezdi wrote of in his account entitled ‘Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.’ We are pretty certain that he was me, albeit a different me in a different version of history.” He shuddered and added, “And thank goodness for that. My poor counterpart suffered the dreadful world war we ourselves have avoided.”

“Perhaps, then, I should say it’s nice to meet you again, Mr. Wells,” Burton said, with a wry curl of his lips.

Wells chuckled.

“Shall we get to business?” Honesty asked. “Practicalities first?”

Burton nodded. “Let’s. The Orpheus?”

“Penniforth and von Lessing are our resident experts in engineering. Gents?”

“Aye,” Penniforth rumbled. “Airships ain’t changed all that much since your time. The Orpheus can just about pass muster if no one looks too close, like. But we’re goin’ to fit her with a telemobiloscope afore you set off again.”

“A telly-mo-billy-whatsit?” Swinburne enquired.

“Invented by a German,” von Lessing put in. “Christian Hülsmeyer. It can detect other ships in your location through means of reflected radio waves.”

The poet threw out his hands in a helpless shrug. “Radio?”

“Wireless telegraph signals.”

“Good Lord!” Burton exclaimed. “Useful!”

“We even transmit entertainment shows through ’em,” Penniforth added. “Music and suchlike. We ’ave a radio unit ready to add to the Orpheus. It will make it easier for the future Cannibals to contact you.”

“Excellent. And what else?”

“There ain’t much else.”

“Really? Am I to take it that progress has slowed?”

Edward Brabrooke interjected, “Yes, it most certainly has. These youngsters refer to our time as the Steam Revolution, Richard, and rightfully recognise Isambard Kingdom Brunel and old Charles Babbage as the geniuses at its heart. You’ll doubtlessly recall that Isambard ceased to function in 1860?”

“For us, it was just a couple of months ago,” Burton noted. “He never recovered?”

“No.”

“What became of him?”

“He was declared dead. There was a magnificent ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral to mark his passing, and a stone was laid bearing his name, though there was no corpse to bury beneath it. His mechanical form is exhibited in the British Museum. As for Charles Babbage, he went into hiding for half a decade and—I’m sorry, but this is necessary information—lost his mind. They say he died a raving lunatic, though no one is sure exactly when.”

“Why the uncertainty?”

Brabrooke shrugged and made a gesture that incorporated the room. “Perhaps his close association with this endeavour has cast the same veil over him that confounds our post-1860 memories of you.”

“Odd.”

“It is. The sixties are regarded as a mysterious period. Significant events were left unrecorded, were hushed up, and have been inexplicably forgotten. Whatever occurred, it marked the end of the Steam Revolution, and those few who knew him generally agree that Babbage was somehow at the heart of it. All I can tell you for certain is that, on the twenty-eighth of September, 1861, he destroyed all his prototypes, all the devices he had in his possession, and incinerated his every plan, blueprint, and diary. He left no trace of his work at all, other than the Mark Two probability calculators that occupied the heads of existing clockwork men, and as you know, those calculators were notoriously booby-trapped, so any unauthorised infiltration caused them to self-destruct. Very few of them still exist. Put simply, we lost Babbage and his knowledge. It was the death-knell of the Department of Guided Science. By the 1880s, it had been incorporated into the Department of Industry and all the great names associated with it were gone.”

Swinburne said, “What about the blueprint for our time mechanism—the Nimtz generator? Didn’t he give it over to the Cannibal Club?”

“Destroyed,” Brabrooke said. “We don’t know how it works. We’ll never be able to reproduce it, or modernise it, or even mend it if it breaks down.”

Burton murmured, “Then I must depend on Daniel Gooch.” He frowned. “Twenty-eighth of September, ’sixty-one, you say? Why does that date ring a bell?”

Herbert Wells answered, “You read it in ‘The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack,’ Sir Richard. That date, in El Yezdi’s native history, was when your counterpart first encountered Edward Oxford.”

Burton murmured, “Ah yes, of course.” He raised a hand to his head and ran his fingertips through his hair, feeling his scars and the grittiness of the diamond dust etched into them. It was becoming a habitual gesture. “Charles placed great faith in El Yezdi’s obsession with timing and coincidences. Perhaps that explains the when of his actions, but it doesn’t explain the why.”

Wells said, “His motive remains a mystery, but his actions certainly slowed our progress, as did our lack of participation in the wars.”

Burton frowned at him. “Wars, Mr. Wells? Did Abdu El Yezdi fail to avert the disaster he predicted?”

The little man shook his head. “No, no. If, in all the other histories, a worldwide conflict has broken out, then we have, thanks to his efforts, been spared it. In our world, the conflict has for the most part confined itself to Russia and China.”

“In what manner?”

“It started with Russian expansionism. In 1877, that country declared war on, and obliterated, the old Ottoman Empire, advancing westward to occupy a number of Eastern European territories. In 1900, it turned its attention to the south and ventured into the northern provinces of China, sparking a fierce war with the Qing Dynasty. Initially, this didn’t go so well for the Russians, and five years later its people rose in revolution and overthrew the ruling aristocracy. They united under a new leader. A man Abdu El Yezdi encountered.”

“Grigori Rasputin.”

“Yes. Under his mesmeric leadership, Russia renewed its assault on China, which by now was weakening rapidly due to the trade embargoes inflicted upon it by our own empire, they being a legacy of the bad relations caused in your time by the actions of Lord Elgin. The situation reached crisis point three years ago, when the Qing Dynasty collapsed. China is currently re-forming itself as a socialist republic. As for Russia, it received a terrible blow earlier this year when Rasputin suffered a brain haemorrhage and died.”

“Ah. I was curious to know whether that would happen.”

Swinburne said, “And the British Empire, Mr. Wells?”

“Now known as the Anglo-Saxon Empire. It’s steered clear of conflict and continues to consolidate its strength. It has now incorporated all of Western Europe, most of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and Australia. We also have a strong economic alliance with the United States.”

“The united states of where?” William Trounce asked.

“America,” Wells said. “The year after your departure, a civil war erupted between the North and South of that country. It lasted from 1861 until 1865. The North won. The U.S.A., as it is commonly called, is currently expanding its manufacturing infrastructure and rapidly growing in power. I fear we are being left behind. As I mentioned, without the incentive of battle, where the sciences and engineering are concerned, the pace of change has become ever more sedate in the A.S.E.”

A.S.E., Burton thought. Anglo-Saxon Empire. U.S.A. United States of America. Just as Edward Oxford’s grandfather mentioned, the world is being abbreviated.

Henry Bendyshe took a thick binder from the sideboard and handed it to Brabrooke, who then passed it to Burton, saying, “Your brother left this for you. It covers all the principal developments in every field of endeavour.”

Burton gave a snort of amusement. “Typical of the minister. He thinks that, because we’re travelling three hundred and forty-two years into the future, I’ll have plenty of time for reading.”

Brabrooke laughed. “You’ll be getting another such file at your next stop. We intend to chronicle world events for you. When you return to 1860, you’ll have a guide to the future.”

“Which may well become an extravagant work of fiction the moment we act upon the information in it,” Burton mused. “Nevertheless, useful. Thank you.” He put the book down and patted it thoughtfully. “So, to the most pertinent question. What of Spring Heeled Jack? We know 2202 is his ultimate destination, but is the Oxford intelligence influencing history as he moves forward through it?”

“We have no evidence to suggest so,” Brabrooke replied.

Burton considered the back of his hands for a few moments. He looked up at Brabrooke, said softly, “Thank you, old friend,” then met the eyes of each of the others in turn. “My gratitude to each and every one of you. Your predecessors were my friends. I have no doubt they would be proud of you. Much as I’d like to remain here and get to know each of you, the fact is, my companions and I are on a mission, and I feel it necessary to press on. It’s an incongruous sensation to know that all the time in the world is at our disposal yet to also feel that time is pressing.”

James Honesty said, “We quite understand, sir. There are two points of business remaining before we get to work modernising the Orpheus. The first is that, during the months before Mr. Michael Faraday passed away, when it was obvious that we could no longer rely on Mr. Babbage, he created a device for us. It is a beacon that can signal to your ship while it is speeding through time. We know your next scheduled stop is the year 2000. However, if the beacon functions as he promised, then the Cannibal Club can summon you to an earlier date should we deem it necessary. If we detect any sign of Edward Oxford, and if you now give us permission, we shall do so.”

“Permission is enthusiastically granted,” Burton said. “That’s an excellent development.”

Honesty continued, “The second matter is this, Sir Richard: we feel it wise that a member of our group join you. We all have half a century’s worth of knowledge that you and your associates lack. What you encounter and may not understand at your next stop might be somewhat more familiar to a person from the year 1914.”

Burton pondered this. “I can’t disagree, Mr. Honesty. Whom have you elected?”

Herbert Wells stood up. “Me, sir.”

“Then welcome aboard the time machine, Mr. Wells.”

They emerged from whiteness.

Herbert Wells put his hands to his head. “Ouch! What a ghastly sensation.”

The Orpheus said, “We have been waylaid. This is not the year 2000.”

“What happened?” Nathaniel Lawless demanded.

“The Cannibals have used their Faraday beacon. It is ten o’clock on Sunday morning, the seventeenth of March, 1968.”

“Another jump of fifty-four years,” Burton murmured. “Coincidence?”

“My hat! We’re over a century into the future!” Swinburne exclaimed.

“Marvellous!” Wells cried out. “Though it’s just half the time for me, of course. Nevertheless, marvellous!”

“There is an incoming radio transmission,” Orpheus said.

Lawless and Burton crossed to the box-like contraption the 1914 Cannibals had added to the bridge.

“It was this, wasn’t it?” Burton asked, lifting a fist-sized semicircular object from the side of the device.

“Yes,” Lawless said. “Blue to receive, green to send.”

The king’s agent pressed a blue button. Immediately, a female voice filled the bridge. “Orpheus? Hello, Orpheus? Respond, please.”

“Now the green, and answer,” Lawless instructed.

Burton did as directed. The voice was cut off. He spoke into the object in his hand. “This is Burton, aboard the Orpheus. Can you hear me?”

Blue button.

“Sir Richard! Hi. Right on. You made it. Welcome to 1968. Listen, this is important. Fly your ship twenty miles to the east. You’re too exposed there and badly outdated. You’ll be noticed. We have a replacement vessel waiting for you.”

“Understood. We’re on our way. To whom am I speaking?”

“My name is Jane Packard, daughter of Eliza Teed, née Murray. I’m Admiral Henry Murray’s great-granddaughter. I have with me an Honesty, a Penniforth, a Slaughter, a Bhatti and a Brabrooke. The Cannibals are still going strong, sir.”

“Splendid! We look forward to meeting you, Miss Packard. I assume you have news for us?”

“We do. I’d prefer to tell you face to face, if that’s cool with you.”

“Cool? Er, all right? Yes, it’s fine. We’ll rendezvous with you in—” He looked at Lawless, who said, “Fifteen minutes.” Burton relayed this before breaking contact.

“A replacement?” the Orpheus said. “What do they mean, a replacement? I’m in fine fettle. I don’t want to be replaced.”

“Don’t worry,” Lawless replied. “You’ll be transferred to the new ship.”

“I should hope so.”

“I say,” Swinburne announced. “That Miss Packard sounded rather—um—casual, didn’t she?”

“An alteration in tonal communication,” Burton observed. “We must expect such modifications over the years. Language is flexible. It adapts.”

Wells said, “It might be an indication of her social standing. Such matters were in upheaval during my time. There was a rapidly expanding middle class.”

“It being?” Burton asked.

“The bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie.”

“I think I understand the reference. There were signs of such a phenomenon in the eighteen sixties. No doubt, had this middle class been better established in the mid-nineteenth century, I would have been labelled as such. I never quite made the grade as far as the gentry were concerned.”

Lawless consulted the meteorological console and murmured, “Exceptionally mild for the time of year, by the looks of it.” He joined Burton, Swinburne and Wells at the window and peered ahead at the horizon. After a while, they discerned two objects brightly reflecting the spring sunshine, one in the air and the other on the water.

A couple of minutes later, Orpheus said, “They’re calling us again.”

Burton went to the radio, clicked the switch, and listened as Jane Packard said, “We have you in sight, Orpheus.”

“Acknowledged, Miss Packard. We can see you, too. What do you want us to do?”

“Have yourself, Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Trounce, Miss Raghavendra and Mr. Wells lowered onto the yacht. We’ll take you to London. You’ll be staying with us for a couple of days. Captain Lawless, Mr. Gooch and Mr. Krishnamurthy should follow our airship in the Orpheus. They’ll be escorted to a secluded cove on the coast of Holland, where your babbage devices will be transferred from the old ship into the new and your people will be instructed in the piloting of the updated vessel.”

“We’re in your hands, Miss Packard.”

A few moments later, the other flying ship drew alongside. It was a streamlined affair, with a white tubular body, sharply pointed at the front but flaring into a vertical sail-shape at the rear. Two spinning rotors, each enclosed in a flat circular housing, were inset into wide triangular wings, which made the entirety of the vessel a horizontal V-shape. Steam was blasting out from beneath it, rolling out across the water’s surface and half obscuring the yacht.

“My goodness!” Wells exclaimed. “Will you look at that!”

“She’s a Concorde class jump jet,” Jane Packard transmitted. “Created by British and French engineers and just coming into service.”

Nathaniel Lawless glanced at Swinburne and whispered, “Jump jet?”

“Machines will soon seem like magic to cavemen like us,” the poet muttered. “I fear they’re already far beyond our comprehension.”

Half an hour later, all but Lawless, Gooch and Krishnamurthy had been lowered onto the deck of the large and extraordinarily luxurious yacht. They stood beside Jane Packard and watched—their hair whipped about by the sea breeze—as the two airships receded into the east.

Wells whispered, “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative. And my goodness, how we humans adapt!”

“The Concorde is a real beauty, Mr. Wells,” Packard conceded. “And futuristic in design. We hope she won’t appear too out of place at your next destination.”

She was the only person, aside from them, on the deck. Perhaps in her late forties but young-looking, she was slim and athletic, with very long blonde hair and a freckled face free of cosmetics, though adorned with spectacles. She was clothed in such a shocking outfit that Burton hardly knew where to look. Her upper body was scarcely covered by a sleeveless, buttonless and collarless thin white shirt upon which the face of an African was depicted along with the mysterious word Hendrix. Over this, she had what was either a sleeveless coat or an absurdly long waistcoat of fringed suede leather. Her legs were encased in—of all things—trousers, tailored from some manner of light canvas, faded blue in colour, and breathtakingly tight around the knees, thighs and loins but wide and flappy at the ankles. She had a string of beads around her neck, another around her left wrist, and wore moccasins, or something very similar, on her feet.

As mild as the weather was, she was underdressed for it and plainly cold.

“Come below,” she said as the yacht’s engine growled and the vessel started westward. “The club has a lot more members since 1914. A few of my comrades are aboard, but you’ll meet others in London, including Mick, who we’ve selected to join your expedition.”

“Is he related to one of the originals?” Swinburne asked.

“Nope.”

She guided them down and into a lounge room that was furnished in garishly bright colours with its fittings and decor moulded from a waxy material similar to the skin of the Spring Heeled Jacks. In response to Burton’s query, she informed him that it was “plastic.”

A small group rose from sofas to greet them. All were garbed, like Packard, in such an informal manner they might as well have just got out of their beds.

“Wow!” one of them said. “Sir Richard Francis Burton—in the flesh! And Algernon Swinburne! This is way out there!” He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Mark Packard.”

“My younger brother,” Jane added.

Burton took the hand and shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Packard. Long hair has come back into fashion for gentlemen, I see. I noticed it was worn rather short in 1914.”

“Still is among the straights,” Packard replied.

“Straights?”

Jane Packard interjected, “We’ll explain all that in a minute. Let’s get everyone acquainted first.”

She introduced the rest, who’d all been gaping as if Burton and his friends were ghosts. The Cannibals were Patricia Honesty, Trevor Penniforth, Eddie Brabrooke, Jimmy Richardson—who bore an uncanny resemblance to Shyamji Bhatti—and Miranda Kingsland of the Slaughter family, plus Karl von Lessing, grandson of Erik, and a new recruit named Jason Griffith.

Everyone settled on seats and sofas. Penniforth and Kingsland served coffee. Mark Packard and Jason Griffith lit what initially appeared to be roughly rolled white cigarillos but which, once their fumes reached his nostrils, Burton instantly recognised as hashish. Brabrooke offered him a tobacco cigarette.

“Manufactured in France?” Burton asked the young man.

“Made and smoked everywhere now,” Brabrooke responded.

Burton couldn’t help but give a grunt of shock as Miranda Kingsland and Patricia Honesty both started to smoke. Women did so in his own time, of course, but rarely in company with gentlemen.

Kingsland, noticing his expression, grinned. “My gender is making great progress in liberating ourselves from the restrictions yours has imposed on us throughout history.”

“Glad to hear it,” Burton said. He drew on the cigarette, coughed, made a face, muttered, “Bismillah!” and took a gulp of coffee, which tasted even worse.

Sadhvi Raghavendra—dressed in a loose Indian smock and looking surprisingly contemporaneous with the Cannibals—addressed Jane Packard, “If I may ask, you said the Cannibal Club has expanded. How many more are there?”

“Phew!” Packard answered. “Thing is, you see, we’ve kind of become a social movement.”

Burton frowned. “Our mission is supposed to be secret.”

“Oh yeah, man!” Jason Griffith interjected. “Still is. We’re in on it, and Mick and the Deviants know the game, but the rest are like, kicking against the straights without knowing the full story, if you dig what I’m saying.”

Trounce shifted in his seat and looked at his companions in utter bafflement.

“Deviants?” Swinburne asked. “Straights? Dig?”

“We should start at the beginning,” Miranda Kingsland put in.

“And in English,” Trounce muttered.

“Yeah, but when was that?” Griffith asked her.

“1950s,” Karl von Lessing said decisively.

“Sir,” the king’s agent said to him, “perhaps we have too many speaking at once. With due deference to your friends, may I suggest you take centre stage and recount to us what has occurred during the course of the past fifty-four years, who Mick is, what these ‘deviants’ and ‘straights’ are, and why you and your colleagues felt the Orpheus should be summoned to 1968?”

Von Lessing looked at the others. They each gave words of consent:

“Sweet.”

“Sure thing.”

“Fine with me.”

“I can dig it.”

“Okay, so here’s the scene,” von Lessing said. “First, secrecy. Your brother was a genius. He created an investments company that, for years, has been like, thriving, man. The Bendyshe family runs it—” He broke off as Burton laughed.

“Sir Richard?”

“Good old Bendyshe! I’d never have predicted his line to be so responsible!”

“The original, the Thomas you knew, gave really—what’s the word?”

“Prescient,” Mark Packard put in.

“Yeah—prescient advice to the old minister of chronological affairs. This yacht and our Concorde are privately owned by the Bendyshe Foundation, which has offices in Bombay and is currently headed by Joseph and James Bendyshe. So, you see, the Cannibal Club is well financed and, as I said, thriving, but still completely hidden.”

“We’ll keep it that way,” Jason Griffith added. “You can be sure.”

Burton gave a grunt of approval.

“So,” von Lessing continued, “on to the history lesson. I guess things started to get a bit flaky back in the 1930s. Real bad famines had been weakening Russia since Rasputin’s death, and China was winning the war. Then, from 1935 to ’40, led by Poland, the Eastern European countries—Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and the Baltic states—ousted their occupying governments and declared independence. Russia was on the brink of total collapse until, in 1940, assistance came from an unexpected quarter.”

Burton raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

“China,” von Lessing said. “It declared a complete ceasefire, handed back captured territory, and flooded the country with aid. It then rebuilt its former enemy’s industrial infrastructure and established exclusive trade relations. In 1949, they merged and became the United Republics of Eurasia.”

“That’s rather a startling turnaround,” Swinburne observed.

“Too right. For sure, it caught us—and the Yanks—on the hop. So now the world had three superpowers: the A.S.E., the U.S.A., and the U.R.E.”

“My hat! What a badly curtailed vocabulary you have.”

“Yeah. Maybe the abbreviations reflect our politicians’ tiny minds. Anyway, the Anglo-Saxon Empire and the United Republics are separated by a belt comprised of Slavic Eastern Europe, the Middle East, British India—which is the A.S.E.’s only direct border with the U.R.E.—and the South East Asian countries of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.”

“Thailand?” Burton asked.

“You knew it as Siam. The belt countries are stable and at peace except for South East Asia, which is currently the scene of a bloody conflict between the U.R.E. and U.S.A.”

“America? Why America?”

“Ideology. East Eurasia has adopted socialist principles. America is concerned that if these are imposed on South East Asia, which China lays claim to, they’ll easily spread through India and into the Anglo-Saxon Empire, which actually isn’t as crazy as it sounds, since many of the kids—particularly in France—are already socialists.”

“Or, at least, say they are,” Patricia Honesty murmured.

“Bravo!” Herbert Wells said quietly. “I’m convinced that socialism has the potential to lead us to a more humane system than capitalism allows. Through it, we can destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. I believe it to be the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men.”

“And women, Mr. Wells,” Honesty put in.

“Of course! Of course! Forgive me my antiquated methods of reference.”

“Forgiven. You’re obviously ahead of your time.”

Wells laughed. “I most certainly am!” He slapped his thigh. “Corporeally!”

“But why is America doing the fighting and not us—not the A.S.E.?” Swinburne asked.

Von Lessing answered, “Firstly, because America’s prosperity has come about largely through its alliance with us; an alliance it suspects might crumble if we lose our enthusiasm for the frenzied capitalism it so fervently preaches. Secondly, because there’s a strong independence movement in India, and if we made that country the front line in a war, for sure it would leave the A.S.E., taking our strongest manufacturing regions with it and depriving America of its principal source of trade. And thirdly, because with the U.S.A. doing the fighting, the conflict has a better chance of being contained. If we participated, the hostilities would undoubtedly spread. China detests us, and has done since your time.”

“Thanks to Lord Elgin,” Burton said. “But surely your politicians have tried to make amends for his ill-judged actions? His vandalism occurred over a century ago.”

“Squares don’t apologise. They just make excuses.”

“Squares?”

“The straights.”

Swinburne squealed and flapped his arms. “What in blue blazes are you talking about? Straight squares? Have you ever heard of bent ones?”

“Yeah, man. There are plenty.”

“What? What? What?”

Sadhvi Raghavendra said, “Perhaps you could endeavour to employ rather more traditional language, Mr. von Lessing?”

“Yes, please,” William Trounce grumbled.

“I must confess,” Wells added, “I’m a bit lost.”

Von Lessing held up a hand. “Sure. Sure. I’m trying. Um. So, like, remember how, back in your day, the politicians either came through Oxford or Cambridge universities or were, at least, aristocrats, yeah?”

“Yes,” Burton and Wells chorused.

“That never changed, and those people have increasingly bungled it on the political scene. They’re stuck in their ways, man. Completely out of touch. Following outdated traditions. They don’t know how to work with East Eurasia, whose people they regard as savages.”

“Ah,” Wells said. “You mean the Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government continues to assert itself; there is a great deal of talk and no decisive action?”

“Right on! Exactly that! And it’s like, the middle classes respected these people, ’cos that’s the traditional way of things, so there’s been no challenge to ’em.”

Patricia Honesty added, “The people we refer to as straights or squares, Mr. Swinburne, are the ones who blindly stick with the status quo even if it’s plainly festering and useless; the ones who’re incapable of changing course; who haven’t the guts or imagination to do so. They have no ability to adapt and evolve.”

“And the deviants?” Burton asked.

“Rock ‘n’ roll, man!” von Lessing enthused.

“Good Lord!” Wells exclaimed. “What is rocking role?”

“Rock and roll,” Mark Packard clarified, “is where it’s at, and we reckon it’s going to change the world.”

Burton’s brow creased. He looked at von Lessing, who explained, “It’s fast rhythmic music. It came out of the States—America—having evolved from the blues, jazz and swing.”

The chrononauts all stared at him blankly.

Von Lessing continued, “Styles of music that can all be traced back to America’s slave population, which brought from Africa a storytelling tradition accompanied by an intense beat and a sort of call-and-response chant.”

“At last,” Burton murmured. “Something I’m familiar with. The musical storytelling you refer to is—according to legend—said to have originated in the Lake Regions of Central Africa.” He looked first at Swinburne and then at Wells. “The Mountains of the Moon. Significant.”

“Those peaks appear to have an inordinate involvement with human affairs,” the poet noted.

“What?” von Lessing asked.

“We’re piecing together a jigsaw,” Burton told him. “Please continue. What bearing does this music have on the political situation?”

“So, uh, yeah, rock and roll really took off in the fifties and it kinda galvanised the kids, gave them a sort of independent identity, I guess. Made them rebellious.”

“Created the teenager,” Patricia Honesty put in.

“What is a teenager?”

She smiled. “In your day, Mr. Burton—um, I mean, Sir Richard—there was no transition from childhood to adulthood. You were a kid until you got a job, and then you were an adult, whatever your age. Nowadays, between thirteen and twenty, there’s a sort of rite of passage. Teenagers have their own culture, their own music, their own fashion.”

“They think for themselves,” von Lessing said. “And now this freethinking is extending into some of the older generation, too. We’re sick of the establishment, the straights, and we’re making plenty of noise about it.”

Herbert Wells asked, “And that’s the deviation you spoke of?”

Von Lessing laughed. “Yeah, man. You see, this is what happened; the government saw the people were getting restless and losing respect for their so-called ‘betters.’ By sixty-four, Harold Wilson was elected as prime minister. This dude reckoned the only way to keep the populace happy was by making the weakening Empire strong again, to prove our superiority. To do that, he revived a banished technology; one that only the British had knowledge of. He made eugenics legal, and it quickly developed into what’s now called genetics.”