Prehistoric Clock (16 page)

The second journey through time seemed to pass through an ocean of perpetual, curdled milk. Trapped with Cecil in that timeless, soundless oyster was the sum total of all the hopes and horrors his adventure had fed into the machine: befriending and losing his two sterling companions, Embrey and Verity; saving Billy, the very boy he’d made an orphan with his first time jump; the hideous, engorged baryonyx wreaking havoc in his factory; falling victim to Miss Polperro’s treachery; but also besting those myriad prehistoric hazards to repair his great machine. When all was said and done, even if he could never fully atone for ripping the heart out of London, he’d at least kept his word and conjured this second chance for everyone.

What happened next was out of his hands.

As the whiteness dulled, noises around the factory staggered in repetition as though time’s needle were stuck on a glitchy gramophone disc. Billy’s arms slipped from around Cecil’s waist. A draught whistled overhead, tossing dust. He coughed, then spun at the first uninterrupted roar this side of the time jump. Whenever here was.

Enraged, the barynoyx rampaged toward the aeronauts on the north side of the factory. It crushed one of the primary steam pipes, and backed away from the ensuing hot exhaust. Meanwhile, the aeronauts bolted for the rubble at the back of the factory, while the Whitehall posse—what was left of them—made for the front doors from whence the dinosaur had entered. It made after the latter group, probably following their coughs inside the dust cloud. But as it turned, its massive tail smashed into a primary piston shank. The impact uncoupled one of the steel scaffold supports, and the whole thing began to buckle, to topple…

With his injured leg, Cecil could never climb the pipes in time.

“Get away, Billy!” He grabbed the lad under his arms and hurled him sideways as far and as high as he could. Billy landed on the nearest pipe, his momentum sliding him over the other side.

Tonnes of brass and iron crushed Cecil’s trailing leg as he tried to escape. It hit with the pain of a thousand kiln burns all at once, and held him there, in hell, until his cry exhausted the air in his lungs. Then he cried again. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the grim, desperate face of his African friend, Tangeni, as the redoubtable aeronaut picked his way through the twisted wreckage of the time machine.

“Professor? Can you hear me? Professor?” A familiar voice—affected English, oddly enunciated vowels, almost amusing. “Professor Reardon?”

“Tangeni?”

He hadn’t been moved from the spot where he’d fallen, nor had the sweaty smell of soot and steam dissipated, nor could he yet tell to which destination the time machine had brought them. It was dark outside, beyond the mess of pipes and beams. A dozen black faces huddled in a semi-circle over him, greeting his gaze with either smiles or puzzled frowns. Tangeni’s torch flame lent the aeronauts a magnificent, mysterious air, as though they were indeed from another time, another world from Cecil’s.

“We all glad you okay, Professor,” one of the younger men said, an apprentice in Kibo’s engine room if Cecil recalled. “Billy and me—we make you up some sarsaparilla. It no longer fizz, but it still good.” He handed Cecil the cup.

“Thank you, young man.” When he tried to sit up, Cecil felt a tear in his right leg that knocked him sick. He yelped in pain and couldn’t stop coughing.

“Here. You need to drink something.” Tangeni pressed the cup to his lips, poured in a mouthful of sarsaparilla. “You’re badly hurt, Professor. The piston pinned your leg to the floor, almost severed it. I tied it with a tourniquet and the bleeding has stopped. But you’re in poor shape, I’m afraid. Reba and Philomena, they have gone for help. But
Eembu
taught me to always be honest in times like these—I think that whatever happens, you have lost that leg, Professor. Nothing can be done.”

Cecil shivered coldly, clasped Tangeni’s hand. Such terrible news and yet he took it well, only a vague regret of never being able to ride a penny farthing—something he’d always wanted to try but had never quite got around to—aching his heart.
Punchdrunk priorities.

“Billy? Where’s Billy?”

“’Ere, Cecil. How are you feelin’?” The lad was watching from Cecil’s left, chin on hands atop a buckled beam.

“Like I’ve just slid down the biggest snake on the board.”

After a pause, “You can ’ave another throw if you like. You ’ave as many as you want.”

“Much obliged.” Sweet boy. Saving him from the clutches of Agnes Polperro had been a proud moment, one he would never forget.
Speaking of which…

“Where
is
that she-devil?”

“Gone. Soon after the baryonyx left, one of her cronies woke up. I think it was the one you knocked cold, Professor.” Delaney. Tangeni had seen a lot. “He carried Miss Polperro out, that way.” He pointed at the front entrance. “Out into the centre of London.”

“Excuse me? Did you say—”

“Yeah, we did it, Cecil.” A note of barely-restrained defiance lifted Billy’s voice. “We proved that old witch wrong after all. It were nothin’. I pictured Embrey runnin’ there in the rain, right before ’e got into our car. That were just before the first time jump. It were easy. I could do it again any time, no problem.”

“So we’re back in London? The very same night?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Time-wise, they’d found the correct grain of salt on a sandy beach at night…in a hurricane?

“Not the same night, no,” Tangeni replied. “It is dry outside. No storm. And if this were even soon after the original time jump, would not the whole area be swarming with panicked people? With police? The military?”

“You’re right there, Tangeni.”

The African waved his torch away to the west, toward the centre of London. “It is only the factory and ourselves made it back.
Eembu
and Embrey, they—”

“I know. We lost them.
I
lost them, my friend.”

Tangeni held his head high, his bottom lip quivering.

“But I can get them back too.” Cecil didn’t have an inkling of how he might accomplish that feat, but the determination felt so inviolate inside every fibre of his being that he knew he’d either achieve it or die trying. Verity and Embrey had given him his chance to make amends, to return the survivors to London. They’d granted him this victory over time and over fate. Now it was his turn to repay the debt—a debt borne deep in his heart, for they would never be nearer
and
farther from him than they were at this moment.

He began to shiver uncontrollably. The faint sound of a dog barking reminded him where they were, what might be coming—the full wrath of the Leviacrum. It was time to think of the future.

“Tangeni, will you do what I ask? We don’t have much time.”

“Aye, Professor. Whatever you ask.”

“Is the Harrison Clock still intact, or is it crushed?”

“The Harris—”

“The device inside the cylindrical casing, a few feet behind you.”

Wavering firelight. Shuffling feet. Hushed voices. “It is still intact.”

“Very well. Good. I need you to unclasp the lid on both sides, and then unscrew the nickel wheel casings from the device inside.”

More whispering. A collective effort from sharp, capable minds light-years out of their milieu. Scraping, squeaking metal. “Done, Professor.”

“Good, Tangeni, good. Now lift the device out and wrap it in a coat or something. Two coats, three, to make sure.”

“What shall we do with it?” Concern, rather than inquisitiveness sharpened Tangeni’s question.

Cecil’s every muscle began to tingle, to fade from his control. He knew his life was leaving him. But there was still a chance for Embrey and Verity.

“I need you to…take it to Professor Sorensen in Tromso.” His eyes eased closed of their own accord. “Make note of the sequence of numbers on the exposed dial…the one with ten digits. Make sure Professor Sorensen gets…that number.” The last embers of his life seemed to melt into fizzy liquid and leak out from his outstretched fingertips. “For Billy,” he whispered. “Look after Billy. Always watch out for…for Billy.”

“I will, Professor. I swear it.”

“Go now. Protect my secret. Go and best time…one last time. Save the young heir and…and his air maiden from…”

A dog barked again, closer this time. It sounded like Leonard, his bandy-legged bulldog he’d loved as a boy. He smiled, contented. If Leonard was there waiting for him, maybe Lisa and Edmond were waiting there too.

Maybe…

Already a pungent, scorched-earth smell spread from the factory, and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck bristled as Verity dragged Embrey outside over the rubble. The cold and the damp mist had subsided a little. She could see the
Empress
clearly. Embrey stirred, groaned and then doubled up in agony, the bullet wound in his side leaking more blood than she’d like.

“Here.” She removed her scarf and bunched it to the size of a fist. “Keep this pressed to the wound, no matter how much it hurts.” Helping him to his feet, she tried to blank his suffering and the deafening volleys of gunfire from her mind—her one concern now was to get him to her cabin and remove the bullet. But the scorched-earth smell hadn’t dissipated, and the charged air remained bristly and potent. Reardon had better get a move on. Maybe she should have stayed with him until he shut the blasted thing down after all. Maybe she should go back now and see it through…

A gigantic, muscular bulk lumbered out of the mist ahead, as big as a tram and twice as heavy. The baryonyx positioned itself between her and the airship, its massive tail whipping the steel deck ladder, almost yanking it off its tethers. The dinosaur turned to see what had made the clanging noise, then scraped its teeth along the starboard bulwark.

Now or never.

Verity made for the tri-wheel, urging Embrey to keep as quiet as he could while she supported his limp frame. Her stealth lasted but a moment. A gunshot rang out from the rubble behind, and two panicked, middle-aged Whitehall men dashed for the tri-wheel. One of them fired again at the baryonyx. Reckless, insane. The dinosaur thrust its crocodilian jaw around at forty-five degrees and unleashed a terrifying roar.

“You bloody fools.” She hissed as they tried to toss Embrey aside from the vehicle. One of them climbed in, frantically started up the steam engine. The other yanked her hair and kicked Embrey to the ground, desperate to gain the passenger seat.

Enough was enough.

Furious, she jabbed the second man’s throat and pulled him out by the scruff of his neck. He coughed hard but swung even harder—his fist to Verity’s gut left her bent double. The baryonyx stalked through the mud, drawn by the frantic action. In a few moments it would be upon them, and Embrey! He’d collapsed again and was shivering on his side. Whatever happened she had to get him inside the tri-wheel.

Luckily the first man had made a hash of operating the valves, his curses generating more heat than anything inside the steam engine. The second man did his best to fend Verity off with kicks but she seized his legs and dragged him off the passenger seat. As if to avenge his lunkheadedness at the controls, the driver immediately leapt to his colleague’s aid across the seats. He swung a vicious punch at Verity. She ducked, dealt him a quick uppercut, then planted a terrific boot on his kneecap. The bone cracked. She leapt to one side. As he bent to nurse his wound, she quickly raised her right leg as high it would go and then brought the heel down with wrecking force upon the back of his neck. A deadly blow she’d learned from Amyn’s brother in Zanzibar.

The man crumpled beside Embrey. His colleague had seen enough. He scrambled to his feet in the mud and made a beeline for the factory. Giant, swinging rows of daggers caught him mid-stride and plucked him screaming into the air. The baryonyx tossed him and chewed him for a few moments before its mighty tail whipped round against the tri-wheel, knocking it onto its side. The vehicle crushed the unconscious Whitehall man and narrowly missed Embrey.

Verity crouched behind the overturned car at his side, heart a’gallop. Any kind of movement now—even though Embrey was running out of time—would be suicide. The dinosaur didn’t appear to notice her. She covered Embrey’s mouth with her palm to quell his groans.

The air heated, thickened all of a sudden, as though a tropical summer heatwave had bled through the wintry chill. She found it hard to breathe. Blue sparks leapt from Embrey’s skin to her fingertips.

As she looked up, the baryonyx lumbered away up the side of the factory, skirting a pale, lilac glow.

“Oh my God. Not yet!”

A crackle from behind drew her gaze. Purple light snaked up from the ground onto the lines of the
Empress,
and shot around her envelopes and cables like St. Elmo’s Fire run amok.
Christ, here we go.
Verity was sure the time bubble had spread too far once again. It would envelop the entire area, not just the factory. Any moment now, London would reform around the ruins, the airship would find herself afloat on the Thames, and everything would be fine.

The end of her world came swiftly, in the flicker of a gaslight. She turned and heard a waspish buzz and saw the mirage of a great city through obsidian glass where the factory should be. A web-like bubble of white-purple light swelled, intensified from its base to its crown, then wavered like a giant candle flame in a heavenly draught. In an instant it was gone. The bubble. The factory. The light.

No farewell. Nothing.

Oh God.

A cold vice, colder and more crushing than the deepest suit dive, froze her heart. Slivers of lilac light floated and spiralled down through the empty space as fizzing leaves and spinning jennies. None of them reached the ground, instead evaporated with gentle crackles. All around the site, wisps of steam gathered on the faint outline of a sphere and then faded away.

She gazed up at Big Ben. Its clock face read five past eight. She dabbed a sleeve on her brow, trying to wipe a little reality into her shocking new world but it was too sudden, too impossible. The clock had read five past eight over a week ago, when they’d first arrived. From now on, it would
always
read that time.

The baryonyx paced around the far side of the vanished light-show, questing through the empty, adjacent buildings. Verity shook the bitter fog from her brain and turned her attentions back to saving Embrey—a battle she at least knew how to fight. Hell, she’d helped pluck bullets out of wounded men and women before…in a past life…

The baryonyx stalked through the empty ruins all through the evening, perhaps fascinated by the extraordinary smell left in the wake of the time jump. Acrid and sooty, it reminded her of bonfire night. When it left, a pack of curious dromaeosaurs pottered about the site. She watched them from Embrey’s bedside in her cabin, a rifle stood against the window sill for protection.

Though she’d retrieved the bullet and a tiny fragment of his shirt, he’d contracted a vicious fever. His pale skin dripped with perspiration, and every now and then she dabbed his brow with a damp cloth. The more he muttered insensibly, the clearer she glimpsed her end—the loneliest end imaginable, millions of years from another soul. She’d been a fool to let
anyone
—even her own men—near Billy or Reardon. If she’d managed it more prudently, where would they be right now? Was the city she’d glimpsed really London? If Reardon was still alive, would he ever come back for them?

There was always a chance.

“If you ever make it to Piccadilly, Tangeni…” she lay Billy’s dinosaur book next to her glass of brandy on the desk, “be sure to buy the boy an ice cream.”

She stared out into prehistory as one confined to its savage isolation forever. If only things had turned out differently. If only.

“
Enda nawa,
my friend.
Enda nawa.
”

One week later…

An eager easterly breeze prodded the balloons overhead while she paced about A-deck, tracing cables and rails with her fingertips as though it might reawaken precious memories of her adventures in the corps. But the
Empress
was a ghost ship. Her spirit had departed with Tangeni and the last of the aeronauts. Verity would fly her as far and as long as she was able, and when her gas was spent, the Gannet would slowly rust and crumble with the rest of man’s anachronisms. Bleak, yes, but she had served her purpose. She had kept enough of her crew alive to enable the return trip through time. Whatever else happened, she had at least done that.

“You finished yet?” she called to Embrey, who’d been writing in his blasted journal for hours. Verity had prepared the boiler and secured the water barrels and salted the meat and made enough hydrogen to buoy the balloons for days, and still she waited for him. “You’d better not have writer’s cramp. You’ve a boiler to stoke, Dickens.”

“Has the wind changed, then?” he hollered.

“Changed and sick of waiting for you.”

A clatter and a growl emerged from her cabin, and he appeared from beneath the steps looking trim and handsome in his waistcoat. He rolled up his shirtsleeves. “A hundred million years and still I get no peace. That’s women for you.”

Fists on hips, she glared playfully at him. “If it’s peace you’re after, I can arrange a lasting one. Now haul your backside to the engine room, Marquess.”

“Yes, ma’am. And may I have permission to see you in your cabin later?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what kind of stoking you have in mind.” She blew him a kiss. He caught it and held it against his heart.

When they were airborne, Embrey returned to the quarterdeck wheel and, hand in hand, they both steered the ship ahead of the wind, away from London-that-was, perhaps for the last time. Geyser clouds shrouded the way east, but without the weight of a diving bell and a crew, the
Empress
quickly rose higher than she’d ever climbed before.

“Quatermain would be proud.” Embrey treated her to a slow, tender kiss that lifted her heavenward. “Although…he never liked to fly.”

“And you?”

His grin eased to a gentle smile, and he gazed reflectively at the horizon. “Didn’t you know? I was high-born to start with.”

She snuggled up to him while they watched the clouds sail by.