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Pox returned to his shoulder.
He circled counterclockwise around the edge of Green Park,peering into the gloom.
There!
The massive pantechnicon was in the park, close to the QueenVictoria Memorial, with the mega-dray towering in front of it.
Looking back, he saw his colleagues following. Swinburne's birdsuddenly plummeted from the clouds, honked loudly, and swoopeddownward to land in the park. Behind it, the box kite was draggedthrough treetops, splintering and ripping until nothing of it wasleft. Burton saw the tiny poet bounce from branch to branch andtumble from the trees to the ground.
With a heartfelt curse, he slowed his swan, pulled it around ina tight turn, and flew low over his friend.
“Are you hurt?” he bellowed as he flapped past.
He wheeled again; flew back.
“Yes!” came a small voice from below. “It was thrilling!”
Burton marvelled at his swan's manoeuvrability as he pivoted itthrough the air to fly over Swinburne once more.
“Round up some policemen!” he shouted. “Capture thatpantechnicon!”
He increased altitude, wiping the rain from his eyes, andrejoined the others, who were circling above the massive vehicle.The bulky figure of Isambard Kingdom Brunel could be seen at theback of it. He was unloading four machines, aided by his threeclockwork men.
As always, Burton felt awed by the sight of the Steam Man.
The most famous and successful engineer in the world stood onthree multijointed mechanical legs. These were attached to ahorizontal disk-shaped chassis affixed to the bottom of Brunel'sbody. The body was like a barrel lying on its side, with domedprotrusions at either end. Each of these bore nine triple-jointedarms, and each arm ended in a different tool, ranging from delicatefingers to slashing blades, drills, hammers, spa
A further dome rose from the top of Brunel's body. From this,too, arms extended-six in all-though these were more liketentacles, long and flexible. Each ended in a clamplike hand.
At various places around the barrel-body, revolving cogwheelspoked through slots, and on one shoulder a piston slowly rose andfell. On the other, something resembling a bellows pumped up anddown and Burton knew from previous experience that it made ahideous wheezing noise.
This massive mechanism kept Brunel alive-but what of the maninside? How did he breathe or see or hear or eat? How much of hishumanity did he retain?
The king's agent-along with Swinburne, Trounce, and two or threeothers-was aware that some of the engineer's recent activities werenot only ethically dubious but had, perhaps, gone beyond theboundaries of the law. However, as Sir Richard Mayne, chiefcommissioner of police at Scotland Yard, said: “It would be unwiseto arrest a national hero-a man who has done, and secretlycontinues to do, great good for the Empire-unless we have absoluteand irrefutable proof of his crimes.”
So far, that proof had not been forthcoming.
Burton gave a whistle of amazement. He'd just realised whatBrunel and his assistants were doing. They were unpacking andunfolding ornithopters.
“Message for Detective Inspector Trounce,” he said. “Messagebegins. They have ornithopters. I don't know how fast these swansare but they're about to be tested. Message ends. Go.”
Pox plunged out of the kite.
Along with gas-filled airships and electrical engines,ornithopters were generally considered to be one of theTechnologists’ “dead-end” inventions-good in theory but not inpractice. The winged machines possessed great speed and could coverenormous distances without refuelling, but they were alsoimpossible for a person to control; human reactions simply weren'tfast enough to compensate for their i
The engineer's own flying machine was massive-the biggest of thetype the explorer had ever seen-which it needed to be in order tocarry Brunel's great weight.
The four swans swooped overhead as the ornithopters started toroll forward.
The parakeet returned to Burton's shoulder.
“Message from skunk-scented Detective Inspector Trounce!” itscreeched. “Message begins. Use your gun. Shoot the blastedornithopters, you sludge-brained nincompoop, but don't fire atbilious Brunel. Message ends.”
Burton passed the right rein to his left hand and pulled a Smithand Wesson revolver from his coat pocket. It was difficult to steerthe swan one-handed and the kite was swinging about wildly. Whatwith that and the rain and the wind, making an accurate shot seemedimpossible. His hand, too, was trembling with his oncoming fever.Hopelessly, he pointed the gun in the general direction of theornithopters and pulled the trigger. Immediately, one of themachines disappeared in a ball of steam and a loud detonationechoed across the park. A brass head went spi
“Lucky shot!” Burton mumbled. “Must have hit the pressureboiler!”
The three remaining ornithopters accelerated over the grass,belching vapour from their fu
Gunshots sounded from Trounce and Bhatti's kites, and one of theflying contraptions suddenly slid sideways, turned over, andthumped back down to earth, crushing the clockwork driver beneathit. Burton caught a glimpse of a mangled and twitching figure as heflew past.
He fired another shot, pocketed his revolver, grabbed at thereins with both hands, and gave them a hefty flick, urging his swanto greater speed.
The ornithopters, with wings beating so fast they became nothingbut a blur, leaned to the right and turned, heading northward. Theyincreased altitude and disappeared into the clouds. The swansfollowed.
Burton was wretchedly wet. His teeth chattered and he shookuncontrollably.
He wiped his face in the crook of his elbow and when he lookedup he found that he'd unexpectedly emerged into clear, dry, stillair.
The layer of cloud had fallen away beneath him and a full moonglared down, turning the top of the billowing weather front abright silvery grey. There was no rain and hardly a breeze at thisaltitude, and his box kite immediately settled into smooth flight,losing the sickening weaving and bobbing motion that had marked thepursuit so far.
Brunel's machine flapped ahead. Where was his companion?
Burton looked to his right and saw Bhatti and Spencer. He lookedto his left and saw Trounce-and shouted a warning! Too late!
The surviving clockwork man's ornithopter plunged from abovestraight into Trounce's swan. A metal wing tore through the bird'sneck, slicing its head clean off.
The ornithopter arced away as the bird's decapitated corpseplummeted down into the cloud, dragging the kite behind it. In theinstant before Trounce vanished into the thick mist, Burton saw himyank his emergency strap, separating the kite from the bird.
He breathed a sigh of relief. His friend would float safely toearth, though the landing might leave him shaken and bruised.
He steered closer to his two remaining companions. Here, abovethe bad weather, his voice carried: “Where did it go?”
“I don't know!” Bhatti yelled, peering up and around.
“Down into the cloud!” Spencer shouted. “It went right underyour bloomin’ kite, Boss! It- aaah! ”
The ornithopter shot up from below, passing straight through theharness that attached the vagrant philosopher to his bird. Spencertumbled away in his kite while the swan, with no one to guide it,turned and flew back the way it had come.
Burton snatched at his revolver, fumbled, and dropped it out ofthe kite. He cursed and glanced across at the constable, hoping hismoment of weakness hadn't been witnessed. It hadn't. Bhatti waslooking this way and that, sca