Not Less Than Gods (42 page)

“No, sir, listen to me! Look!” Bell-Fairfax pulled off his own goggles and leaned down close, staring into Ludbridge’s eyes. “You
will
live! You’ll die one day, but not now. Not now! It didn’t really get an artery at all, that’s nonsense, we’ll go back and the Kabinet’s surgeons will save you. You’ll have a pleasant holiday somewhere restful, B-Bournemouth perhaps, and—and then—”

Ludbridge gazed back up at him, eyes wide, before giving a rusty-sounding shout of laughter. “My dear chap! You’re good, but you’re not
that
good!” Swiveling his eyes toward the commotion down the street, he grimaced. “Bell-Fairfax, get Pengrove out of this! Saint Isaac’s. It must be nearly time . . .” He groped for his watch, sighed, and sagged forward.

With a heartbroken look, Bell-Fairfax gently leaned him backward onto the curb. Ludbridge lay staring up at the stars and smoke, his mouth open as if in wonder. Three or four men had begun to march toward them.

“We must leave him,” said Bell-Fairfax, hoarse with emotion. “It’s our duty.”

“The silencer! The watch chain!” said Pengrove. Bell-Fairfax nodded and took them, and Ludbridge’s cigar case as well. He rose to his feet. Pengrove got up too and they turned and ran. Someone from the advancing group shouted and a moment later there was the
bang
of an old-fashioned flintlock musket, but they had already dodged around a corner and a moment later were running for their lives up Offitzerskaya Street.

On and on they ran, until Pengrove’s lungs burned and stars flashed before his eyes. A night watchman loomed out of a kiosk and flung his hand up before them, barking an order; Bell-Fairfax bowled him over and kept on, only doubling back to grab Pengrove, who was faltering, by the arm and pull him along. They ducked up one of the footpaths beside a canal, and crossed to the other side by a bridge. Pengrove stumbled and fell.

“Must stop a minute,” he gasped, getting to his hands and knees.

“Mustn’t,” said Bell-Fairfax with a shake of his head, pulling him to his feet. Pengrove turned to look back over his shoulder. His eyes widened in horror.

“Good God, half the city’s on fire!”

Bell-Fairfax turned, startled. They saw now a titanic column of flame, and were bewildered that one house could burn with such fury, even with a cellar full of tallow. A moment later they realized that their own, lesser blaze was burning to the left; the huge fire had sprung up just to the right.

“Bloody hell,” said Pengrove. “That’s the tallow warehouses. That’s British property. The explosion—all the burning bits flying everywhere—” Bell-Fairfax had grabbed him again and pulled him onward before he could finish his sentence, and he ran on with renewed energy. They put another canal between themselves and the fire, as another musket shot sounded from somewhere down the street. Pengrove had lost all sense of direction by now, hurtling down one interminable street and then another, until his legs gave out on him again. He went down just as another watchman charged out in front of them. Bell-Fairfax swung, knocked the watchman flying, grabbed Pengrove and flung him over his shoulder, and ran on.

Pengrove, borne jolting along, heard more musket fire. He was able to raise his head far enough to see a mob spilling into the distant end of the street, searching for them. He saw also the city skyline backlit by the warehouse blaze, sharp as a cutout of black paper. “Oh, they’ll kill us—,” he gibbered.

Bell-Fairfax skidded to a stop, swung him down. “I won’t let them kill you too. Climb!”

Pengrove looked up. They had reached Saint Isaac’s at last, surrounded as it was with scaffolding. Bell-Fairfax caught him up again and set his feet on one of the rungs. “Pengrove, for Christ’s sake!”

Hearing another musket shot, Pengrove began to scramble upward, possessed of an unreasoning anger. “I say, what do you think I am?” he muttered, as he went up hand over hand. “A bloody monkey, sir?”

“You’ll be a dead one if you don’t hurry,” said Bell-Fairfax from above him. He reached down and pulled Pengrove up another three or four rungs. They fell together over the parapet to the lower level of the roof, just as a musket ball cracked against the scaffolding and ricocheted away.

Pengrove lay flat, gulping in breath. Bell-Fairfax rose on his knees and shouted. Pengrove rolled over and stared. A rope ladder was swinging toward them across the void. He followed it upward with his gaze. There, looming into sight, gigantic above the golden dome and underlit by the distant conflagration, was the black bulk of an airship.

Pengrove gazed into his teacup. The drone of the airship’s motor vibrated cup against saucer, making a pattern of concentric circles on the tea’s surface. His teaspoon was skating, slowly but inevitably, toward the edge of the table. It came to the edge and danced into midair. A hand flashed out, caught it before it fell and set it beside Pengrove’s saucer.

“You were an excellent field operative,” said Bell-Fairfax, in his gentlest and most persuasive voice. “I thought it was the rankest injustice, to transfer you to a desk position.”

Pengrove looked up sidelong before dropping his eyes again. Bell-Fairfax continued to regard him steadily.

“I asked for the job, old chap,” said Pengrove. “I’m quite happy in Maps and Image Analysis. The work isn’t as dull as you’d think and one does sleep soundly at night. I’m only here now because I was on the mission in ’50, I suppose. Presumably someone thought I’d be useful as an advisor.”

“I asked for you,” said Bell-Fairfax. “You were the best man I knew for the job. And one does feel more confident with an old comrade taking care of the details. Ludbridge thought highly of you, you know.”

Pengrove risked another glance at Bell-Fairfax. His eyes, pale as a winter morning sky, shone with earnest good will. The coaxing warmth
of his voice summoned a host of memories. Pengrove found himself overcome with nostalgic longing for times past, when he had been a younger, happier man in a happy band of brothers. Constantinople, where he and Bell-Fairfax had played the fools so convincingly. Good old Ludbridge! Good old Hobson! . . . Ludbridge, lying in the street looking up at the cold stars. Hobson, slumped over a table with a bullet in his brain.

Pengrove shuddered and looked away, out through the brass frame of the porthole, at the stars.

“I’m gratified, but anyone might have plotted this for you. It’s simply a matter of bringing you down in a park, rather than on someone’s roof or in the Neva,” he said.

“All the same.” Bell-Fairfax smiled.

“And you’re quite clear about your exit route?”

“Perfectly.”

“You can hardly expect help from the Kabinet on this one, you know. They may detest the fellow, but killing their own czar is a bit much to ask them to accept.”

“They’ll be grateful, whatever they may say,” said Bell-Fairfax, lighting a cigar. “Their man will take the throne at last. In any case, the war has dragged on long enough. Sure you wouldn’t like to come along?”

Good God
, thought Pengrove,
is the man lonely?
He held up his hand in refusal. “Too much blood, old chap. I can’t quite reconcile our high purpose with the number of murders it seems to require.”

“Necessary removals,” Bell-Fairfax corrected him. “Someone must take the responsibility for them, Pengrove.”

“And you seem to be quite equal to the task,” said Pengrove, with a melancholy chuckle. “Quite the perfect soldier. Is this really the life you wanted, though, when you joined the Society? You were quite the idealist then. I know I envisioned a great deal more . . . philanthropy, you know. Clothing and feeding the poor. Tossing them loaves and fishes from the gondola of a flying machine. Educating them. That sort of thing, all made easier with our glorious
technologia
.”

For the first time, a shadow of regret crossed Bell-Fairfax’s face. “I
should have preferred to serve my fellow creatures in such a manner, yes. But our duties are not always pleasant ones, are they? And I must do what is required of me.”

“All the same, did you imagine for a moment that the path to the great day would be strewn with quite so many corpses?”

“I ought to have expected it,” said Bell-Fairfax quietly. “I seem to be fated to the work.”

Pengrove shook his head. “And then there’s the question of whether we can do any real good after all. All that intelligence we gathered, wasted!”

“Not entirely.”

“Oh, no? I was with Greene when we got the news about the Light Brigade. You should have seen his poor face. When I think of the hours we spent in that valley, mapping everything! How
could
they have got it wrong?”

“The finest intelligence in the world is useless if the general won’t study it,” said Bell-Fairfax, with a shrug. “I’m inclined to believe that direct intervention, as it were, is much more effective.”

“Your present job, for example?”

“If you like.”

“Well, there’s no denying
you’re
effective. You’re getting quite a reputation amongst the Residentials, you know. That incident on the Pacific front last year, when Commodore Price so unaccountably shot himself . . . there’s a rumor that was your work. It wouldn’t have been, would it?”

“I am not at liberty to say,” Bell-Fairfax replied. “But I can tell you he had accepted money from the Golden Circle, and deserved his miserable end.”

“Golden Circle? Oh, the filibusters,” said Pengrove, shaking his head. “I understood they’d shifted their interests to the Ca rib be an now.”

“That may be the case,” said Bell-Fairfax, with an opaque look. He exhaled smoke. Both men looked up as Dr. Nennys entered the saloon.

“We’re at the coordinates, Bell-Fairfax.”

Bell-Fairfax stood and stubbed out his cigar. “Ready, sir.” He turned
and extended a hand to Pengrove. “Enjoy the flight, Pengrove. Wish me luck?”

Pengrove shook his hand. “Best of luck, old chap.”

“God and Saint George!” Bell-Fairfax turned and strode from the saloon, followed out by Dr. Nennys. Dr. Nennys was wearing a cloak, and the freezing blast of wind from the flight platform swirled it in theatrical flourishes.

Pengrove shivered, turning up his collar. He didn’t care for Dr. Nennys. Pengrove knew a bully when he saw one. The perpetual smug smile, the patronizing attitude masking the cad underneath . . .

And he had heard a few rumors about the man lately, ugly, absurd stories that couldn’t possibly be true but were chilling nonetheless. Dr. Nennys had been a member at Redking’s for well over a century. Dr. Nennys never lost a duel, and always killed his opponent. Dr. Nennys had made a pact with Satan . . .

Pengrove shook his head. Fairy stories!
We live in the modern age, after all
, he thought.

The drone of the airship’s engine was loud in the flight platform’s cabin; both men had to raise their voices when they spoke.

“You have no qualms, my boy?” Dr. Nennys inquired, watching as Bell-Fairfax strapped on the latest version of the Ice Rifle.

“None, sir.” Bell-Fairfax pulled on his goggles. “I need hardly tell you what a proud man you have made your old headmaster,” said Dr. Nennys. Bell-Fairfax smiled.

“Thank you, sir!” He saluted and, turning, stepped through the door onto the flight platform. He raised his arms as the two waiting technicians stepped forward with the harness. They fastened him in securely. Far below them, Dr. Nennys saw the grid of lights that was St. Petersburg, the bright diagonal of Nevsky Avenue, the dark winding serpent of the Neva.

“We will retrieve you at the rendezvous point in forty-eight hours,” he called to Bell-Fairfax.

“Until then, sir!” Bell-Fairfax grinned at him and turned back, signaling to the technicians. They pulled the levers; Bell-Fairfax leaned forward as the wings of the flying machine unfurled. He dropped from the platform into the night. A moment later the gusts picked him up and sent him on his calculated trajectory.

Dr. Nennys stepped out on the platform, bracing himself against a strut to watch, and smiled as the thing he had made descended on black wings, over the habitations of men.