The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (53 page)

There were clockwork men present, five prostrated and motionless, three standing still, and one banging its dented head repeatedly against the wall while mumbling to itself. Burton, while keeping an eye on the other machines, approached it and listened.

“Going to hear now the linen . . . mineral . . . are no grandfathers in any inspired . . . else we can switch . . . perfectly raw . . . tomorrow . . . thereby to grant glass to . . . butler and laughter for my . . . in dried gatherings.”

He was reminded of his experience in the future when he'd witnessed his own mind being transferred from the Brunel mechanism into the body of the Beetle.

“What's it gibbering about?” Swinburne asked.

“This was an aristocrat,” Burton replied, “but the structure of the silicates into which his mind was embedded is breaking down. He's losing his ability to process language. Soon, he'll die.”

He reached out, pulled a sheathed swordstick from the contraption's belt, slipped it into his own, then turned and surveyed the three upright brass men. “My presumption is that these three differ from the ordinary type of machine only in that they were fitted with the aether-communications component, like Sprocket and Grumbles. That has now been disabled. They're awaiting orders but can't receive any.”

“So they pose no further threat?”

“Not by the looks of it, and they'll wind down in due course. I'll wager that Trounce and his people are battling only the SPG units by now. Those machines will be acting on their last commands but can't be given any new ones, except verbally, which will put them at a disadvantage.”

He paced to a door, quietly opened it a crack, and peered into the next room, which was filled with filing cabinets. Men were frantically sorting through papers and throwing bundles of them into a large brazier positioned near an arrow loop. Most of the smoke was streaming out through the tall, narrow opening but, nevertheless, the atmosphere of the chamber was thick with it.

Pushing the portal shut, he jerked his chin to indicate the direction they'd come. “Back into the corridor. The stairs will take us down to the office. When we get there, I'll confront Rigby. If there's anyone else present, you keep them covered with your pistol.”

“Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!'”

“Macbeth. Appropriate. I fear the colonel might have that warrior's overblown ambitions.”

They exited, walked rapidly to the head of the stairs, and started down. After a few steps, they heard voices raised in argument. Initially, they couldn't discern the words, but as they came closer to the second storey, they recognised the clipped and harsh tones of Rigby.

“You'll stand fast, you quivering milksop, or I'll bloody well shoot you myself.”

“What's the use?” sounded the desperate reply. “There's nothing left. The government is in utter disarray.”

“Half the ministers are dead or insane,” another added. “There's no leadership.”

“You'll take my orders, damn you!” Rigby roared.

“You're not even an elected member!”

“This is my authority!” A gunshot echoed up the stairwell.

People screamed and cried out in shocked protest.

With Swinburne at his back, Burton reached the access door and strode out into the room to which his brother had brought him previously. It was in chaos, with papers scattered everywhere, desks shoved aside, and government men standing indecisively, their eyes fixed on Rigby, who was in the middle of the chamber with one arm extended, a pistol in his hand.

A dead man was stretched out on the floor in front of him, blood oozing from a hole in his head.

Automated aristocrats were slumped here and there, most completely immobile, others twitching slightly.

At the far end of the chamber, the screen that sectioned off the prime minister's office had been knocked down. Disraeli was stretched out over his desk.

In an instant, Burton registered the scene. He sent a shot hissing past Rigby's head and bellowed, “Drop your weapon, Colonel, or I'll put one in your heart.”

Rigby swung around and saw the newcomers. He hesitated, gazed at the end of Burton's smoking revolver, which was aimed unerringly at him, then dropped his own.

“Kick it away,” Burton commanded.

The order was obeyed.

“You look dead on your feet,” Rigby commented. “Are you having a bad day?”

“It'll soon be better than yours.”

Burton gestured toward the left side of the room and, raising his voice, said, “Everyone but Rigby up against that wall. At once! If anyone tries anything, my companion will shoot to disable, but I warn you, he's a rotten shot and may kill you by mistake.”

“Steady on,” Swinburne murmured.

The men did as they were told.

“Cowards!” Rigby hissed. “These are enemies of the government. Rush them!”

They looked away from him and stood sullenly, crossing their arms or chewing their fingernails.

Burton stalked forward. “It's over, Rigby. Young England was a sham. A synthetic brain deceived and manipulated you. Had I not intervened, existence as you know it would have ended.”

“Hooray for you,” Rigby sneered. “Shall I commission a statue of you to mark the empire's everlasting gratitude? Perhaps it could supplant Nelson atop his column? Would that be tribute enough for your bloated self-esteem?”

“The pot calls the kettle black. You are, at least, consistent in your misjudgements. In only one matter have you been correct.”

Rigby frowned. “Is that so? And to what matter do you refer?”

“To that of my identity. As you suspected, I am not the Burton who departed for the future. My origin lies in an alternate history to this. There, I lived my life to its natural conclusion before being snatched from my deathbed, restored to youth, and brought here.”

“I see. For what purpose?”

“That need not concern you. What should, is that the mistreatment I recently suffered at your hands broke me.”

“How gratifying.”

“I'm inclined to agree. You did me a great favour.”

Rigby looked puzzled. He said nothing and waited for Burton to continue.

“You demolished certain mental barriers in me and thus allowed the recollections of every Burton from every iteration of history to flood past them. In those memories, I discovered that, in every version of the world, for no good reason aside from your overweening vanity, you have worked assiduously to tarnish my reputation. You have spread malicious rumours about me. You set John Speke against me and so entangled my African expedition in bureaucratic red tape that I was financially ruined.”

Rigby raised his eyebrows. “Well, I'm bound to say, the Rigbys of those other histories sound like marvellous fellows.” He curled his hands into fists and knocked his knuckles together. “Shall I remind you that you've already had an opportunity to revenge yourself but made a thoroughly pitiful show of it?”

“I was in no fit state, as well you know.”

Giving a derisive snort, Rigby looked Burton up and down. “And now?”

“Physically, I'm all done in.”

“So I see. The gun in your hand is shaking. You'd do well to lay it aside and surrender yourself.”

“I've already surrendered myself, though not in the manner you would wish. As for my revolver, I shall gladly oblige.” Burton smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. He stepped back and passed his weapon to Swinburne. “A final round, Colonel, but this time I shall dictate the terms. You have my swordstick in your belt. On every occasion I've seen you use it, you've done so rather clumsily. I therefore mean to give you a lesson in swordplay before I kill you.”

He drew the rapier from the cane he'd appropriated.

Rigby folded his arms across his chest, met Burton's eyes, held them, and didn't move.

The explorer strode forward. He flicked his blade. Two deep gashes appeared on Rigby's face, one on each cheek, vertical and perfectly symmetrical. Blood beaded out, gathered, and dripped before Rigby even felt the wounds. He blinked, stepped back, unhooked his arms, and put his fingers to his face.

Casually, Burton took another pace and made an almost graceful gesture. The colonel's jacket was suddenly reduced to ribbons.

“Defend yourself or by God I'll carve you up inch by inch like meat on a butcher's block.”

Rigby paled. He moved backward, pulled off the remains of his garment, and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

“Very well. Have it your way. But be warned, I'm not the amateur you take me for. I trained under Monsieur Paul Sauveterre in Paris.”

Sliding the silver-handled rapier from its scabbard, he faced Burton side-on and adopted the classic fencing pose.

“Sauveterre is a fine tutor,” Burton said. “Though rather hidebound by tradition.
En garde
.”

They touched sword tips.

For half a minute, no one moved, and a taut silence gripped the room. It was broken by Disraeli, who twitched and muttered, “They will call it Sanctum . . . terrible . . . magicians . . . and the whisper . . . will come in the midst of war . . . we are noticed . . . we are noticed.”

Rigby lunged. His blade was parried with ease. A cut opened on his forearm. He attempted a
froissement
—sliding his blade along Burton's to displace it before jabbing—but his opponent's reflexes brought a counter measure into play with such rapidity that the colonel had no awareness of what had happened until he disengaged, stepped back, and felt a wet warmth on his chest. He looked down. His shirt was hanging open and a horizontal laceration scored his breast.

Snarling, he renewed his attack.

For the next few minutes, there was no sound in the room but for the
tick tick tick
of crossing blades. Not once was Burton touched but for Rigby it was a different story; as the minutes passed, his clothes became ever more tattered and bloodstained as shallow cut after shallow cut cleaved his skin. Soon, his heavy breathing was added to the clink of clashing metal.

Slowly, he retreated from Burton's punishing, blurring point, until he bumped against a desk, sidled around it, slipped his free hand under its corner, and, with a desperate heave, upturned it, sending it crashing into the explorer.

Knocked to the floor, Burton scrambled backward as his opponent jumped forward and stabbed down at him.

“Stop!” Swinburne shouted, brandishing his two pistols. “I'll shoot you dead on the spot, Rigby!”

“Algy, don't!” Burton yelled.

He rolled aside, parried the other's blade, regained his feet, and, as he did so, slashed upward. Rigby's head jerked back and blood sprayed.

“Bastard!” he spat.

“That weapon you're holding belongs to me,” Burton said.

The left side of Rigby's face was hanging open, exposing all the teeth along the side of his jaw. When he spoke, red gore foamed onto his chin.

“Take it from me.”

“I intend to.”

They resumed their duel.

The floor around them became slippery with the colonel's blood. His respiration grew ever more laboured, and his throat rattled unpleasantly. Again and again, the explorer's point evaded his defence and pricked his skin.

Burton was merciless.

“This next stratagem,” he said in a casual tone, “is one I invented myself. I call it the
une-deux
.”

His rapier hooked around Rigby's and jerked it out of his hand with such force that the colonel cried out in pain and was left clutching his wrist while his sword clattered away over the floor.

Without taking his eyes off his adversary, Burton walked over to it and picked it up. He tossed the blade he'd been using to the other man. “Here, I'll not leave you unarmed.”

Rigby clumsily caught it and watched as Burton turned his back on him and approached the onlookers.

“Gentlemen, may I request a handkerchief?”

Six of the gathered government officials immediately proffered squares of cotton while the rest fumbled in their pockets.

Burton took one, said, “Thank you,” and, without turning around, used it to wipe Rigby's blood from the rapier's panther-headed grip.

He saw the fellow from whom he'd taken the handkerchief look past him. He heard Swinburne utter a cry of alarm. He wheeled, knocked aside Rigby's point with his arm, and kicked him with savage force between the legs.

The colonel crumpled to the floor, curled up, and vomited.

“I owed you that one. Now get up, you craven hound. We haven't finished.”

“I have,” Rigby croaked. “I'll be your plaything no more.”

Bending, Burton pulled the scabbard from the other's belt and put it onto a table. He grabbed the colonel by the collar and dragged him across the floor to the middle of the room. Rigby's ragged shirt ripped and was pulled away. Burton cast it aside and started to walk around the prone man.

“Do you know, Rigby, that among the memories of the other Burtons, I have those of the one who killed Spring Heeled Jack, otherwise known as Edward Oxford? He'd been terrorising London for decades, but by the time Burton—I might as well say ‘I'—caught up with him, he'd been captured and was strapped to a trolley on a rotorship. He was insane, pathetic, a man to be pitied, but still dangerous. I had no choice but to end his life. I couldn't allow his further interference with time. So I took hold of his head, and he looked up at me and asked if I was going to execute him in cold blood. I answered, ‘Whatever is necessary.' I felt nothing when I broke his neck. No emotion at all.”

He pushed his blade through Rigby's right calf then withdrew it.

The colonel yelled.

“I'm in that exact state now. I want you to properly comprehend. This is not revenge. This is no longer anger or hatred or retribution.”

He placed his point against the other's left bicep, slid it in, and extracted it.