Not Less Than Gods (26 page)

“Now, gentlemen!” he cried. “You have, I hope, heard of the celebrated François Isaac de Rivaz?”

“Invented a sort of an engine, back in ’07, I believe,” said Ludbridge. “Not a notable success, however.”

“But! My boys and I have improved on his design,” said the rabbi triumphantly. He went around to the rear of the coach, where there was a squarish protrusion that Ludbridge had taken for an enclosed trunk case. When Rabbi Canetti lifted its lid, however, a gleaming mass of machinery was exposed.

“Behold, gentlemen, what I may proudly venture to claim is the first practical internal combustion engine!” the rabbi declared. “Do you see a boiler? No? That’s because it doesn’t need one! All the motive power comes from small explosions within these cylinders here!”

“Isn’t that rather dangerous?” inquired Pengrove.

“Far less so than a boiler explosion,” said Mordekhay, as he threw a saddle across the back of one of the geldings. “You simply accept that an explosion is inevitable and design
for
it rather than against it. Everything safely contained within the cylinders. Nothing to scald or shoot passengers into the air.”

“All it requires is fuel,” said the rabbi, tilting the can to fill a cylindrical tank on the back of the coach. “I have designed it to run on alcohol. Splendidly economical, if you simply build a still in your garden. There! And this cap is screwed down, so, and then—Mordekhay, where’s the key? You didn’t forget the key?”

“No, Babbas,” said Mordekhay, handing the geldings’ reins to Ludbridge and rolling up his cuffs. He drew an object something like a small crowbar from within his long coat.

“Good, but wait! Wait!” The rabbi went running back to the front of the coach. With Asher’s help the tongue was disengaged and somehow retracted under the body of the coach. A sort of tiller was opened out from the front axle, and extended up to the driver’s box. Rabbi Canetti swung himself up and grasped the tiller firmly. “Now, Mordekhay!”

“Perhaps you ought to climb back inside,” said Asher, holding the lantern close as Mordekhay crouched down with the key and fitted it into a squared hole in the engine-box. Ludbridge and the others lingered, however, to watch as Mordekhay cranked the key mightily, once, twice, three times. There was a report like a gunshot and the engine roared to life, rattling and throbbing. The whole coach trembled, as though impatient. “In! Please!” cried Asher, slamming shut the lid that concealed the engine.

They needed no urging to obey now. Once inside, Asher leaned out the window. “Ready, Babbas!”

With a clank, the coach started forward under its own power. It gathered speed. Its passengers looked at one another in wild surmise, as the rabbi gave a wordless and long-drawn-out cry of joy. His cry became a wild song as they jolted on, faster and faster under the wondering stars, and behind them its counterpoint came in the hoofbeats of the horses as Mordekhay followed at a gallop.

It was plain now why such care had been taken to cushion passengers, for the rabbi’s coach was easily twice as fast as any horse-drawn conveyance.

“Is it possible we’ll be in Silistria tonight?” inquired Ludbridge, as they passed the lights of Bazargik.

“Possible, yes,” said Asher. “It is also possible we will break down. Although I wouldn’t say that where my father would hear! But we have never driven the coach for any long distance yet. Not to worry; this is why my brother follows with the horses.”

“It’s as though we were in our own railway car, without the need for
rails,” said Bell-Fairfax, unable to take his gaze from the window, where village lights appeared briefly before flashing out of sight. “What will you do when you perfect it? Will you form a corporation and build them for sale?”

“Oh, no. Can you imagine the accidents, if every household kept one of these?”

“But consider the uses to which it might be put!” Bell-Fairfax shifted in his seat. “Transport of the sick and injured, for example. It might save lives.”

“It might, but I’ll wager any sum you care to name that it’d kill as many as it got to a hospital, traveling around by day when people were likely to blunder into its path,” said Ludbridge. “And in any case, boy, that’s not the way it’s done! The Society prefers to keep its inventions for its own use. I daresay the Magi are the same.”

“That is our policy, yes,” said Asher.

“And I’ll tell you why,” said Ludbridge, holding up his hand, for Bell-Fairfax had opened his mouth to protest. “As long as
we
control them, we can be sure they’re being put to proper use. But suppose thieves got hold of something like this, and used it to fly from the law? And, depend upon it, they would. The railways are already bringing undesirables into towns and villages that were once beyond their reach.

“
Technologia
is a two-edged blade, my boy. When we can see that the undoubted benefits will outweigh the disadvantages to humanity, only then do we release one of our machines for public use. An idea dropped in the proper ear in one place, a laboratory funded in another, and one day everyone’s got a steam engine.”

“And Progress and Civilization move forward,” said Bell-Fairfax stubbornly.

“And so do Dark Satanic Mills and children getting crushed in weaving machines, while some industrialist grows fat on the proceeds,” said Ludbridge. “But Britain becomes an empire, which—according to our Informant—is one of the things that must happen before the great day comes.”

“And our own empire must fall,” said Asher sadly. “Perhaps it won’t happen in our lifetimes. I hope so; the Sultan is a righteous man. But we have survived such things before.”

“And we are everywhere,” said Ludbridge. Bell-Fairfax folded his arms and stared out the window.

“It’s getting rather chilly,” remarked Pengrove.

“Ah. Let me demonstrate the heater, then—very simple device, I open a valve that brings up heated air from the engine—”

At that moment there was a sudden lurch, and the coach veered wildly from one side of the road to the other. They heard the rabbi shouting in anger. The listing coach slowed, and jolted to a stop. The noise of the engine stopped.

Asher had the door open in a half-second and had vaulted out on the road. “Babbas! What has happened?” Bell-Fairfax scrambled out after him, followed by the others. They met the rabbi coming around the side of the coach.

“We lost a wheel! I saw it roll past us. Fetch out the lantern! And where is your brother?”

“Probably he fell behind, Babbas,” replied Asher, pulling out the lantern and lighting it with a lucifer. By the amber circle of light they saw that a wheel was indeed missing. Rabbi Canetti inspected the axle.

“It’s all right. No cracks, nothing worn. I wonder if it was the cotter bolt?”

“Have we a replacement?”

“Of course we have!” The rabbi slapped his pockets in vain. “No! Wait! Here.” He reached inside his duster and dug a handful of cotter bolts from his waistcoat pocket. “You see? We’ll be all right. Clearly we must redesign the wheel hubs, however.”

“Right now we’d better find the wheel.” Asher lifted the lantern and peered into the darkness ahead.

“We can assist with that,” said Ludbridge. He leaned in, fished a pair of thermal goggles from his satchel, and handed them to Bell-Fairfax. “It’ll still be hot from the friction. Ought to show up nicely. Go and fetch it back.”

“Yes, sir.” Bell-Fairfax pulled on the goggles. He started off into the night.

“Asher, you had better go with him,” said the rabbi.

“Oh, no need,” said Ludbridge. “The goggles can detect heat. He won’t need a lantern.”

“No, but the wheels are specially made and quite heavy. They take two men to lift.”

Ludbridge chuckled and took out his cigar case. “Still no need. He’s a rather strong fellow, our Edward. Cigar?”

Rabbi Canetti accepted one gratefully. Hobson produced a flask of slivovitz and they stood in a half-circle around the wagon, passing the flask back and forth and looking up at the stars. Far to the southeast were the lights of Bazargik, and the flat farmland plain they had crossed; now they were in a region of low rolling hills and more patches of farms, obscured by thick forests.

“Will the repair take long?” inquired Pengrove.

“No, not at all. Not once my Mordekhay gets here,” said Rabbi Canetti. “In fact—there! I hear hoofbeats. That must be Mordekhay now.”

They listened for a long moment. “Wouldn’t he be coming from the other direction?” said Hobson.

“Oh,” said the rabbi, and then: “I think I’d better shut off the carriage lamps.”

He hurried forward and turned a pair of switches. The blue-white beams vanished, leaving the party around the coach in stygian blackness. There was no sound now but the creaking of insects in the night, for the sound of approaching hooves had abruptly stopped. Pengrove remarked as much.

“Umph.” Ludbridge chewed his cigar. “Might have turned off and gone down a lane.”

They stood listening a long moment. Then, not loud but distinct, they heard the whinny of a horse. A moment later there was another.

“Imagine if that was the Americans, lying in wait like Red Indians,” said Pengrove, with a nervous giggle.

“D’you get any highwaymen in these parts?” asked Ludbridge.

“Unfortunately, we do,” said the rabbi uneasily. “Perhaps you had better get back in the coach. I think I mentioned that it is bulletproof—”

They heard the pounding of footsteps as someone approached them at a dead run. Bell-Fairfax reappeared abruptly, looming out of the darkness. He carried the wheel over one shoulder.

“There are horsemen ahead, under some trees,” he said, gasping. “They’re sitting there talking amongst themselves. I believe they’re trying to decide whether or not to attack us. I had to go off into a field to get the wheel, and I came up behind them as I was trying to get back to the road.” He swung the wheel down, shoved the carriage upward with one hand and slid the wheel back on its hub. The rabbi dropped his cigar in astonishment.

“How many?” demanded Ludbridge.

“May I have a cotter bolt, please?” Bell-Fairfax held out his hand. “Thank you. There are ten of them, sir. If I understood their dialect, two were arguing against attacking us, because they thought the carriage lamps were ghost-lights, but I’m afraid the others were laughing at them.” He drove the cotter bolt through with a blow of his fist. “Sir, have you any pliers?”

The rabbi, still staring, remembered himself and produced a pair of pliers from one of the pockets in his duster. “But, my boy, it takes a special tool and a hammer—”

“Thank you.” Bell-Fairfax took the pliers and hurriedly bent the ends of the bolt. Pengrove scrambled past him and vaulted up into the coach. “Perhaps if we start up the coach and go past them at our best speed, they won’t know what—damn! We don’t have the key, do we?”

“That’s all right,” said Pengrove, leaning out with the revolvers he had fetched from his carpetbag. He jumped down. “I should think we ought to be able to hold them off with these.”

“Asher, get in the coach,” said Rabbi Canetti, at the same moment Asher said, “Babbas, get in the coach.”

“Perhaps both of you ought to get in the coach,” said Ludbridge, drawing his own revolver from within his coat.

“No! I built this thing with defenses.” Rabbi Canetti ducked under
the coach and unstrapped something. He ducked back out, clutching something in his arms. Bell-Fairfax peered down the road.

“They’ve ridden out of the trees,” he announced, and now they could hear the hooves once again. “They’re on the road. They’re drawing sabers.”

“Sabers, is it? Ha!” The rabbi dropped to his knees, setting up a tripod to support something long and cylindrical on the roadway. “Let them dare to charge
me
. Asher, get back in the coach immediately. I won’t tell you again.”

“Is that a mortar?” Ludbridge knelt beside the rabbi.

“An improved design of my own,” said the rabbi. “And would you be so obliging as to have your nice young golem put my disobedient son in the coach?”

“They’re charging,” cried Bell-Fairfax, but the thunder of approaching hoofbeats and the shrill cries made that plain. Pengrove passed him a revolver. They stood their ground, waiting for the dark mass of horsemen to come within range, and then the night was illuminated by a flash from the mortar as the rabbi pulled a lever. There was a streak of light. A blazing cloud erupted before the very hooves of the onrushing horses, who screamed and reared. Two turned and bolted, bearing their unresisting riders away with them; Ludbridge could see that two or three at least had been blown clear off the road, and there seemed to be bodies in the ditches to either side.

The others were trying to control their mounts, who were dancing wildly in the red afterglow—in fact there seemed to be particles of phosphorus or some related chemical in the smoke, for it clung to both riders and steeds like luminous paint, giving them a terrifying aspect and causing them to shy from one another. The highwaymen were choking, gagging, but one nerved himself enough to yell an order to the others and two rallied themselves sufficiently to obey.

They charged forward again. Ludbridge had just taken aim when a black figure hurtled past him, shaking the very earth with hoofbeats. It was Mordekhay on one of the black geldings, brandishing a sword and roaring imprecations. Briefly there was a clash of steel, which ended
with a man’s high-pitched scream. One horse, still glowing like hellfire, went charging away across the night fields, dragging its glowing rider from one stirrup. The other pair of horses were bearing their riders in the opposite direction at a gallop.

Mordekhay wheeled around and came back, sheathing his sword. Rabbi Canetti got to his feet.

“And where have you been?”

“Stoyan went lame, Babbas, and I had to leave him in Bazargik. I’m sorry. What happened?”

Rabbi Canetti explained, with admirable brevity. It being agreed upon all round that a speedy departure was called for before the highwaymen regrouped, the rabbi resumed his place on the driver’s seat. The others climbed back into the coach, Mordekhay produced the key and cranked the coach into clattering life, and they resumed their journey.