The Great Game (12 page)

  Smith dismissed it. "Why are you here?" he said, instead. The Turk was telling him nothing, he realised.

  "Babbage fears me. His men took me and installed me here. But I can listen… the Tesla waves go everywhere. Somewhere in Oxford there is a boy who is not entirely a boy, and a thing growing deep underground which may yet be our salvation. There are thinking machines in France, and in Chung Kuo, and we are forming our own alliance, a network of thought that, one day…"

  But the Turk grew silent, and the hum of engines beyond the walls became mute, suddenly. Smith had not been aware of the background hum until it had stopped. "Turk?" he said. "Turk!"

  But there was no reply, and Smith cursed – and cursed again when the alarm returned, in full force.

  "They shut him down, sir," the boy, Twist, said.

  "Machines," Smith said. "You can never trust machines."

  There were sounds beyond the door now. Shouts, and feet slamming into the hard cold floor.

  "We have to go," Smith said.

 
 

 
 
 

Outside it was a long white corridor and electric light and nothing else. The light was white and bright. They ran in the opposite direction to the sound of the men. "It's a long way down, sir," Twist said.

  There were doors for a lift at the end of the corridor. As they approached them they opened with a wheeze of steam – Smith dragged the boy away, seeing the hint of black uniforms and the light playing off guns. "Quick, in here."

  The door wasn't locked. A janitor's room, he thought. Buckets and brooms and wipes and three sets of grey shapeless overalls–

  "Get dressed," he told the boy, already reaching for a suit.

 

The janitor and his assistant, armed with buckets and brooms, walked meekly to the lift when they were stopped.

  "You!"

  The men wore black uniforms with the logo of the Babbage Company on their arms. The numbers 01000010, which represented the letter "B" in the binary number system, with a stylised little cloud of steam directly above the digits. The men also wore guns, which were black and well oiled and currently pointing at the janitor and his assistant's chests.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Please, sir, much cleaning to make!" the janitor said humbly. "Many dirting all about, yes?"

  The officer's face twisted in disgust. "
Portuguese
?" he said.

  "Damn continentals," the officer beside him said. "Get out of here, this is now a restricted area. Did you see anyone?" he asked, with sudden suspicion.

  "We see nothing, mister!" the janitor said. "Boy, he no talk English. Me only talk good."

  The officer looked at them for a long moment, the gun still raised. Then he lowered it. "Get out of here!
Pronto
," the officer said.

  The janitor, looking frightened, hurried to obey, pulling the boy – who must have been somewhat slow, the officer thought; he had seldom seen such a look of utter stupidity on a face before – along with him.

  "And haul that old machine out of there," the officer said, ordering his men. "Instructions are to dump it in the basement with the rest of the rubbish."

 

"Too close," Smith said. "That was too close."

  But interesting, he thought. For they had clearly not been given information as to the possible cause behind the break-in. Had they been looking for intruders, he and the boy would not have been so lucky. Which made him worry what would happen on the ground floor…

  The lift creaked its way down. Floor after floor passed by. He tensed when it stopped at last. "Step to the side," he warned the boy, with a whisper.

  His hand on the hilt of the knife…

  The doors opened.

  "Do try and take them alive…" a voice said.

  Smith was already in motion. There were numerous B-Men around in those pressed black uniforms. Too many, he thought. And he was old. Still he moved, going rapidly, the knife flashing–

  Knowing it was hopeless, hoping only that the boy would stay out of sight, get a chance to escape after all–

  The sound of gunfire–

  He expected the bullets to slam into him, for the air to explode out of his lungs, for his heart to stop, violently and forever–

  "Get down, you bloody fool!"

  Hands grabbed him, dropped the knife, pulled him down and across the floor. He heard manic laughter, the sound of gunshots, screams.

  Men in black uniforms falling all around, the smell of blood and gunpowder filling the air.

  "Take one for England!" a familiar voice shouted, cackling.

  Oh, God, no, Smith thought.

  "Didn't think we'd miss out on all the fun, did you?" Colonel Creighton said.

 

M. was in the back of the baruch-landau, still holding on to her Gatling gun, her hair standing crazily on end as though she had been hit by lightning. Creighton was driving. The baroness, putting away a bloodied knife she had used on the dying, was now comforting the boy, who looked – understandably – a little shocked.

  It's been a long night… Smith thought.

  They had left behind them the Babbage Tower's high-security entrance trashed and ransacked, and bodies piled up on the floor. "Treachery!" Colonel Creighton said. The steam-powered vehicle lumbered through the narrow streets, heading to the river. "Knaves! Traitors!"

  "We don't know that," Smith said. He wanted to sink into a sleep, into oblivion. He prayed M. would not shoot any more people. Instead of sleep he accepted the offer of a flask from the baroness and drank, the whiskey searing his throat. "How did you know to–" he said.

  "The bee keeper sent us," the baroness said, softly.

  "He's here?"

  "He is back in the village," the colonel said, "but he had a hunch you'd need a little help. Don't know how he does it, really. Remarkable mind. And then there's his brother, don't you know. Best of the best. Good man. A great loss for the empire. Still, life marches on and all that, what?"

  "What?"

  "What?" the colonel said, sounding confused.

  Smith shook his head. He thought of the bee keeper. He had gone to see Adler, Smith realised. The bee keeper had once been romantically linked with her… and, before he tended to bees, he was known as the greatest detective who had ever lived. Smith sent a silent thank-you his way.

  Then: "You shouldn't have gotten involved," he said. "This is too dangerous."

  "More dangerous than retirement?" the colonel said. "Pfah, old man! This is the most fun I've had in ages!"

  "They will come after you–"

  "In the village? Let them try."

  Beside him, the baroness smiled. "This is a shadow war," she said, softly. "They will not attempt a public attack. No, we'll be fine, Smith. But you…"

  "I have to leave England. I have to disappear."

  No one replied. Smith watched the road. They were following the course of the river, he realised. Heading to Limehouse… heading to the docks. "What about the boy?" he said.

  "He will be looked after," the baroness said.

  "Twist?" Smith said, turning to him.

  "Sir? Yes, sir?"

  "Thank you," Smith said, and the boy smiled, the simple, innocent expression transforming his face. Smith turned back, rested his head against the seat, and closed his eyes.

 

Limehouse, at night. A silver moon hung in a dark sky. Gulls cried over the docks. Smith, dropped in a darkened street, one shadow amongst many – the baruch-landau, with a belch of steam and M.'s final, deranged cackle, disappeared, leaving him alone.

  A narrow street, Smith standing still. The night air full of tar and salt and incense, roast pork, wood smoke, soy and garlic – in the distance, the smell of sheesha pipes.

  The sound of light footsteps – he turned, a small white figure, moving, jerkily, towards him. A child, coming closer – pale skin, dark hair, large eyes, dressed in a boy's clothes–

  The boy stopped before Smith. Something made Smith shiver. There was something unnatural about the boy, but he could not, for a moment, say what it was. Merely a sense of
alienness,
a wrongness that made every aspect of Smith tense, and want to reach for a weapon.

  They boy looked up at him with pale, colourless eyes. "Do you believe in God?" he said. He had a strange, lilting, highpitched voice. "Do you believe in second chances, Smith?"

  Smith stood very still. He looked at the boy, and gradually details revealed themselves: the pale white skin was not skin at all, but ivory, and the black hair did not grow naturally, it had been planted, into a scalp that wasn't at all human.

  The boy was an automaton.

  A rare, expensive automaton, of a craftsmanship he had never seen before. There was the faint sound of clockwork, whirring. He did not know how to answer the boy's question.

  "We used to come here," he said, surprising himself. The automaton stared at him with unseeing eyes. "We had a preagreed rendezvous point, in case of trouble. We would meet here, in Limehouse, where we could get a boat, out of the country. We never did run away… but we'd meet here, sometimes, in between foreign wars and assassinations and intrigue, and share a night together, seldom more than that. It was enough. We completed each other. You wouldn't–"

  But the automaton-boy merely stared at him and repeated the words, like a recording, about God and second chances, and then reached a pale ivory hand to Smith and took his hand and said, "Come with me."

  "Who sent you?" Smith said, but it was with a kind of hopeless impossibility in his voice: he felt as if reality itself was slipping away from him, and the night had suddenly contracted about him like a bubble, and he could not get out.

  The boy didn't answer. He led, and Smith followed. They went down narrow streets and alleyways, hugging the shadows, until they came to a sewer hole in the ground. The boy, letting go of Smith's hand, briefly turned his head and looked at him, his vacant eyes never blinking. Was it sorrow in those eyes? What was it that the diminutive machine was trying to tell him? Not speaking, the boy stepped lightly over the sewer hole and fell down, noiselessly.

  "Down the rabbit hole…" Smith murmured. He knew this was insane. And yet… he had been a professional long enough to recognise what was happening. He did not follow blindly. A player had made contact with him. The boy's approaching him had been, in the code of the Great Game, that player asking for a rendezvous.

  Moreover. The same player had given him plenty of information. Sending out the curious little automaton had been enough, and now the hole…

  Smith was curious. For all the clues added up to something fantastical, and to a player he had thought eliminated. "Curiouser and curiouser," he said, smiling faintly, and then jumped down the hole, following the strange little automaton.

 

His fall was broken by a mattress that had been laid down there, probably long ago. Smith found himself in a disused sewer of some sort, space opening around him – there were bottles down there and mattresses and clothes and shoes, driftwood and bleached rodent skeletons, and it smelled of the sea. He could not see the boy. Something moved, in the corner of his eye. He turned.

  Something vast and alien, sluggishly moving, an insectoid body, like a giant centipede, feelers extended–

  A being like nothing of the Earth–

  And yet it did not feel
alive
, organic–

  He could only see its shadow, moving–

  "I thought you were dead," he said.

  "Retired," a voice said, and then laughed, and Smith found himself shivering: it was the laughter of something insane. "For a while, Mr Smith."

  The automaton, the underground lair, the question the boy had echoed to Smith, on behalf of its master. Hints and clues adding up…

  "The Bookman," Smith said, and that giant, alien body moved, slithering close, and cold, metal feelers touched his forehead, lightly, like a benediction or a kiss.

  "I can bring her back," the Bookman said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 

The black airship glided silently over the mountainous terrain, all but invisible.

  They had come by steam ship, through Suez into the Red Sea. The steam ship waited for them. The British government would deny all knowledge in the event of their capture.

  But Lucy Westenra did not intend to be captured.

  She stood on the deck of the airship, the cold air running through her short hair. Looking down, she saw few lights. They would not be expecting an attack.

  The city of Aksum, ancient, weathered, silent now, in the depth of night.

  Lucy signalled to her team. They wore dark clothing, and the two Europeans had blackened their faces. She had assembled the team herself, each one hand-picked. Two Gurkhas; a Zulu warrior whose father had fought with Shaka as a young man, but who had chosen a different path for himself; a Scot; young Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas to the society papers back home: they were her core team. The others were regular army. She knew only half of them by name. All men. Lucy Westenra the only woman amongst them, and their commander.

  Their objective: capture the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Retrieve the item, at all costs.