Текст книги "The Return of the Discontinued Man"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

The king’s agent turned his eyes to Trounce and they were wide with horror.

“Genetic manipulation continues,” the Cannibal said. “It’s uncontrolled. Follow me. Stay close.”

They began to move toward Gloucester Place.

Suddenly, blaring like a foghorn above the din of the traffic and clamour of voices, there came a thunderous bellowing. “Hot taters! Hot taters! Hot taters! Freshly baked for ’em what wants ’em!”

Burton peered ahead and saw, squatting on the corner, a short bulbous form in baggy garments with a flat cap upon its broad head. The creature’s face projected in a peculiar manner, thrusting forward and flat like a frog’s, with a mouth so wide that it touched the tiny lobeless ears to either side. Was it human? It appeared little more than a blob, with no visible legs or identifiable skeletal structure, and pudgy, apparently boneless arms.

The man—if it could be so classified—suddenly expanded his neck, throat and cheeks, puffing them out tremendously, like a balloon, so that he even more resembled a bullfrog, and opened that phenomenal mouth to once again blast, “Hot taters! Hot taters! Hot taters! Freshly baked for ’em what wants ’em!”

The chrononauts, their ears ringing, came abreast of him, and Burton clutched at Trounce’s arm. “Wait!”

“Don’t—” Trounce began, but it was too late.

Burton, though painfully aware of the disaster his impulsive visit to Shudders had caused, couldn’t help himself. He addressed the potato seller.

“Good evening, sir.”

“I ain’t done nuffink, yer lordship. I swears to it,” the man exclaimed, his tiny little eyes widening with fear.

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“But, all the same, I ain’t done a blessed thing. I’m innocent.”

“How much for a potato?”

“What? I mean, pardon? How much?”

“For a potato.”

The fellow smiled, his mouth widening to such a degree that Burton feared everything above it would be sliced off.

“Ah! I see! It’s a test, is it, yer lordship?” The man reached behind him to a brazier and pulled from it a baked potato. He wrapped it in newspaper and, with a courteous bow, held it out to Burton. “On the ’ouse, yer lordship, as is good an’ proper. Wiv me blessing.”

Burton took it. “May I ask your name?”

The other looked up and swallowed and blinked. “Please don’t report me. I really ain’t done nuffink wrong.”

“I have no intention of reporting you, my friend. I simply want to—I want to recommend you.”

A ripple passed through the globular body, and the man again grinned. “Ah! Well! Bloomin’ ’eck! That’s bloody marvellous, if you’ll pardon me language. The name’s Grub, sir. Grub the Tater Man.”

Burton turned and looked at Swinburne. The poet raised his eyebrows.

“And—and has your family traded on this corner for long?”

“Oh, forever! Since time immem—imum—”

“Immemorial.”

“Aye, immaterial! That’s the word, guvnor! It’s our patch, yer see. We was ’ere even back when there were sky.” Grub looked startled, as if realising he’d said something wrong. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anyfink by it. I knows me place.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grub,” Burton said. “I shall enjoy my potato later.”

He slipped the hot food into his pocket and, with the others, started to move away. They were stopped by Swinburne.

“Hold on,” he said, and turned to Trounce. “Pouncer, the embassy is destroyed. No doubt the palace will transfer its functions to New Centre Point or somewhere similar, but that’ll take time. This might be the perfect opportunity.”

“Humph!” Trounce grunted thoughtfully. “The city is unmonitored. You may be right, Carrots.”

The detective inspector addressed Burton. “Richard, show Mr. Grub your face.”

Grub looked from Trounce to Burton, his eyes wide. “Steady on,” he muttered in a worried tone. “I don’t want no trouble, gents.”

“My face?” Burton asked.

“Just momentarily,” Trounce said.

Puzzled, the king’s agent turned to face the potato seller. He reached up and pulled back his hood.

Grub’s eyes practically popped from his head. His huge mouth gaped open. “Bloody ’ell! Bloody ’ell! I’m goin’ to die! Oh no! I’m goin’ to die!”

“No, Mr. Grub,” Trounce said. “You’ll be quite alright. Hood up, Richard.”

Burton complied.

“But—but—but—” Grub stammered.

“Those who watch have been blinded,” Trounce said. “The moment is upon us, Mr. Grub.”

“But—you—aren’t you—?”

“We are not. We’re with you, sir.”

“Bloomin’ ’eck! Is it—is it that—I ’eard a whisper that the roof ’as fallen in not far from ’ere, m’lord. Is that it?”

“Yes. Certain measures have been taken. Soon, you’ll feel it. A sense of release. A need to take action. Follow the impulse.”

“Blimey.”

“You’ll spread the word? You understand who the true enemy is?”

“I does. We all does. We always ’ave done, ain’t we? But I’ll—won’t I?—I’ll not—”

“You won’t be detected.”

Grub made an indecisive movement, checked himself, then stiffened and saluted. “I’ll do me bit, sir!”

“Good man.”

Trounce returned the salute and led the chrononauts away.

“What the blazes was that all about?” Burton asked.

“You’ll soon see,” Trounce replied. He stepped out into the road. The traffic jerked to a stop. A few vehicles away, a boiler detonated and a cloud of white steam expanded from it.

They crossed Gloucester Place and moved into Dorset Street. Tenements leaned precariously over them, almost forming a tunnel. The shadows felt dirty and dangerous.

From behind came a further bellow, “Hot taters! Hot taters! Hot taters! As personally recommended by the Uppers! Come and buy and hear the word! Hear the word! Hot taters an’ hear the word!”

“A Grub,” Burton said to Swinburne. “Still there, on the same corner!”

“It’s perfectly marvellous,” the poet enthused. “Time has a little consistency, after all.” He shrieked and jumped back as a mountainous cyclopean individual lumbered past, his huge leathery hands dragging along the pavement.

Behind the beast, two constables came click-clacking on their stilts. The crowd recoiled away from them. The policemen passed the chrononauts without giving them any attention. Burton saw that, as Trounce had noted, they were exactly the same as those that attacked him in 1860.

“Sent back through history,” he whispered to himself. “And who could do that but Edward Oxford?”

Sadhvi Raghavendra stopped and knocked something unspeakable from the heel of her left boot. “Are there no street-crabs in the twenty-third century, William?”

“The nanomechs are supposed to consume waste material and use it for fuel,” Trounce responded. “Unfortunately, down here it accrues faster than even they can manage.”

“I suspect,” Swinburne added, “that Spring Heeled Jack purposely allows a measure of waste matter to accumulate. Having the inhabitants of the Underground wallow in their own detritus gives them a constant reminder of their status.”

They rounded the corner and entered Baker Street.

IT IS UP TO YOU TO RESCUE HUMANITY! TOIL FOR THE ANGLO-SAXON EMPIRE! WE MUST MARCH FORTH AND LIBERATE THE WORLD FROM THE SAVAGERY OF SOCIALISM!

“Was the world similar to this in the original 2202, Richard?” Herbert Wells asked. “In the single history that existed before time bifurcated?”

“As shown to me by the sane fragment of Oxford?” Burton responded. “No, it wasn’t like this at all. Certainly, London had greatly expanded and was filled with tall towers, but I received no impression of such an atrocious divide, no sense of this inequality.”

“Hmm. Curious. Insanity aside, if the Spring Heeled Jack intelligence has its origins in a considerably more pleasant future than this, why has he created such a dreadful alternative? Whence this twisted vision?”

“Perhaps it has its roots in my time,” Burton answered. “It was in the nineteenth century that he lost his mind. He appears to have taken what he saw there and developed it along such abhorrent lines that this,” he gestured around them, “is the result.”

“Did our world really have such evil potential in it?” Raghavendra asked. “I thought us enlightened.”

“You believed what you were told,” Burton said, “but consider the Cauldron. Was it not an aspect of London that could easily be the progenitor of this?” He glanced at a thin ten-foot-tall, six-armed, four-legged figure that came tottering by like a tumbling stack of broom handles. It was wearing Army reds and an officer’s hat, which it doffed flamboyantly to him, murmuring, “My lord.”

Burton pulled his hood more tightly over his head. From its depths, he examined the crowd as it parted in front of his group, trudging past to his left and right. He saw dull, suffering eyes and gaunt faces. A great many of the Lowlies bobbed their heads or touched their foreheads in respect. All appeared disconcerted by the presence of these “Uppers.”

Stilted figures prowled among them. The crowd shied away from the constables as they approached and cast hard looks at their backs after they’d passed. The Underground, Burton felt, was a pressure cooker, ready to explode.

“William!” he said.

Trounce halted. “What is it?”

Burton pointed across to the middle of Baker Street where a tall plinth divided the thoroughfare. It bore a large statue of a young woman. A plaque, attached to the base, declared, Her Majesty Queen Victoria, of the United Kingdoms of Europe, Africa and Australia, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India.

“Yes,” Trounce said. “That’s her. She took the throne five years ago, our first monarch since the death of King George the Fifth in 1905.”

“I know who she is,” Burton said. “I’ve seen her before. She appeared before me when I donned the time suit’s helmet.”

“I say!” Swinburne exclaimed. “Really?”

“She is—was—Edward Oxford’s wife.” Burton rubbed the sides of his head, his brow furrowing. “I should know her name. I’m positive it isn’t Victoria, but it escapes me.”

“Whatever it is,” Trounce said, “Spring Heeled Jack obviously sought her out.”

“And has literally put her on a pedestal,” Swinburne quipped. “Would she have known what—who—he was?”

“No,” Burton said. “Remember, Oxford wiped himself out of history. From her perspective, he has never existed.”

“It must have come as quite a shock to her when she ascended to the throne, then.”

“Shhh!” Trounce hissed. With his eyes, he indicated a group of constables who’d just rounded the corner from Blandford Street.

Following the former detective inspector’s lead, the chrononauts stood casually and listened while he explained to them that “the Lowlies are the workhorses of the Empire. They take pride in their practicality, in their uncompromising ability to get a job done, and benefit from the spiritual cleansing that comes with hard toil.” He continued in this vein until the stilt men had passed, then chuckled and said, “Trounce of the Yard, deceiving the police. Who’d have thought?”

“And indulging in pure fantasy, too,” Swinburne added. “Spiritual cleansing, my foot!”

“Let’s push on,” Trounce said.

“Workhorses,” Raghavendra echoed, as they resumed walking, “but why so many in military uniform?”

“The Empire is mobilising,” Swinburne answered. “We are soon to move against what used to be the United States of America and the United Republics of Eurasia.”

“War?”

“My hat! Hardly that, Sadhvi! The U.S.A. and U.R.E. are in no condition to resist. They battled each other for so long, with us supplying the munitions, that their various countries are utterly ruined. Their populations are decimated, and the old borders have gone.”

“Are they still fighting each other?”

“If you believe the propaganda.”

“Which you shouldn’t,” Trounce put in. “The Cannibal Club has infiltrated our government’s records, which offer a story far different to that given the public.”

Burton looked up at a billboard. SOCIALISM IS THE DEATH OF CIVILISATION.

Trounce followed his eyes. “There’s no socialism. There’s no longer any conflict. There hasn’t been for a long time. Those vast regions of the Earth are now occupied by countless small communities, which somehow manage to survive in unutterably harsh conditions. They function under a self-regulating anarchism somewhat similar to that which existed in Africa before the Europeans and Arabs destroyed it.”

“Why the lies?” Raghavendra asked. “Why is the Anglo-Saxon Empire telling its people that the rest of the world is filled with—with—”

“Savage socialists,” Swinburne offered. “Permanently at each other’s throats.”

She nodded.

“Simply to mesmerise everyone into believing that this—” Trounce made an all-encompassing gesture, “is the superior civilisation and that it’s threatened from without.”

Swinburne added, “And also to justify our forthcoming invasions of America and Eurasia and our subjugation of their inhabitants.”

“If we don’t destroy the Turing Fulcrum,” Trounce said, “Spring Heeled Jack will conquer the world.”

“Bloody hell!” Burton responded.

“That,” Swinburne said, “is exactly what it will be.”

The lower end of Baker Street was lined by much higher buildings than they’d seen so far in this subterranean world, some of them almost touching the brick ceiling, and was teeming with even more of the hideously deformed Lowlies. When a pack of naked goat men bundled past, drunk, rowdy, stinking, and unashamedly aroused, Sadhvi Raghavendra said, “Can’t you enable our AugMems, William, so we can share their illusion of a better world?”

Trounce looked surprised. “Like in 2130, you mean? Did I not say? This is what they see. The real world. The illusion of cleanliness was slowly phased out during the later twenty-one hundreds. It had done its job. The policy of ‘know your place’ has, through various methods, been so consistently and insidiously driven into the population over the course of three centuries that it’s now instinctive and can be maintained with just basic propaganda and mildly tranquillising BioProcs.”

“It’s—it’s repugnant!” Wells spluttered.

“But there’s hope, Bertie,” Swinburne said. “Look.”

He pointed ahead at a large placard that had emerged from the mist ahead.

Burton stumbled to a halt and gazed in shock at it.

Floating over the street, it declared, “THE ENEMY IS AMONG US! THIS IS THE FACE OF THE SOCIALIST FIEND!” Beneath the glowing words, there was a portrait of a brutal and scarred face.

It was Burton’s own.

The chrononauts uttered sounds of incredulity.

“It’s what I’ve hinted at,” Trounce said. “Spring Heeled Jack obviously remembers you, Richard. Fears you.”

“I don’t understand,” Burton said. He looked down at Swinburne. “How does this offer hope?”

The poet gave a happy smile and a compulsive jerk of his shoulder. “By nature, the human race is very, very naughty.”

“What?” The king’s agent turned to Trounce, seeking a more cogent explanation.

Trounce said, “What Algy means is that if you tell a child not to do something without properly explaining why it mustn’t be done, you can be sure that, the moment your back is turned, the child will test the prohibition.”

“Spring Heeled Jack has overplayed his hand,” Trounce continued. “It requires only a spark to light the fuse.” He pointed up at the placard. “That face is the spark.”

“I think I understand,” Wells said softly, “When the government is perceived as the people’s enemy, the enemy of the government is perceived as the people’s friend.”

Swinburne reached out and squeezed Burton’s arm. “And when BioProcs stop tranquillising because, for example, the local transmitting station has been blown up by a dastardly member of the Cannibal Club, then—”

Burton cleared his throat. “I see.”

Trounce said, “No doubt your Mr. Grub is now busily making your presence known. It adds greater urgency to our mission. We have to destroy the Fulcrum before the people drive themselves into sufficient a frenzy to take action, else there’s little doubt that wholesale slaughter will ensue, first when the government attempts to quell our own insurgents, and then when it sends them to enslave the remains of our neighbouring empires.”

“By God, Trounce. Have you loaded so much onto my shoulders? I’m just an explorer, an anthropologist, a writer.”

“You’ve become a figurehead, too.”

I just want to go home.

Burton looked at his friends, his eyes clouded with distress, aware that he’d just thought the words that had driven his enemy over the brink and into madness.

He felt his heart throbbing, moved his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and exhaled with an audible shudder.

Burton had often regarded emotions as a phenomenon of the body rather than of the mind. It was the body that instilled fear when destruction threatened and joy when survival was assured. To now achieve what was expected of him, he knew he’d have to transcend those corporeal impulses. He must become all intellect. He must be as hard and as cold as metal.

He glanced once again at the placard before saying to Trounce in a flat tone, “Let’s get going.”

They waited while a group of spiderish women herded a flock of geese past, then moved on to the junction with Oxford Street, the whole length of which appeared to be a teeming marketplace. Over the rooftops opposite, dark smoke stained the atmosphere. There was much shouting, a few screams, and many people running, scampering, hopping or scuttling back and forth.

Gesturing at the mouth of a road on the other side of the thoroughfare, Trounce said, “Here we are again. North Audley Street. If we continue straight on, we’ll be back in old Grosvenor Square, with New Grosvenor Square overhead.”

“Bad memories,” Swinburne said. “Though they belong to my predecessor.”

“I suppose the commotion is what Grub was referring to?” Wells asked.

“Yes. Aboveground, the American Embassy is a burning wreck. Beneath it, some of the Underground’s ceiling has obviously fallen in. I hope there weren’t too many casualties. We’ll skirt around it. A little way eastward through the market then south into alleyways that’ll take us to Berkeley Square.”

“I’ve had unfortunate experiences in alleyways,” Burton grumbled. “Being held at gunpoint by you being one of them.”

Trounce laughed. “I recall I was masquerading as a fictional detective named Macallister Fogg at the time. A ridiculous farce. Did I ever apologise?”

“You didn’t need to. I thumped you on the chin.”

They walked through the market, passing stalls selling fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, clothes both newly made and second hand, pots and pans, brushes and cloths, tools and furniture; passing vendors of milk and tea and coffee, mulled wine and frothy ales, tinctures and pick-me-ups; passing tarot card readers and crystal ball gazers, palmists and phrenologists, astrologers who couldn’t see the sky and numerologists who probably couldn’t add up; passing four-armed jugglers and one-legged balancing acts, swan-necked singers and multi-limbed dancers, accordionists and violinists, deep-chested trombonists and bone-fisted drummers; passing emaciated beggars and obscenely curvaceous prostitutes, tousle-haired ragamuffins and shuffling oldsters, sad-faced young women and flint-eyed young men; passing vendors of corn on the cob and baked potatoes, winkles, mussels and jellied eels, roasted nuts and toffee apples.

It was as if Burton’s London had been revived in an outrageously distorted form and buried beneath the surface of the Earth.

They walked on until they were almost opposite the spot where Shudders’ Pharmacy had once been. There was no sign of it now, a slumping tenement having occupied the site.

“Here,” Trounce said, and led them into a narrow alley between two immense arching pylons.

Rats scampered out of their path.

Trounce used the heel of his boot to shove a pile of rotting wooden crates out of the way.

They moved on in silence.

Rounding a corner, they were brought up short when a headless man jumped out of a shadowed niche and brandished a knife at them. He was naked from the waist up and had a coarse-featured face in his chest. “I durn’t bloody care. I durn’t. I’d rather cop it wiv summick in me pockits than nuffink. Give me what yer got. Anyfink. Give me. Give me, or I’ll slice the bleedin’ lot a yer.”

Swinburne stepped forward. “My dear fellow,” he said. “You have been liberated. We are your saviours, not your enemy. Do not misdirect your newfound discontent.”

“Shut yer mouth yer bleedin’ midget an’ hand summick over.”

The poet sighed. “Then with regret, I have no choice but to give you this.”

He drew his pistol from his waistband. “Between the eyes. Stun.”

The weapon made a spitting sound—ptooff!

The man flopped to the ground.

“Well done, Carrots,” Trounce muttered.

“Poor blighter,” Swinburne said.

Trounce led them around the prone form.

“He’ll wake up in due course,” the poet noted. “I can’t blame him for his actions. He’s waking from a BioProc haze; realising the unadulterated truth of his existence. There’ll be anger and violence before the people identify, and move against, their true enemy.”

They filed through a maze of twisting and turning rubbish-strewn passages, traversing a district that, in Burton’s time, had been among the most prosperous in the city, but that was now much how he imagined Hades to be: confined, hot, dangerous and seedy.

Finally, the group emerged into Berkeley Square. Once a smart area filled with the well-off, it now resembled a mist-veiled crater in the middle of a shantytown.

“You’ll recall this,” Swinburne said to the king’s agent as they reached the centre of the paved space. “Though not fondly.” He kicked the toe of his left boot against a metal manhole. “Not exactly the same one, but close enough.”

Burton remembered and felt himself go pale. Last year, or rather, three hundred and forty-three years ago, he’d climbed down through a very similar metal lid into Bazalgette’s sewers, there to have a final showdown with an invader from a parallel history.

“The sewer was rebuilt and greatly expanded many years ago,” Swinburne said, “but it still follows the course of the Tyburn River. This hatch leads down to a maintenance tunnel that runs alongside it. It’s a lot drier than the sewer but also a lot narrower.”

“We—we have to go—to go even farther underground?” Burton stammered.

“I’m afraid so.”

“We’ll be all right,” Trounce said. “As long as we don’t run into any spider sweeps.”

The diameter of the tube was such that Burton, the tallest of the group, had to bend his back in order to pass along it. The physical discomfort only added to his distress. He felt like he was in his grave. The weight of the double-layered city pressed down, liable to crush the conduit at any moment.

His jaw was clamped shut. The muscles at its sides flexed spasmodically. Sweat trickled from his brow, and his legs were trembling so much he felt sure his companions must notice.

He said nothing, just followed Trounce, putting one foot in front of the other, holding his arms out and letting his fingertips slide along the inner surface, keeping his eyes half shut and mentally chanting, Allāhu Allāhu Allāhu Haqq, which, unfortunately, quickly turned into, I am I am I am trapped.

The maintenance tunnel was dark. Trounce had produced a small mechanical torch from his pocket and with this was illuminating their path, but the blackness retreated only a little way ahead and rushed in to follow closely at their heels.

Don’t let that light go out! Don’t let it happen!

Finally, Burton couldn’t hold his curiosity at bay any longer and had to ask, “Algy, what are spider sweeps?”

“Children who’ve been genetically adapted for the purpose of keeping pipes such as this clean,” Swinburne answered.

“Children,” Burton murmured. “Good.”

“Good at their job, yes,” the poet agreed, “on account of the venom they spray to dissolve whatever dirt their coat of razor-sharp spines can’t scrape off.”

Burton’s mouth went dry. “Nevertheless, they’re just children.”

“Oh yes. There’s none above the age of ten.”

“Excellent.”

“Because the younger ones eat the elders.”

“Oh.”

“They’re extremely aggressive.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And territorial.”

“I see.”

“And, I daresay, with the effect of the nanomechs wearing off, they won’t hesitate to attack us.”

“Thank you for alerting me.”

“Beneath their spines, they’re armour-plated. I should think our bullets would just bounce off them.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“I’m thankful to be as small as I am, really. I’m just a morsel. A crumb. I wouldn’t want to encounter them if I was a big lump of juicy meat like, for example, you are.”

“That’s quite enough, thank you.”

“Don’t you want to hear about their extendible mandibles?”

“No, I think I get the picture.”

They continued on through the cramped tunnel.

Burton tried to imagine open skies, wide Arabian vistas, and distant mountains. Instead, his mind delivered a remembrance of Boulogne and Isabel. He tried to dismiss it, but each wave of claustrophobia brought it closer.

I shouldn’t be walking through a tunnel in the future. I should be strolling along a promenade with her. She should be my wife.

He felt brittle and taut, needed a distraction, something to divert his attention from the hollowness within and the constriction without.

He asked, “Algy, do you remain an atheist?”

“My hat! Of course! Why do you ask?”

“Because you died and were resurrected.”

“Must you remind me of my murder? It hurt.”

“You were dead for nearly fifty years.”

“I know. What a thoroughly beastly waste of time.”

“But do you remember anything of it?”

“Nothing at all. Except—”

The poet was quiet for a moment, and the silence of the tunnel was broken only by their footsteps and Burton’s laboured respiration.

Trounce said, “Blinkers.”

“Yes!” Swinburne cried out. His voice echoed. “Yes. Blinkers. That’s exactly it, Pouncer.”

“Don’t call me Pouncer. And keep your voice down, Carrots.”

“Blinkers?” Burton asked.

“Like racehorses wear,” Trounce said. “So they aren’t distracted by anything; so they see only the track ahead of them.”

“Intriguing,” Herbert Wells put in. “Or it would be if it made any sense. Would you explain, William?”

“Um. Blinkers is as far as I can get.”

“Algy?” Burton asked.

“Soho Square,” the poet said. “2130. I was running toward the flier, I reached out to grab your hand, there was a terrible pain, then nothing. My next memories are of my childhood, of my mother and father and old Pouncer, here and—as I matured—of a growing awareness of who I’d been before and, in fact, still was. It’s very peculiar, I can tell you, to recollect yourself as an older person in the distant past. My early teens were very difficult—”

“Teens?” Burton interrupted, then immediately remembered what Mick Farren had told him. “Ah, yes, I’m sorry. Go on.”

“I felt oddly divided,” Swinburne said.

“It was the same for me,” Trounce added.

The maintenance tunnel was curving toward their left. From the right, the muffled sound of flowing water could be heard. It sounded as if it was moving at great pressure.

Not water. Sewerage. I am trapped. I am trapped.

Swinburne continued, “But the mixed recollections were soon reconciled by the awareness of our mission. It helped to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Plus,” Trounce said, “we were both carefully fostered by Father—Tom Bendyshe—and knew from an early age that we’d find our purpose on the fifteenth of February, 2202—today—with the arrival of the Orpheus.”

“That must have been strange,” Raghavendra murmured.

“Oh, it hasn’t been so bad,” Swinburne responded. “Of course, we looked forward to seeing you all again, and I must confess, I’ve felt rather a fish out of water in this age. The nineteenth century always felt more like home, and I’ve missed it.”

“Likewise,” Trounce grunted.

“But the blinkers?” Burton asked.

“An impression that William and I never possessed before we died,” the poet answered. “A constant suspicion that what we sense is only a fraction of the full picture. That there’s a greater truth.”

“A feeling that we’ve forgotten something,” Trounce said. He raised a hand and slowed his pace. “Stay quiet now. We’re coming to a monitoring station. There may be someone in it.”

They crept ahead in silence until they were brought to a halt by a round metal door. Trounce put his ear to it and was motionless for two minutes. He stepped back, said softly, “I can’t hear anyone,” then turned the handle and pushed the portal open.

The room beyond was empty. It was also small but nevertheless came as a relief to Burton. Little more than a metal box, with a second door leading to the next section of the tunnel, it was at least well lit. In one wall—the one closest to the sewer—there were mounted a number of flat screens from which unfathomable displays glowed, charts and diagrams and rows of numbers.

Trounce started slightly, put his finger to his ear, motioned them all to stay silent, and murmured, “It’s Lorena. This must be important. We’re supposed to maintain network silence.”

He listened, his head cocked to the side, his eyebrows low over his eyes.

Slowly, the colour drained from his face.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled. “You’re certain?”

His lips whitened as he received the reply.

“Confound it! Do what you can, all right?”

He lowered his hand. It was shaking. He used the edge of his cloak to wipe his forehead and glanced at Swinburne, who said, “What’s happened?”

“Father has been captured.”

Swinburne gasped.

“Bendyshe?” Burton asked.

Trounce nodded. “After planting the bomb in the Embassy. He ran straight into a group of constables.”

“Where have they taken him?” Swinburne asked.

Trounce reached up as if feeling for his bowler hat and looked irritated when he failed to find it. He sighed. “We don’t know. She’s lost track of him.”

Burton asked, “She can’t locate his position via his nanomechs?”

“They must have realised his nanomechs aren’t under government control, so they’ll have passed a nonlethal but very painful electric current through him to destroy them all prior to interrogation. It’s left him totally isolated.”

“Interrogation? Where would that occur? At police headquarters? Is there still a Scotland Yard?”

“No headquarters. There aren’t even police stations. The constables don’t require them.”

“Then where are crime suspects held?”

“Suspects aren’t held. They’re executed. Immediately. Without trial.”

“So—I’m sorry, William, Algy, I know he’s your father—” Burton blinked rapidly. He still couldn’t get to grips with that idea. “But if this age has such a barbaric policy, why do you think Tom Bendyshe will be interrogated rather than killed?”