The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack Part 53

"Where in G.o.d's name is Nightingale!" wailed Beresford.

"Algy," said Burton. "Step outside and guard the door. Don't let anyone in. Do whatever's necessary."

"But-" began the poet.

"Swinburne!" barked the king's agent. "You half obeyed my last order. This time I need more. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," answered the poet quietly. He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

"d.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l, Burton," said Beresford weakly. He collapsed down onto his haunches and sat with a finger in each of the holes in the bell jar. Liquid continued to dribble out. The top third of his brain was already uncovered.

Burton looked down at Oxford. "I know who you are," he said. "I know what you've been trying to do."

"You died in 1890," repeated the stilt-man.

"So you say. It doesn't matter. Everyone dies. What I'm interested in is what makes everyone live."

"Intriguing," said Darwin.

"I've made extreme decisions in my life," continued Burton. "I decided to do things that most men would never do. I've been driven by I don't know what to-to-"

"To find your place," offered Edward Oxford. The madness died from his eyes. "To find yourself. You were displaced by a childhood spent being dragged from one country to another. Ever since, you've been looking for points of stability. Things you could a.s.sociate yourself with. Permanent coordinates."

"Coordinates. Yes, I see what you mean."

"They make us who we are, Burton. They give us ident.i.ty. I made a mistake. I chose as one of my coordinates an event from ancient history which, in my opinion, brought shame to my name. I tried to erase it, and ended up erasing something that made me."

A tear trickled down Oxford's cheek.

Darwin chuckled and said, "This is most gratifying. How simple it is to construct a new future. Yes. We are most fascinated. The possibilities are endless. However, we must establish whether one future replaces the other or if they run concurrently. Once we have the time suit, we must construct a method through which this can be ascertained."

"Don't let him have the suit," whispered Oxford. "Free me. I don't care about myself anymore, I'm a discontinued man, but let me restore history!"

Beresford toppled onto his side.

"Help me, Darwin," he gurgled. "I feel so drained."

"I altered one thing," said Oxford. "Just one thing! But the consequences have changed everything. You're not meant to be doing what you're doing now!"

"The problem, Oxford," replied Burton, "is that although the future isn't what it used to be, I like it the way it is."

"Most gratifying. Most gratifying!" uttered Darwin. "Here we see the human organism selecting its own path of evolution!"

Henry de la Poer Beresford whispered, "Free!" and a horrible rattle issued from his throat.

A gunshot came from beyond the door.

"She's going down!" yelled the man at the controls.

"And if the Technologists get their hands on your suit," continued Burton, "the very idea of history will become a thing of the past."

"We're going to crash!" screamed the ship's operator, and he made to run for the door, but the Francis Galton automaton was standing behind him and, clamping its hands around the man's neck, it held him in front of the controls.

"We command you to fly the ship!" ordered Darwin.

"I can't! I can't!"

"You must!"

Burton reached down and took hold of Oxford's head.

"In cold blood?" asked the time traveller.

"Whatever is necessary," replied Burton.

"What will it achieve?"

Sir Richard Francis Burton looked the man in the eyes. "Stable coordinates," he said.

"Enjoy your reboot," whispered Spring Heeled Jack.

Burton yanked Edward John Oxford's head around, breaking his neck.

"That was a serious mistake," said Darwin. "However, what's done is done. Now get us out of here before the vessel is destroyed. Bring the corpse, the helmet, and the boots."

The king's agent glanced at the windows and saw Darkening Towers looming large in them.

"No, Darwin," he said. "The time suit must be destroyed. Your experiments must end."

"We disagree. Allow us at least to debate the point with you before you act. We propose to you, Burton, that access to time travel will allow us to finally put to rest the great delusion of a G.o.d who intercedes in human affairs. We will eliminate the absurd notions of fate and destiny. We will choose our own paths through time. We will place reins on the process of evolution to steer it where we will!"

"So nothing will happen by chance?" suggested Burton.

"Precisely! Save the time suit!"

"And you?"

"And us! Yes, save us!"

Burton glanced at the window.

"We would have your response," came Darwin's double-toned voice. "What do you say?"

The king's agent paced over to the door. He looked back at the malformed scientist.

"I'm sorry," he said. "There will be no debate today."

"The evolved must survive!" cried the scientist.

Burton opened the door and pa.s.sed through. Swinburne was holding Nurse Nightingale at bay with his pistol. A man lay on the floor clutching his bleeding side.

"I was aiming at his leg, I swear!" claimed the poet.

Burton gripped Nightingale by the arm and dragged her to the access ladder.

"Up!" he ordered.

"No," she replied.

He punched her forehead and she collapsed into his arms.

"No time for niceties," he said. "Up you go, Algy!"

Swinburne ascended and Burton followed, with the woman over his shoulder.

Less than a minute later, the front of the t.i.tanic rotorship collided with Darkening Towers. The ancient mansion exploded into a cloud of flying bricks, masonry, and gla.s.s. Crumpling metal screamed as it tore through the building and hit the earth.

The inhabitants of nearby Waterford were jerked out of their sleep by the terrifying sound of destruction. The floor shook beneath their beds and their house windows shattered as the ship ploughed a wide furrow through the grounds of the Beresford estate before finally coming to rest almost a quarter of a mile beyond, a ma.s.s of torn and twisted metal.

For a moment a strange sort of calm descended and it seemed that the devastation was complete. Then, one after the other, the ship's boilers exploded-a series of terrific detonations that blew the back half of the ship to pieces, throwing debris hundreds of feet into the air and sending a thick pall of steam rolling outward.

Finally, the scene of the crash became quiet but for occasional clangs and squeals as the wreckage settled.

Of Darkening Towers, nothing remained except a smear across the landscape.

Burton had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. Wrapped in a roll of the thick insulating material, he'd been thrown violently around the small storage bay until his senses were shaken from him. Now, as they returned, he gingerly tested each limb, and though his right arm pained him where Oliphant's sword had pierced it, he found that all his bones were intact.

With much difficulty, he wriggled out of the material onto the slanting and twisted deck, pulled his clockwork lantern from his pocket, and surveyed the ruins around him by its light. The bay was almost ripped in half; the floor was buckled and stars glinted through a wide and jagged gash in the ceiling.

The swathes of insulation were in disarray; the roll he'd bundled Florence Nightingale into had come undone and she lay awkwardly amid the tangle. He crawled over to her and found that she was alive, though out cold.

The folds that contained Swinburne were underneath a tangle of girders from the ruined roof. One long, thin fragment of metal had been driven right into the bundle, and when Burton peered into the end of the roll, he could see a red stain within. For a second, fear gripped him as he imagined his friend dead, but he then realised that the patch of crimson was actually the poet's hair.

"Algernon?" he called. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," came the m.u.f.fled response.

"It may take a while to get you out of there. You're underneath a pile of debris. Are you hurt?"

"There's something sharp sticking into my left b.u.t.tock. It's not as thrilling as it sounds!"

"I'll get help as quickly as I can."

"And you, Richard? Are you in one piece?"

"Apart from having my brains scrambled, yes. Hold on! I can hear movement. My light may have attracted someone."

The sound of metal being shifted had reached him, and he wondered whether Detective Inspector Trounce had arrived in a rotorchair while he was unconscious. However, as the noise increased, he realised that something of far greater weight than the burly Scotland Yard man was approaching.

He looked up as mechanical grippers closed over the edges of the torn roof and peeled the metal back with a horrible squeal.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel thudded into view, towering overhead. The arms on one side of him were twisted and bent out of shape.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the wheezing of his bellows, then he chimed, "She is alive?"

"Yes," replied Burton. "Merely unconscious. I wrapped her in this material to protect her from the worst of it."

A pause, then arms stretched down into the room, slid beneath the p.r.o.ne nurse, and lifted her out.

"I thank you, Sir Richard. I am in your debt," rang the huge machine.

It retreated from view and they heard it stamping over the wreckage, onto the earth, and away into the distance.

Burton began to clear the fallen beams away from Swinburne.

Some time later he heard a rotorship rising into the air and departing.

"That must be the medical laboratory," he said to the trapped poet. "Speke is aboard. I wonder where he and Brunel will go?"

Ten minutes or so pa.s.sed before he heard the approaching paradiddle of rotorchairs. He climbed out onto the roof of the wrecked ship and waved down Detective Inspector Trounce.

Exhaustion hit him.

"By G.o.d!" he muttered. "Africa was child's play compared to this!"

CONCLUSION.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever G.o.ds may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

-ALGrERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE -is incredible!" exclaimed Mrs. Iris Angell for the umpteenth time. "Poor Mr. Speke. I don't say he was ever a bad man, but perhaps a little lacking in rect.i.tude. He certainly didn't deserve to fall into the hands of that immoral crowd. What will become of him, I wonder?"

"I don't know, but I feel I haven't seen the last of him. Have you finished?"

Mrs. Angell was sitting at one of Sir Richard Francis Burton's desks, where she'd been writing out two copies of his report.

Two days had pa.s.sed since the Battle of Old Ford.

"Yes. I must say, Sir Richard, your handwriting leaves a lot to be desired. I suggest you have a poke around in the attic. If I remember rightly, one of my late husband's fancies was some sort of mechanical writing device. An autoscribe,' I think he called it. You play it like a piano and it prints onto paper, like a press."

"Thank you, Mother Angell; that sounds like it might be useful."

The old dame stood and rubbed a crick from her back. She pa.s.sed the two copies to Burton then crossed to the study door.

"I must get back to the kitchen. Your guests will be here in half an hour or so. I expect they'll appreciate some cold cuts and so forth?"