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Wells opened his mouth to say something but his words were drowned by thunder as the Astraeastarted to dump her payload onto the middle of the city. The noise slapped again and again at Burton's ears as the colonial district was pummelled and decimated. Soon, all he could see was a blanket of black smoke through which the red lights of Hades flickered, and gliding along above it, silhouetted against the glaring white sky, the menacing rotorship, drawing closer and closer to where the tip of the radio tower emerged from the expanding inferno.
Wells stood on tiptoe and put his mouth to Burton's ear, which was ringing with such intensity that the explorer could barely hear the correspondent's soprano voice: “We had no choice but to do it. I wonder, though-will the human race ever transcend the animalistic impulses that lead to such behaviour?”
Burton yelled back: “I suspect animals would be most offended to be associated with an atrocity like this! What of the people down there? What of the Africans?”
“Casualties of war. As I said, we had no choice!”
“But this isn't their bloody conflict! It isn't their bloody conflict, damn it!”
A quick succession of blasts marked the end of the radio tower. The Astraeaslid over the belt of red weed and sailed northward with hornets buzzing around her.
The attack was already over.
Silence rolled back in from the surrounding countryside, broken only by occasional small explosions.
“She's probably on her way to give Tanga some of the same treatment,” Wells said, watching the rotorship receding into the distance.
Burton stood silently, struggling to stay on his feet. His legs were trembling violently, and his heart hammered in his chest.
“Bismillah!” he muttered. “Bismillah!”
CHAPTER 3
THE BAKER STREET DETECTIVE
Macallister Fogg's Own Paper! Issue 908.
Every Thursday. Consolidated Press.
One Pe
This Week:
Macallister Fogg and his lady assistant, Mrs. Boswell, investigate
THE PERIL OF THE GRAVITY PIRATES!
by T. H. Strongfellow
Plus the latest instalments of:
DOCTOR TZU AND THE SINGING COBRA by Cecil Barry
FATTY CAKEHOLE'S DORMITORY EMPIRE
by Norman Pounder
“Take us up, Mr. Wenham, no higher than seven thousand feet, if you please.” The order came from William Henson, the rotorship's first officer. He was a slender man, about fifty years old, with an extravagant moustache that curved around his cheeks to blend into bushy muttonchop whiskers. He wore tiny wire-framed spectacles that magnified his eyes while also accentuating his precise and somewhat stern ma
He turned to Burton and Swinburne, who were standing next to Captain Lawless, having been invited up to the co
A vibration ran through the deck as the engines roared. There was no sensation of movement, but through the windows curving around the front and sides of the tower, Burton saw the horizon slip downward.
“Here we go,” declared Francis Wenham, the helmsman. He was at a control console at the front of the cabin, manipulating three big levers and a number of wheels; a beefily built man with pale blond, rather untidy hair, and a wispy goatee beard.
“One thousand five hundred feet,” murmured the man at the station beside him. “Swing her forty degrees to starboard, please.”
“Forty degrees to starboard, aye, Mr. Playfair.”
The horizon revolved around the ship.
Playfair turned to Henson and said, “Course set, sir.”
“Thank you. Ahead, Mr. Wenham. Get her up to forty knots.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Flight time to London, three and a half hours,” Playfair noted.
Swinburne eyed the sharp-faced, dark-eyed navigator. “I didn't see him consult his instruments,” he muttered to Lawless. “Did he just do that calculation in his head?”
“Yes,” the captain answered quietly. “He's a wizard with mathematics, that one.”
The meteorologist-short, very stout, very hairy, and wearing his bulging uniform jacket tightly buttoned-a
“Thank you, Mr. Bingham.”
The captain turned to a tall, heavily bearded man who'd just entered the cabin and said, “Ah, there you are. Sir Richard, Mr. Swinburne, this is Doctor Barnaby Quaint, our steward and surgeon. He'll give you a tour of the ship, see that you're settled into your quarters, and will make sure that you have whatever you require.”
“Is there a bar on board?” Swinburne asked.
Quaint smiled. “Yes, sir, in the lounge, though it's closed at the moment. I dare say I could rustle you up a tipple, should you require it. Would you care to follow me, gentlemen?”
They took their leave of Lawless, left the command cabin, and descended a metal staircase. A short corridor led them past the captain's quarters on one side and the first officer's on the other, and through decorative double doors into the glass-encased observation deck.
They were greeted by Detective Inspectors Trounce and Honesty, Commander Krishnamurthy, Constable Bhatti, and Mrs. Iris Angell, who was beside herself with excitement.
“Who'd have thought!” exclaimed Burton's housekeeper. “Dirty old Yorkshire-see how pretty it appears from up here, Sir Richard!”
He stepped to her side and looked out at the little villages and patchwork fields passing below.
“The northern counties have some of the most beautiful countryside in all of England,” he said. “Did you think it would be different?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I expected horrible factories everywhere!”
“You'll find plenty of William Blake's ‘dark Satanic mills’ in and around the manufacturing cities, Mrs. Angell, but as you can see, the horror of the North felt by those in the South is generally quite unjustified.”
Burton watched the scenery slide by for a couple more minutes then moved over to where Detective Inspector Honesty was standing alone.
“Hello, old fellow,” he said. “I didn't see much of you at Fryston. Are you all set for Africa?”
Honesty turned to him. “I am. Wife unhappy but duty calls. Must finish this business. Stop interference from the future.” The detective gazed back out of the window and his pale-grey eyes fixed on the horizon. “Africa. Exotic flora. Might collect specimens. Cultivate in greenhouse when we return.”
“Are you an amateur horticulturalist? I didn't know.”
Honesty looked back at Burton and the explorer noticed a strange light in the smaller man's eyes-an odd sort of remoteness about his ma
“Should've been a landscape gardener. Always wanted to be. Joined the Force on account of my father. A Peeler. One of the originals. Very dedicated. Passionate about policing. Me-I'm just good at it. But gardening-well-” He paused and a small sigh escaped him. “There are different versions of history, Captain?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe in one, I made another choice. Thomas Manfred Honesty: Landscape Gardener.Hope so.”
He returned his attention to the vista outside.
Burton patted the detective's shoulder and left him. He felt troubled by his friend's detached air. Honesty hadn't been quite himself since last September's battle with the Rakes, when he'd had his fingers broken and been throttled almost to death by an animated corpse. It was, Burton thought, enough to u
Trounce approached him. “How long until we reach London? I'm eager to get back onto the trail of our murderer.”
“A little over three hours.” Burton lowered his voice. “I say, Trounce, what's your opinion of Honesty? Is he a hundred percent?”