Prehistoric Clock (5 page)

White, stencilled letters on the iron airship’s bow read
Empress Matilda.
One of the massive twin balloons flew well enough but its sister bobbed low on its rigging, perhaps suffering a slow puncture. The vessel itself lay beached in the mud, a section of the stone embankment having collapsed onto its starboard side, pinning it down. It would not be difficult to free, however. With a little elbow grease and provided the crew could repair and refill the sagging envelope, the airship should be able to fly again.

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, old boy, then yes, we ought to have ourselves a nice little surveillance bird before long.” Reardon retrieved a pipe from his breast pocket and began filling it. “Anything they lack, we will undoubtedly find here in the factories.”

“If it ain’t all wrecked,” the boy argued in a broad Lancashire brogue. Embrey kept a reassuring hand on the youngster’s shoulder.

“Sharp lad. You’ll go far,” the professor said. But that notion made Embrey shiver coldly. Unless they could reverse this awful happening, neither the youngster nor anyone else in fractured London would be going far at all. At least not in society. Perhaps…in lieu of an official criminal sentence, some malign supernatural force had incarcerated Embrey
here
instead, a place so remote that no telegram or ship-in-a-bottle might ever reach another soul.

His face ached from an incessant scowl. He adopted his severest tone. “Reardon, when is this? How far have you flung us, and in which direction?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Good God, man. How can we find out?”

“With observation and deduction.”

“And you’re certain you can undo this thing?”

“Not certain, no, but my machine will have stopped on the last differential sequence. It might not have located 1901, but I have finally found the chronometric settings to enable large scale time travel. My dear Embrey, this is, however heinous the pun, a watershed event for science. Many have died, yes, but consider the import of this misstep. I have conquered time, and without the Leviacrum’s meddling. We have done this ourselves, myself and those before me upon whose work I owe a debt. This is—”

“Before you start polishing your laurels, professor, I must remind you that we are
survivors
, not pioneers. These people will not consider themselves privileged—however you spin it—and nor do I. So tread softly, sir. For the love of God, tread softly. If anything should happen to you, we’ll be stuck here.” Embrey glanced behind him. “And Big Ben will never strike again. You understand?”

“Completely, old boy. I shan’t break the news until things have settled.”

“See to it.”

The African aeronauts lowered a steel ladder for Embrey and his companions to climb on deck. It was a fairly big ship, about a-hundred-and-twenty feet long, with large metal tail fins mounted on each of the four rudder propellers at the stern. A diligent, athletic officer who introduced himself as Tangeni gave the orders. Personnel to and froed between the central, arched-fore-to-aft storehouse and a makeshift hospital area at the bow. Over a dozen men and women in blue British Air Corps uniforms were being treated for injuries. Among them, unconscious on a generous bed of windproof jackets, lay a striking redhead. She was Caucasian, around twenty-five and wore a midshipman’s uniform. Her damp strawberry hair, cropped to little more than a bob, made her look somewhat tomboyish, and the baggy clothes certainly didn’t do her figure any favours.

Embrey cocked his head to one side as he gazed at her, and asked Tangeni, “Who is she?”

“Who?
Eembu?
She is captain of the
Empress Matilda
. Everyone on board owes his life to her. She and I, we make promise to eat ice creams on Piccadilly after the storm. That was…before God stepped in.”

“Captain, eh?” He’d never have guessed it.
Eembu
more resembled a stowaway cabin girl than a Gannet skipper.

“What are your names, gentlemen?” Tangeni removed his tunic and shirt, revealing a wiry, muscular body bearing many scars. He splashed his face with fresh water from the drinking cask.

“I am Lord Garrett Embrey, this fellow is Cecil Reardon, Professor, and our young friend here—well, I don’t believe I heard—”

“Billy Ransdell.”

Embrey smiled to himself and ruffled the lad’s hair.

“Any of you know what happened?” Tangeni asked.

“As much as you, I’m afraid, old boy.” Embrey had always had a strong poker face, and he put it to good use under the African’s scrutiny.

Tangeni nodded, threw Billy a wink and then motioned across the deck. “You must stay aboard the
Empress,
of course. From what I see, it is the safest place in London.” He tossed one of his crewmen a length of cable. “Until
Eembu
wakes, I am in charge and you are my guests. But she is not badly injured.”

“And when she wakes?” Reardon asked.

The acting skipper shrugged.

“We understand.” Embrey offered his hand and Tangeni shook it firmly. “Thank you for your hospitality. Where might we find something to eat? I heard Billy’s stomach rumble a moment ago.”

“On the deck below. Ask for Djimon. Tell him you are friends of Tangeni.”

“Much obliged. Oh, and one more thing—” Embrey eyed the intriguing redhead again, “—what does
Eembu
mean?”

The helpful officer smiled, baring his perfect white teeth. “
Eembu
short for
eembulukweya.
In Oshiwambo language it means ‘trousers’. Lieutenant Verity Champlain—she get many affectionate nicknames in Africa. But it is unusual for
omukulukadi
—woman—to wear trousers, so that name stayed. It was given to her by a former medicine man now working for the British in Benguela. As he is held in high regard, the name brings her great honour. She is
Eembu,
and she did amazing things today.”

“I see. In that case, I can’t wait to meet her.”

“Nor I,” added Reardon.

Embrey escorted Billy to the B-deck hatchway, then glanced back. The reverence these crewmen seemed to have for their female captain was not something he’d encountered before. Striking. Intriguing. And the officer had just referred to her as “amazing”? Just who the deuce
was
she?

Embrey and the boy looked so snug together in their nest of windproof jackets and blankets in a quiet corner of the fo’c’sle on C-deck, Cecil didn’t want to wake them. It had been a long double-day spread across two seasons and two epochs, and dusk was beginning to fall. But he couldn’t rest without setting the others’ minds at rest. He must at least give the survivors something to hope for.

Then he would figure out when they were, and why the differentiator had failed to locate 1901. Indeed, the latter was the most pressing concern of all, for if he couldn’t harness that power, if he was not its master, he might
never
get to find Lisa and Edmond.

He wrapped himself in a cotton blanket and then snatched a few spam ration tins from the supplies Djimon had given them. If the refugees ashore needed more, he would solicit Tangeni for aid right away. He reckoned Embrey might do that if he were awake, and for the time being, Cecil chose to model himself on his young blond comrade—a man of impeccable moral fibre. People needn’t see the real Cecil Reardon, the “shadow of a man confined to the rafters of a sad existence,” as one ex-colleague had described him in the
Times
last year.

He stole ashore and made his way along the embankment toward Bridge Street. Prolonged, grinding bird caws drew his gaze skyward, but all he saw were the silhouettes of bat-like wings slicing through the gloaming high above. Impossible to classify. In the meantime, he figured the overturned tri-wheeler and its ice cream trailer might make a useful haulage vehicle if the group needed to gather lumber for his furnace or hunt for food.

The survivors had lit a fire on the corner of Parliament Street and Bridge Street, and were roasting meat on makeshift grills.

“I say—dig in, old chap.” The nearest gentleman righted a wicker chair on the pavement and patted the seat for Cecil. “You’re the lostest thing we’ve seen for hours. Where the deuce have you been?”

“On the airship over there, with—”

“The darkies, we know. Never been right ones for mixing with civilized folk, our African brothers. Nothing against them, mind you, they’re damn good in a scrap, I hear, and they’re working wonders over there in Benguela. You know them personally, sir?”

“Not before tonight, but I can vouch for them one and all. They’ve shown us every kindness.”

“Hear! Hear!” an inordinately tall, thin man supping a glass of brandy joined in. “Let’s invite our Air Corps friends over. Seeing as we’re all stuck here, wherever the devil here is, let us at least start off on the right foot.”

“I’ll second that,” another man bellowed from behind the flames.

“You’d second the plagues of Egypt if you were bloody Pharaoh,” shouted another.

“An’ goin’ off your fizzog, Moses tested a few of ’em on you first.”

Laughter roared around the campfire, and Cecil could hardly believe that earlier the same day, London’s roots had been ripped up around this very spot. These men, many of them undoubtedly members of the gentlemen’s club, seemed to be taking it all in their strides. Or was it merely Dutch courage? He declined a silver hip flask containing what smelled like whisky.

“Do any of you blokes know what happened? The airship crew is understandably bemused. Some fainted with the shock. Have you any ideas?” Cecil tested.

“None of us
blokes
had a rotten clue.” The beanpole wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “But the lady here seems to have put two and two together rather ingeniously—says the fellow responsible is probably dead. What was that name again? Rourke? Rankin?”

“Reardon,” came a reply through the flames. Cecil recognized Miss Polperro’s voice immediately, that schoolmarm abruptness sending a shiver down his spine. Why had it not occurred to him she and her lickspittle cronies would still be in the vicinity?
Ah, hell.
Of course the one person who could blot his copybook
had
to be here waiting with her poisonous agenda. He still had time to sneak away to the ship before she saw his face. Time to regroup, to try another tact. But what excuse could he give? What pressing—

“And your name, sir?” the first man asked innocently.

“My name?”
Um…er…hell.

“Aye.”

“Cecil.”

“Glad to know you, Cecil.” The man loosened his bowtie and shirt collar and then shook hands. “Tomorrow we’re heading over to this Reardon’s factory, see if we can’t put our heads together and figure out what went wrong. Miss Polperro put it nicely. ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.’ Darned clever.”

Cecil scoffed. “I think you’ll find that was Newton.”

He shrank to nothing as soon as the words tripped from his lips. The woman sprang up and rushed around the fire, probably to confirm her suspicions. Peering over her thick-rimmed spectacles, she gave a sly smirk. “It’s Reardon. He tried to trick you all. His name is Cecil all right—Professor Cecil Reardon.
He’s
the one responsible for all this.”

Another man yelled, “Quick, grab him before he gets away!”

“Whoa! Whoa! I’m not going anywhere. What are you talking about?” He leapt to his feet and backed away from the angry mob, hands out in submission. This could easily turn ugly if he did try to escape. Every instinct tugged at him to flee, but his stubborn brain would not relent. These people needed someone to blame, that was all. After he’d explained himself, they would see reason. “Take your seats and I’ll—”

Several furious voices erupted. “String him up!”

“What?
That’s insane.
”

“We’re not the ones who buggered up time. Let him dangle!”

“You idiots don’t know what you’re doing!”

“No, leave him be.” Miss Polperro’s shrill voice barely registered through the cacophony. “We need him to undo what he’s done.”

Their frenzy would not abate. He kicked and punched at a dozen crazies while they manhandled him off his feet and carried him like a trophy sacrifice to the nearest lamppost. “Hand me that rope—Okay, good and tight—Don’t throttle him yet, haul him up first—That’s it, round the bastard’s neck—Meddle with God’s laws? You can argue the toss with him after you swing!—Loop it over, Carswell, that’s the way—You three, help me pull on this end—Good one, Delaney, he earned that fist—Now, on three…

“One…two…
three.
”

The coarse loop tightened, dug into his windpipe. He could neither gasp nor scream. His fingers couldn’t get between the rope and his Adam’s apple. A sickening pressure squeezed his tongue from his mouth and his eyeballs up into his brain. His head threatened to explode like an over pumped hydrogen balloon.

Two gunshots rang out.

His feet slapped the pavement and he crumpled in a heap, dazed.

“Back off or we’ll see if Whig blood really does run red. That means
you,
Carswell.” The voice sounded like Embrey’s, but where had he—

A terrible roar unlike anything he’d ever heard flooded Cecil’s gasping brain. He coughed, curled himself into a ball on a scrunched tablecloth. Again the roar, this time followed by the dull clap of shoes running in every direction.

“What the hell was that?” someone cried.

“It came from the forest!”

“Everyone get indoors, whatever it is.”

Weak hands grappled with his limp shoulder, unable to lift him.

“Ma’am, let me carry him. You’d best get inside.” Embrey’s voice again. This time, Cecil struggled onto his knees, coughing his guts up. “Easy—I’ve got you, old boy.” The young man’s frown made him look a decade older in the firelight. As he crouched, Cecil spied the two pistols steaming in Embrey’s hip holsters. “Up you go.” The lad heaved him onto his shoulder and made for the gentlemen’s club. Another roar sounded much closer this time. Half way up the steps to the front door, Embrey spun northwards, yelled, “Christ Almighty!”

The tip of a long, crooked shadow jerked up the street after them. The ground shook in its wake, and a rampant, thumping rhythm made him fear the building itself would collapse. Embrey halted in the vestibule, lowered Cecil against a glass display cabinet that held bound books, trophies and assorted political guff.

“Here, take this.” His young friend offered him one of the steam-pistols. “If anyone makes a try for you, put his seat up for re-election on the spot. Don’t hesitate.” He spun to the doorway and murmured, “Jesus! I’ll be a son of a…”

“W-what is that thing?”

“Beats me, Professor. Something gigantic.” Embrey puffed, then touched the flat of the brass barrel to his temple. He moved his lips as though miming a prayer.

Cecil started forward, then crabbed back in horror as a huge lizard-like tail swung over the road outside, knocking the chairs and fire stack over. Sparks and cinders spilled onto the junction. A blood-curdling roar shattered the stained glass window in the reception area to their right. The beast reacted.
Thump, thump.
A monstrous snout poked against the gap, its nostrils as big as rugby balls. Cecil squeezed the moist pistol grip until his fingertips squeaked on the rubber. He daren’t move or make another sound. The creature’s breaths sounded like the rasps of a slow-moving steam train.

A distant clatter drew it back across the street. The monster reacted to the thunder of falling rubble with another roar. Manmade noise—had that intrigued it? Embrey’s pistol shots? What exactly
was
this thing? For the sake of his experiment, he must know.

Embrey tried to hold him back from the doorway but Cecil gained a clear, unforgettable view of the first dinosaur any human had ever seen alive.

“My God, it’s colossal.”

“And bent on feeding by the looks of it. Down, Professor. Keep down.”

Cecil whispered excited mental notes between coughs, while the beast attacked a buckled lamppost in front of a terraced building in which quite a few people—too many people—had gathered. “Four-legged, walks on its rear two, forelimbs longer and more powerful than usual for a
dinosaur.
” He sputtered and couldn’t quite believe he’d used that word in a bona fide naturalist endeavour. “Long, low, crocodilian snout, narrow jaws filled with serrated teeth, large, hooked claw on the thumb of each hand, over a foot long. You getting any of this, Embrey?”

“In the seat of my britches, maybe.”

“Skull set at an acute angle, not at ninety degrees like most dinosaur skeletons I’ve seen. I’d say it’s close to forty feet from snout to tail. Would you agree?”

“Forty or four hundred, it’s got a taste for Londoners.
Look
, it’s got someone.”

A sickening crunch curtailed the poor bastard’s scream as the monster plucked him in its jaw from the second floor of the terraced house opposite.

“And there’s nothing we can do,” Embrey spat, baring his teeth.

“No, not with steam-pistols.”

“We daren’t fire a shot. That thing’d bring the roof down on us. Think, damn it, think! Some kind of diversion—lure the bugger away.”

He had to hand it to the youngster—Embrey was a natural born leader, graceful under pressure. But there was also that halt-worthy whiff of defiance in his muttering, the noble and self-sacrificing kind beloved of Englishmen over the centuries, feared by their enemies. Personally, Cecil had never experienced it outside of his protection for Lisa and Edmond. For the life of him, he’d never been able to fathom why a man would risk his neck for complete strangers. Nonetheless, he was glad to have such a man at his side.

They watched and waited for the best part of half an hour while the dinosaur stalked up and down Parliament Street probing open windows and doors and exposed sections where the brickwork had collapsed.

“This is no good. It’s not giving up. We need the men from the
Empress.
” Embrey tugged Cecil’s sleeve. “Come, the back of this place is wide open. Let’s not dally another minute.”

A half dozen members of Parliament cowered in a corner of the smoking room. They watched, speechless, as Embrey and Cecil dashed out over the rubble and across the railway track. What these inebriated swine had done to him a moment ago was so unconscionable, so far outside the realm of possibility, he didn’t know whether to pinch himself awake or open fire on the Whigs. For now, he would follow Embrey’s resolute lead.

A brigade of African men-at-arms was already piling onto the embankment from the ship. Seeing their rifles made Cecil feel a little safer. Embrey called out, “Where’s Tangeni?”

One of the aeronauts pointed back along the embankment. Before he could explain, a terrible roar from the factories forced three of the men to swerve into the mud. A
second
monster burst onto the quayside. It swiped its fore claw at the band of fleeing Africans, felling them like paper dolls. A few stood their ground, opened fire. Embrey’s steam-powered shots were gallant but ineffectual at that range. He quickly realised it and desisted, instead helped the men escape toward Cecil’s factory, the nearest cover.

“Where’s Billy?” Cecil called out.

“With Djimon in—in the fo’c’sle,” someone replied, barely hiding his terror.

Embrey held his pistol aloft. “Follow me!” The remaining aeronauts swarmed after him and Cecil as they scampered over the collapsed wire-mesh fence. The dinosaur hadn’t finished chewing its latest victim when it lunged into a full sprint. Head low, it stalked them with a bloodlust that reeked of vengeance. It lifted its claws into a taut pianist position under its massive jaws and caught the group within several strides.

At this rate,
none
of them were going to reach the roofed section in time—too much rubble lay in their path, and the monster had its pick of victims.

“Split up,” Cecil shouted. “Some of us might make it.”

Teeth clenched, Embrey nodded and veered northward, taking eight or nine aeronauts with him while the others quickly overtook Cecil onto the pile of bricks and twisted girders. He glanced behind him and thanked God the beast had stopped to savour its latest meal at the start of the rubble.

A massive claw swung ahead of him and ripped the head off a screaming aeronaut. Cecil ducked, rolled away as the first dinosaur joined the hunt from the south. The combined roars of two leviathans assaulted his eardrums, blanked his mind to anything but imminent, horrific death. In the corner of his eye he glimpsed the silent cogwheels waiting like gloomy cobwebs either side of his miraculous brass machine. It had worked. He’d achieved that much, if nothing more. Edmond would forgive him, Lisa would be proud. Dying screams drowned the clacks of tumbling bricks. He closed his eyes and tucked the pistol muzzle up against his jowl. Better he take his own life than being eaten alive. No regrets to speak of…except one…