Текст книги "The Return of the Discontinued Man"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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“It’s obvious that a net is being cast with you as its prey,” Bhatti went on, “but what is the point, when you’ve been twice caught with no consequence aside from a severe beating?”

“Consequence enough,” Burton protested. Gingerly, he felt his eye. It had closed almost to a slit.

“And in the meantime people are being frightened witless,” Trounce said. “I’ll not have it! It has to stop!” He snatched his bowler hat from his head, dropped it, and kicked it at the fireplace. It narrowly missed the blaze, bounced from the hearth, and rolled beneath a desk.

Burton said, “We’re doing what we can. Maneesh, what’s the news from Babbage?”

“Probably that he’ll be over the moon when we deliver this body to him. But, also, he needs you at the station straightaway. He thinks he may be able to locate our absconding time suit, but your assistance is required.”

“Mine? What can I do? I’m no scientist.”

“For sure, but you’re the same man as Abdu El Yezdi, which apparently is of considerable significance.” Krishnamurthy and Bhatti lifted the headless cadaver. “Let’s put this into the carriage and get going.”

“Lord help us, cover it with a sheet, at least,” Trounce snapped. “We don’t want to look like confounded body snatchers.”

This was done, and a few minutes later the group squeezed into a steam horse–drawn vehicle, which then went trundling southward, Battersea bound. Trounce had elected to join them and watched as the king’s agent dabbed an alcohol-soaked handkerchief against his latest facial injuries.

“I’m sure it looks worse than it is, Trounce.”

“It looks hideous. Even your bruises have bruises. One more punch-up, and you’ll be unrecognisable.”

“That might prove advantageous.”

There was insufficient light in the cabin to allow for further scrutiny of the Spring Heeled Jack, but Bhatti, who was holding the head upside-down on his lap, remarked, “The texture of its skin is exactly like the cloth of the time suit. More solid, but the same scaly feel.”

It was the last thing said for the duration of the journey. A pensive silence fell upon them.

They travelled down Gloucester Street, past Hyde Park and Green Park, along Buckingham Palace Road, over Chelsea Bridge, and arrived at Battersea Power Station.

A guard opened the doors in response to their knock and ushered them through. “Mr. Babbage is in the workshop, sirs,” he said, peering with interest at the limp, sheet-concealed figure.

They entered, crossed the quadrangle, and went into the workshop. A technician gestured for them to follow him. They did so, trailing between the machines to the central work area.

Yet again, Burton looked upon Charles Babbage, who, with Daniel Gooch, was attending to a throne-like chair beside which the Field Preserver was suspended. The undamaged time suit was on a bench beside it. The men were tinkering with a great mass of wires that stretched between the hanging box and a framework that surrounded the suit’s helmet.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was standing nearby, completely motionless. Trounce stood in front of him, peered at the metal face, and muttered, “Dead as a doornail.”

Gooch looked up at them as they placed the Spring Heeled Jack on a worktop and removed the sheet. “Sir Richard! You’ve captured one of the mechanisms!”

“I have,” Burton said. “Though I suffered a drubbing in the process.”

“So I see. My goodness, you’ve certainly been in the wars lately.” Gooch approached and started to examine the prone figure. “My stars! This looks like flesh.”

“It is. How’s Brunel?”

“In a total fugue. I checked his probability calculator and it seems fine. We’re leaving him for a while to see whether he comes out of it naturally.”

Burton looked at Babbage, who was so deeply engrossed in his work he had neither glanced up from it nor acknowledged the new arrivals. “I understand my presence is required, Daniel? Why?”

“Charles can explain it best.” Gooch called to the scientist, waited a moment, then, when the old man failed to respond, shouted more loudly, “Charles!”

The elderly scientist finally tore his eyes from the box and looping wires. He clapped his hands together, cried out, “Ah! Burton! Excellent! Just the man!” but then saw the stilted figure and, for the next fifteen minutes, utterly ignored everyone while he pored over it.

Finally, he addressed Gooch. “Have this stored in ice. Send for Mr. Lister. His medical knowledge is required. This mechanism has biological components. Our investigation of it might be more autopsy than dismantlement. Incredible! Incredible!”

Gooch called over a group of technicians and issued orders. Three of them carted the corpse away. A fourth hurried off to summon Lister.

“We shall proceed with our experiment while we await his arrival,” Babbage asserted. He jabbed a finger first at Burton then at the throne. “You. Sit.”

The king’s agent stayed put and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll not subject myself to anything before you explain it to my satisfaction.”

Babbage gave a cackling laugh. “Ha! The primitive man views scientific processes as the darkest of sorceries, is that it? Don’t you worry, sir. No harm shall come to you. All you have to do is wear the helmet for a few moments and issue an instruction that it will accept from only you.”

Gooch added, “As you know, Sir Richard, Abdu El Yezdi allowed Mr. Babbage to ask questions of the functioning helmet but strictly forbade him to issue it with commands. We still follow that dictate.”

“An absurd precaution,” Babbage spat. “My research is needlessly crippled.”

“My counterpart saw the suit give rise to unhealthy enthusiasms in certain scientists,” Burton commented. “He no doubt intended that you be spared the same.”

“I’m not subject to childish passions.”

“I’m glad to hear it. To return to the matter in hand, what instruction?”

Babbage pressed his fingertips together. “Ah. The instruction. Yes. At the moment the outfit vanished, it broadcast its electromagnetic field with such strength that it was inscribed into my Field Preserver. The reverse of what I intended.”

“The experiment was supposed to record the contents of the healthy headpiece, not the damaged,” Maneesh Krishnamurthy clarified.

“That is what I just indicated, young man. Do you intend to add unnecessary observations to everything I say?”

“No, sir. My apologies.”

Trounce leaned close to Burton and whispered, “By Jove! A tetchy old goat, isn’t he?”

Gooch said, “We’re pretty sure the same burst of energy is what incapacitated Isambard.”

Babbage rapped his knuckles against the Field Preserver. “Thus what is imprinted is, in essence, a thought from the insane mind of Edward Oxford. Burton, I want you to order the functional helmet to access the recording then employ your own intellect to analyse it. You will experience it as an intention, a memory or perhaps an emotion, which you’ll feel as if it’s your own. I believe that, within that frozen thought, you may detect evidence of whoever issued the command that initiated the suit’s disappearance. You might also discover where it has gone.”

He lifted the pristine helmet and the framework that surrounded it. Burton regarded it for a moment. “Very well. Let’s get it over and done with.”

He moved to the throne-like chair and sat. Gooch stepped forward and gave assistance to Babbage, both pushing the headpiece down over Burton’s cranium. The king’s agent felt soft padding pressing against his hair and encasing his skull so completely that only his face was visible to the others.

Babbage leaned over his Field Amplifier, examining its dials.

Gooch asked Burton, “Do you hear it, sir?”

“Hear what?”

“The voice of the synthetic intelligence.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“You have to wake it. Wait. We need to make a few adjustments first.”

The Field Preserver began to hum.

“Now, Sir Richard,” Gooch said. “Think the words engage interface.”

“What do they mean?”

Babbage growled, “Must you question every statement? Just do as Mr. Gooch says.”

Burton did, and in his mind a male voice answered, “Ready,” causing him to jump in surprise.

“Y-yes,” he stammered. “Now I hear it.”

Babbage rubbed his hands together. “Bravo! Tell it to search for external connections.”

Burton thought, Search for external connections.

“One found,” the voice declared immediately.

“It says it’s found one.”

“That’s the Field Amplifier. Good. Order it to connect and display.”

Burton issued the instruction.

“Warning, the source is corrupted,” came the response.

The king’s agent relayed the words to Babbage, who replied, “Tell it to disregard and proceed.”

Disregard and proceed, Burton thought. He looked at William Trounce, who was observing the proceedings with his arms folded and a disapproving expression on his face. Suddenly, the Scotland Yard man faded, overlaid by a scene that materialised in front of Burton’s eyes. The king’s agent saw a woman standing in a garden, pregnant, holding a tea towel. She was pretty, with long black hair, large brown eyes, and a short, thick, but curvaceous and attractive body. She looked directly at him and smiled.

He loved her.

He wanted to return to her in time for supper.

He heard himself say, in a voice that wasn’t his own, “Don’t worry. Even if I’m gone for years, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

The woman disappeared into a blazing white inferno.

Pain seared into his mind.

He screamed.

The interviewer asked, “Mr. Oxford, how does it feel to single-handedly change history?”

“I haven’t changed history,” Burton replied. “History is the past.”

“Let me rephrase the question. How does it feel to have altered the course of human history? I refer to your inventing of the fish-scale battery, which so efficiently emulates photosynthesis, and which has given us the clean and free power that lies at the heart of all our current technologies.”

“I don’t really know how it makes me feel,” Burton responded. “I’m an ordinary man, like any other. My concerns are with my family and with contributing whatever I can to society.”

The interviewer chuckled. “Hardly ordinary, sir. Physicist, engineer, historian, philosopher—you are just thirty-five years old, and already your name is up there with geniuses like Galileo, Newton, Fleming, Darwin, Einstein, Temple, Clavius the Fourth, the Zhèng Sisterhood—”

“Stop, please!” Burton protested. “We’re lucky enough to live in a world where those who want to explore to the limits of their abilities are encouraged and given the resources to do so. I work in my particular fields and others work in theirs. We have astounding musicians, engineers, artists, designers, architects, storytellers, athletes, chefs, and so forth. However, those people who are content to operate at a more sedate level are as extraordinary in their own right as anyone you might call a genius. The miracle of existence is that everyone is utterly unique. Each and every one of us should be equally celebrated.”

“But don’t you find it astonishing that it’s your creation, in particular, that’s arguably caused the biggest change to culture since the Industrial Revolution?”

“Why ‘in particular’?”

“Because of where you come from.”

“Aldershot?”

The interviewer smiled. “Not geographically. Genetically.”

Burton frowned. “Genetically? To what are you referring?”

“You’re a historian. You yourself have identified the Victorian Age as the beginning of the modern world. Have you not researched your own ancestry? If one of your forebears had succeeded in his perfidy, there’d have been no Victorian Age at all.”

“Perfidy? That’s a marvellously old-fashioned word. My partner would approve of it. She works at a language revivification centre.”

The interviewer laughed. “It’s funny how the language changes, isn’t it? Like clothes, what was once outdated is now fashionable again. But to return to the question, I’m referring to your family tree. You are descended from another Edward Oxford, who lived from 1822 to 1900. When he was eighteen years old, he attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. Fortunately, both the shots he fired missed her. Don’t you find it fascinating that we have one Oxford who might have prevented the commencement of the modern age and another Oxford who has, through his genius, ended it by enabling the authentic freedoms of trans-modernity?”

“My studies of the period have been focused on industrial development, so no, I wasn’t aware of this other Oxford,” Burton answered. He felt a little uncomfortable. “And, to be honest, I don’t find it particularly fascinating. It’s a function of the human mind to link events into a narrative and to separate history into chapters, but those are conceptual impositions that don’t necessarily reflect the true nature of time. There is no actual correlation between what I have done these past few years and what my ancestor did—or attempted to do—” He made an instantaneous mental calculation and continued, “three hundred and fifty-seven years ago.”

“Then you don’t think the Oxfords are genetically predisposed to change—or to attempt to change—history?”

“Like I said, history is the past. It can’t be changed.”

“Let us face in the other direction then, and look into the future. What next for Edward Oxford?”

“I expect my next projects to grow out of my current studies of the Tichborne diamond.”

“Which is?”

“A large black gemstone discovered over a hundred years ago in a labyrinth beneath the old Tichborne estate in Hampshire. It has extraordinary electromagnetic properties, for which I hope to find a practical application.”

“Such as?”

“It might be capable of storing brainwaves in such a fashion that they continue to function.”

“Continue to—do you mean—to think?”

“Yes. A person’s conscious mind could be stored within the structure of the stone.”

“That’s astonishing!”

“It is, but there are a lot of other possibilities, too. The research is at a very early stage, so I can’t really tell you much more.”

“Well, unfortunately we’re out of time anyway. May I wish you continued success in your various endeavours, and I’d like to offer my gratitude, on behalf of the audience, for all that you’ve achieved. Thank you very much indeed for sharing your thoughts with us this morning.”

“It was my pleasure. Thank you.”

The interview ended, and Burton swiped the air-screen away. He turned to his partner, who was sitting at the breakfast table.

She raised her eyebrows and said, “That was peculiar.”

“It was. Queen Victoria!”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I had no idea, but I’ll certainly look into it.”

“Why bother?”

“I’m interested.”

“Funny how all the Oxford men seem a little eccentric. It appears the characteristic goes back a long way.”

“Are you suggesting we’re inclined to madness?”

“Of course not, but imagine what it must have been like in those days. For the majority of people there was no freedom and no opportunities. If your ancestor had the same potential intelligence and passion as you do but was denied an education and outlet for them, might the frustration not have tipped him over the edge?”

“I suppose. Who knows what a person might be capable of in such circumstances?”

Burton stood and picked up his mug of coffee. “I’d better get to it. What are you doing today?”

“I have an art class in an hour. This afternoon, I’m teaching at the language centre.”

He stepped over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “See you tonight?”

“If you don’t work too late.”

He smiled and left the kitchen.

In his laboratory, he sat at his desk, accessed the Aether, and called up information pertaining to the Victorian-era Oxford.

The facts were sparse.

Born on the ninth of April 1822 in Birmingham, his ancestor had moved to London with his mother and sister around 1832, and by ’37 was living with them in lodgings at West Place, West Square, Lambeth. He was employed as a barman in various public houses, the last two of them being the Hat and Feathers in ’39 and the Hog in the Pound in ’40.

On the tenth of June 1840, while the queen, who’d been on the throne for just three years, was taking her daily carriage ride through Green Park with her new husband, Prince Albert, Oxford stepped alongside the vehicle, drew two flintlocks, and shot at the monarch. His bullets flew wide. After being seized by onlookers, he was arrested, charged with treason, but ultimately found not guilty due to insanity. He was sent to Bethlem Royal Hospital—the infamous Bedlam—where he remained, a model patient, until being transferred to Broadmoor Hospital in 1864. Three years later, he was released on the provision that he’d immediately immigrate to Australia, which he did. He was married there to a girl much younger than him, fathered a son, and lived a respectable existence for a short while before turning to drink and thievery. The family broke up. After that, his life deteriorated, and he died a pauper.

“Sad,” Burton muttered.

He called his great-grandfather, who, despite being 112 years old, was still possessed of all his faculties, though, like every male Oxford, he was a little idiosyncratic. The old man’s lean, sharp-nosed face appeared almost immediately as the air-screen unfurled.

“Hello, Eddie. I thought you might call.”

“Hi, Grampapa. How are you? You look well.”

“Nonsense. I look like an Egyptian mummy. I’m nearing my termination date. I have eleven years left. Eleven! Can you imagine that?”

“You know full well that DNA scans don’t always accurately predict the moment of death.”

“And you know full well that they usually do. It’ll be heart failure.”

“Easily avoided. When will you get repaired?”

“Never, lad. I’m content to slip away. No one should live beyond his or her time, and I’ve been around for long enough. In the old days, they were lucky to make it to eighty. You understand, I hope?”

“I do, and I respect your right to make the choice. Actually, it’s the old days I’m calling about. What do you know about our ancestors?”

“Ha! That interviewer got you curious, did he? You did well, by the way—came across as clever but reasonable. Not many of the male Oxfords could’ve managed that. We tend to be an unbalanced crowd. What’s the correct term nowadays?”

“Off-narrative.”

“Ha ha! Bloody ridiculous! My grandfather would’ve used off their rocker if he were feeling generous. More likely crackpot or crazy or nuts. Language has no bite anymore. You kids emit nothing but a watery drone. Mind you, when I was a kid I never understood a bloody word the adults were saying. They all spoke in acronyms. English language restoration was the best policy the government ever introduced. That girl of yours is doing a good job. Heh! Perfidy. I liked that. Bravo the interviewer! What were we talking about?”

“Ancestors. The assassin. Did you know?”

“About our family embarrassment? Actually, I’d forgotten all about him until he was mentioned. But yes, I knew. I wonder if I still have the letter?”

“Letter?”

“It’s the oldest relic we’ve got. Wait, let me look.”

The lined face disappeared from the screen. A minute later, the image of a handwritten letter appeared on it.

“Sent to his wife,” Grampapa said. “I’m afraid there’s no record of her, but I vaguely recall my grandfather saying something about her being the daughter of a family Edward Oxford was acquainted with before he committed his crime. Do you want a hard copy?”

“Yes, please.”

“It’s coming through now.” Grampapa reappeared. “But listen, don’t get too caught up in all this nonsense. It was a long, long time ago. You know our DNA consultant recommended that you focus on what you do best, which is to make the future better. The past is no place for a genius like you. I’m very, very proud of everything you’ve achieved. When I think about that bloody assassin, I realise how much you’ve put the pride back into the Oxford name.”

“Thank you, Grampapa. Can I come visit soon?”

“Whenever you like.”

“I’ll call again in a few days.”

“I look forward to it.”

Their conversation ended. Burton took the letter from the desk’s printer and read it.

Brisbane 12th November 1888

My Darling

There was never any other but you, and that I treated you badly has pained me more even than the treasonable act I committed back in ’40. I desired nought but to give you and the little one a good home and that I failed and that I was a drinker and a thief instead of the good husband I intended, this I shall regret to the end of my days, which I feel is a time not far off, as I am sickly in body as well as in heart.

I do not blame you for what you do now. You are young and can make a good life for yourself and our child back in England with your parents and I would have brought more misery upon you had you stayed here, for I have been driven by the devil since he chose me as his own when I was a mere lad. I beg of you to believe that it is his evil influence that brought misery to our family and the true soul of me never wished you anything but happiness and contentment.

You remember, my wife, that I said the mark upon your breast was a sign to me of God’s forgiveness for my treachery and that in you he was rewarding me for the work I had done in hospital to restore my wits and good judgment?

I pray now that he looks mercifully upon my failure and I ask him that the mark, which so resembles a rainbow in its shape, and which lays also upon our little son’s breast, should adorn every of my descendants forevermore as a sign that the great wrong I committed shall call His vengeance upon no Oxford but myself, for I it was who pulled the triggers and no other. With my death, which as I say will soon be upon me, the affair shall end and the evil attached to my name shall be wiped away.

You have ever been the finest thing in my life. Be happy and remember only our earliest days.

Your loving husband

Edward Oxford

P.S. Remember me to your grandparents who were so kind to me when I was a lad and who, being among the first friends I ever had, I recall with immense fondness.

Burton called his mother. After a short wait, she responded. She looked younger than he did.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Ed, I was just watching your interview. Why did that that horrible man bring up ancient history? What has it to do with you?”

“I know, he took me by surprise. Did you know about the Victorian?”

“No.”

“I just spoke to Grampapa. He has a letter written by him.”

“By the Oxford who tried to kill the queen?”

“Yes. It mentions a birthmark. The same as yours.”

His mother pulled down the neck of her shirt. There was a small blemish on her skin, just above the heart. Bluish and yellow in colour, it was arc shaped and somewhat resembled a rainbow.

“My father didn’t have it,” she said, “but Grampapa does, and his father did, too. It misses occasional generations but always seems to reappear. What’s the letter about?”

“The would-be assassin had been deported to Australia. He got married there and had a son, but it all went wrong. The letter was to his wife, who was leaving him and returning to England with the child.”

“How wretched. The family DNA probably doesn’t have much of that man left in it, though, so don’t start getting fanatical about the past.”

“That’s what Grampapa said.”

“You know what you’re like. You get too obsessive about things.”

“I suppose. It’s got me thinking about the Oxfords, that’s for sure. Why do you have the name? Why didn’t you change it when you married?”

“Why follow such an outmoded tradition? Besides, none of the Oxford daughters ever adopted their husbands’ surnames.”

“But how come?”

“I don’t know.”

“And the children always took the Oxford name even if the father’s surname was different?”

“Yes. That hasn’t been a problem for many generations, but in earlier times it probably caused a few arguments.”

“Hmm. So the family name has lasted through history better than most others. Peculiar.” Burton looked at the safe in the laboratory wall. “Anyway, I’d better get back to work. Love you.”

“Returned tenfold. Bye, son.”

He dismissed the air-screen, stood, went to the safe, and retrieved the Tichborne diamond from it. Holding it up to the skylight, he marvelled at its size and the way the illumination skittered across its black facets. There was something almost hypnotic about it.

Burton returned to his desk, activated the analysis plate, and put the gemstone on it. Immediately, information began to flow across the desk’s surface. It kept coming. He’d seen it before but still found it incredible. The structure of the stone was utterly unique, unlike anything he’d ever encountered.

“Even more sensitive than a CellComp,” he whispered to himself. “More efficient than a ClusterComp. More capacity than GenMem.”

It didn’t seem possible.

A peculiar notion occurred to him, obviously inspired by the revelation concerning his ancestor. He considered it for half a minute then pulled up a calculation grid and formulated a four-dimensional mathematical representation of the idea.

He employed his grandfather’s favourite archaic expletive. “Bloody hell!”

The numbers and formulas created a shape around him that extended in every direction, both in space and time. He sank into it, was swallowed by it, and experienced an extraordinary sensation wherein the calculations mutated first into swirling colours then into a pulsating sound, which slowly stretched, twisted, and coalesced into a voice that exclaimed, “Hallo hallo hallo! Awake at last!”

Burton blinked and realised he was lying on a bed. Algernon Swinburne was sitting in a chair nearby. He was sporting an absurdly large red blossom in his buttonhole. Seeing Burton peering at it, the poet said, “It grew on my doorstep. Rather fetching, don’t you think?”

“With the floppy hat and scarf?” Burton observed. His voice sounded gravelly. “You look like you’ve stepped out of a pantomime.” He cleared his throat, noticed a glass of water on the bedside table, and reached for it. “What time is it?”

“Eight in the morning. You’ve been unconscious all night. Trounce called on me and sent me here. I’ve just arrived. Here, let me help you to sit.”

Swinburne rose, stepped over, slid an arm under Burton’s shoulders, and gave assistance as his friend struggled up. He took the glass, after Burton had swallowed its contents, and placed it back on the table.

The king’s agent peered around with his good eye—the other was still slitted—and recognised one of Battersea Power Station’s private rooms.

He leaned back, emitting a slight groan. His head was aching abominably. “What happened?”

“According to Gooch, you told the helmet to connect to Babbage’s device, then screamed and passed out. How do you feel?”

“My skull is throbbing. By God! How many visions can a man endure? I saw through Edward Oxford’s eyes, Algy.”

“Which Oxford? The sane one or loopy one?”

“The sane, in the far future, at the moment when he realised that travelling backward through history might be possible.”

Burton winced and pressed his hand against his temple. “For sure, I’ll not be allowing Babbage to place anything on my head ever again. Did he gain anything?”

“Quite the opposite. But you did. Feel your scalp.”

Burton ran his fingers through his hair. The scars on his head felt raised, gritty, and extremely tender. He winced. “What happened?”

“The helmet tattooed you. Wait, I’ll fetch Babbage. He can explain it better than I.”

“Tattooed?” Burton muttered, as his friend scampered from the room.

Minutes later, the poet returned with Babbage and Gooch.

“Are you in pain, Sir Richard?” the latter asked.

“A little. What’s this about a tattoo?”

Babbage barked, “Adaptive application!”

“In English, if you please, Charles.”

The scientist tut-tutted irascibly. “I told you before. The helmet’s components can rearrange themselves to change their function. The BioProcs extracted black diamond dust from their own inner workings and injected it into your scalp, following the line of your scars.”

Gooch added, “You may remember that Abdu El Yezdi’s scalp was similarly tattooed by the Nāga at the Mountains of the Moon. In his case, it was required to enable a procedure that sent him through time independent of the suits, though other factors, of a complex nature, were involved. He never fully explained the process to us, which means we can’t reproduce it.”

“I wouldn’t let you if you could,” Burton growled. “So what is the point of this confounded liberty?”

“We don’t know,” Babbage said. “I shall have to keep you under observation. Run some tests.”

“Most certainly not. I’ve been subjected to quite enough, thank you very much.”

“Did the synthetic intelligence apprehend anything from the Field Amplifier?” Gooch asked.

Burton nodded—and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through his cranium. He said, “Perhaps,” then recounted his visions, first of the woman, then of Oxford and the black diamond.

“The woman was his wife,” he finished, “pregnant in the initial vision, which was overlaid onto my view of the workshop, but not in the more involved and vivid second, which took me to a period before they were married, and in which I was so utterly immersed that I thought myself him. My—that is to say, Oxford’s—love for her was exceedingly strong.”

He stopped and swallowed as an ache squeezed at his heart. He wanted to see Isabel. It was a torture to know that in some other versions of this world, she still lived.

Why can I not be one of those other Burtons? One of the more fortunate ones?

He went on, “But there was no trace of lunacy in the memory, so I wonder whether it came from the functioning helmet rather than from the imprint in the Field Preserver.”

“You’re probably correct,” Babbage said. “The confounded headpiece erased all the data from my device, injected the diamond dust into you, and immediately ceased to function. We have nothing of Edward Oxford remaining except for what’s in your scalp, and that won’t last for long.”

“The tattoo will come out?”

“No, it’s too deep. What I mean to say is that the traces of Oxford inside it will soon be overwritten. Being in such proximity to your brain, the dust is within its electrical field. Your thoughts will quickly expunge the knowledge they contain. It’s a tragedy. Genius is being replaced by the prosaic.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Burton muttered.

Swinburne said, “It appears that every time you conduct an experiment, Charles, we lose something.”