Rumblings and mumblings met with this disclosure.
A lofty Venusian muttered, ‘Blasphemy.’
‘I do this for love,’ said Leah, ‘and love should know no worldly bafflers.’
‘You are young,’ said the gaunt and graceful one, ‘and have no true understanding of love. Nor do you fully comprehend the gravity of your proposal.’
‘Then I would be grateful to receive such knowledge,’ said Leah.
‘Please understand,’ said the senior ecclesiastic, ‘that we Venusians are of the First Race. We are racially pure. Our world is as Eden because we have maintained our purity. The people of Earth are warlike and crass. They are little more than barbarians. We tolerate them for now, but should they ever threaten our people, we would have no compunction in destroying them all.’
‘In fact,’ said another, ‘our tolerance may very soon be at an end. There are signs and portents in the Heavens. The Thames has run with blood and frogs have fallen from the sky. Our seers tell us that great evil is poised to strike upon this beastly world. Should this occur, we will have no choice but to erase this planet from the solar system.’
‘That you must not do!’ cried Leah. ‘That is surely evil.’
‘To protect what is pure and unsullied can never be classed as evil. Should we have to destroy every being in this family of planets that is impure, so must it be.’
‘The Jovians, too?’ asked Leah.
‘Gourmands and crapulous fools.’
‘They are a merry people,’ said Leah, ‘to be sure.
Another ecclesiastic spoke. ‘Soon,’ this being said, ‘at the stroke of midnight upon the final day of this planet’s current century, there will be a great planetary alignment such as will never again be known for many thousands of years. It is predicted that the great evil, in the form of Pestilence and Terrible Darkness, the Death of the First-Born and the rise of the Christian Antichrist, will occur at this moment. If this happens as predicted, we will purge the other planets from above by the power of Venusian magic, and our race will remain alone in this solar system. So shall it be.’
Tears rose into the golden eyes of Leah the Venusian. Her plans for a January wedding would probably have to be shelved.
The Lady Beast and female Antichrist, Princess Pamela, also known as Madam Glory, lay upon velvet cushions, filling her face with’ chocolate.
She inhabited a comfortable room with a view in a fashionable hotel. This hotel stood upon the seashore. The shore of the Sea of Tranquillity. This hotel stood on the Moon. The view from the window was of Earth.
‘I shall redecorate that,’ said Princess Pamela, pointing with a languid hand towards the planet. ‘When I am in total control, all things will be different. And I’ll get rid of all that boyish blue and colour the whole thing pink.’
Planet Earth rolled on through space.
Difficult times lay ahead.
51
hristmas came and Christmas went, but not without its magic. Darwin woke early on Christmas morning, eager to see what Santa Claus had left inside his stocking.
Three bananas, a bottle of Château Doveston and two of Lord Brentford’s finest cigars, the monkey butler was pleased to see.
Pleased too was he when, upon reaching his bedroom window, he found himself looking at Fairyland beyond. Snow had fallen in the night, clothing the banana plantations with white and bringing that special enchantment only snow can bring.
Lord Brentford was out upon business for the Grand Exposition. The boy named Jack and the cook raised by kiwi birds had gone home to their respective mothers. But for Darwin, only the maid both spare and kempt remained to enjoy the day.
They dined together in the kitchen, pulled crackers and put on paper hats.
‘Why is it that you never speak?’ asked Darwin.
The maid got up and brought the Christmas pudding.
Then she tuned in the brand-new Tesla wireless set and together they listened to Queen Victoria’s speech.
The Queen, it appeared, was really rather jolly. She wished her subjects greetings of the season, then spoke of how she was looking forward to the great Grand Exposition, and how the British Empire would face the coming century with hope in its heart, fire in its belly and love for its fellow beings, no matter what planet they hailed from. She talked a little about what she referred to as ‘hard love’ and how you sometimes had to be cruel to be kind and how, if needs must, love and kindness sometimes had to be enforced by men-at-arms.
Then a choir at the palace sang ‘Jerusalem’ and that was the end of the broadcast for the day.
Darwin smoked a Christmas cigar, was only a little bit sick and then had an early night.
As New Year’s Eve dawned upon Albion, there were great goings-on in Syon House.
‘Help me do up me tie,’ said Lord Brentford to Darwin, ‘then put me cufflinks in for me, if you will.’
There would be several changes of clothes today for Lord Brentford: the morning suit, the afternoon ‘smart’ and the evening formal with the tails. The maid both spare and kempt was dressed for the outing, as were the chef and the boy named Jack, for Lord Brentford felt that his servants should not miss a bit of the day.
As Darwin slotted a cufflink with a Masonic motif into his lordship’s celluloid cuff, he worried for the day ahead. There were so many things that might go wrong, when they should go wonderfully right.
The snow was still thick upon the ground and they were all wrapped up in their warmest of coats as they climbed into an electric landau and were driven off to the palace.
Crowds were milling up and down the Mall. The Grand Exposition halls sparkled, lit by more than one million neon tubes, diamond-hung and crystal-webbed with snow. From the Mall the crowds caught tantalising glimpses of the wonders that awaited them within. The burnished brass of mighty engines. Marvellous artworks gathered from around the globe. Delicious and enchanting smells drifted from the Jovian food hall, but a single hall remained unit and empty.
Lord Brentford helped the maid both spare and kempt down from the landau. The boy named Jack looked up at Buckingham Palace. ‘Well, toast my todger,’ he said to Darwin. ‘Are we truly going to meet the Queen?’
Darwin nodded and took Jack by the arm. ‘She’s rather plump and silly,’ he said, ‘but she does have a lovely monkey maid called Emily.’
Queen Victoria offered Lord Brentford her gloved hand to be kissed. Lord Brentford did as a gentleman should and kissed it. Jack was prepared to give that a go, but Queen Victoria did not acknowledge someone else’s servants. She petted Caruthers, her augmented kiwi bird.
‘We have so enjoyed the nothingness,’ she told the noble lord. ‘The more one looks, the more one sees. We never knew there was so much to nothing.’
Lord Brentford bowed towards his monarch. ‘So pleased that it amused you, ma’am,’ said he, ‘but now it must be taken over the road to the Hall of Venus.
‘But one can have it back afterwards, can’t one?’
Lord Brentford grinned through his teeth at this and offered something that might have been construed as a kind of a nod.
‘Your lady from Venus is playing with one’s monkey,’ said Queen Victoria, and she clapped her hands. ‘Come, Emily,’ she called.
Darwin looked on eagerly, straightened his shoulders, thrust out his chest and tried most hard to look noble.
Emily appeared in the company of Leah the Venusian.
Lord Brentford gazed longingly at Leah.
Darwin smiled towards Emily.
Leah, in her gown like frozen smoke, her high-heeled shoes of sanctity click-clacking on the tiled floor, smiled warmly on Lord Brentford and gave little Darwin a wave. Emily fluttered her eyelashes.
Darwin felt the day was going well so far.
‘We must take the Sphere of Nothingness to the Venusian Hall,’ Lord Brentford said to Leah, ‘if you would be so kind.’
‘I will.’ Leah approached the sphere of nothing at all. ‘Those who wish to, follow me.
r /> Her long fingers wove strange patterns in the air and the Sphere of Nothingness moved weightlessly before her.
Cameron Bell had moved from his lodgings. He had become wary, lest those he sought to attack might first attack him. He had put into place during the final few weeks of the year a number of ‘set pieces’ in the hope that every eventuality might be catered for when the Final Conflict occurred, but he was far from confident that he had covered everything.
That no further plagues had struck at London puzzled Mr Bell. He had expected at the very least the Pestilence. There should have been animals, too — rats, perhaps. But whatever the case, he felt certain that a Terrible Darkness would precipitate the Death of the First-Born. The latter being something that he intended to avert.
He had resolved that his strongest strategy lay in the defence of the monarch. Princess Pamela, the Lady Beast, would certainly seek to destroy her in order to take her throne.
So Her Majesty must live at all costs.
Cameron Bell had met with Winston Churchill, but the young, ambitious gentleman was having none of Mr Bell’s talk of a coming Apocalypse. He dealt in straightforward matters, he told the detective in no uncertain terms. Anarchists were the number-one threat and he had stratagems of his own to prevent them from attacking the Queen.
Cameron Bell sought elsewhere for allies. And found them in a most unlikely place.
The Sphere of Nothingness hung in place within the Hall of Venus.
The hall itself was otherwise empty, the vast space adding to the drama of the single exhibit. A mosaic floor had, however, been patterned with swirling pathways that those who came to view the wonder might follow.
Darwin and Emily, frolicking together upon the high gantries that ran along the inside of the great arched roof, did not recognise these pathway patterns to be the thing they were — a representation of the lines on the Nazca Plains, which some claimed to be the fingerprint of God.
Leah’s hand reached out to touch that of Lord Brentford. ‘I am afeared,’ she said to him, ‘that a terrible evil will shortly come upon this world.’
‘Feel just a tad uneasy myself,’ said his lordship. ‘Probably just first-night nerves, though. All will be well, have no fear of that.’
Leah turned her golden eyes towards the man she loved. A man born upon Earth, a man whom the laws of Venus forbade her even so much as to touch. ‘If all is well,’ she said, ‘if we survive—‘
‘Survive, my dear? We will survive, I assure you.
‘Then if we do, I would ask—’ Leah paused.
Lord Brentford smiled upon her. ‘I was waiting for a special moment,’ said he, ‘to ask you something. And this moment feels rather special to me. Just the two of us, alone, amongst all of this nothing.’
Lord Brentford dug into a pocket. Brought out a little red box. ‘It was my mother’s,’ he said. ‘My father gave it to her.’ He opened the box to display a golden ring with an intricate setting that held a large and sparkling solitary diamond.
Lord Brentford went down upon one knee. ‘Will you marry me, Leah?’ he asked.
On high two monkeys engaged in monkey business. Below, Leah said, ‘I will.’
Mr Ernest Rutherford had been looking for an opportunity to pop the all-important question to Miss Violet Wond, but of late Miss Wond had been a most elusive creature. There had been long and unexplained absences and periods of silence while they dined together. The chemist felt perhaps his cause was lost.
He had been invited to the concert and official opening of the Grand Exposition that would follow it and Miss Wond had agreed to accompany him. But the veiled lady had not been the same since the night when she had been attacked. And Mr Rutherford felt a great unease.
Her Majesty the Queen was rarely given to unease. A monarch’s life did not include such feelings. A monarch had things done for them, was flattered, pampered, praised and shown every kindness. That was the way it should be, for a monarch.
Shortly before three of the afternoon clock, the royal state coach, with all its rococo golden cherubic adornments, drew up outside Buckingham Palace to receive the royal personage and transport her halfway down the Mall to the entrance of the Grand Exposition.
Because if one is the monarch and one has allowed the biggest exhibition hall ever to be built in the history of the world to be erected in one’s own front garden of Green Park, then one should get the first look around it when it’s finished.
And if there is anything in there that one really really wants …
Then one should be given it, without any question at all.
Mr Winston Churchill watched through field glasses as the royal state coach left the grounds of Buckingham Palace. He watched from an airship high above, from which he was directing operations. Before the front façade of the Grand Exposition, soldiers of the Queen stood to attention, shoulder to shoulder the very length of the Mall. A regiment of cavalry were quartered to the rear of the great building. Thirty Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks stood in Trafalgar Square, snipers rested on rooftops, and well dug-in and all around and about anti-airship gunners employing the very latest in back-engineered Martian death-ray technology aimed the snouts of the terror weapons towards the skies above.
Skies of blue without a cloud in sight.
Planet Earth bulged big and blue in a sky of forever night. Upon the Moon in her hotel room, Princess Pamela’s personal primper pampered the Lady Beast.
‘Lavinia!’ called the princess. ‘Where art thou, lass?’ Lavinia Dharkstorrm entered the room in a black silk gown, with a black silk hat and a black silk corset, too.
‘Thou art pretty as a picture,’ quoth the Lady Beast. ‘All dressed up for a coronation, yes?’
Lavinia Dharkstorrm nodded and attended to details of dress.
‘Art thou strong with spells today?’ the princess asked of her.
Lavinia Dharkstorrm nodded once again. Princess Pamela glanced towards the ormolu mantel clock. ‘Our transportation will be ‘ere shortly,’ she said.
‘Private space yacht?’ asked Lavinia Dharkstorrm. Princess Pamela laughed at this. ‘Somewhat more than that. A new Queen ‘as to make a royal entrance. But ‘appen, she said, and she pointed to the window, ‘ ‘ere comes transport now.
From out of the darkness of the sky something large appeared. Something more than large, indeed, for now as it approached the Moon it threw the planet Earth into eclipse.
Down it drifted, huge and untoward and very pink. Princess Pamela clapped her hands as onto the Sea of Tranquillity settled her floating palace from Mars.
52
ueen Victoria thought it grand to be at the Grand Exposition and was most amused by almost everything she saw. She greatly admired the animated elephant and the Czar of Russia’s automated egg. She considered the clockwork minstrels particularly harmonious and the hardy hat from Harrods a worthy thing indeed.
When it came to the diamond from Russia that was easily the size of a music hall entertainer’s head, she all but squealed with delight. She was not, however, at all taken with the suit sewn from one hundred miles of string. This left her singularly unamused.
Lord Brentford drew her attention to Mr Rutherford’s time-ship, which stood with its ports wide open to display its inner gubbinry.
‘Ma’am,’ said he, bowing low to the monarch. ‘This craft bears testimony to the genius of your subjects and it is hoped will bring everlasting peace between the planets. For, I am sure you will agree, the Empire that is the master of time must surely become the master of all.’
Leah was not present to hear this remark, but Lord Brent-ford had phrased it in such a way purely to please the Queen.
‘What is it that one sniffs?’ enquired Her Majesty. ‘Does one smell Jovian hotpot?’
The party processed to the Jovian food hall for tea.
All over London, in swank hotels and the houses of the wealthy, folk were preparing themselves. Folk of substance. Off-world princes. Senior ecclesiastics of the Venusia
n high elite. Burghers and barons of Jupiter. Lords and ladies of the British Empire. Members of Parliament. Famous writers and musicians, artists and actors. The great and the good. The high and the mighty. The Laird of Dunoon and some of the clergy, too.
Never before had so many high-born and influential people gathered together in a single place. There would be at least five hundred Venusians attending the opening concert, plus as many Jovians and some two thousand humans.
The owners of the banking houses of all worlds would be present. Admirals and generals and the wing commander of the Aerial Armed Forces. Representatives of every royal household. The cream of high society. The very pride of the planets.
The hoi polloi could wait until the morrow.
Tonight, the Grand Exposition belonged to the favoured few.
At six o’clock, Queen Victoria, sagging somewhat from a surfeit of Jovian cuisine, was returned to her royal state coach and in that to the palace.
‘Time marches on,’ said Lord Brentford to Darwin. ‘I think we should take an early supper and return at eight to welcome in the guests.’
Darwin nodded in agreement to this.
‘So you will now have to stop doing what you have been doing all afternoon to that lady monkey.’
Darwin nodded once again. But now with far less enthusiasm.
Arturo Toscanini was never less than enthusiastic, and as he bathed in the large marble bathtub in his swanky room at the Ritz, in the company of two lady viola players, he felt convinced that tonight would be the triumph of his career. It certainly had to be a triumph of split-second timing, that was indisputable, because he had been told in no uncertain terms by no lesser personage than the Prime Minister of England that the symphony must conclude upon the very stroke of midnight, when every church bell in every tower in the land would chime in the coming century.
But he could do that. For after all, was he not the greatest conductor in the world? Indeed, in this world and the others! He would conduct some of the finest music ever composed before an audience the like of which had never before been brought together.