The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Man (7 page)

Burton laughed mirthlessly. “You mean to achieve immortality?”

“I mean for my intellect to survive.”

“And your soul?”

Babbage clucked with irritation. “Pshaw! I no more believe in that superstitious claptrap than you do! I refer to my thought processes! The quintessence of myself!”

“Nonsense! A human being adds up to far more than the electrical field generated by, or contained within, the spongy matter of his brain. What about the heart, sir? What about emotion? What about how he
feels
about his memories—his triumphs and regrets?”

Now it was the elderly scientist’s turn to laugh. “Firstly, there is absolutely no empirical evidence that emotion is housed in the heart,” he said scornfully. “And secondly, even if it was, it is eminently disposable! What good has emotion ever done except to wound and anger and weaken and give rise to humanity’s most primitive and animalistic urges? Surely you’re not going to lecture me about the majesty of love?”

“No, I’m not. I do say, though, that there are certain decisions a man is called upon to make which transcend the dictates of reason.”

“Balderdash! Those are simply occasions where a lesser intellect struggles; where intelligence gives up and submits to emotional impulses. I design machines that decide the best course of action based upon
logic.
”

Burton fought to keep his mind focused, his head from nodding. His fever was raging now. The room was spinning and Babbage’s voice seemed to echo from a long way off. He was aware of Brunel’s bulky presence a few paces behind him.

“No, Sir Charles, it won’t do,” he rasped. “You have overlooked the fact that a mind separated from the heart entirely eliminates ethics and morality. Look at what you and Brunel have done tonight. You have stolen! You’ve performed what to you is merely an act of logical necessity—but did you for one minute consider the consequences for Mr. Brundleweed? In a few hours from now he’ll awaken to find his business in ruins. His reputation will suffer. His income will be devastated. He and his family will be penalised for your actions.”

“Irrelevant!” Babbage jerked. “The man is nothing but a common merchant.”

“And what of his son or his daughter? Do you know their destiny?”

Babbage licked his lips. “What are you talking about? I don’t even know whether he
has
a son or daughter. I know nothing about the man!”

“Exactly! You know nothing about him, yet you judge him dispensable. What if one of his children was destined to discover a cure for influenza, or the secret of perpetual motion, or a system by which poverty could be eliminated? What might you have deprived us of?”

The old man looked disconcerted. “None of that is certain,” he protested. “And since they are a lower class of people, it is highly unlikely.”

“Your disdain for the working classes is well known, Sir Charles. Perhaps that is why you seek to replace them with thinking machines. But your contempt does not eliminate the possibility that someone in the Brundleweed family might one day play a crucial role in our social evolution.”

The king’s agent fought the impulse to vomit. An unbearable hammering assaulted the inner walls of his skull.

“It’s a very simple equation,” Babbage grumbled. “A matter of probability. We can state that
maybe
Brundleweed’s children will become an important influence to future generations, but we can also state that I, Charles Babbage, am
already
an important influence and will continue to be so.”

“Conceit!”

“Fact! I can certainly make the world a more efficient place!”

“But maybe,” Burton whispered, “efficiency isn’t all it’s held up to be. Maybe it’s the inefficiencies and mistakes that give us the best impetus to change and grow and improve!”

“No! Miscalculations slow us down! I don’t make them. I deal only with the proven and the certain, yet who can dispute that I am evolved? Hand me the diamonds!”

Burton passed the five black gemstones to the old man.

“You can kill me now,” Babbage said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kill me, Sir Richard. Brunel will do the rest.”

With a shaking hand, Burton pulled the blade from his swordstick.

“Are you sure? You really want me to kill you?”

“Of course I do. Get on with it, man! I have work to do!”

“You are absolutely certain that your memories will be transferred to the diamonds?”

“Yes!”

“Then you illustrate my argument admirably. Nothing in life is certain, Sir Charles. The diamonds are fakes.” He stepped forward and plunged his rapier into the scientist’s heart. “Do you now get my point?”

Babbage whispered: “Fakes?”

He died. His corpse slid from Burton’s sword and crumpled to the floor.

The king’s agent turned and faced the Steam Man.

The hulking machine stood motionless but for the bellows on its shoulder, which scraped up and down incessantly. Little more than an inch of the cigar remained.

Bells chimed: “The François Garnier Collection is not genuine?”

“The stones are onyx crystals.”

“Impossible.”

“Look for yourself.”

Burton stepped back. Brunel lumbered past him and retrieved a stone from Babbage’s hand, holding it up with a pincer while another arm held a magnifying tool in front of it.

Burton had no idea what the engineer used for eyes.

“You are correct,” Brunel rang. “Then Babbage is dead and his device is useless.”

The king’s agent felt his knees giving way. He sheathed his sword.

“I can’t fight you, Brunel. I’m not sure I can even stand up for much longer. The best I can do is offer some advice.”

“Advice?”

“Stop associating with insane scientists. The authorities are already concerned about you after your involvement with Darwin and his cronies. This latest caper will do your reputation no good at all. Redeem yourself, Isambard. Redeem yourself.”

Even as the words left his lips, the room began to reel and Burton staggered to one side and collapsed onto the floor.

The massive engineer loomed over him. “Sir Richard, there are those in my faction who would have me kill you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Burton whispered, as darkness pushed in at the periphery of his vision. “And I bet John Speke is foremost among them.”

“You are wrong. Lieutenant Speke is no longer affiliated with the Technologists. He and a small group of Eugenicists absconded to Prussia some weeks ago.”

Burton’s eyes began to close. “Do your worst,” he said sleepily. “I’m at your mercy.”

“I would rather make a request of you.”

“A request? What—what is it?”

“My fiancée, nurse Florence Nightingale, is missing. She has not been seen or heard of for slightly over a month. Find her for me.”

“You want me to—”

“Find her. Will you try?”

Burton managed to nod. The room tumbled.

Distant bells: “I shall take Sir Charles and locate a quiet graveyard for him. He so abhorred noise. We will meet again, Sir Richard.”

Oblivion.

Shouts.

Gunshots.

War cries.

Orange light flickered across the canvas roof.

John Speke stumbled in. His eyes were wild.

“They knocked my tent down around my ears!” he gasped. “I almost took a beating! Is there shooting to be done?”

“I rather suppose there is,” Burton replied. “Be sharp, and arm to defend the camp!”

A voice came from behind: “There’s a lot of the blighters and our confounded guards have taken to their heels!” It was Lieutenant Herne, returning from a scouting mission. “I took a couple of potshots at the mob but then got tangled in the tent ropes. A big Somali took a swipe at me with a bloody great club. I put a bullet into the bastard. Stroyan’s either out cold or done for. I couldn’t get near him.”

Have they killed William Stroyan
?
God!
I’m sorry
,
William. It’s my fault!
I’m
so sorry!

A barrage of blows pounded against the canvas. Ululating war cries sounded. Javelins were thrust through the opening. Daggers ripped at the material.

“Bismillah!” Burton cursed. “We’re going to have to fight our way to the supplies and get ourselves more guns. Herne, there are spears tied to the tent pole at the back. Get ’em!”

“Yes, sir!” Herne responded. He turned, then cried: “They’re breaking through the canvas!”

Burton spat expletives. “If this blasted thing comes down on us we’ll be caught up good and proper. Get out! Come on! Now!”

He hurled himself through the tent flaps and into a crowd of twenty or so Somali natives, setting about them with his sabre, slicing right and left, yelling fiercely.

Clubs and spear shafts thudded against his flesh, bruising and cutting him, drawing blood. He glanced to the rear, toward the tent, and saw a thrown stone crack against Speke’s knee. The lieutenant stumbled backward.

“Don’t step back!” Burton shouted. “They’ll think that we’re retiring!”

Speke looked at him with an expression of utter dismay.

A club struck Burton on the shoulder. He twisted and swiped his blade at its owner. The crush of men jostled him back and forth. Someone shoved him from behind and he turned angrily, raising his sword, only recognising El Balyuz, the expedition’s guide, at the very last moment.

His arm froze in midswing.

White-hot pain tore through his head.

He stumbled and fell onto the sandy earth.

A weight pulled him sideways.

He reached up.

A javelin had pierced his face, in one side of his mouth and out the other, dislodging teeth and cracking his palate.

He fought to stay conscious.

The pain!

Damn it
,
Speke—help me!
Help me!

A damp cloth on his brow.

Dry sheets beneath him.

He opened his eyes.

Algernon Swinburne smiled down at him.

“You were having a nightmare, Richard.
The
nightmare.”

Burton moved his tongue about in his mouth. It was dry, not bloody.

“Water,” he croaked.

Swinburne reached to the bedside table. “Here you are.”

Burton pushed himself into a sitting position, took the proffered glass, and drank greedily.

His friend plumped the pillows behind him and he leaned back, feeling comfortable, warm, and unbelievably weak. He was in his own bedroom at 14 Montagu Place.

“It was a bad attack,” Swinburne advised. “I refer to the malaria, not to the Berbera incident,” he added, with a grin.

“Always the same bloody dream!” Burton grumbled.

“It’s not surprising, really,” the poet noted. “Any man who had a spear shoved through his ugly mug would probably have nightmares about it.”

“How long?”

“The spear?”

“Was I unconscious for, you blessed clown.”

“You were in a high fever for five days then slept almost solidly for three more. Doctor Steinhaueser has been popping in every few hours to keep you dosed up with quinine. We forced chicken broth into you twice daily, though I doubt you remember any of that.”

“I don’t. The last thing I recollect is talking with Brunel in the priory. Eight days! What happened? Last time I saw you, you’d just taken a tumble through some trees.”

“Yes, that confounded swan was an unmanageable blighter! I rounded up a little squadron of constables and we drove the pantechnicon to Scotland Yard. Of course, it was an utter waste of time; there were neither fingerprints nor any other admissible evidence to connect it either with the Brundleweed robbery or with Brunel and his clockwork men.

“Anyway, while I was having my cuts and bruises attended to by the Yard physician, William Trounce, Herbert Spencer, and Constable Bhatti all came limping in for the same treatment. We knew you’d get word to us, so after we’d been bandaged, soothed, patted on our heads, and sent on our merry way, we regrouped in Trounce’s office, sat steaming by the fire, and waited. When the parakeet arrived and delivered your message, we gathered a force together and raced to Crouch End on velocipedes. You were unconscious inside the priory with the diamonds at your side. There was no sign of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”

“Did you find one of Babbage’s devices? On a plinth?”

“Yes. Trounce took it in as evidence. The diamonds were returned to Brundleweed. He’s not happy, though. It turns out that Brunel made off with a select few and left fakes in their place.”

“The black ones? François Garnier’s Choir Stones?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I’ll tell you later, Algy. But you’re wrong. It wasn’t Brunel who took the originals. I need to sleep now. I’ll write up a full report when my strength is back. Oh, by the way, what became of Herbert Spencer?”

“He got a little reward from Scotland Yard for helping us out. Miss Mayson has given him an occasional job, too. He cleans out the parakeet cages at the automated animal academy.”

“He must have a thick skin!”

“He doesn’t need one. Apparently the birds have taken a shine to him and barrage him with compliments!” Swinburne stood. “I’m staying in the spare bedroom. Just ring if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Burton replied sleepily as his friend departed.

He lay back with his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

Two weeks passed.

Burton worked on an expanded edition of his book
The Lake Regions of Central Africa.

He slowly regained his strength. His long-suffering housekeeper, Mrs. Iris Angell, cooked him magnificent meals and despaired when he sent them back barely touched. His appetite had always been slight, but now—as she told him every single morning and every single evening—he needed sustenance.

She underestimated his iron constitution.

Little by little, the gaunt hollows beneath his scarred cheekbones filled out; the dark shadows around his eyes faded; his hands steadied.

Algernon Swinburne, now living back in his own apartment on Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, was a frequent visitor and observed with satisfaction the normal swarthiness returning to his friend’s jaundiced countenance.

Burton eventually got around to writing a report detailing his confrontation with Sir Charles Babbage. He held nothing back.