Not Less Than Gods (5 page)

“Having said this, he vanished from among them like a shadow. The silver-bound chest remained on the table, however.

“The most senior member of the hierarchy opened the chest, and I need hardly tell you that his hands were trembling as he did so. Shall I tell you what he found inside?”

Edward looked around them at the commonplace world he had inhabited before this moment. The grimy street, the idlers sauntering to and fro, the rumbling wagons full of pitch or ship’s biscuit bound for some dreary and interminable voyage: all of them were about to vanish, like a painted curtain rising to reveal . . .

“What was it, sir?”

“Nothing more than a folded sheet of parchment,” said Dr. Nennys
placidly. “Yet it was a kind of parchment they had never seen, white as the snows of Aetna. It was closely covered with written instructions. They were to go to the widow of a certain pig farmer, and give her sickly child certain medicines, in order that he might live to manhood and become one of their number. They were to invest certain sums with certain merchants. They were to make copies of every book they owned, and keep them at a certain location in the Alps. There were certain undesirable men who must be removed from office, by whatever means might be managed. And one of their number must seek out a certain woman and marry her, and produce as many heirs as possible.

“The hierarchy followed these instructions to the letter. The reasons for some of the commands became evident in short order, as their investments paid out handsomely and a fire broke out in the hierarchy’s library, consuming a number of books which had fortunately been copied and secured elsewhere the week before.

“At the end of a year, the hierarchy found itself wealthier, more secure, than ever before. And then, a second list of instructions appeared in the silver-bound chest, as if by magic. The instructions were duly followed. Once again the hierarchy’s fortunes rose. Exactly one year later, a third list appeared. The hierarchy perceived that their counterparts in the future had given them a lamp by which to see the way forward, while the common run of humanity continued to grope in the darkness.

“With this advantage, the hierarchy grew, and spread. We are everywhere. We survived Rome’s fall. In time, da Vinci joined our ranks. So too did Roger Bacon, and John Dee. The silver-bound chest is kept in the hierarchy’s headquarters, which are presently in England, I am proud to say, and the annual list of instructions continues to appear without fail.

“The list for the year 1824 required us to manage the engendering of a certain remarkable child. Need I tell you that the child walks beside me as I speak?”

Edward was silent a long moment, staring at the pavement as he walked. “A man, now,” he said at last. “And very much entertained by your story. But can you prove any of this, sir?”

Dr. Nennys laughed. They had come by this time to the railway station. He waved his hand at the locomotive engine that was just pulling in, hissing steam, belching smoke as its titanic wheels revolved in their tracks. Its bright brasswork flared in the sunlight, cinders flew from it, and the earth still vibrated from the thunder of its approach.

“Here’s proof, my boy! This is our work, this herald of the new age.
Technologia
, the Greeks called it. Science applied to practical purposes. We’ve had the knowledge to build steam engines for a thousand years. Had our people been able to work freely and in the open, Shakespeare might have ridden one of these from Stratford to London.

“Fortunately, we now have the goodwill and assistance of some of the most powerful men in the nation. It was a trifling matter to liberate you from that hell-ship! Greater wonders lie ahead, but it will take steady work to bring them into being.”

“If this is true,” said Edward cautiously, “then I have found my purpose at last.”

“Master Edward!” Richardson appeared like a specter through a cloud of steam. “Doctor, sir. We have a first-class carriage, all neat and proper. Your trunk’s already stowed, sir.”

“Here’s the man.”

Ludbridge peered over the top of his
Times
and saw Greene approaching him across the library. Ludbridge was surprised; Greene worked Downstairs and came up from his office about as often as a mole left its burrow. Following Greene was an extraordinarily tall young man, vaguely familiar to Ludbridge from somewhere. After watching a moment, he recollected that the man had been at the banquet for new members, sitting across from the old member who had sponsored him.

The old member had been Dr. Nennys, Ludbridge remembered now. He rather disliked Dr. Nennys. However, he smoothed out his nascent scowl and nodded civilly at Greene.

“Ludbridge.”

“Greene.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been introduced to young Bell-Fairfax? Bell-Fairfax, Ludbridge.”

“An honor, sir.” Bell-Fairfax inclined forward in a curt military bow.

“How d’you do, sir.”

“New member,” said Greene. “In fact, a Residential member.”

“Ah.” Ludbridge came alert. There were two classes of gentlemen at Redking’s Club. Public members tended to be professionals in the arts and sciences, with a few MPs and cabinet ministers among them.
Residential members, as their name implied, had rooms on the premises and tended to be gentlemen who followed no very clearly defined trade. Many of them had been in the service; few had any living relatives. They were, to a man, unmarried. Ludbridge himself was a Residential.

“And he attended your old school, as well,” said Greene, with a significant look. He had just used a code phrase.

“Did he, indeed?” Ludbridge smiled. The phrase had told him that Bell-Fairfax was a member of the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society, the inner circle at Redking’s.

“He did. I’ve just been giving him a tour of the club, but I’m rather pressed for time,” said Greene. “Would you mind very much taking him under your wing for a bit?”

“Not at all.” Ludbridge folded up his paper and, setting it aside, rose from the depths of his chair. One of the other members frowned at them for carrying on a conversation in the library. Greene shrugged apologetically at him, and the three men walked out into the corridor.

As private clubs went, Redking’s was not particularly noteworthy in appearance. It was housed in a plain brick edifice in Craig’s Court; its rooms, while comfortable, were neither grand nor imposing. Nor was there anything exceptional within them to which Ludbridge might point with pride. Not, at least, in the rooms Upstairs.

Downstairs was quite another matter.

Greene led them to an inconspicuous door off the front entry hall, which, when opened, revealed a staircase. They descended together, after which Greene nodded to them and hurried away to his office.

Ludbridge turned and surveyed Bell-Fairfax critically.

“You’re rather tall for the work,” he said. “I assume you have other remarkable qualities?”

“I hope so, sir.”

“I hope so as well. Now, do you really need a tour, or have you been down here before?”

“I haven’t seen anything but the rooms Upstairs, sir.”

“Hmph. Ever seen an iceberg?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nine-tenths of ’em are below the water, you know; same with Redking’s. Everything down here belongs to the Society, though—”

There was the muffled sound of an explosion, some distance down the corridor in which they stood. From below a far door, something like smoke began to curl.

“Hell,” said Ludbridge, and set off down the corridor at a dead run. Bell-Fairfax passed him at perfectly amazing speed, and Ludbridge thought to himself:
The beggar’s fit, at any rate.
The other reached the door first, and pounded on it.

“Hallo! Anyone in there?”

No reply but strangled coughing came, with a high-pitched shrilling noise behind it, and the sound of clawing at the door from within. Ludbridge arrived then, with several other men from rooms down the hall. Before their astonished eyes Bell-Fairfax tore the door from its hinges and cast it aside as easily as though it had been a playing card. Clouds billowed out; a man fell forward onto the carpet. Ludbridge grabbed him and backed away with him. Bell-Fairfax, meanwhile, had taken a deep breath and leaned round the door frame to peer into the room.

“No one else in there, sir!”

“Be all right,” gasped the man who had been in the room. “Fans clear it out—experiment—titanium tetrachloride went wrong. My face burned?”

“Not much. You’ll want the medics to have a look at you, all the same, Kirke,” said Ludbridge. Bell-Fairfax, meanwhile, was watching in fascination as the chemical mist vanished into little vents, revealing a room like an alchemist’s chamber, full of an extraordinary white light, with glass retorts and many-colored bottles crowded on its tables. As the room’s details became visible, the shrill squealing faded and at last ceased.

They loaded Kirke onto the door and carried him down the corridor to what appeared to be a double doorway. One of the other rescuers threw the doors wide and revealed the small room beyond. It too was brightly lit, from a tiny glassed lamp in its ceiling.

“We’ll take him from here,” said one of the other men, catching hold of the door and backing into the cabinet. Bell-Fairfax relinquished his corner of the door and stared as the cabinet dropped away out of sight, carrying the moaning Kirke and his bearers.

“It’s an ascending room,” said Ludbridge. “Never seen one? Ours goes down as well. That one connects to the hospital. Full marks for getting there as quickly as you did, but you were a damned fool to pull the door off that way. If there’d been a fire in that room, the rush of air would have fanned it into a blaze.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax. They walked on a few paces, before Ludbridge said:

“Were you in the service?”

“Yes, sir. Navy.”

“Thought so. Anyone else would have answered back. What rank?”

“Commander, sir. Honorably retired, on half-pay.” Bell-Fairfax smiled, coldly amused by something. Ludbridge, observing him, thought:
Arrogant. I wonder why?

“Next time something of the sort happens, feel about the top of the door by the lintel. If it’s hot, you’ll know something’s smoldering inside,” Ludbridge continued.

“Yes, sir. Though I could tell nothing was on fire.”

“Through a closed door? Very likely!”

“I’d have been able to smell the heat, sir,” Bell-Fairfax replied.

“You’ve a keen sense of smell, have you?” Ludbridge looked up at him thoughtfully. Bell-Fairfax’s nose was a long aquiline, breaking to the left. His features suggested something slightly un-English, especially with those pale unnerving eyes. Ludbridge wondered whether he might be a Slav. The strength and reflexes were remarkable too, for a man who, though solid, did not appear heavily muscled. The articulation of his arms and shoulders seemed somewhat unusual . . .

“Well, Christ knows you can run,” said Ludbridge. “You may do for the job, after all. Come along; I’ll show you the gymnasium. Pengrove and Hobson ought to be in there, about now.”

Bell-Fairfax followed obediently enough, at first, but kept pausing to peer at the double globes set at intervals along the wall. “There’s no flame,” he cried at last. “These aren’t gaslights!”

“No; they’re de la Rue’s vacuum lamps,” said Ludbridge, a little impatiently. “Quite a bit brighter, as you may observe, and much more convenient. Do come along, Bell-Fairfax. I hope I shan’t have to stop and explain every new thing you see.”

“No, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax. He quickened his stride and asked no further questions, even when they stepped into another ascending room and rode it down a floor, though he gazed intently at its little vacuum lamp. Nor did he inquire after anything they encountered on the floor below, as they walked along the corridor: not though unknown machinery hissed and rattled behind closed doors, and colored lights flared and extinguished themselves.

Within one room, clearly no bigger than a dressing-chamber, a full orchestra was apparently playing, with a strangely tinny sound. From a half-open door something small darted, and the door was flung wide as a white-coated gentleman ran out after it. He caught it up and bore it back. As he passed, it was revealed to be some sort of wheeled toy, but it turned its head and regarded Bell-Fairfax and Ludbridge with glowing eyes.

“Mechanical rats,” Ludbridge muttered. “Useful for reconnaissance, if they ever perfect the damned things. Used to have all the laboratories on the floors below, but Fabrication keeps expanding into odd corners. Here we are!”

He led Bell-Fairfax into a vast room, like an indoor tennis court, well lit by the vacuum lamps. It echoed with the stamping and guttural cries of two men in fencer’s gear who were presently pursuing each other up and down the floor, and with a distant splashing that suggested the proximity of bathing pools in the rooms beyond.

“Gentlemen, may I have your attention?”

The fencers stopped at once, lifting their masks as they turned.

“Hallo, Ludbridge,” said the nearer of the two. He was diminutive in
stature, so stocky as to resemble a beer barrel on legs. His side-whiskers were bushy to such a degree that his head appeared nearly as wide as his shoulders.

“Hallo, Ludbridge,” said the other, who stood slightly taller. He pronounced the name “Ludbwidge.” Fate, and heredity, had conspired to give him very little chin and a great deal of overbite. “Who’s this?”

“The fourth member of our team,” said Ludbridge. “Perhaps. Hobson, this is Bell-Fairfax.”

“How d’you do?” Bell-Fairfax leaned down and shook hands with the beer barrel.

“Bell-Fairfax, this is Pengrove.”

“Charmed, you know,” said Pengrove, extending a limp hand. Hobson surveyed them and gave a short laugh.

“A nice matched set we’ll be, out all together! Good God, Ludbridge, Charley and I’ll look like a pair of dwarves next to
him
. Inconspicuous, eh?”

“Only if we all join the circus troupe at Astley’s,” said Pengrove sadly. “Delighted to meet you all the same, Bell-Fairfax. Though I must go on record as wishing to know what the hell Greene was thinking. Seven feet tall, ain’t you?”