Clockwork Chaos (30 page)

Dollins and Stevens both found themselves nodding unconsciously. So far they had heard nothing with which they could not whole-heartedly agree. Filimena allowed herself a slight smile of satisfaction. It was through her family connections that the newest ministry department had learned of the Gibraltar and its epic battle with a horror from beyond over the deserts of distant Persia. For some reason she was certain would be revealed soon, it was the nature of their enemy itself which had intrigued Biggleton so.

“Gentlemen, Miss Edgars, I am not, nor have I ever been, a soldier. Although I have always greatly admired those blessed with the temperament to do so, my fate led me along another pathway. As I stated earlier, I am a scientist. Approximately a year ago, a device was brought to my offices which had been uncovered in the Sudan. After extensive study, I have learned three things about it. The first is that it is something not of this Earth. It runs on a power source we do not understand, utilizing machinery our best minds can not comprehend.”

“That’s a pretty big ‘first’.”

“And it gets more interesting, Mr. Stevens,” responded Biggleton, his smile for once a thing of genuine pleasure. “Second, in experimenting with it, we have found the device to be capable of capturing, harnessing, and then releasing with quite devastating results a unique form of energy. And third, after having worked with this machine for some months, I have discovered that it can provide us with an almost limitless repository of power.”

“My,” said Filimena softly, her breath racing with her excitement, “my Heavens.”

“Indeed,” said Biggleton. Taking a small sip from his brandy, he placed his snifter on the desk once more, then continued, saying, “Which is why the Crown, most gratified by the tests they have witnessed, has authorized me to begin a program that will, in all probability, make Great Britain the dominant power of our world.”

“And how exactly would you be doing that, Mr. Biggleton,” asked Stevens, not at all comfortable with the manner in which the scientist was staring at Miss Edgars at that point. “And while we’re talking such matters, what—exactly—would any of it have to do with us?”

“I would do so, Mr. Stevens,” answered Biggleton, “by capturing the greatest source of power ever imagined. And you would help me do so by providing transportation for my device and myself to the place where this power resides.”

“And where, sir,” asked Dollins, beginning to not only understand, but share his pilot’s trepidation, “exactly would that be?”

“Why, beyond the wall of sleep.”

Then, as eager as Biggleton had seemed when first he had begun his speech to talk about his Ministry, he suddenly put those gathered off almost immediately after gaining their attention. He did, however, promise them a demonstration he felt would do far more than any collection of words toward enlisting their aid. Giving them a time and place—specifically, the London mansion of Sir Jeffery Mach, at seven in the evening two nights hence—he had then taken his leave, claiming to have much to prepare.

Understandably flummoxed by such behavior, Stevens had merely asked Filimena if she would care to surrender a place on her dance card to him, while Dollins returned to the bar where several other elder military types were waiting for just such an officer as himself to join them. Those in attendance had been telling outrageous stories to the newly commissioned officers present, all fine young men, but all certainly in need of being taken down a peg or three by impossible stories of outrageous valor made believable by the respectability of age and the disruptive effects of distilled spirits.

Two More Days Later

“I see you’ve brought someone else along,” said Biggleton as he greeted the Gibraltar crew, not paying any of them much attention as he stared upward at the parapet of the Mach mansion, checking the time according to his pocket watch. Nodding unconsciously, he turned his focus toward an unusual apparatus on the ground before him. As he checked it over, Dollins offered, “This ’ere is Spitz. Chief mechanic of my crew, a quite-rightly acknowledged master tinker, and England’s acknowledged Steamsmith to the Crown, no less.”

When Biggleton looked up, finally focusing on the newcomer, his eyes went wide as he practically shouted;

“What in the name of... he, it... that... he’s a chimpanzee.”

“I know,” offered Stevens, doing his best to hide his smile, “Brilliant cog and gear bloke he is, but have a care if he tries to get you into a game of chance.” The pilot lowered his voice, then added in all honesty, “He’s a terrible card cheat. Took Lord Holtz for eight thousand pounds, he did.”

“Don’t forget the old boy’s yacht,” added Dollins, “and those chests of tea and silks fresh back from Cathay.”

As Biggleton stared in a combination of suspicion and perplexity, Spitz ambled forward to inspect the scientist’s machinery for himself. Biggleton’s first reaction was to deny the simian mechanic access to his wonder, but a voice from the back of his brain whispered a reminder to him. He had heard tales of some of the bizarre insights a master steamsmith named Spitz had shown. And, after all, he told himself, if the mechanic—chimp or not—had been favorably received at court, who was he to refuse another well-considered opinion.

“Well, what do you make of it,” asked Stevens as his shipmate and best friend studied the device.

“Ook, ook.”

The machine was a simple thing, no larger than an average pumpkin—made of a silver metal, highly polished, adorned with but three switches set in a triangle. If one were to position the nondescript machine on its flattest side, the toggle at what would then be considered its summit would be the red one, its base consisting of one on the left which was yellow and one to its right which was white.

The device had several sliding panels which Spitz uncovered in less than a tenth of the time it had originally taken Biggleton, a fact which impressed the scientist to no end. As the Gibraltar’s chief mechanic got lost in examining Biggleton’s machine, the scientist motioned the others off to the side. Out of earshot, he asked, “I must admit, that’s one deuced clever little chap, this Spitz of yours. He’s really a chimp, though? Not just some hairy fellow from the subcontinent?”

“Our Spitzie takes a bit of gettin’ used to for some, ’e does,” offered the captain fondly, “but trust me, there’s no better mechanic in the empire, or outside it, either, I dare say.”

“Fine enough for me, Mr. Dollins,” answered Biggleton with an honesty which surprised Stevens. “The Good Lord gives out talents as He sees fit, and that, my friends, is exactly why we are here.”

“Does that mean the suspense is about to end?”

“You’ll forgive my theatrics, Mr. Stevens, but I do believe the demonstration I have arranged here will explain all quite nicely.” Biggleton checked his pocket watch once more, then announced, “Yes, it’s almost time. These things aren’t exact, of course, but if you would turn your attention to the parapet above...”

As all did as instructed, Biggleton pointed out a slight indention just beyond the red toggle to Spitz which, if considered from a certain angle, could be thought of as a sighting guide. While the others stared upward, the scientist explained, “The Mach mansion is one of the oldest in the London area, and as such suffers from the same type of invasive manifestations as many in England—”

“Mice?” asked Dollins.

“Ghosts,” responded Biggleton. His eyes were focused on the device, his attention completely absorbed by lining up the center of the parapet. He continued without looking up, “For the past one hundred and thirty-seven years, the disembodied spirit of an unknown young woman has drifted along the rampart above, each evening from the hours of eight to ten. No one knows why, but thousands have witnessed the occurrence.”

Then, as if on cue, a ghostly luminescence formed at one end of the parapet and began to move forward. The shining form moved slowly, not in the manner of a body being propelled by animal locomotion, but gliding instead. After only a few seconds, the random light congealed into a recognizable form—that of a young woman. The form did not speak or make any other noise. Nor did it take notice of those below it. Instead it simply moved from one end of the parapet to the other as it had for over a century.

“I’ll be fried for Sunday mornin’ bacon,” said Dollins, his jaw hanging somewhat slack.

“Butter me with the toast,” whispered Stevens, his own mouth hanging a touch open as well.

Biggleton did nothing during the apparition’s first pass or its second, allowing his audience to become comfortably familiar with the phenomenon. But, as the ghostly shape began its third sally along the rampart, the scientist spoke, his hands poised over his machine as he told the others, “Ghosts, as many of our leading scholars in the field have told us, are made up of ectoplasm—a pure form of energy. And tonight, I will show you all...”

The shimmering form moving directly into the path of Biggleton’s machine, the scientist threw the red switch—

“Exactly what...”

Then the yellow—

“Can be done...”

And then the red—

“With such power!”

As the first toggle had been thrown, Biggleton’s device had begun to hum. As the second had followed, the noise had grown dark and shrill even as a previously unseen portal had opened in the front of the machine directly below the sighting line. But, as the third had joined the others, a beam of shimmering light had snapped forward, slicing the air, burning it, leaving a slight trace of roasted ozone as it bathed the rampart—

But no trace whatsoever of the apparition, which had vanished utterly when the scientist’s iridescence made contact with it.

“Ook!”

“Gor, bang a hammer—you said it, Spitzie,” agreed Dollins.

“What just happened?”

“My dear Miss Edgars,” answered Biggleton as he swung around to face the others, his smile as wide as the channel, “you have just witnessed the reduction and capture of an ectoplasmic entity. But, allow me to show you something further which will finally reveal what it is about this device which has captured the Crown’s attention.”

Returning all three switches to their upright position, the scientist then moved the white and yellow to the opposite setting from the one he had just used. As he did so, a different aperture opened on the opposing end of the device from the first. Pointing out a stack of blocks and other old masonry off toward one end of the Mach mansion’s front lawn, Biggleton said, “Remarkable as capturing such energies is, so too is the use to which they can subsequently be put.”

And, so saying, the scientist depressed the red toggle once more, and the two and a half tons of granite and marble Lord Mach’s servants had spent some sixteen hours assembling for Biggleton’s demonstration were vaporized in less than a heartbeat.

Two and a Half Weeks Later

“All right now, Jackie, me lad, out with it... why the long face? You can’t be worried about this lark of an expedition ol’ Biggleton’s got planned for us, could you?”

The night at the Mach mansion, the scientist had explained the reason for his demonstration to the Gibraltar’s crew. The power derived from ectoplasmic energies, he informed them, had so far proved to be immeasurable.

“Lark?” Stevens eyes went understandably wide for an instant, after which the pilot narrowed them to slits, indicating he was willing to believe Dollins had gone completely mad. Giving him a chuckle, the captain admitted, “All right, the lark might not be the right bird to describe what ol’ Biggie’s got lined up, but tell me now, crazy as it is, it ain’t got you spooked none—has it?”

After the scientist had demonstrated such to the Queen, she had immediately created the Ministry of Extraordinary Weapons so that Biggleton might be able to search the world for more unique means with which to defend the empire. Experimenting with the Sudanese device had shown him things beyond his wildest dreams.

“No, I’m not going soft on you, Captain. Honest. We’ve shipped out into plenty of worse scrapes than this. Well, maybe not
plenty
of them, but...”

Capturing simple repeating vapors, such as the long dead young woman he had snared and used as cannonade that evening at Lord Mach’s had been the type of demonstration he had produced for her majesty. But, as he had experimented with other types of supernatural manifestations, the scientist had discovered that greater power could be gained.

Far greater.

“Then it’s Filimena, isn’t it? And all the attention what Biggleton’s been payin’ her.”

Capturing a poltergeist, for example, generated fifty to a hundred times the energy as a simple recurring phantom. Taking his machine to exorcisms and grabbing hold of the expelled demons brought him force enough to shatter mountains.

“I’d be lying worse than a Frenchman if I claimed different.”

And, it had been exactly that level of might the scientist had demonstrated for the delicate Miss Edgars more than once over the preceding weeks. Always careful to present himself as nothing more than a friend interested in the librarian as a colleague, he had finally revealed himself as having other intentions one afternoon when they met for a luncheon after which Biggleton had promised to give Edgars a tour of the Ministry of Extraordinary Weapons.

“You think ’e might have... intentions?”

He had done so as promised, taking her through the building’s series of laboratories, testing centers and assembly rooms. When they ended their exploratory junket, however, they found themselves not in Biggleton’s office, but in a slightly smaller one directly adjacent to it. When the librarian asked why they did not return to the scientist’s own office, he told her, “Because, I thought you might fancy seeing your own office, Miss Edgars.”

The young woman was greatly taken aback to say the least. Certainly she had always felt she deserved a place in the world of men. But, knowing one should be accorded an honor, and actually being in the proper vicinity when Fate came knocking to bring it around, she knew were two entirely different matters. Moreover, before she could even begin to suspect that Biggleton had some sort of devious ulterior motive, the scientist had quickly explained his intentions.