Prehistoric Clock (17 page)

“He’s the key to it all, Agnes. I think he always was—the loss of his wife and son turned him against everything and everyone. We’ve seen it time and again, greatness lying dormant until a person is visited by profound adversity. Nothing rouses creativity like a personal challenge. In his case, a challenge from Fate unlocked some deep, miraculous vault in his brain. He may have done it for love or for hate, or for the thing that drives all men to trample his fellow men.”

“What’s that?”

“Power. The power mankind has sought ever since it first began to question its limitations. The power we are destined, ultimately, to achieve, if we survive that long without destroying ourselves. At the moment, God alone possesses it, and we are but the dazzled viewers glimpsing it through His heavenly nickelodeon.”

“Blasphemy!”

“No, Agnes. I don’t believe that. No, I see it as blasphemy to deny man his rightful ascendancy. If the Leviacra stand for anything, it is for the limitlessness of our potential. God himself made us this way, with the gift of evolution. He
wants
us to rise above our antecedents until we are subject to no law or force beyond our control. We may have only glimpsed the vastness of that potential so far, but I firmly believe we are close to filling that glimpse with an entirely new perception of how the universe works, the way the slenderest beam of light might shine through a crack into an untouched sanctum, illuming little but hinting at immeasurable opportunity. Reardon has lit the torch, Agnes. He
must
join our ranks, but he must never—”

On the far side of his grogginess, the sound of a key fiddling in its lock suddenly confirmed what Cecil had been wrestling with. He had not died. He was not dead. The notion peeled away several layers of mental skin he’d grown during a forever sleep. How long had he been out? He was too weak to open his eyes. But the voices he’d been listening to in his dream were not from a dream after all. Agnes? Agnes Polperro? Was that harpy standing over him right now, with someone, a high-up in the Council?

“Is he—” Another familiar, male voice began.

“You know, I think he just might be!” The garrulous man kept his reply to a vociferous whisper, but Cecil’s hearing was uncommonly acute, a phenomenon often experienced by those who wake after sleeping for long periods. “Stay with him, Wallingford. As soon as he’s lucid, reassure him. Confide in him. You and Agnes have my full confidence.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man who’d just entered.

“Thank you, sir,” said Miss Polperro.

Quiet footsteps across what sounded like linoleum. The key in the lock. More whispering, this time impossible to discern. Lorne Wallingford, government minister, member of the Whig cabinet? Agnes Polperro, Leviacrum representative, bitch responsible for banishing Embrey and Verity to prehistory? The man who’d just left had spoken like one of those uppity university bods, part scientist, part philosopher, all windbag. But anyone in a position to delegate to Wallingford had serious clout. This had to be somewhere away from public scrutiny, most likely inside the Leviacrum tower itself. Perhaps the infirmary floor.

“Professor Reardon?”

He rolled his head on the pillow, swallowed repeatedly until the saliva gave his dry, flaky throat some semblance of lubrication. The unpleasant metallic taste almost made him retch. He moved his fingers, then the toes in his left foot. His right foot…didn’t respond. He yawned, mashed his eyes closed before opening them with tender, jittery blinks. It took minutes for them to become accustomed to the medium light in the infirmary ward. An empty ward—his was the only bed, and but for handsome landscape paintings adorning the pale blue walls it was a bare, depressing room, far too big for its current one-patient function. He felt marooned somehow, left behind by all that was good in the world. Then a prick of self-importance tickled him, and he recalled the almost reverential manner in which the mysterious overseer had spoken of him to Agnes Polperro.

Yes, he had something they wanted. Wanted badly. The secret to large-scale time travel—a bargaining chip he might use to procure all sorts of things. And then there were his friends…

What happened to Billy? Tangeni? The others? Did they make it to Tromso?

“We’re very glad you’ve recovered, Professor Reardon.” Wallingford’s crooked back and hawkish stare reminded Cecil of a rhamphorhynchus, a small, prehistoric lizard-like bird with a hideous countenance.

“I’m—” he swallowed the dryness once more, “—I’m not.”

“Oh, come now, sir. You are the most talked-about man in all the empire—nay, the world. To us here in the Leviacrum, your achievement has outstripped that of any scientist who ever lived. Surely that is worth waking up to.”

Cecil didn’t respond. This feeble buttering-up preamble wasn’t worthy of such a noted diplomat as Wallingford—it reeked of desperation.

“We’ll get straight to the point, then.” Miss Polperro pressed the bridge of her thick-rimmed spectacles higher up her nose and strode forward. Her chin still bore the dark print of his uppercut, but the bruise had healed somewhat. He guessed a week had passed. “I make no apologies for my actions in the prelude to the time jump, Professor, as I still maintain, no matter how it turned out, that having the boy accompany us was too great a risk. In my opinion we were lucky.”

She nursed the bruise on her chin with a handkerchief.

“That being said, I never meant you personally any ill-will during our time spent in prehistory, as any witness will attest. No, my sole preoccupation was to return as many British residents as possible to our own time, and that we achieved together, Professor. While you reassembled your machine, I ensured the men in my charge remained alive and motivated. We may have clashed on a technicality, but I want you to know that I hold you in the highest esteem as both a scientist and a gentleman. Whatever transpired during those weeks adrift in time
after
the initial cataclysm, you have little to reproach yourself over. In fact you have earned the utmost respect of the Council.”

Careful words designed to divorce his culpability from his achievement. Cecil sensed they were about to focus on the latter, while the former would be glossed over. Good news and bad news apportioned with guile, packaged for surreptitious ends—politics at work if ever he’d heard it.

He lifted his head a fraction, enough to see to the foot of his bed. Again, only his left toes responded. Recalling the awful weight pinning his right leg in the factory and Tangeni’s words—” Whatever happens, you have lost that leg, Professor. Nothing can be done”—he reached down under the blanket. The smooth, metallic surface shocked him for a moment. It began part way down his thigh and clearly represented a full, artificial limb—under cover, the foot appeared equal in size to his natural left one.

“How long was I unconscious?” he asked, to distract from the shocking new revelation.

“In a coma for two days, sedated for a further four. But you’ll want to see what Professor Sorensen has invented for you.” Before Cecil could protest, Miss Polperro peeled back the blanket to reveal his newfangled perambulatory gift. He tried shutting his eyes but it was no use. He
had
to know.

A shiny brass leg shaped in every way like a human one, with a complex knee joint governed by gears and levers, it was both a monstrosity and thing of unparalleled beauty. Extraordinary care and craftsmanship had wrought it, not to mention an ingenuity far surpassing any artificial appendages he’d ever seen or read about. Sorensen had always been brilliant but this almost defied belief.

“When you are well again our technicians will instruct you on how to walk on it.” She tapped the metal shin with her knuckles. A slight vibration tickled his upper thigh.

Wallingford stepped forward, thumbing his lapels. “We would also like to invite you to join our most elite committee, the Atlas Club, wherein you will immediately be appointed to the Leviacrum Council itself. Such is our regard for your splendid accomplishments, Professor Reardon. What say you, sir?”

Fear the Greeks bringing gifts.

“Not unconditional, I presume.” Cecil knew.

Wallingford pouted, rocked on his heels as he cleared his throat. “I’m afraid not. As pardonable as the destruction of Westminster may be to us in the Council in light of the scope of its ramifications for science, the British people are demanding that you face trial for the most serious capital offences. If we were to hand you over to the judicial system, if you were to set foot outside this tower, you would hang, Professor. Of that there is no doubt.”

“No, I don’t doubt it either.” And he’d already been hung once. Not his jolliest memory. “So your offer is to spare my life in exchange for the secret I possess. That right?”

“You put it succinctly, sir, but yes, that is what we propose. You would continue your work in the laboratories and hopefully not only emulate your great achievement but refine it as well, with the full resources of the Leviacrum and all its eminent scientists at your disposal. You would be the spearhead of humanity’s conquest of time itself. For that, we guarantee your inclusion in every decision governing the use of time travel, and also complete autonomy in any future endeavours you wish to pursue.

“But you can never again leave this tower, and no civilian may be permitted to visit you. Only those who already work in the tower will have that privilege. Would that that were flexible, Professor, but I’m afraid the Council has insisted upon its strict im—”

Wallingford froze, his contorted lips set to wrap around the next syllable, still as a clay figurine. His eyes didn’t blink. Not even the subtle rocking of the posture one can always discern if he scrutinizes a still-life actor closely enough. No, the crookbacked politician had quite literally, insensibly, been petrified!

What the hell?

The hands on the clock on the far wall were not moving. Very odd. Nor were the shadows of passing clouds dimming the room even slightly. He craned his neck to peer out through the large porthole windows. There were clouds but no movement, birds but no progress through the sky, distant airships as still as dead, swatted flies stuck to a great blue mural.

He massaged his aching frown with his forefinger and thumb. Either he was still dreaming after all, or something profoundly wrong had just occurred.

“At five past eight, twice a day, Professor.” Miss Polperro waved her hand in front of Wallingford’s face, eliciting no reaction. So why wasn’t
she
affected?

“I think we’d be wise to keep it to ourselves,” she said, “until we can fathom the cause. It is a most peculiar thing—it began the day we arrived back, and the survivors of the time jump appear to be the only ones free to move about inside this…glitch in time. We are the only ones immune. Now, say nothing of it, for it lasts for only forty-one seconds each time. That is no great hardship.” She checked her pocketwatch, then shuffled back to her original position. “Remember, twice a day at five past eight. Be ready for it.”

“I’ll…I will.” Cecil gazed at the Madame Tussaud’s politician, waiting for a sudden reanimation. When it came, there was that stutter again, time’s needle stuck on its gramophone disc, that he’d experienced as 1908 had manifested after the latest time jump.

“—plementation. There can be no exception to that.” Wallingford resumed as though nothing had happened. Indeed, from his point of view, nothing
had
happened.

Cecil lay back, took several deep breaths. The more he considered that idea of the gramophone needle and the circular disc, the more it seemed to fit this bizarre phenomenon. Somehow, the rip in time had caused this glitch. If each day were considered a revolution of time, then five past eight, when they’d originally departed for the Cretaceous, was the damaged moment—the time at which 1908 stuck, twice daily, like the needle upon the scratched disc. Had it recurred here like clockwork all the while they’d been away? If so, no one would have known, just as they didn’t now. Only the time travellers were aware of it, remained unaffected by it.

Extraordinary.

“Perhaps we should give you a chance to think over our proposal, Professor Reardon?” Wallingford touched his earlobe as he glanced at Miss Polperro—a signal for them to leave. “When you’re better rested perhaps?”

“No, that’s quite all right. You can have my answer now. I agree to all your terms, and I will gladly join your Atlas Council or whatever the blasted thing is called. But I would like three things in return.”

The curious tilt of Wallingford’s head betrayed his genuine surprise. Had he not expected to discuss terms so soon? All the better. “Yes?” he asked.

Gritting his teeth, Cecil half sat up and bunched his pillow behind him against the brass bars at the head of his bed. “Firstly, unconditional, posthumous pardons must be given to Lord Garrett Embrey, his father, Marquess Embrey, and his uncle, Lord Fitzwalter. The highest military service commendation must go to Lieutenant Verity Champlain and her second in command, Lieutenant Tangeni. All these must be announced in the
Times
before I even think about resuming work.”

The crookbacked politician’s fake smile barely masked his chagrin. “I believe that can be arranged, but—”

“Secondly, I demand to know why Embrey’s family was victimized.”

“That one I can answer personally,” Wallingford said. “Both his father and uncle were highly influential men, in business and in politics. We gave them an invitation to join the Atlas Club, along with a brief explanation of its purpose, and they refused. In today’s seditious climate, such a refusal cast doubt upon their loyalty to the Crown. After the Benguela fire, we thought it prudent to make an example of aristocratic officers for a change, to remind our armed forces that no one, no matter their station or privilege, is above the law.”

“So you hanged two innocent men?”

“For the greater good, yes. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. In every country it has long been a vital method of ensuring general obedience during wartime.”