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He dived into the murk. Something had caught his eye momentsago. It had possibilities.
“We have to keep moving, Captain!” Hare called after him.
Burton ran back the way they'd come until he reached the edge ofthe square. He peered to his right, through the swirling haze.
It was still there.
He returned to Burke and Hare.
“There's an abandoned omnipede,” he reported, taking back thepistol. “I suggest we hijack the blighter. It'll get us overWaterloo Bridge in no time.”
“You can drive the contraption?” Hare asked.
“I can try. I don't think the controls are much different fromthose on a rotorchair. Come on.”
He helped Hare with Burke, dragging him along until they reachedthe giant mechanised millipede. It was slumped across the road,empty but for the driver, whose corpse hung over the edge of thecontrol seat.
“Looks like he was bludgeoned,” Hare muttered.
They hauled Burke up the steps in the side of the vehicle'scarapace and laid him on a bench. He stirred and moaned.
“Help me to shift the driver,” Burton said. “Try not to use yourinjured arm-I don't want you bleeding any more than you alreadyare.”
“Me neither, Sir Richard.”
They descended and moved to what used to be the head of thegigantic insect. As they dragged the dead body down and across tothe side of the road, Hare noted that there weren't many peopleabout. “It seems like a wave of rioters has come and gone throughthis part of town,” he ruminated. “I wonder where they are now? Doyou think they're still at it, Captain?”
“From the various cries and screams we're hearing, it appearsthat passions are still ru
He suddenly pointed the pistol at the other man and pressed thetrigger. With a soft phut! seven spines flew past Hare's ear andembedded themselves in the throat of the woman who'd loomed out ofthe smoke behind him. The length of pipe she held poised to crackdown onto his head fell from numb fingers and clanged onto theroad. She dropped on top of it.
“Much obliged,” said Hare.
“Take the cactus gun again. I'll drive. You shoot.”
Hare grasped the proffered weapon and clambered back onto theomnipede. He stood by the bench upon which Burke lay and bracedhimself against the canopy, clamping his injured arm against hisside, holding the spine-shooter ready.
Burton slipped into the driver's seat and examined the controls.A gauge indicated that the furnace was still burning and anotherthat boiler pressure was high. He settled his feet onto a platewhich operated in the same way as the one in his rotorchair: pressit forward with the toes to accelerate and backward with the heelsto slow and brake. There were two levers to facilitatesteering.
“Simple enough,” he breathed. “Let's be off.”
He pushed gently on the footplate. The insect shuddered andrattled, steam whistling from the vents between its many legs. Itjerked ahead, stopped, the engines spluttered, snarled, and thevehicle began to rumble forward.
Burton struggled with the controls. The machine was so longthat, as he exited the square and guided it onto Waterloo Road, itsmiddle strayed onto the pavement and scraped against the corner ofa bakery, grinding horribly on the brickwork and causing red dustto plume into the already dense atmosphere.
Some of the millipede's legs cracked and snapped against thebuilding. The shop's display window shattered.
“Careful! Careful!” Hare shouted.
Burton jammed down his heels.
“Steer out into the centre of the street, else we'll lose allthe limbs along this side!”
“Sorry,” the king's agent mumbled. He looked back along thelength of the vehicle, trying to judge distances. “Whose bloodystupid idea was it to turn an insect into a confounded ‘bus?” hegrowled.
A yank at the right-hand lever followed by a slow pull back onthe left sent the machine away from the corner and out into themiddle of the road.
He accelerated along the thoroughfare, fighting to maintaincontrol as the omnipede snaked wildly from side to side, hurtlinginto abandoned carts, overturned braziers, and all ma
Burton tried to slow it down-he could barely see where he wasgoing-but the footplate was far too responsive and his clumsyefforts caused a jolting motion that had his teeth clickingtogether and Hare yelling at him.
“Stop or go, if you please, Captain, but for pity's sake try notto do both at once!”
The king's agent glanced again at the gauges.
Perhaps if- -
He reached to a small wheel beside the pressure indicator andturned it counterclockwise. Immediately, all along the great lengthof the omnibus, plumes of steam screamed out of the vents.
The vehicle stabilised.
“The pressure was too high!” he called. “I've got her in handnow!”
Phut! Phut! Phut!
He looked back.
Gregory Hare was shooting at a brougham that had emerged fromthe swirling smoke and was racing alongside, its steam-horsepanting, its driver hollering incoherently. A man was hangingloosely out of the passenger cabin, his arms dangling, cactusspines projecting from the side of his head. Behind him, using himas cover, another man was brandishing a pair of pistols and takingpotshots at Hare.
“Shoot the blessed driver!” Burton yelled.
“I'm trying! Perhaps you could pilot this contraption a littlemore steadily?”
“God-damned stupid machine!” ground out Burton through grittedteeth. “Why in the name of all that's holy did I ever leaveAfrica?”
He wrenched at the left steering lever, sending the omnipedethundering around a motionless and badly dented litter-crab.
A bullet whined past his ear.
“Lions I can bloody well cope with. Mosquitoes I can bloody wellcope with. Even traitorous bloody partners, I can bloody well copewith. But giant steam-operated insects I can quite-”
The ’bus slammed into a beer wagon, sending splintered woodexploding outward.
“-happily-”
The vehicle bucked and shook as it trampled over the shatteredcart.
“-do without!”
“I'm hit!” Hare cried.
Burton looked back and saw that Palmerston's man had slumpeddown, clutching his hip, his wide mouth contorted with pain.
The brougham drew closer to the head of the racing insect.
“Stupid stuck-up ponce!” bawled the driver. “You think you cancheat Tichborne?”
Bullets thudded into the carapace at Burton's side.
The stench of the Thames wafted over the king's agent as theomnipede streaked past empty tollbooths and out onto WaterlooBridge. He caught a glimpse of Big Ben through the stiflingatmosphere. Orange light reflected from the side of the tower. TheHouses of Parliament were burning.
A shot clipped his ear.
“Upper-class pig bastard!”
“Snooty pisspot!” yelled the brougham's passenger. “Tichborneforever!”
“You two are worse than parakeets,” Burton shouted. “And I'vehad quite enough of it!”
He tugged at the right steering lever, sending the omnibusswerving sideways until it collided with the pursuers. The drivershrieked as his vehicle was rammed into the bridge's parapet.
“Sweet Jesus!” screamed the man inside the cabin as it crunchedagainst the stone barrier. With shocking rapidity, the entire boxsuddenly flew to pieces and was thrown into the air. Thesteam-horse overturned and the disintegrating brougham somersaultedover it, smashed against the railing, and disappeared over the sideof the bridge.
“There you are, gents,” Burton muttered. “A little river waterfor you. Wash your mouths out.” He called over his shoulder: “Areyou all right, Hare?”
“Just keep going, Captain! I seem to be immobilised but Idaresay I'll live!”