“Yes, sir,” the clockwork man intoned pleasantly. He departed.
Disraeli waited for a few moments after the door had closed then said, “Well?”
Burton looked the premier in the eyes. “My mission to the future succeeded but may have been undone by the events of yesterday. The diamonds containing a fragment of Spring Heeled Jack’s consciousness have been removed from Brunel. Their whereabouts is unknown. If we do not recover them, we’ll not be able to drive his presence out of them, which means he might still find a means to infiltrate our future history.”
“But you will, nevertheless, defeat him there, surely? You have already done so.”
“I defeated a Spring Heeled Jack that had been resident in the Brunel body for centuries. Now he is elsewhere, meaning he will be elsewhere in the future, too. Thus all I did there has been rendered null and void. The only advantage gained from the expedition is that we now know the nature of the threat and, providing we regain the diamonds, can neutralise it by passing a strong electrical current through them.”
“What has this to do with Mr. Pinion?”
“I have reason to suspect that Charles Babbage ordered the theft of the gemstones. He might also be using his clockwork men to spy.”
Disraeli brushed lint from his sleeve. “On me?”
“On the Department of Guided Science, on the Minister of Chronological Affairs, and—yes—perhaps on you, as well.”
There came a taut silence, broken only by the muffled thud-thud-thud of Swinburne’s right foot, which he was restlessly tapping on the carpet.
The prime minister took a document from a pile to his left and ran his eyes over it. He picked up a pen, put his signature to the paper, and slid it to his right. “To what end?”
Burton gave a slight shake of his head. “That is something I have yet to establish.”
“We’re currently at odds with only one foreign power, Sir Richard—I refer, of course, to China—and its leaders are certainly far too wily to recruit such an unreliable man as Babbage to spy for them. In fact, his reputation is such that, if you are correct, he must surely be acting independently. Such being the case, do you not consider it likely that he is moved by scientific avariciousness and nothing else, for what more has ever motivated him? In that light, his spying on the DOGS and the minister might make some sort of sense, but I doubt very much indeed that he has any interest in my affairs.”
“He appears to have a measure of interest in your social and economic policies.”
“He does?”
“Did you not meet with him last October?”
“Ah. I did. He presented to me a scheme by which the working classes would be ousted from their jobs by his clockwork men. Less a social or economic proposal than an utter absurdity. I dismissed the notion at once.”
“And immediately afterward he absconded.”
“In a fit of pique, you mean? If so, it was misjudged. He was already perfectly placed to receive any of the machineries and information you brought back with you from the future. Indeed, they would have been put into his hands before any others. I rather suppose he now regrets his temper. Having isolated himself, he was left with no recourse but to steal the items in question. A genius he may be, but he also has a history of impulsive actions and outbursts. Ever has he teetered on the brink of madness.”
Burton slapped a hand onto his thigh. “Yes! Exactly! A madman, now in possession of items that must be considered a threat to the welfare of the empire! You appear remarkably unconcerned, sir! People have already died. Spring Heeled Jack is alive and who knows where! Babbage has the means and the ability to directly influence the course of time and reintroduce into it a foul intelligence that I have already destroyed at—at—”
At great personal cost to myself.
The prime minister made a placating gesture. “Quite so. Quite so. Rest assured, it is my intention that Babbage is found and restrained. It is for exactly such work that the empire has a king’s agent to whom every resource will be made available that the job can be completed as quickly as possible.”
Burton’s response was halted by a raised finger, which the prime minister then tapped against his own lips. For half a minute he said nothing, then, “The course of time, you say? As recorded in the document that was snatched from your associates?”
“After a fashion, yes.”
“After a fashion? What do you mean by that?”
“It chronicles the international affairs that will shape a future which exists regardless of the outcome of my expedition. Since that outcome is now known to us, the events charted therein are, for us, liable to develop differently.”
“Then it has no value?”
“The document serves as a warning.”
“Concerning what? Summarise the contents, please. I’m interested to know what Babbage has his hands on.”
Burton glanced at the silent Colonel Rigby.
“It is quite all right,” Disraeli said. “Speak freely. I want the colonel to understand every aspect and implication of the mission you undertook.”
The explorer clenched his teeth, the muscles at the hinges of his jaw visibly swelling. He fumbled for a cigar, looked at the prime minister for permission, received it via an almost imperceptible nod, then struck a lucifer and started to smoke. In a tightly controlled tone, his voice cold, he said, “Why?”
“I shall explain to you when I am ready. Your account, if you please. I express it as a request, but you must regard it as an order. Speak.”
Burton shifted uneasily in his seat. Something felt wrong. He tried to read the prime minister’s expression but, as always, the man’s thoughts were expertly concealed behind a lackadaisical indifference. Rigby’s attitude, by contrast, could not have been plainer. He was contemptuous and, more worryingly, triumphant.
Play for time. Give yourself a few minutes to get a grip on this, to think it through and work out what’s happening.
“If you have no objection,” he said, “I’ll ask Algernon to outline the contents. His descriptive abilities outshine my own to a considerable degree. He’ll do a far better job of it than I.”
“Very well. Mr. Swinburne?”
The poet scratched his head. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, twitched, and jerked his left elbow up. He cleared his throat and entwined his fingers, leaned forward, unlaced his fingers, reached for his pocket, changed his mind, rubbed his left eye, then peered first at Rigby then at Disraeli.
“My hat!” he said. “The jolly old future, what! Let us see. Shall we call it a saga of waxing and waning empires, of alliances and betrayals, of belligerence and appeasement, of the impact of individuals and the tidal forces of the masses? Yes, it is all those things; a saga, a tragedy, and a romance.”
He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, closed his eyes, and began his narration. From the outset, he made a choice that Burton wouldn’t have thought of: he spoke in the past tense, as if from the perspective of 2203. In doing so, he endowed his recitation with a significance it might not have otherwise possessed. Too, his choice of words, the variation of his tone, the well-chosen points of emphasis, the rhythm and the colour of his language, these all demonstrated what a splendid orator he was. And though Burton was somewhat familiar with the material—he’d been too preoccupied with his predicament to read The History of the Future but was, nevertheless, aware of its contents—he was enthralled. Despite his hostility, Rigby, too, was obviously mesmerised.
Disraeli, though, turned his attention to his papers and read them and made notes in their margins and scribbled his signature as if paying no attention to the poet at all.
It thoroughly irritated Burton.
For almost an hour, Swinburne described the course of future history. When he had finished, it was clear to every man present that the greatest danger to the British—and later, the Anglo-Saxon—Empire came not from foreign powers but from generation after generation of increasingly weak leaders, fo
r it was they who had allowed the insane presence of Spring Heeled Jack to infiltrate their thinking machines. It was they, too, who’d meekly come under his sway, allowing him to create a foul oligarchy wherein the poor working masses were consigned to an underground world while the idle elite occupied soaring towers.
When the poet finished, no one said anything for almost two minutes.
Disraeli’s pen scratched on paper.
Finally, the prime minister looked up and broke the silence. “Thank you, Mr. Swinburne. So, Sir Richard, the document details people, places, and events. Does it also offer specifics where the machineries of the future are concerned? Blueprints? Plans? Diagrams?”
Burton shook his head. “No, sir, it doesn’t.”
“Then Mr. Babbage must be sorely disappointed, for doubtlessly that’s what he hoped to find. And what of our contemporaries? Are their future actions recorded? Are mine?”
“No.”
“But you can add to it the necessary detail, surely? You were in the future for thirteen months. You made enquiries pertaining to our current period? You asked the denizens of 1914, for instance, what mistakes were made during the latter half of this century?”
“I did not.”
“Really? That’s rather a serious oversight, don’t you think?”
“We were looking forward not back. Also, you must understand that, during our voyage, the years immediately subsequent to the present were the most precariously balanced between one probability and another, the most impacted by the return or nonreturn of the Orpheus, and by the decisions taken thereafter in relation to that event. Because the issue was not resolved, no one was able to describe anything that stemmed from it. Even in 1914, little more than fifty years hence, they simply couldn’t remember.”
Swinburne added, “Our own past has in it an example of such an amnesia. The period between ’thirty-seven and ’forty has always been regarded as strangely muddled. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that we discovered why. A great many events of that period had been retrospectively rendered impossible due to a contextual shift in time.”
Frowning, Disraeli pulled a black, lace-edged handkerchief from his pocked and brushed it across his nose. “How, then, did you occupy yourselves in the future once Spring Heeled Jack was defeated?”
Burton, by now on his second cigar, drew on it.
My mind was trapped inside a machine. My senses were curtailed. I felt I was buried alive and suffered an anguish you could not even imagine.
“The people of London required our help. They needed to adapt to their new circumstances. We gave assistance in the formation of a new social and political order. We aided in the overthrow of the inept ruling class.”
“You became revolutionaries?”
“If you want to couch it in such terms, yes, we did.”
“And you really expect me to believe that in all those months you gave no attention to the years that you yourself could expect to live through upon your return?”
Burton leaned forward and ground out his cigar in an ashtray on the prime minister’s desk. Unable to keep the impatience from his tone, he said, “Even the academicians of the twenty-third century were forced to work around enormous gaps in knowledge and a peculiar absence of records. History was as riddled with holes as a Swiss cheese. Even had I been inclined to explore my own fate, I would have found it—um—I would have—”
Dizziness.
Trieste. Isabel. Death. How can I keep forgetting who I am?
Jumbled memories fell into place, some his own, but most belonging to other Burtons. He recalled stilt-walkers and giant mechanised spiders, underground rivers and sewer tunnels, African mountains and armies of beast-men, conflict and fire and pain, pain, pain.
By God, what madness have I been caught up in? What tortures and losses have I endured?
With an effort, he hauled his thoughts out of the mire. He couldn’t allow himself to be drowned by the remnants of other lives. He was not those other Burtons. He was different. He, of all of them, had been blessed, for he was reborn.
He had a second chance.
He was young and fit.
He felt good.
This time, he would get it right.
“You’re an incompetent fool.”
Burton blinked at the premier. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said: you are an incompetent fool.”
From the corner of his eye, Burton saw Rigby grinning savagely.
“I say!” Swinburne protested.
“Mr. Swinburne,” Disraeli said. “Be quiet. Not another bloody word from you, if you please.”
The prime minister rose to his feet and leaned forward over the desk, supporting himself on fisted hands. His demeanour had altered in an instant. Burton hadn’t even suspected that a change was coming.
The cobra was striking.
“I hold you accountable, Sir Richard. I hold you accountable for an abject failure. You have returned from the future virtually empty-handed, and what little you brought back with you, you have lost. The day after your return! The Orpheus’s brain, stolen! The Nimtz generator, stolen! The diamonds, stolen! The manuscript, stolen! Our enemy, lost from view! And what have you done about it?” He banged his knuckles on the desktop. “Not a bloody thing!”
“You’re being—”
“Shut your mouth! You kicked up your heels in the future and there neglected to ask pertinent questions and get detailed answers, and thus uninformed, you have laid the blame for the sad state of this empire’s future at the feet of its leaders, who you accuse of weakness, when anyone with even an ounce of sense can see that the rot begins not with them but with an increasingly demanding petite bourgeoisie!”
Swinburne threw up his hands and shrieked, “What? What? What?”
Shocked, Burton could only stammer, “I—you—have—have you lost your mind? What the devil are you talking about?”
Disraeli straightened and slammed a palm down. “The middle class! That’s how they’ll be referred to, is it not? This money-grubbing horde? This self-serving swarm? Swinburne may have glossed over the truth in his recital, but I see it clearly! I see it! You can’t pull the wool over my eyes! For all your criticism of the upper classes, it is they who give us our stability. It is they who’ve granted the workers greater rights than are enjoyed anywhere else in the world. Look at Great Britain, sir! We are the sole country in Europe that has not suffered the chaos of socialism. Thrones have toppled in France, in Germany, in Italy, but here, no! We have a steadfastness that you yourself have seen endure far into the future. If the ‘elite,’ as you call them, make one mistake, it is that they’ll kowtow to the demands of this emerging rabble of uppity parvenus whose unfettered ambition and unquenchable discontent will eat away at our social structures. There lies the danger! The nouveau riche must be nipped in the bud! The aristocracy must be strengthened while our working classes are given every acknowledgment that, under the guidance of their superiors, they are the driving force of our empire’s success and expansion!”
Swinburne leaped to his feet. “Acknowledgment, Prime Minister? Acknowledgment? What value has that? What of betterment? What of improving their lot in life?”
“They do not need to be made better. They are perfectly happy as they are. Can you not realise that they are formed by a different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws as the likes of us? We must maintain their way of life as we maintain our own. It is a misguided notion that these two separate nations within a nation can be merged into one by means of a new class that bridges the gap.”
“Us?” Swinburne shrieked. “Confound your snobbery! I’ll have no part of it!”
Burton stared in astonishment at the prime minister. Hoarsely, he said, “What has got into you? Have you never walked the streets of this city? Are you blinkered to the pestilence, disease, and starvation that inflict the greater part of it? Have you no sympathy, no empathy, no pity?
”
Disraeli folded his arms and coldly returned Burton’s gaze. “I’m a politician. My work allows no room for such emotions. I operate at a level that necessitates consideration of broader issues than those of any given individual. This office is where decisions affecting the whole of society are made.”
Burton stood and pulled Swinburne away from the desk. He faced the prime minister, his expression ferocious. “You’ve read the reports held by the Ministry of Chronological Affairs? The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack? The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man? Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon? The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi?”
“Utterly imbecilic titles, but yes, I have, of course. What of it?”
“Then you must surely have realised that history consists only of amassed details not of some chimerical broad stroke upon its imagined canvas. You cannot stand above it. You are not an artist at his easel.”
“On the contrary, I am perfectly placed to stand above it,” Disraeli countered. “The account so ably given by Mr. Swinburne has provided a frame of reference that no other person on this planet possesses. I have the big picture. It is not a pleasant one, so it falls to me to change it. It is my obligation as prime minister to do so.”
“Change it by ridding the empire of the nouveau riche?” Burton said. “The idea is monstrous. Preposterous.”
“Through the lens of sentiment, perhaps, but a politician must be cold and scientific about such matters. Do not superior people have a duty to dominate and guide their inferiors while purging society of those elements that threaten to unbalance the status quo? That is Darwinism, pure and simple.”
Burton chopped his hand in negation. “No! No, it isn’t! In the name of God, see the account for what it is! Algy spoke of international conflicts but could not recount the experiences of the millions of individuals who will suffer, who will die, who will be widowed, who will starve, who will be displaced, whose lives will be ripped apart and ruined. Would you base your decisions on such a broad focus that you overlook the calamitous details?”
“For the good of the empire, I have to.”
“But your intentions are fashioned by inaccurate information. The path the world follows has already altered in its course simply by virtue of my expedition’s safe return.”