Day of Rebellion (15 page)

Christie nodded his head slowly, absorbing everything he had just heard. “Babbage was a genius. He also had a skill for taking difficult ideas and translating them into real working machines. There is no doubt that if he had a device like this he could have used the apps in there to design and build some modern technologies. It sounds like that’s what he and his CPS mates, including Backhouse, did. Britain already had a solid industrial base and could start to manufacture some of the new inventions… and then they’d have filtered out to the rest of the
world.” He patted Jack on the back. “You’re a chip off the old block.” He paused. “But there is still the one fundamental question we haven’t answered…”

“Right,” said Angus. “How did Babbage and Backhouse get hold of a VIGIL device in the first place…?”

“Well it could only come from VIGIL themselves,” Jack said.

“Yeah, but why would VIGIL do that – I mean leave something like this in the past?” Angus said. “It’s totally against all the rules.”

“Yes – and we know why – it’s caused a horrendous mess.”

“What next then?” asked Angus

“We keep following the trail back in time until we get to the point where everything changes,” Christie said. “Ultimately we’re looking for the point where, for whatever reason, Babbage gets his hands on the VIGIL device. From that moment on, everything starts to change.”

“And the next bit of the trail is the CPS conference,” said Jack.

“Right,” Christie took out his time phone. We still have a time signal…What did you say that date was… 31st March … 1836?”

Jack looked at his father’s bandages. “Dad – are you going to be OK?”

“I’m fine… it’s just a scratch.”

“But if we go back to 1836,” Angus said. “What about our friend Fenton. He’s just tried to kill you and he’s still out there, still time travelling around the universe… don’t we have to do something about him?”

But they had no time to consider that complication, for at that moment there was a rattle of machine-gun fire from out on the waterfront, followed by screaming and shouting. The Taiping had finally broken through the last of the British defences around the harbour area and they were raising havoc.

Just then, they heard a crash of glass from the bar.

“It’s time to get going…” Christie said.

There was another loud crash and a fierce-looking Taiping warrior burst into the kitchen. He held a carbine at his side and he wasn’t going to waste time by asking questions, but as his index finger twitched on the trigger of his gun, he got a big surprise. The three people at the table in front of him, quite suddenly, just vanished into thin air.

T
hey had landed in a small copse beyond the outskirts of Cambridge and they were now walking up King’s Parade. It was a fresh March afternoon towards the end of the Lent term and the street was busy with students and townsfolk visiting the nearby market. Jack, Angus and Christie took a brief detour into a student outfitters to find some more suitable clothing. They passed King’s College Chapel – a magnificent stone building, which towered fifty metres into a clear blue sky, eclipsing everything else around it. At each corner of the roof stood a high tower and built into the front elevation was a glorious stained-glass window. As they passed the great building Jack recalled the night they had climbed one of its towers to escape the pursuing Spaniards. He could see the cloverleaf-shaped air holes which they had clambered up and the stone parapet at the top – the decorative crown a good fifteen metres above the roof. He gave Angus a nudge and pointed upwards.

“Remember?”

“How could I forget?” Angus replied.

“You nearly got us killed…”

“Saved your butt, you mean…”

They pressed on past the great archways leading into the college quads, and the spires of chapels. It was a bit of a contrast to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in China.

“Trinity College – it’s up here,” Christie said. “This is quite exciting…”

“What,” Jack said, “meeting Charles Babbage? Two computer nerds together – I’m sure you’ll get on great…”

“Funny,” Christie said.

“Yeah – he’s hilarious,” Angus added. “See what I have to deal with?”

“Think the plan will work?” Jack said.

“Getting in? I think so. The CPS isn’t such a big deal right now. It’s this conference that will put them on the map and suddenly make them very interesting to the government. If we’re right, before tonight, they are just regarded as a bunch of eccentric academics… Once we get in, keep your ears and eyes peeled. Remember what we’re looking for – any clue as to how Babbage got hold of the VIGIL device.”

“And when he got it,” Jack added.

They arrived at the great arched gateway of Trinity College. “Right this is it – everyone ready?”

Christie approached the porter’s lodge and a dark-suited porter peered at them suspiciously.

“We are here for the Cambridge Philosophical Society conference.”

“Name, sir?” the porter asked, looking at a sheet of paper.

“Professor Thomas Christie, Edinburgh University, and these are my research students.”

The porter looked down at a piece of paper with some names on it.

“I am terribly sorry, sir, but I don’t seem to have you on the list.”

“What?” Christie said. “Let me have a look, will you?”

“You see, sir,” the porter said. “And I am afraid Mr Babbage is very particular about the guests for tonight… It’s a very exclusive gathering.”

“Yes, I can see that our names are not there,” said Christie, glancing up and down the list. “Perhaps you could get a message to Mr Babbage?”

“Well, he will be very busy preparing for the conference, sir.”

“I understand. But if you can give him this,” Christie handed the porter an envelope, “I am quite sure that this
misunderstanding
can be cleared up straightaway…”

“I will do my best, sir.”

They waited in the porter’s lodge as a messenger was sent scurrying across the Great Court to locate Babbage and deliver the envelope.

A few minutes later he returned, red-faced, and whispered something to the porter, who nodded.

“Well sir, apparently Mr Babbage thanks you for your message and says that he apologises that your names are not on the list. He says he would be delighted to welcome you for drinks with the other guests who are now arriving in the Wren Library.”

Christie gave a little bow. “Thank you, sir.”

They stepped from the porter’s lodge into the Great Court
of Trinity College with a fountain at the centre and a chapel to the right.

“What did the note say, Dad?”

Christie smiled and gave them a wink, “Just a little something I thought would get Babbage’s attention…”

They passed through the Great Court and the cloisters of Nevile’s Court, towards the Wren Library, a magnificent glass and stone edifice stretching across the far side of the courtyard. The stonework glowed pink in the late afternoon sun.

“Looks like the CPS has generated a lot of interest for this meeting,” Jack observed.

A queue of people were filing slowly into the library for the first of the evening lectures. There was a low buzz of conversation as Christie, Jack and Angus joined the queue.

As they made their way slowly into the Wren Library, Jack noticed a weighty, leather-bound book that lay open on a display lectern just outside the entrance. It was titled
Principia Mathematica
by Sir Isaac Newton.

Christie caught Jack’s eye and smiled. “It’s even got the great man’s corrections… You know, this library has many more famous books – two of Shakespeare’s First Folios for a start… one of those will set you back three million quid in twenty-first century money…”

“I know Dad,” Jack muttered under his breath. “I’m fairly familiar with Shakespeare… if you remember.”

Inside the library, a row of tall, arched windows ran along each of the side walls and at the far end was a stained glass window. Rows of bookcases lined a broad central aisle. Chairs had
been arranged down the aisle, with a dais and lectern at the front. The audience congregating at one end was growing larger by the minute.

“Astonishing…” Christie whispered. “That’s the prime minister, Melbourne. Extraordinary… and he is talking to, well, that is a senior naval officer – must be the Admiral of the Fleet…” Christie’s eyes were goggling. “I recognise others from portraits of the time… but look, there’s Babbage! He’s coming over… someone must have been pointed us out to him. OK boys – here we go…”

Suddenly, Charles Babbage, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, inventor of the Difference Engine, a man who was a century ahead of his time, was standing in front of them with a curious look in his eye.

“Professor Christie?” he put out a hand.

Christie smiled, “Honoured and delighted, Professor…”

But Babbage didn’t smile back, “I confess that I have never heard of you, Christie, but, the contents of your note I found most interesting: ‘Energy equals Mass times the speed of light squared…’ An unusual hypothesis, that energy and mass are somehow equivalent. Fascinating. Why have you not made contact before?”

“Well, Professor, a man like yourself, it is difficult to get your attention. I heard about the conference… and we had to come. I am sorry we have somewhat thrust ourselves upon you…”

“I understand, Christie, it is irregular but I think your ideas are of sufficient merit to warrant a further conversation. You are welcome to stay and we should meet after the conference.
He looked at his chain watch. “But we start very soon, I believe we are all nearly present. We in the Cambridge Philosophical Society have high hopes for tonight. It may not be putting it too strongly to say that I believe we are about to change the future…”

“You could put it like that,” Jack whispered to Angus.

“Ahh Babbage – there you are!” A short man in a dog collar scurried up towards them, a glass of sherry in his hand. Jack nearly had a heart attack – Backhouse was much younger than he remembered him, but Jack recognised him immediately.

“Josiah – let me introduce you to these guests, er, Professor Christie from Edinburgh University and, I’m sorry…”

“Jack and Angus. My research students.”

“Indeed.”

Backhouse put out a hand. “Delighted to meet you. Josiah Backhouse, Reverend Josiah Backhouse.”

Initially Jack couldn’t work out why Backhouse did not recognise them. After all they had been his captives, held by the Taiping in Shanghai for a couple of days. But then Jack realised his mistake. Of course Backhouse wouldn’t recognise him. As far as Backhouse was concerned this was the first time that he had met them, but maybe it did explain why, in Shanghai
twenty-four
years in the future, he had thought he had met Jack and Angus before. Jack hadn’t understood it at the time, but he did now. It was one of those bizarre circumstances caused by time travel – as Jack and Angus travelled back in time, so Backhouse was travelling forward, and the unreciprocated recognition that Backhouse had of them in Shanghai was now happening in reverse. It was most peculiar. It was also peculiar, and rather
disturbing, that Jack knew precisely the time, location and circumstances of Backhouse’s death – defending an armed Taiping steamer from an assault by Imperialists led by a young girl, called Shu-fei.

Backhouse seemed a lot more jovial than he had been in Shanghai. “We’ve come a long way, eh, Babbage?”

The professor seemed slightly uncomfortable in Backhouse’s presence.

“If you had not rescued me from that wretched place… six years ago is it now? Well, none of this would be possible,” Backhouse said.

“I would request you not to mention such things… particularly in front of our guests…” Babbage replied, tersely.

But Backhouse didn’t seem to hear him and chattered on to Christie, “It was strange you know, I remember it so clearly. That foggy night – in London – Babbage, here, my dear old friend, took it upon himself to rescue me. Those people from Harmwell madhouse had found me in the street the day before and locked me up. I wasn’t mad, of course, I just sometimes had these… episodes. But since then they have never reoccurred.” Backhouse’s eyes glazed over. “That’s when I found him. I found our Lord. He came to me…”

Babbage was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “I think we’ve heard enough, Josiah, I don’t think these good people want to hear any more…”

But there was no stopping Backhouse. “It changed me. And cured me. I have never had another episode since. God has been with me ever since and I have made it my mission to spread
His word wherever I can. But do you know what I find most surprising?”

“Please Josiah…” Babbage pressed.

“When God touched me…” as he spoke he turned and looked at Babbage with an awed reverence, “he also touched the professor here. I am sure of it. The great man before you was brilliant before, for sure, but from that moment on, it was as if the professor had been given a new gift from God. He created new ideas for new inventions, new machines, designs… such as you would not believe… all from the device we call his ‘Seeing Engine’.”

Babbage’s face reddened, “I said, Backhouse, that we have heard ENOUGH…”

Suddenly, Backhouse got the message and went quiet. There was a strained silence.

“Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I am going to get proceedings underway… we will talk again,” he concluded, giving Backhouse a withering look, “alone.”

Babbage marched off, clearly angered by the garrulous babbling of his old colleague

“I apologise, Professor Christie, was it? I do tend to get carried away… I’m afraid my friend Babbage is a bit tense about tonight. The ‘Seeing Engine’ is very valuable. That is why he is concerned, I suppose. You have to forgive him. But when I am with him I am always reminded of that night. The experience was so profound, you see – I am convinced that divine intervention is the only explanation…”

Christie eyed Backhouse curiously. “Most interesting –
and tell me, this was at the asylum you say, Harmwell… in London was it?” Then Christie said, “And when would that have been…
exactly
?”

“I remember it precisely. The Lord visited me on the
twenty-fourth
of January, 1830. I awoke the next day only to find that I had been incarcerated in Harmwell Asylum. Babbage and Herschel after they discovered what had happened came to get me out. The time was exactly five minutes past nine o’clock. It was a freezing night. I recall it vividly – there was an unfortunate accident in the carriage as we left… and really from then on everything was different. God had touched me; and for sure he had touched Babbage…” He held out his hands at the great and the good mingling in the Wren Library, taking their seats for the first lecture of the CPS conference,” and now, here we are. You will be astonished at the revelations that Babbage and the CPS will present to you tonight. Astonished. They will change the world.”

“I see,” Christie said. “Most interesting…”

“Have you seen the list of speakers and topics, sir?” Backhouse said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket.

“Actually, no. Well, not the latest one.”

Backhouse looked surprised, “No? Well, I have it here.” He unfurled the paper. It was an agenda printed in italic script. “Look at what we have in store – for a man of science like yourself, it will be a once in a lifetime experience.”

Christie, Jack and Angus looked down the list of topics and speakers:

As Christie read down the agenda his eyes grew bigger and bigger. “This is… truly remarkable…”

“As I said, Christie,” Backhouse replied. “Babbage has been touched by God… Now we must take our seats – the Professor is about to begin. Quick you must take your seats.”