The Venusian Gambit (15 page)

Ayim nodded. “We have perhaps a half-dozen decaying protein chains we’re studying right now, to see if we might come up with a pattern. But there are several hundred trillion potential combinations among the remnants we have. I do not hold out hope. But that data went somewhere, so it likely still exists. From the position the ship was in, we can pinpoint the receiver to somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan.”

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘pinpoint,’ Doctor,” Diaz frowned. “What would the receiver look like? And what would the guys on the ground need to translate the data into something useful and/or deadly?”

The physicist shrugged. “I have no idea how they would manage to reconstitute that data, General, because I don’t know what it was in the first place. But as for receiving it, it’s hard to say. Would they need equipment to similarly provide some kind of quantum superpositioning in order to use this information to access a different dimensional state? If so, I cannot say what that would even look like. But if not, then all they would need is a standard data receiver. A converted satellite holovision dish would do, frankly.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Diaz said. “Looks like we need to send someone to Afghanistan.”

“We need to leave Afghanistan,” Harry Yu said.

“I agree, Harry,” Greene replied.

Harry was surprised enough to actually show it, a rarity for him. He’d expected Greene and Huntington to really dig their heels in about relocation, especially after they’d been working hard on their new particle accelerator in the desert outside of Kabul. But here they were, simply sitting and nodding and agreeing with him as he stood, dumbfounded, in their shitty little office.

“Don’t you even want to know why?” Harry asked.

“Sure,” Huntington said, giving him one of her scary smiles.

“So for one, we’re running out of money fast. I’ve maybe got two weeks’ worth of bribe money left, and then we’re out of luck. In fact, we should’ve been out of luck weeks ago, but I ended up getting a ForEx account and doing some day trading while you two were off in the desert. Wasn’t much, but it helped.”

Harry expected some recognition of this from his teammates, but none was forthcoming. On second thought, he was an idiot to think they’d care.

“So anyway, one way or another, we’re going to have to leave. And as it turns out, I have a contact, someone I used to work with, who can give us some space and freedom and divert us some resources to get things to the point where we can successfully cross over to the other side again,” Harry said. “Now, of course, she’ll want a big cut.”

“Where’s the new location?” Huntington asked.

“Russia. Yekaterinburg. Most of the oligarchs and congloms are headquartered in Moscow, but they use Yekaterinburg for a lot of their R&D. And the Russians are almost as good as the Afghans when it comes to regulatory stuff. So. How long will it take for you to wrap things up here?” Harry asked.

Greene just grinned. “We brought in our prototypes from the desert this morning. As it so happens, we got all the data we need. We just need to pack up here and we’re good.”

Harry sat stunned for several moments before finally jumping to his feet. “How the fuck did you know to do that?” he shouted. “This is creeping me the fuck out! What the fuck is going on?”

Greene stood slowly and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Harry, we didn’t know you were already making plans to move us. We’ve been playing with the data we received from
Tienlong
out in the desert for over a week now, and just today we ended up with the quantum phasing we needed to figure it all out. So we brought our gear in. Problem is, of course, that JSC and DAEDALUS will probably figure out what happened soon, and then they’ll track us here.”

Harry, of course, knew about the transmission from
Tienlong
, but he thought it was merely sensitive material from something they found on Titan. The fact that it took a week to decode—even with off-the-rack, second-hand quantum computers—was news. And what the hell did
Tienlong
send that they needed particle accelerators and quantum phasing—whatever the fuck
that
was—to figure it out?

Harry would find out soon, and with his new backing, he’d be in a position to take charge of this fucked-up operation once again. Harry knew he was being used, and he was looking forward to the leverage he needed to straighten that out.

“Then I guess we better get packing,” Harry said, heading for the door. “I’ll arrange the transport. Don’t leave anything behind. I don’t want anyone to track us down.”

Harry went out to his car again and sent another secure e-mail to his new benefactor, asking about the security in Yekaterinburg—and advising her to get more.

CHAPTER 7

May 7, 1809

W
hen in pitch darkness, the mind is often unclear as to whether the body is fully awake or not. Hence it was that Philip, the Count St. Germain, a brilliant alchemist and tutor, spent several precious minutes determining that, yes, indeed, he had regained consciousness.

It was the smell that gave away the game, for he could not recall ever experiencing smells in any dream-like state. Yet his nose detected notes of pine and sharp citrus quite near his head—indeed, upon the very surface he reclined against, a surface that was rough yet pliable on his skin. He was slumped up against…burlap. Yes, a burlap bag, confirmed by his fingertips.

Next, he determined that his arse was cold.

It was a most annoying sensation, of course, and he quickly realized that he was shivering as well. But as his mind continued to swim through the murk of receding alchemical sleep, he began to piece things together quickly enough.

A cold floor, one made of stone, would place him in a cellar.

A burlap bag full of something smelling of pine and citrus would be hops, the vine-fruits used in the seasoning and preservation of beer.

A brewery, then, was his most likely location. And the powder Berthollet used was, to Philip’s nose, a simple enough formulation. He was likely unconscious for but an hour at most, making it quite likely he remained in Oxford Town, if not upon the university grounds. In fact, given the fact that Berthollet and Cagliostro seemed to be staying within the university halls, Philip gave it better than even odds that he was being held in the cellar of one of the college halls—likely Brasenose College, quite well known for its brewing.

Philip smiled in the darkness, congratulating himself for his deductions, until he realized he remained in darkness and, far more importantly, could not in fact deduce the location of Elizabeth without some form of light. This quickly replaced self-satisfaction with a heart-pounding fear for his stepsister, and Philip quickly hauled himself to his feet—and bumped his head on the low boards above him.

Definitely Brasenose. He had once accompanied a Brasenose tutor down into the cellars to sample the college’s ales, and remembered the ceilings were quite low indeed. Shaking his head in an attempt to throw off the last of Berthollet’s alchemically induced sleep, Philip sought to remember the layout of the rooms. If the hops were stored here, then this would be a very dry room, not the one where the barrels of finished beer were kept, nor the room where fermenting beer was laid in. So it would be a room he had not visited before, but one close to the rest of the college’s small brewery. And it would be…

…quite near the foundation. And possibly a cellar window.

Philip walked hunched over, with his hands waving wildly in front of him, until he indeed found a wall. Like the floor, it was cold to the touch, and so it would be foundational. He then walked around the room. He encountered a door first, and naturally found it to be both stout and locked; it would make for a poor prison indeed if it were neither. But finally, just as he was about to finish his circumnavigation, he came upon a quite small window, no bigger than two feet wide, barely 10 inches tall. Not large enough for escape. However, it would be quite easy enough to break. Removing his coat and wrapping it around his hand, Philip successfully smashed the window upon his third try, which allowed a small bit of light into the room, even though it was still quite dark outside in the town. A quick glance at his pocketwatch confirmed it was but a few minutes after two o’clock in the morning.

And in the dim light of the room—which seemed more than bright enough after laboring in darkness for several minutes—Philip could see Elizabeth there upon the floor, not four feet from the bag of hops upon which he had awakened. He rushed over to her and found her breathing normal, her heartbeat steady. She would likely take several more minutes to awaken.

Perhaps, he considered, that would be enough time in which to formulate an escape plan.

It was not.

A few minutes later, just as Elizabeth began murmuring and emerging from her own sleep, the door to the room opened. A French officer, accompanied by two
Corps Éternel
soldiers, entered with a lantern raised, causing both captives to blink and raise their hands against the light. The officer—certainly no older than Philip, and likely younger—looked around the room and saw the broken window, then smirked. “There is no people outside now,” the man said in quite faulty English. “You not get help there.”

“I do not need the help of others to contend with the likes of you and your unholy creatures,” Philip replied in his best French, which caused the officer to frown deeply. “Now bring us to whomever sent you, and let us be done with it.”

Philip helped Elizabeth to her feet, though she quickly rejected his arm and walked toward the door upon her own power; it was not the first time, of course, for her to insist upon her own ability. Elizabeth was indeed an apt pupil of her stepmother in matters of independence, if not alchemy. For his part, Philip followed close behind, leaving the French officer to scurry ahead in order to actually guide the captives to the appropriate locale.

Said locale was one of the smaller reading rooms within Brasenose College, one which Philip had not visited. Therein, both Berthollet and Cagliostro sat in overstuffed chairs, with a small table between them stacked with a handful of books. They both had a glass of wine in hand, and two empty glasses were placed upon a low table before them. Philip and Elizabeth were led to a couch upon the other side of the table, and the French officer filled their glasses–whilst frowning at the duty, it should be said. Both step-siblings declined with a dismissive wave and a scowl toward the two alchemists.

Berthollet seemed quite amused. “Patriots, then, I take it,” he said in English. “Shan’t drink with the French, even though we have come to liberate England from its enslavement to the rich merchants who had pulled upon the strings of your beloved King George and his unfaithful Parliament.”

Elizabeth smiled wickedly in return. “I am but a simple woman,
monsieur
, so I cannot speak overmuch on the matter of politics, especially when such a bald-faced misappropriation of all truth and reason, combined with your use of dark alchemy and these perverse abominations you call soldiers, would lead me to reject your wine, let alone your occupation of our land. And I should add,” she said sweetly, “you offer us quite a poor vintage indeed, sir. The ’97 was a terrible year for this particular Bordeaux, which is of itself from a lesser estate.”

Berthollet and Cagliostro traded a look, and the older alchemist burst out laughing, a staccato bark that seemed to shake the very books upon the table. “I told you she was Weatherby’s child, Berthollet! ‘Tis the same arrogance and fervor! Though she does seem to better him in intellect, does she not?”

That was when Philip noticed the label upon the bottle and smiled, for the wine had come from Berthollet’s own estate—a fact Elizabeth had quickly noticed. Her mind was agile and sharp to a degree Philip had never seen in others, not even his own mother. It was a shame Elizabeth had not shown facility with the Great Work, for she would’ve made a most formidable alchemist.

For his part, Berthollet’s humor had evaporated under Elizabeth’s words and insult. “I have never met Lord Weatherby, though he is but a minor thorn in our side, along with Wellesley and those other fools in Scotland,” Berthollet said. “And since you do not wish to engage in civilized conversation, I will simply demand that you tell us of what you heard, and all else regarding your time in Oxford, so we may decide whether you are worth saving or must be condemned as traitors to King George and Emperor Napoleon.”

“Condemn us and be done with it,” Philip said, hoping a confident tone would mask his nerves. “And perhaps furnish us with better drink before we meet Madame Guillotine, if you’d be so kind. For we are highly disinclined to disclose anything, not even upon pain of death or poor wine.”

Cagliostro snorted again in delight. “You make me wish I were fifty years younger, you two. Or perhaps that your father, young man, had not seen fit to strip me of my talent. Either way, it should be a grand thing to be of your age in these times. Of course, you know full well your value to the French, do you not? The children of Lord Weatherby and the dowager Countess St. Germain are fine hostages indeed. Not quite at the level of King George, but certainly valuable nonetheless. That makes it highly unlikely Dr. Berthollet here will execute you forthwith.”

“Though I am sorely tempted,” Berthollet scowled. “Perhaps, then, an admixture of a truth-telling serum may deliver what bonhomie or threat will not.”

Philip assumed Berthollet would resort to such measures, and indeed was surprised he had not done so earlier. “And how is it that you have come to recognize us so readily as these children you speak of?” Philip asked, attempting to sow confusion.

“I know your face, for it’s your father’s more than you know,” Cagliostro said, smiling but with a hint of wistfulness. “And I briefly encountered your mother as well, when she was alongside a very young Thomas Weatherby, oh…what was it, thirty years ago now? On Callisto. So you were quite easy, Philip, the new Count St. Germain. As for the girl here, deductive reasoning, of course, along with her father’s blade, of which I remain familiar as well, having seen its potency on Mars, as well as within the library but an hour or two ago.”