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Isambard Kingdom Brunel clanged, “Sir Richard. Congratulations. Are you recovered?” His voice sounded like handbells being spilled onto a church organ.
“From the ceremony or from my injuries?”
“Heh! Your injuries, of course.”
“My bruises pain me, but for the most part, yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
He put his right hand to his left elbow and felt for a wound that wasn’t there.
Why did I do that? My arm received no injury.
He turned his attention back to Brunel and, as he always did, wondered how much of the famous engineer still existed inside his life-maintaining machine. Brunel had suffered a serious stroke last year and would have died had Gooch not quickly designed and constructed the globe in which he was now preserved.
“You summoned me, Isambard?”
“I did. Sir Charles is about to perform an experiment that, as the guardian of the time suit, you should witness.”
Burton looked at the workbench around which they were gathered. Edward Oxford’s burned and blistered outfit had been laid out on it.
A powerful sense of déjà vu blossomed from the pit of his stomach. Its heat filled him, made his senses reel, and caused him to lean unsteadily on his walking cane.
Why am I here again?
It was a thought that made no sense.
Burton suddenly had no control over himself. Everything appeared unfamiliar. The inside of the station was crammed with contraptions, but they weren’t the ones he knew. Babbage and Gooch were dressed in oddly tailored clothes. And Brunel—
A battered sphere? Shouldn’t he be a man of brass?
He struggled to piece together recent events and glanced at the next workbench along, wondering why it was there and puzzled by the expectation that there should be a dent in the floor instead.
Memories welled up. Red snow. Leicester Square. Spring Heeled Jack.
“What experiment?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
It went wrong. The suit vanished of its own accord. Yet here it is.
Babbage pointed at the dented and blistered helmet. “As you are aware, this contains a synthetic intelligence, though its thought processes have been crippled by Edward Oxford’s lunacy. During the course of the past three months, I have asked it questions, and it has replied to them with—”
“You’ve been wearing it?” Burton interrupted. “I thought Abdu El Yezdi left strict instructions that you should never—” He stopped.
Babbage and Gooch peered at him curiously.
Brunel chimed, “Who is Abdu El Yezdi?”
“No one. Nothing. My apologies. I’m—I’m tired. My mind is wandering.”
“Rein it in!” Babbage snapped. “Pay attention! This is important! As I was saying, the headpiece has never responded to my queries with anything other than garbled nonsense. I’ve had to sort through all ma
“I do,” Burton murmured.
Nine o’clock! How can it be nine o’clock again?
The scientist reached down and traced a shape on the side of the Nimtz generator. The disk began to glow. It crackled. Suddenly, a shower of sparks erupted from it. Babbage flinched and cried out in alarm.
“What happened?” Gooch asked.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps the power has been routed to the wrong—”
The scientist stopped as a transparent bubble materialised around the helmet, suit, and boots. It rapidly expanded. The men quickly backed away from it, but Brunel didn’t roll fast enough; the edge of the bubble touched him just before, with a deafening bang, it popped. The suit, the workbench, and a small section of the famous engineer vanished into thin air.
Gooch placed a hand on the sphere. “Are you all right, Isambard?”
The silver globe didn’t respond. It was silent and still.
“What’s wrong with him?” Burton asked. He looked down at the floor and saw a familiar smooth round indentation where the floor had been scooped out by the edge of the chronostatic energy field.
“It’s hard to say,” Gooch replied. “Maybe his probability calculator has been damaged.”
“Pah!” Babbage put in. “A trifling matter. The suit has gone. Gone!”
“Into time, Sir Charles?” Gooch asked.
“Obviously! Hell and damnation! What have we lost? The knowledge! The knowledge!” The scientist lowered his face into his hands and moaned. “Go away, all of you. I have to think. You’re distracting me. Leave me alone.”
Burton cocked an eyebrow at the eccentric old man, glanced at Gooch, then looked down and was surprised to see that his hands, apparently of their own volition, were buttoning his coat over Army reds. Puzzled by the uniform, he retrieved its cap from a table, took up his silver-handled swordstick, and heard himself say, “I’ll leave you to it. There are matters I need to attend to.”
“Is the Nietzsche affair not done with?” Gooch asked.
“It’s over,” Burton answered, not really knowing what the Nietzsche affair was. He bid Gooch farewell, eyed Babbage and Brunel for a moment, then turned and left the station. As he stepped into the courtyard, he expected to see snow falling. It wasn’t. There was just a solid wall of bitterly cold fog.
Crossing to the main gates, he exited through them and was greeted by a whirring voice. “That was quick.”
Startled, Burton took a pace backward. A large horse-shaped contraption of brass loomed in the murk, regarding him with big, round, glowing eyes.
“What—what are you?” the king’s agent stammered.
What is wrong with me? Have I amnesia?
“Orpheus, your trusty steed, of course. Have you come to test my knowledge of things you already know or are we going somewhere? I need to get moving. I haven’t much enjoyed standing here with this damp air seeping into my joints.”
“Orpheus,” Burton mumbled. It was the name of the airship—captained by Nathaniel Lawless—that had flown him into central Africa last year, enabling his discovery of the source of the River Nile.
The contraption said, “Are you going to climb aboard or stand there with your jaw dangling?”
Hesitantly, Burton moved to the horse’s side and mounted it.
“Where do you want to go?” it asked.
“Um. Home.”
“Walk, trot, or gallop?”
“Can you trot in this fog?”
“Of course. I can’t guarantee I won’t collide with anything, though.”
“That’s not very encouraging. Proceed at the safest pace.”
Orpheus set off, heading for Nine Elms Lane. The vehicle’s eyes projected twin beams of light into the darkness. It picked up speed and traversed the thoroughfare to Vauxhall Bridge. Burton paid the toll. They crossed the river then travelled on up to Victoria, past Green Park and Hyde Park, and along Baker Street. For the duration, Burton’s mind was practically frozen with bewilderment.
The city was quieter than he’d ever heard it. There were no steam horse–drawn cabs, no pantechnicons, no steam spheres, no velocipedes, and no rotorchairs—just a few riders on mechanical horses. Disconcertingly, the steeds greeted one another as they passed: