The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (20 page)

“You’re going now?” she asked. “Supper is almost ready.”

“Yes,” he replied. “But don’t worry. Even if I’m gone for years, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“You won’t return an old man, I hope,” she grumbled, and placed a hand on her stomach. “This one will need an energetic young father.”

He laughed. “Don’t be silly. This won’t take long.”

Bending, he kissed her on her freckled nose.

He straightened and instructed the suit to take him to five-thirty on the afternoon of the tenth of June, 1840, location: the upper corner of Green Park, London.

He looked at the sky.

Am I really going to do this?

An inner voice that hardly felt a part of him urged,
Do it!

In answer, Burton took three long strides, hit the ground with knees bent, and launched himself high into the air. A bubble formed around him. It popped. He fell, thudded onto grass, and bounced. Glancing around, he saw a rolling park surrounded by tall towers. In the near distance, there was the ancient form of the Monarchy Museum, once known as Buckingham Palace, where the relics of England’s defunct royal families were displayed.

A thicket lay just ahead. Burton ran into it, ducking among the trees.

He reached up to his helmet and switched it off.

A foul stench assaulted his nostrils: a mix of raw sewage, rotting fish, and burning fossil fuels.

He started to cough. The air was thick and gritty. It irritated his eyes and scraped his windpipe. He fell to his knees and clutched at his throat, gasping for oxygen. Then he remembered he’d prepared for this and, after opening the suit’s front, fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out a small instrument, which he applied to the side of his neck. He pressed the switch, it hissed, he felt a slight stinging sensation, and instantly could breathe again.

Burton put the instrument away and rested for a moment. His inability to catch his breath had been a perceptive disorder rather than a physical one. The helmet’s AugMems had protected him from the idea that the atmosphere was unbreathable—now a sedative was doing the job.

He unclipped his boots, kicked them off, and quickly slipped out of the time suit. He stood and straightened his clothes, placed the top hat on his head, and made his way to the edge of the thicket. As he emerged from the trees, a transformed world assailed his senses, and he was immediately shaken by a profound uneasiness.

Only the grass was familiar.

Through air made hazy by burning fossil fuels, he saw a massive expanse of empty sky. The towers of his own time were absent—they’d been nothing but an illusion projected onto his senses by the headpiece. London appeared to be clinging to the ground and slumbering under a blanket of relative silence, though, from the nearby road, he could hear horses’ hooves, the rumble of wheels, and the shouts of hawkers.

Ahead, Buckingham Palace, now partially hidden by a high wall, looked brand-new.

Quaintly costumed people were walking in the park.

No, not costumed. They always dress this way.

Burton started to walk down the slope toward the base of Constitution Hill, struggling to overcome his growing sense of dislocation.

“Steady, Edward,” he muttered to himself. “Hang on, hang on. Don’t let it overwhelm you. This is neither a dream nor an illusion, so stay focused, get the job done, then get back to your suit.”

Job? What job? I am here to observe, that is all.

Again, it was as if a second voice existed inside him. It whispered,
Stop him! Stop your ancestor!

Burton reached the wide path. The queen’s carriage would pass this way soon.

My God! I’m going to see Queen Victoria!

He looked around. Every single person in sight was wearing a hat or bonnet. Most of the men were bearded or moustachioed. The women held parasols.

He examined faces. Which belonged to his forebear? He’d never seen a photograph of the original Edward Oxford, but he hoped to detect some sort of family resemblance. He stepped over the low fence lining the path, crossed to the other side, and loitered near a tree.

People started to gather along the route. He heard a remarkable range of accents, and they all sounded ridiculously exaggerated. Some, which he identified as working class, were incomprehensible, while the upper classes spoke with a precision and clarity that seemed wholly artificial.

Details kept catching his eye, holding his attention with hypnotic force: the prevalence of litter and dog faeces; the stains and worn patches on people’s clothing; rotten teeth and rickets-twisted legs; accentuated mannerisms and lace-edged handkerchiefs; pockmarks and consumptive coughs.

“Focus!” he whispered.

A cheer went up. He looked to his right. The queen’s carriage had just emerged from the palace gates, its horses guided by a postilion. Two outriders trotted along ahead of the vehicle, two more behind.

Where was his ancestor? Where was the gunman?

Ahead of him, a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white britches straightened, reached under his coat, and moved closer to the path.

Slowly, the royal carriage approached.

“Is it him?” Burton muttered, gazing at the back of the man’s head.

Moments later, the forward outriders came alongside.

The blue-coated individual stepped over the fence and, as the queen and her husband passed, took three strides to keep up with their vehicle, then whipped out a flintlock pistol, aimed, and fired. He threw down the smoking weapon and drew a second.

Burton yelled, “No, Edward!” and ran forward.

What the hell am I doing?

The gunman glanced at him.

Burton vaulted over the fence and grabbed his ancestor’s raised arm. If he could just disarm him and drag him away, tell him to flee and forget this stupid prank.

They struggled, locked together.

“Give it up!” Burton pleaded.

“Let go of me!” the would-be assassin yelled. “My name must be remembered. I must live through history!”

I must live through history. I must live through history.

The words throbbed into the future, echoed through time.

The second flintlock detonated, the recoil jolting both men.

The back of Queen Victoria’s skull exploded.

Burton gripped the gunman, shook him, and heaved him off his feet.

His ancestor fell backward, and his head impacted against the low cast-iron fence. There was a crunch, and a spike suddenly emerged from the man’s eye. He twitched and went limp.

“You’re not dead!” Burton exclaimed, staggering back. “You’re not dead! Stand up! Run for it! Don’t let them catch you!”

The assassin lay on his back, his head impaled, blood pooling beneath him.

Burton stumbled away.

There were screams and cries, people pushing past him.

He saw Victoria. She was tiny, young, like a child’s doll, and her shredded brain was oozing onto the ground.

No. No. No.

This isn’t happening.

This can’t happen.

This didn’t happen.

Burton backed away, feeling terrified, fell, got up again, shoved his way out of the milling crowd, and ran.

“Get back to the suit,” he mumbled as his legs pumped. “Try something else.”

He raced up the slope and ran into the trees.

His heart was pounding.

He pushed through to where he’d left the time suit.

I’ll go farther back. I’ll change this.

He suddenly registered that someone was behind him. Before he could turn, an arm encircled his neck and squeezed with agonising force, crushing his throat. He saw his suit, the boots and headpiece, just feet away. He reached for them, but it was hopeless. He knew he was going to die.

A man hissed in his ear, “You don’t deserve this, but I have to do it again. I’m sorry.”

Do it again?

He felt his head being twisted.

My neck! My neck! Get off me!

His vertebrae crunched.

White light flared.

He felt suspended, as if time had halted.

He heard Charles Babbage’s voice.

“It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

“It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

“It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

“It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

“It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

The voice overlaid itself again and again, as if thousands of Babbages were speaking at once.

Flee!
Burton thought.
Get away from here! Back home! Back home in time for supper! Back home! Back home in time!

It was one o’clock in the afternoon on Monday the twentieth of February, and fourteen individuals were gathered in the library of suite five at the Royal Venetia Hotel. They were not particularly comfortable, for the room was bursting at the seams with books and the group had difficulty finding places to sit or stand among them. The volumes, which ranged from boys’ adventure novels to esoteric tracts, from political memoirs to philosophical treatises, lined every wall from floor to ceiling, were stacked high on the deep red carpet, and were piled haphazardly in every corner.

Sir Richard Francis Burton’s brother, Edward, presided over the meeting. Morbidly obese, with a face disfigured by scars, he was wrapped, as was his habit, in a threadbare red dressing gown and occupied an enormous wing-backed armchair of scuffed and cracked leather. There was a half-empty tankard of ale on the table beside him. His clockwork butler, Grumbles—with his canister-shaped head of brass cocked slightly to one side—was standing nearby, ready to refill the glass.

“So the jungle is dying?” Edward asked.

“
Withdrawing
might be the better term,” Burton replied. “In a few days, nothing of it will remain except mulch. It has fulfilled its purpose. London will soon be clear of its unseasonal blooms.”

“Sentient herbage. Utterly preposterous.”

“That’s not the least of it. The jungle and Algernon are one and the same.”

Edward Burton glowered at the king’s agent, then at Detective Inspectors William Trounce and Sidney Slaughter, Police Constable Thomas Honesty, Sadhvi Raghavendra, Daniel Gooch, Charles Babbage, Richard Monckton Milnes, Captain Nathaniel Lawless, Maneesh Krishnamurthy, Shyamji Bhatti and Montague Penniforth. Together, these individuals comprised the secretive Ministry of Chronological Affairs, of which he was the head.

“All of you give credence to this fantasy, I suppose?” he asked.

“I trust Sir Richard’s judgement,” Gooch said.

“Likewise,” Trounce muttered. “Which means I may have to start doubting my own.”

The others nodded, apart from Babbage, who appeared to be counting his fingers.

The minister addressed Swinburne. “And what do you make of it, young man?”

The poet kicked spasmodically, accidentally knocking over a stack of books, and shrilled, “It’s delicious! The jungle is me and I am it and we are one and the same. Or some such.”

“That isn’t much help.”

“May I partake of a bottle of your ale, Minister? I feel sure it will clarify my thoughts.”

Edward Burton impatiently waved his permission.

Burton said, “We know that in Abdu El Yezdi’s native history, when he trekked to the Mountains of the Moon, a version of Algy went with him. El Yezdi never explained what happened to his companion, but he does record that a Prussian agent, Count Zeppelin, followed them, and that the man possessed venomous talons—a product of eugenics. As fantastic as it sounds, the toxin caused an individual named Rigby to transform into vegetation. It appears that the same fate befell the poet.”

From the sideboard to which he’d moved, and with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, Swinburne said, “The other jolly old Swinburne is now a plant-based consciousness. It possesses a unique perception of time and is aware of every variant of history. It was able to send its roots through into our world to warn us what has happened. Simply splendid! I feel thoroughly proud of it, him, and myself!”

Edward gave a puff of incredulity. He lifted his ale, gulped it down, and jabbed a fat forefinger toward his brother. “It inflicted the visions upon you?”