Honesty jerked his head in assent.
Slaughter wiped a line of milk from his moustache. “A family mission, is it? In for a penny, in for a pound, that’s what I say.”
Penniforth gave a thumbs-up.
Edward Burton said, “Brother, please tell me you’re joking. By heavens, the whole endeavour is doomed from the start.”
“If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.”
The minister picked at his fingernails for a moment before, in a quiet tone, saying, “How can it possibly work? Won’t you simply create yet another alternate history?”
Burton turned to Babbage. “Charles?”
“You intend to make a change to the future, not to the past,” the old man said. “Our reality is—from the present moment onward—thus suspended between two possibilities: you will come back from the future or you won’t. For you, as you travel forward through time to 2202, the history you pass through will not be in any way defined by the answer, for you won’t yet have provided it.”
“What? What? What?” Swinburne screeched.
Ignoring him, Burton asked, “But if we ask someone from the future what became of us?”
“They simply won’t know,” Babbage replied. “Every consequence of your return—or consequence of your none return—will remain in an indefinite state until you actually do one or the other.”
“And if we do return, will we be able to act on the knowledge gained from the future?”
“Yes.”
“So we’d be creating yet another branch of history.”
“From the perspective of the future you’ve returned from, yes, but subjectively, no.”
“Aargh!” Swinburne shrieked. “How can time be subjective?”
“My dear boy!” Babbage exclaimed. “How can it not be?”
“I’m hearing words,” Trounce grumbled, “but if you threw them into a bag, gave it a good shake, and poured them out, the results would make just as much sense to me.”
The minister held up a hand to halt the discussion. “All right. All right. Let us suppose I finance the project. Who would you take with you, Dick?”
“A small company,” the king’s agent answered. “Volunteers only.”
“Me,” Swinburne said.
“And me,” Sadhvi Raghavendra put in. “You’ll need my medical expertise, especially if you’re dosing yourselves with that horrible tincture.”
“It’s utterly preposterous,” Detective Inspector Trounce declared. “Whatever it is. Nevertheless, you can count on me. Perhaps I’ll eventually understand what I’m becoming involved with.”
“The Orpheus is my ship,” Lawless stated. “I’ll not give her over to anyone else, so I’m in, too. But crew?”
“How much can be automated?” Burton asked Babbage.
“A lot. The Mark Three will fly her. I’ll give the Orpheus a brain.”
Lawless whistled. “That’ll be interesting.” He pursed his lips then said to Burton, “I suppose I can train you and your fellows for whatever duties remain.”
“I’ll come,” Maneesh Krishnamurthy announced. He gripped his cousin, Bhatti, by the arm before he could also volunteer. “No, Shyamji. You’ve been romancing that charming young dressmaker. I have high hopes for you. Put a ring on her finger. Start a family. Throw your lot in with the Cannibal Club.”
“But—”
“No argument.”
Shyamji Bhatti frowned before offering a shrugged concession.
Gooch said, “You’ll require an engineer to keep the airship in good order. Mr. Brunel is out of action and shows no sign of recovery. Take me.”
Burton said, “Thank you, Daniel.” He glanced at each of the volunteers in turn. “Seven of us, then. Let me remind all of you that even if we inadvertently cause further bifurcations in history, we can travel back along them. This world will still be here. We can return to it.” He faced his brother. “Minister?”
Edward held his sibling’s eyes for a second. “Very well. If only to save us from a plethora of stilted lunatics, I’ll sanction this tomfoolery. I’ll also see to it that the Cannibal Club receives whatever funding it requires, with one proviso; I shall lead it. The group’s mission will need to be meticulously planned, its existence ingeniously concealed, its continuity assured for many generations. There is no man alive more suited to such a job than I.”
“Agreed,” Burton said with a slight smile.
Over the course of the next hour, the minister secured one of the hotel’s private sitting rooms, and the core members of the Cannibal Club were summoned.
By seven o’clock, they were all present with the exception of Henry Murray, who’d left the city to visit friends in Somerset. Sir Richard Francis Burton, Edward Burton, Richard Monckton Milnes, Thomas Bendyshe, Doctor James Hunt, Sir Edward Brabrooke and Charles Bradlaugh settled in the chamber, accepted drinks, and each lit a cigar or pipe.
“‘Attend immediately by order of the king,’” Brabrooke quoted. “I’ve never before received such a peremptory invitation.”
“Nor have you ever been requested to do what I am about to ask of you,” the king’s agent said. “We find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances, gentlemen. So strange, in fact, that you’ll be required to swear an oath of absolute secrecy and loyalty to the crown before we continue.”
The club members glanced at one another, eyebrows raised, but none objected, and, after the vows were made, full disclosure followed, causing the brows to rise even higher.
Once the briefing was over and the commission served, they sat in stunned silence, which was eventually broken by Bendyshe, who suddenly bellowed with laughter and cried out, “By all that’s holy, you’ve assigned to us a mission to mate!”
Doctor James Hunt grinned. “I shall devote myself to it assiduously.”
Sir Edward Brabrooke raised his glass. “Ladies of London beware.”
“Tally ho!” Charles Bradlaugh cheered.
Monckton Milnes looked at Burton and winked.
Burton left his brother with the group to plan the future of the club. He returned to suite five. His colleagues there had divided into smaller groups, each discussing some specific aspect of the planned venture.
“I wish Brunel were with us,” Gooch quietly said to him. “I don’t doubt I can build Babbage’s version of a Nimtz generator, but I’m certain Isambard would make a better job of it.”
“You can’t revive him?”
“I fear not. When the damaged time suit vanished, the burst of energy it transmitted appears to have erased his mind from the diamonds in his babbage calculator.”
“But—” Burton’s brow creased, “if that’s the case, why did it not also erase the undamaged helmet?”
“I asked Babbage the very same question. He posits that it’s because the helmet contained a healthy version of the same mind. What hit Brunel as something alien and overwhelming struck the helmet as a moment of disordered thought that it was able to quash with its own rationality. For poor Brunel, it was too unfamiliar. He had no way to resist. We’ve lost our friend and the world’s most brilliant engineer. He’s dead.”
“I mourn with you, Daniel. He was a great man and a good friend. But I also have every faith that, even without him, you can fulfil what we require of you.”
Gooch flexed his mechanical arms and folded his real ones across his chest. “I’ll direct all the Department of Guided Science’s resources to the design and construction of the Nimtz generator and to the refit of the Orpheus. Despite the complexity of the project, with so many people working on it, it won’t take more than a few weeks. But what of the future, Sir Richard? Surely they’ll have flying machines. Won’t our nineteenth-century rotorship stick out like a sore thumb? How will we avoid detection?”
“We’ll depend on the Cannibals,” Burton answered. “Or, rather, on their descendants. Their remit will include the securing of up-to-date airships into which we can transfer the Orpheus’s machinery. We must replace her as we trave
l.”
“Expensive.”
“My brother intends to make careful investments to assure us adequate funds.”
A thrill of unexpected excitement suddenly coursed through Burton’s veins. He left Gooch, went to a window, and looked out at the Strand. The street lamps glowed unsteadily, glimmering through falling snow. Pedestrians crowded the pavements. Traffic pumped steam and smoke into the air.
A new expedition! A new journey into the unknown!
After so many extraordinary events, Burton felt almost immune to further surprises and, indeed, over the course of the following three weeks, though he was six times pounced on by Spring Heeled Jacks, he dealt with them in an almost perfunctory manner, by now aware that they succumbed easily to a bullet or a blow to the head. He sustained no further injuries. However, at the end of that period, the theory he’d formed to explain the creatures and the events associated with them was somewhat shaken by an occurrence that didn’t fit into the picture.
It happened on a wet Thursday morning just a few yards from his house.
He’d breakfasted, gone to the mews at the rear of number 14, fired up the furnace in his steam sphere, and set off for Battersea Power Station.
Steering out of the alley that opened onto Montagu Place, he directed the vehicle toward the junction with Gloucester Place, drove past his front door, and pushed his toes down on the accelerator plate.
A bubble appeared in the air less than twenty feet ahead. It popped, and a woman fell into the road. She screamed. Bits of polished wood and a severed arm hit the ground around her.
Burton slammed his heels down, braking hard. It was too late. The sphere thudded into the woman, she was dragged under its drive band, and Burton was jolted as it bumped over her.
He threw himself out and ran to the back of the vehicle.
Nearby, on his corner, Mr. Grub yelled, “Bloody hell!”
The woman lay broken and bleeding. Her appearance was thoroughly bizarre; she possessed a preternaturally tall and attenuated body, a very narrow face, huge black eyes with no whites around the pupils, and a lipless mouth. She was colourfully attired, as if for a carnival.
She blinked at Burton and in a faint voice said, “Oh! It’s you again! Where are we?”
A bubble formed around her. The king’s agent stepped back.
The woman vanished with a loud bang, taking a bowl-shaped lump of macadam with her.
Grub ran over. “Blimey! Where’d she go?”
Burton said, “Back to wherever she came from, I suppose.”
“And left a bloomin’ great pothole behind her.”
“I’ll report it,” Burton said. He sighed. “We live in strange times, Mr. Grub.”
“Aye,” Grub muttered, “I blame Disraeli. He’s a bit of a dandy, ain’t he? I reckons this world would make a lot more sense if an ordinary ol’ geezer like me was in charge.”
“You should run for parliament.”
Grub shook his head sadly. “Nah. It’s not me place to do so.”
Six weeks later, Burton took lunch with Thomas Bendyshe in the Athenaeum. Despite being a palatial and tall-ceilinged chamber, the club’s eatery had always been known by the rather more humble appellation of ‘the Coffee Room.’
Bendyshe, as usual, was at full volume. Oblivious to the morsel of lamb chop lodged between his front teeth, he bellowed, “So you’ll be off tomorrow then, old boy?”
“Keep your voice down,” Burton urged. “For pity’s sake, Tom, why must you always hoot like a confounded foghorn? And yes, the Orpheus is ready at last.”
“My word!” his companion trumpeted. “What a rapid job they’ve made of it, hey? Bloomin’ miracle workers!”
It was true, the Department of Guided Science, and especially Charles Babbage and Daniel Gooch, had worked at a phenomenal rate to prepare the vessel for its forthcoming voyage. Battersea Power Station had never been so crowded or so active. Its engineers, physicists, logicians, theoretical mathematicians, designers, inventors, chemists and metallurgists had worked night and day without pause. Even the venerable Michael Faraday had been called out of retirement to contribute his expertise to the project.
Bendyshe used his fork to stab the last potato on his plate, transferred it to his mouth and before he’d swallowed it, said, “I’ve not seen you since that extraordinary meeting at the Venetia. Lord, what a couple of months. How many times have you been assaulted by the jumping Jacks?”
“Eleven,” Burton replied. “And look at this.”
He took a quick gulp of wine then reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded letter, which he handed across the table.
Bendyshe put down his cutlery, took it, opened it, read it, and hollered, “From old George Herne on Zanzibar!”
“Shhh!” Burton hissed. “It is. He reports that the stilt men have been causing mayhem even there, and word has reached him from Kazeh that they’ve been seen in that far-flung town, too. The Africans consider them invading demons.”
“They might be right,” Bendyshe observed. He took a couple of minutes to scan through the missive. “So everywhere you’ve been, there the freakish creatures are. A veritable infestation. Poor old Bartolini has been forced to close his restaurant. You aren’t his favourite customer, not by a long shot. I reckon he’d kick you in the seat of the pants if he dared.”
Burton offered a regretful grimace. “I’ve been banished from the Royal Geographical Society, as well. Four times, the Spring Heeled Jacks have crashed into its lobby demanding to see me. I have a permanent police guard outside my home. Ten battles have been fought in Montagu Place. Though perhaps ‘battle’ is too strong a word.”
“Eh? Why so?”
“They don’t put up much of a fight. Grub, the vendor who plies his trade on the corner, saved me last week by clouting one of them over the head with his coal shovel.”
“Ha! Good man!” Bendyshe frowned, applied a fingernail to his teeth, dug out the strand of meat, looked at it, put it back into his mouth, and said, “I read those crazy tales left by Abdu El Yezdi. So you really think these stilt-walkers are some aspect of Edward Oxford?”
“Yes, though they don’t appear to realise it.”
“Peculiar, hey?”
“It is.”
A waiter stopped at their table and refilled their glasses. Burton turned down the offer of another bottle. When the man had gone, he said, “Are you comfortable with your new role, Tom? The Cannibal Club will soon become a very different prospect. There’ll be no more horseplay.”
“Apart from the hunt for a suitable spouse, hey?”
“Well, yes, I suppose.”
“I’m ready, willing and able. Incidentally, your brother intends to combine my anthropological knowledge with his own financial nous in order to play the markets.”
Burton rubbed the scar on his chin with his forefinger. “Anthropological stockbroking?”
“If I can accurately forecast the ebb and flow of human affairs, and the minister, based on those predictions, invests wisely, then we should be able to establish assets enough to fund the Cannibal Club for many generations to come.”
“On what will you base your prognostications?”
“I shall consult with the Department of Guided Science to learn what varieties of machinery they think will develop in future years and how it might be employed by industry and society. I’ll work with old Monkey Milnes to examine up-and-coming politicians, their philosophies and inclinations, and where they might take our world. I’ll learn from the patterns of history, and will scrutinise current trends and project them forward. And I’ll confer with the Empire’s most talented mediums.”
“A major project, Tom.”
“I relish it. I hope that my—” He stopped and gaped as, somewhere behind Burton, a loud pop sounded, followed immediately by a crash and cries of alarm.
The king’s agent jumped out of his seat and whirled, yanking a Beaumont-Adams revolver from his waistband.
A Spring Heeled Jack
had materialised in the dining room and landed on a table. It was flailing about amid broken glasses and crockery, yelling, “Where is Burton? My neck! Don’t break my neck! Prime Minister? Where are you?”
Burton raised his gun.
“Everybody stand clear!”
Patrons scattered. He aimed at the figure and, as it clambered to its feet, pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times, hitting it in the chest. The stilt man collapsed to its knees, a bubble peeled outward from its skin, and it vanished.
Tom Bendyshe, temporarily neglecting his atheism, cried out, “Mary mother of God! Won’t they ever stop?”
Thirty minutes later, Burton’s membership was rescinded and he was banished from the Athenaeum.
“Soon, I shan’t be allowed anywhere,” he complained, as he bid his friend farewell.
“Tomorrow, you won’t be anywhere,” Bendyshe observed. “At least, nowhere in this age.”
The following day, the minister of chronological affairs said, “Whatever else you do during your visit to the future, will you please prevent the Spring Heeled Jacks from making further visits to us? I’m thoroughly irritated by the infernal pests.”
Miraculously, Edward Burton had left the Royal Venetia Hotel and was sitting in a growler at the foot of the Orpheus’s boarding ramp. Battersea Power Station towered in the background.
It was raining.
Sir Richard Francis Burton, standing beside the carriage and holding an umbrella against which the water drummed, replied, “Must I remind you, Edward, that while you’ve been hiding away in your hotel suite, it is I who’ve borne the brunt of the intrusions?”
“A reminder isn’t necessary,” his brother said. “I’m exhausted by the constant worry.”
“About the disruption?”
“About you, you dolt.”