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Burton opened his eyes. The interior of Battersea Power Station had transformed into what appeared to be a nightmarish surgical ward. Vast pulsating monstrosities of flesh and tubes and organs humped up from the floor around him. Tentacled glowing organisms hung from the high ceiling. Cartilage and throbbing arteries stretched from wall to wall. He was standing in the midst of it, facing a workbench. Babbage and the surgeon Joseph Lister were on the opposite side. Charles Darwin and Francis Galton were whispering together to his left. Damien Burke and Gregory Hare—who in El Yezdi’s history had been allies and in his own enemies—were to his right, both dressed, bizarrely, as Harlequin.
“I must confess, this procedure involves an unusual degree of unpredictability,” Babbage said. “For if there’s a time suit here, then there are time suits in the other realities, too, and if every Charles Babbage simultaneously co
Ah! Burton thought. Is that it?
Babbage reached toward the suit.
“Stop!” Burton shouted.
The scientist glanced up at him. “Don’t interfere, sir! Know your place!”
He touched the generator.
Pause.
Pop.
Gone.
While Babbage and Lister squabbled, Burton walked over to Damien Burke and said, “Where’s Brunel?”
Burke’s lugubrious features creased into a frown. “Dead. Did you forget killing him, Mr. Burton?”
“Ah. And what about Isabel Arundell?”
“She’s still on her honeymoon, isn’t that right, Mr. Hare?”
“It is, Mr. Burke,” Hare agreed.
“To whom is she married?”
“Why, to Mr. Bendyshe, of course.”
“Bendyshe? Thomas Bendyshe?” Burton threw his head back and gave a bark of laughter. When he looked down, he was in front of the bench yet again, and the power station was an intricate structure of wrought iron and stained glass, like a baroque cathedral.
“Mr. Gooch,” Babbage said, “make a note. It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860. We shall begin.”
Burton felt a pistol in his waistband. He yanked it out and pointed it at Babbage.
“No. Step away from the suit. Don’t touch it.”
Babbage glared at him. “There is no time for games, Captain.”
Burton shot him in the head.
As blood sprayed and Babbage fell backward to the floor, Burton yelled, “Everyone remain absolutely still or I swear I’ll kill every one of you.”
“My giddy aunt! Have you lost your mind?” Swinburne screeched from beside him.
“You’ve killed Charles!” Gooch cried out.
Burton heard Richard Monckton Milnes, behind him, say, “You’d better have a damned good explanation for this, Dick.”
The time suit popped out of existence.
Gooch, Swinburne, and Monckton Milnes gaped at the indentation in the floor where the bench had been.
“What happened?” Monckton Milnes muttered.
Gooch said, “Impossible! Charles never touched it.”
Burton lowered his gun. “Now that,” he said, “is very interesting indeed.”
“What is?” Swinburne asked.
Finding himself in mid-stride, the king’s agent stumbled and stopped. There came a tug at his hand. He was holding a lead. Fidget, by his right ankle, looked up.
To his left, Swinburne drew to a halt.
“Algy? I—I—I beg your pardon?”
“I said, what is?” Swinburne replied. “You said something was interesting.”
Burton placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady himself. The world buckled and distorted around him. It shimmered, solidified, and he saw they were in Whitehall Place, close to the Royal Geographical Society. The street’s gutters were piled high with red blossoms, bright beneath an unbroken but thi
“Um, the date?”
“The date is interesting?” Swinburne asked. “Why so?”
“No, I mean, what is it?”
The poet stared at him. “The seventeenth, of course. What’s the matter? Surely not another hallucination? When? Just now?”
“It’s Friday?”
“Yes. One o’clock-ish. Good Lord! I didn’t notice a thing!”
“Wait. Tell me, what have we been doing? Where are we going?”
“You summoned me. I pushed your broken velocipede all the way to your place and arrived about an hour ago. You told me about last night’s invasion of Spring Heeled Jacks and your conversation with Krishnamurthy and Bhatti, and then we hopped into a cab. It just dropped us off.”
Burton looked at the RGS building. “We’re here for Richard Spruce.”
“You remember that?”
“No, I presume it. He’s the only botanist we know. I don’t recall a thing since—” He stopped and considered. “Since just after breakfast. The experiment—I keep returning to it. I’ve witnessed so many alternate versions of the bloody event that I’m giddy with it.”
The king’s agent massaged the back of his neck. He could still feel the Saltzma
“It was unusually rapid again,” he murmured, referring to the fast onset of the tincture’s effects and their unusual intensity.
Swinburne, mistaking his meaning, said, “Not really, if it lasted from breakfast to lunch. All morning in the grip of a mirage!”
The tincture.
The visions.
Of course!
Burton heaved a sigh. “Come on.”
They strode the short distance to the Royal Geographical Society and went inside. Burton nodded to the portly man at the reception desk, who immediately came out from behind it, hurried over, and said in a hushed voice, “You’ll not cause any bother?”
“Bother, Mr. Harris?” Burton asked.
“Sir Roderick is furious with you. Your monster caused a great deal of damage last night.”
“It’s not my monster,” Burton protested. “I’m not responsible for what happened here.”
“It was screaming your name and Sir Roderick holds you accountable. The Society doesn’t welcome such disruption. You may be disbarred.”
Burton snarled, “If that’s his attitude, Sir Roderick can shove the Society right up his—”
“Harris,” Swinburne interrupted. “We just want a word with Richard Spruce. We’ll be but a moment.”
Harris looked relieved. “He’s not here.”
“Where, then?” the poet asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll find someone who does,” Burton said. He shouldered past Harris, who cried out, “But! But! But! I say! No dogs allowed!” and ascended the wide staircase with Fidget and Swinburne at his heels. To their left, portraits of the Empire’s most celebrated explorers were hanging crookedly. Dr. Livingstone had a hole in his forehead and Mungo Park was upside down.
They passed along a wood-panelled hallway to the clubroom. The normally impressive chamber was in disarray. The mirror behind the bar was broken. The carpet was strewn with fragments of glasses and bottles. Tables and chairs were splintered and overturned.
There were only eight men present, three of them staff, who were assiduously cleaning the mess.
“No Spruce,” Burton murmured, “but I see old Findlay by the window. Perhaps he can point us in the right direction.”
Arthur Findlay, a lean-faced individual, was sitting in an armchair, reading a newspaper through pince-nez spectacles, apparently oblivious to the signs of chaos that surrounded him. He looked up as they approached, sprang to his feet, and clasped Burton’s hand in greeting.
“I say! Beastly Burton! How the deuce are you, old fellow? Been brawling again, I see. Here, last night, was it? I’ve heard rumours of a wild animal on the rampage.”
“Hallo, Arthur. I’ll confess to a slight spat, but it wasn’t here. Have you met Algernon Swinburne?”
“Hallo, lad. You’re the poet, aren’t you? Super! Simply super!”
“What ho! What ho! What ho!” Swinburne returned. He pointed down to the basset hound. “Have you met the mutt? His name is Beelzebub, Savage Fiend of Hell.”
“Fidget,” Burton corrected.