Chapter Twelve

“Callers”

1.

“WHAT DO YOU want here?” Annabelle heard Mrs Collingwood’s voice from the front hall. There was an edge to the sound which she had not heard before; not fear, so much as outraged challenge. Without hearing the reply she knew immediately who this must be. She looked around the table. Fairfax Cartwright listened with interest and Blount with irritation, but only Colonel Wyndham’s eyebrows rose in shared realisation of the obvious identity of their caller.

“Miss Somerset, gentlemen,” Major Gordon said in greeting as soon as he appeared at the doorway. “Please do not rise from your breakfast on my account. Your uncle is absent, Miss Somerset. I hope he is not unwell.”

“My God, you’ve got your nerve coming here,” Blount said.

“Uncle generally takes his meals in the kitchen with Rachael and the cook,” Annabelle said. “What do you desire of us?”

“I understand that my presence is not wanted and so will only remain long enough to pass on my news, and I believe it is news in which all of you will rejoice. But first let me express my admiration for your courage, Miss Somerset, and of course yours as well, Mister Cartwright. I hope you will communicate my compliments to Commander Bedford when next you see him as well. I am also pleased all of you managed to escape harm in this incident.”

Annabelle studied him as he spoke, and although Gordon was capable of sarcasm and irony, as well as a studied delivery completely opaque as to the sentiment behind it, this declaration seemed sincere. “How can you know of the events of last evening so quickly, Major? Surely you are not awakened with every police report filed during the night.”

“Ah, but this was not every police report, as I am sure you know. Mister Cartwright’s mention of the assassination of the Austrian ambassador transformed it, as the metropolitan police currently are working on little else but that outrage. The information you provided the detective concerning the gang and their involvement in that plot produced immediate action, and I have, within the hour, received word that the gang has been broken up and most of them arrested. You will be interested to know that two of the gang members have confessed to involvement in a plot to kill the new ambassador, this time with firearms. We have secured those as well, two pneumatic rifles of the sort preferred by assassins due to their silence. They were of Austrian manufacture, ironically enough.”

Mrs Collingwood walked past Gordon without looking at him and handed Annabelle a note.

“This just came, delivered by some dirty street urchin,” she said softly. “I gave him a shilling.”

“Thank you, Mrs Collingwood,” Annabelle said and opened the note.

“So you rounded up the entire lot?” Cartwright asked.

“Most of them but not the ringleader,” Gordon answered. “William Snide I believe is his name. With his confederates in custody and a price on his head, he cannot long evade capture.”

“Well, if you’ve delivered your news, it’s time you left,” Major Blount said and glared up at Gordon to emphasise the point.

Gordon smiled in reply. “Of course. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you—”

“No,” Annabelle said. “It is not yet over. This is a note from our confidential source in Whitechapel. I will not share his name with you, but I think you will agree that his information has been reliable thus far.”

“What does it say?” Gordon said and held out his hand. Annabelle gave him the note. “More davy’s-dust,” he read. “Is this some sort of code, Miss Somerset?”

“The code of the streets, I suppose. It means Snide is again acquiring gunpowder.”

Gordon’s brows came together in thought and then he turned to leave. He paused at the doorway. After a moment he turned back to them. “I will, of course, pass this intelligence on to my superiors,” he said, and Annabelle felt he was suddenly choosing his words with great care. “Military intelligence is not directly involved with domestic policing, so they will, I am certain, pass it to the correct agencies. From there it will be acted on, without doubt. Time is, of course, short. The new Austro-Hungarian ambassador is scheduled to arrive in two days. He will be met at the aerial park by several cabinet members and, on behalf of the royal family, the Prince of Wales.”

“Well if time is all that short, you’d best be about your business,” Major Blount said. Gordon met Annabelle’s eyes once more and she saw worry there, and she felt certain she was meant to, that he intended her to see beyond simply his words. Then he turned and left.

“Well!” Mrs Collingwood said. “The cheek of the man! When he could as easily have sent a note with his news.” She sat down at the table and for a moment a look of sadness and loneliness swept across her face and Annabelle thought she was going to cry. Then the look disappeared, masked again by indignation. Annabelle reached over and took her hand and Mrs Collingwood smiled at her with slightly trembling lips. Whatever else Gordon had meant by his visit, Annabelle thought, it had been a cruel thing.

“Cheek indeed,” Major Blount said. He rose and carried his plate to the sideboard and examined the platter of bacon with interest. “Why, the chap’s no gentleman at all, no gentleman at all. I’m going to speak to his battalion commander, by God. Seconded or not, if the chap wants to wear the fusilier uniform, he’ll behave like one.’

Colonel Wyndham exchanged a look with Fairfax. “You are lost in thought, Mister Cartwright, and I think you have something to share with us, something other than Major Blount’s indignation,” he said, and then turned to Blount and added, “entirely proper as that indignation is, old fellow.”

“I think Gordon was trying to tell us something,” Cartwright said, “something more than he was at liberty to say in so many words.”

“He was telling us the information would not be acted on,” Annabelle said, “or at least not in time.”

Cartwright nodded in agreement.

“What?” Blount demanded, returning to his seat with a re-filled plate. “Why, don’t be silly, my dear girl. He said just the opposite.”

“He said it repeatedly,” Cartwright said, “over and over, as if making a point that his words could not be trusted.”

Blount looked doubtful but Wyndham nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid I agree. But why make a point of telling us?”

“Because we have acted already,” Cartwright answered, “and done so with some effect. He wishes us to act again, but cannot direct us to do so.”

“Well I don’t know why we should,” Blount said, “least of all on the say-so of that sort of chap. None of this new business seems directed at Miss Somerset, and that was our main worry, wasn’t it? Why not let the police do their job—or not, as suits them? Not that I’m for blowing up government officials as a general principle, but what are a few cabinet secretaries and Austrian ambassadors more or less? We never seem to run out of them, what. And as to the Prince of Wales…well, the less said there the better.” As if to emphasise the point he thrust a forkful of fried eggs and bacon into his mouth and chewed vigorously.

“I cannot agree,” Cartwright said. “The Prince may play the fool in public, but he is Lord Chillingham’s most capable and determined opponent. The Queen, out of fear of provoking a constitutional crisis, will not act against Chillingham and his clique, but once Albert Edward is king, he will. I am certain of the fact.”

“But what can he do?” Wyndham asked. “The monarchy has no real power over the government.”

“He can make lords, Colonel. He can flood the House of Lords with his hand-picked people and end the supremacy of men like Chillingham and Belvedere, and then push through reform legislation which will prevent someone else from taking their place. That’s the one power the monarchy still has: he can make lords.”

“But not if he is dead,” Annabelle said. “This is not my country and I have no direct interest in its politics. But regardless of where I take Uncle Cyrus when we are clear of this, I cannot think that our prospects will prosper if Lord Chillingham is freed of all restraints and impediments. Fairfax, you are the diplomat amongst us. I think you must take our information directly to the Austrian embassy and alert their staff to the danger. There must be at least one capable man there who will listen to reason.”

“Oh, there is indeed, a fellow named Konstantin Dumba. He just arrived this week in advance of the ambassador-designate as his special assistant. Until the ambassador arrives and his credentials are accepted Dumba is chargé d’affaires, to put the house in order, as it were.”

“You know him then?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. Or rather, yes I do, but unfortunately we are no longer on speaking terms. He and I met on his last posting here to London and disagreed over…well, the reputation of a young lady. It nearly came to a duel. He is a very clever fellow and no coward, I’ll give him that. No, if our message is to be harkened to, it must not issue from me.”

“Very well,” Annabelle said. “I will go this afternoon, as soon as George arrives to escort me. There is no time to waste.”

“You will call on him on Sunday?” Blount asked with disapproval in his voice.

“I doubt that the illegal gunpowder merchants with whom Billy Snide deals will forgo their trade for the Sabbath. With so few days left to us, we cannot afford to either.”

2.

FATIGUE CREPT in once again, but Nathanial knew he could not stop now. He was so close to an answer.

He had prevailed on Sir Eleias’ goodwill once more, as well as his sense of justice. Sir Eleias had secured the information Nathanial needed on Project “G”, although upon returning with the papers, short of breath and quite beside himself, he had stated quite adamantly that this was the last thing he could do for Nathanial.

“My dear chap, I do not know what it is you have become embroiled in, but these,” he had waved the papers about, “did not come to me with ease. I am always happy to help a fellow Savilian, but I can only go so far. I have my career to think about, not to mention my family. And now with all this business in the Morning Post, well…”

That was something Nathanial could understand. While Sir Eleias had been out, Nathanial was allowed to use the Thomas’ residence to clean himself up, sending out the housekeeper to get him fresh togs.

“For your generosity I thank you, Sir Eleias. Sodalitas Convivium,” he had said, and left looking like a gentleman once again, the bandage around his wrist hidden by the cuff of his coat sleeve.

Despite Folkard’s advice, he would not pretend to be dead, but he would move swiftly.

From there he had visited Talbot Accountants in the city, to ask a favour of his brother, Dorian. Naturally Dorian was of a mind not to help, quite put out by Nathanial’s unexpected visit and visibly outraged at the letter in the Morning Post. But after some insistence Dorian had provided his younger brother with the information he required. He had been full of unwanted questions, most of which he managed to deflect, but the last question, asked as Nathanial was about to leave the small accounting firm, gave him pause.

“How is Edwin adjusting to city life? Mother told me he is currently boarding with you.”

Nathanial turned back to Dorian, seeing their father’s eyes looking back at him. “Caught up in the adventure,” he said, his expression non-committal.

“Yes, I dare say. He is quite foolish, wishing to follow this fancy of his. A writer of ‘scientific romances’. He would do well to get himself into something that has a future.” Dorian narrowed his eyes, offering his final attack. “He has no future around you, Lucky.”

Wordlessly, Nathanial turned and left Dorian. As the door closed behind him, Nathanial could not help but think that he would never see Dorian again. Indeed, he would never be able to see any of his family again. None of them, his mother included, would ever forgive him for causing Edwin’s death.

Now he stood outside one of the houses that lined Buckingham Street, just off the Strand, and only a short walk from Trafalgar Square. Like all the houses on Buckingham Street the one before him was in good repair, having been built in the last five years. It seemed that for the ex-French ambassador only the best would do. He approached the house and knocked on the door. Presently the door was opened by a servant, and Nathanial handed his card over.

“I am here to see the master of the house, please see that he gets my card forthwith.”

The servant looked at the card. “Professor Stone, Mister Fon…”

“He will wish to see me,” Nathanial snapped imperiously.

“Yes. Right you are, sir. If you would care to follow me?”

Nathanial was seen to the drawing room, where he waited patiently. After a short while, voices echoed down the hallway outside. The loudest, a French man.

“Well, this is intriguing, wouldn’t you agree, Cooper?”

“If you say so, sir, the gentleman was most insistent.”

“One would expect little else from Professor Stone.”

Nathanial raised an eyebrow at this. Clearly the ex ambassador had heard of him, which only confirmed the hunch Nathanial was acting upon. Although insistent was a curious choice of word, and certainly not one Nathanial would normally use for himself. He would need to have a stern word with a certain geologist next time they met, he decided with a smile.

Cooper, the servant, opened the door further so the master of the house could enter. Nathanial was surprised by his appearance. He was much older than expected, with strong features, his hair white. His dress sense leaved a lot to be desired, wearing as he did a rather colourful lounge robe over a loose fitting shirt and trousers than had seen better days. His feet were bare, although that seemed not to bother him.

“That will be all, Cooper,” the ex ambassador said, his English perfectly enunciated, despite the strong French accent. This was a man who had clearly spent a lot of time in England. “Professor Stone, and of what service can I be to you?” he asked, once Cooper had left the room.

“I need your help, sir,” Nathanial began, put off his stride a little by the amused smile that seemed to dominate the old man’s face. “I understand you do not know me, but I rather suspect you know of me from your son.”

“You are known to Alexis?” He pursed his lips and gave an exaggerated shrug. “I think you are mistaken. Alexis has never mentioned you to me.”

Nathanial frowned. “That is hardly surprising, sir, for I do not think I have ever met an Alexis.” Or even heard of him, he thought. Was he even told about a brother? He did not think so, but then a lot had happened on Mercury, and perhaps he had simply forgotten, or maybe he was making a big mistake here. “I refer to your other son, Arnaud,” he said, hoping the man before him really was Arnaud’s father.

The old man rubbed the back of his neck. “Hmm. Arnaud, you say? The name does not sound familiar. Perhaps you are mistaking me for another Sébastien Fontaine?”

Now Nathanial felt remarkably foolish. He could imagine Dorian laughing greatly at this. “I feel you may be right, sir. Forgive me. Arnaud did not mention the name of his father, but when I recalled that upon your hiring the services of Talbot Accountants you asked for my brother especially, I assumed that it may have been because Arnaud had mentioned me and you wished to learn more about me.”

“A rather convoluted reason to acquire a notable accountant, would you not agree, Professor Stone?”

“Indeed, sir.” Nathanial retrieved his hat and respirator mask from the small table beside him. “Forgive me for wasting your time.”

“Of course,” Fontaine said, just as Nathanial went to open the door of the drawing room, “that is just the kind of convoluted reasoning I excel at.”

Nathanial paused, and turned to look at Sébastien Fontaine. “Sir?”

“Arnaud said you were the epitome of English manners,” Fontaine said, “he also told me that he took great pleasure in challenging your, ah, prim ways.”

Despite himself Nathanial smiled. Although he was in no mood to be on the receiving end of jokes, he now saw he was not mistaken. Sébastien Fontaine was definitely Arnaud’s father. “Yes, he was insufferable at times.”

“And still is, I daresay. Now, please, let us sit down and discuss what it is you would like me to do for you. I have been following your progress with great interest, and wondered how long it would take you to reach me.”

“You…?”

“Of course. Being the ex ambassador of France does have its advantages.”

“In a self-imposed exile, unless I am mistaken?”

Fontaine winked. “We shall let everyone continue to believe that, shall we?”

Nathanial smiled again. “I must say, your English is excellent. Far better than Arnaud’s.”

Fontaine raised an eyebrow as he sat in an ornate armchair. “My son’s English is as good as mine. Like me, he likes to project a certain image. As I was saying to Paul just yesterday… Oh, he’s just been assigned as French Ambassador to England, would you believe?”

“Paul?” Nathanial asked, sitting himself opposite.

“Surely you have heard of Pierre Paul Cambon?”

“I do not believe so.”

Fontaine eyed Nathanial for a moment, as if checking to see if Nathanial was playing the cod, then nodded once certain that he was not. “Hmm, well, Cambon has done a superb job in Madrid and has been rewarded the post of Ambassador to England. Can’t say that I envy him; things have changed a lot since my day. Still, politics are the art of the impossible.”

“I thought Chancellor Bismarck’s expression was ‘the art of the possible’,” Nathanial said.

“Bismarck lacks vision.”

“I see,” Nathanial said and smiled. “Well, politics is not really my field.”

“An irony considering your current predicament,” Fontaine observed.

At that Nathanial could only nod in agreement. “So, you were saying what to Cambon yesterday?”

“Oh yes! If people see what they expect to see, then they rarely look any deeper. I am sure you understand, Professor.”

Nathanial wanted to protest that he did not, but there was a certain sparkle in Fontaine’s eyes, and instead Nathanial had to wonder just what it was that Arnaud had told his father.

3.

“DOCTOR DUMBA WILL not see you today!” the clerk insisted again. “It is Sunday!”

Annabelle scanned the interior of the embassy’s foyer and saw two other clerks hurrying up the steps to the second floor with their arms filled with papers and portfolios.

“Clearly the staff is here and working, Mister Schaffhausen. Commander Bedford and I will wait here in these chairs until such time as Doctor Dumba agrees to see us. Would you be so good as to take my card to him? Please be sure to have him read the note on the back.”

“He will not see you!”

Annabelle smiled. “Please take him the card and if, after reading it, he asks us to leave, we will trouble you no more today.” She had already placed the card in an envelope and sealed it. It would not do for anyone other than Dumba to read it. She had no way of knowing if the clerk would honour the seal, but she supposed he would and in any case it was a risk worth taking.

The man snatched the envelope from her hand. Between black hair parted in the middle and slicked down, a tidy little moustache, and pince nez glasses on a black elastic cord, the man would have been a stereotypical office clerk had he not stood a bit over six feet tall and strained the buttons on the chest of his shirt and vest. He turned in exasperation and climbed the stairs two at a time, clearly anxious to have done with them.

“My dear, I am not as confident as you that Dumba will respond to your note,” George said as he helped her sit on one straight backed chair and prop her peg up on another.

“I am by no means certain myself. What I do believe is that if the note does not excite his interest then he is not capable of helping us in any meaningful way.”

In a few minutes the clerk returned. This time he walked down the stairs one at a time at a moderate pace—purposeful but not so fast as to compromise dignity. He crossed the mosaic tile floor to their chairs and bowed slightly.

“Doctor Dumba will see you now,” he said politely, without a trace of apology, defiance, or surprise, as if their entire earlier conversation had never happened.

George helped Annabelle to her feet and they followed the clerk back upstairs and to a cluttered but well-furnished office. The clerk closed the door behind them and left them with the man Annabelle assumed must be Dumba.

The man started to rise but then quickly sat back down, snatched a handkerchief, and sneezed into it, sneezed with the thunderous report of a small cannon. He wiped his nose with one hand and waved them forward with the other, gesturing to two chairs in front of the desk. There was, as always, the awkward matter of Annabelle’s peg which stuck out straight when she sat. George turned the chair on the left a quarter turn to face the other, settled her in it, then sat in the other and rested her peg on his left knee. It felt oddly homey, she thought, and quite natural.

“I am Konstantin Dumba,” the gentleman said in English with only a trace of a Viennese accent. “You are the infamous Annabelle Somerset, or course. I have not the pleasure of the gentleman’s acquaintance.”

“Commander George Bedford, Royal Navy.”

“I am pleased to meet both of you. You will forgive me for not offering my hand. All it will avail you is transmission of this cold from me to you. For two years I have been stationed in St Petersburg, two freezing cold winters, but a dry cold. Now I come back here and in two days I have this cold. It is…” he paused, raised the handkerchief and sneezed again.

“God bless you,” Annabelle said.

“Thank you. It is the damp, I am certain.” He wiped his nose again and examined them. Annabelle took the opportunity to do the same to him.

Dumba looked to be in his mid thirties and had a broad forehead and high brow, enhanced by his receding hairline. His dark moustache was full and drooping. His eyes had a droopy, sleepy quality of their own, offset by semi-circular eyebrows which seemed always in a state of mild surprise—as if he might drift off to sleep at any moment except for the two odd people before him and the remarkable card he had placed in the centre of his desk. His eyes now dropped to it. He turned it over to show the single word written on the back—Peregrine. He tapped it with his blunt finger.

“I know you by reputation, Miss Somerset,” Dumba said. “There are those who say you had something to do with the destruction of Peregrine Station. You were imprisoned for it and then released—yes, I know that much at least. Perhaps you should tell me your side of the story.”

“In company with Nathanial Stone I was on Peregrine Station right up to the hour of its destruction and we escaped on the same aether cutter together. The man who engineered its destruction shot me in the leg, the result of which you can see with your own eyes.”

“You have my deepest sympathy for your injury, Miss Somerset. And your role in this, Commander Bedford?”

George shifted in his chair. “I am here as a friend of Miss Somerset’s, to see to her safety. There has already been one attempt on her life, possibly a second one last night.”

“You believe her visit here places her in danger?” Dumba asked and his eyes narrowed. “Why, and what has it to do with Peregrine Station? I hope you do not hold the dual monarchy liable for your disability.”

“Liable?” Annabelle asked. “Do you think we have come here to extort money? Our immediate concern is the danger to your ambassador and, by extension, a number of senior British officials, possibly even the crown prince.”

Dumba’s face cleared and he leaned back in his chair.

“You need have no fear on that count, Miss Somerset. The police have broken up the ring, arrested the conspirators, and seized their weapons. But as to—”

“Did the police tell you that we captured the first member of the ring and provided the information which led to the others?” Annabelle asked. “Did they tell you the ringleader is still at large? Did they tell you the same source which led us to them now says the ringleader is acquiring gunpowder, undoubtedly for another bomb?”

“You two did all that?” he asked, disbelief showing in his eyes.

“We had friends helping us,” George said, “but the actual encounter with the villains which led to the capture occurred last evening in the Whitechapel district, and Miss Somerset and I were accompanied by one other stalwart gentleman. Four men set upon us and we drove them off with aid of a revolver, but Miss Somerset slashed one fellow’s leg with a sword cane and prevented his escape.”

Dumba looked from Bedford to Annabelle and his eyebrows rose a bit more. “A sword cane? How remarkable! Perhaps you should tell me everything.”

4.

ANNABELLE TOLD, as briefly and directly as she could, of her and Nathanial’s arrival on Peregrine Station, the troubles there, their efforts to get to the bottom of them, and the final confrontation with the French saboteur Le Boeuf, which ended with Annabelle crippled and the saboteur mortally wounded. Nathanial was barely able to get her into an aether cutter and escape before the station was destroyed in the aether vortex where the wake of Earth and Venus met. The following interludes on Mars and Luna she barely touched on, except as they related to the arrest of Nathanial and the attempt to lay blame for the disaster at his feet. She told of her incarceration upon their return to Earth, the British government’s blackmail of her to sign over control of the Grant-Stone patents, and the subsequent cascade of events leading them to Dumba’s office.

George and Dumba sat quietly throughout her account, Dumba with a look of intense interest, George with a neutral expression. When she finished Dumba looked at a landscape painting in the wall, chin in hand, and tapped a finger against the side of his nose absent-mindedly.

“So you have travelled the aether after your visit to Peregrine Station, and before as well, one expects,” he said at length.

“I have visited each of the inner worlds. It was not my original intention to do so, but happenstance so dictated.”

“And did you notice anything…unusual about Peregrine Station?”

“That a project of this apparent importance would be entrusted to command of a grotesque madman, that his staff seemed terrified in equal measure of him and of the spectre which haunted the place and cursed its very existence; those struck me as highly unusual. There was also the matter of gravity, of course. It was the only vessel, if you can call it such, on which I travelled where there was the sensation of gravity.”

Dumba nodded.

“Except, of course, for HMAS Sovereign,” Annabelle added and was rewarded with Dumba’s eyebrows climbing up his forehead, dragging his eyelids open beneath them.

George sighed and Dumba’s gaze fell on him. “You have something to add, Commander?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“You have no direct knowledge of these things?” Dumba asked.

“I am first officer of HMAS Sovereign, sir, so I have direct knowledge of a great deal. But I would add nothing to what Miss Somerset has told you.”

“What is this about your ship having gravity, as did Peregrine Station?”

“As to that sir, I cannot comment,” George answered.

“I insist on knowing,” Dumba said, leaning forward, and Annabelle saw a hard edge in his eyes she had not seen before. Was this the wisest course after all? But the question was meaningless—it was their only course.

“I am doubly bound not to satisfy your curiosity, sir, bound both by honour and law. I have pledged my word not to discuss this, and as to—”

“Yes, yes, I know, your damned Official Secrets Act,” Dumba cut in. “But surely you suspected Miss Somerset would reveal this secret. Does this not place you in an untenable position?”

“I am myself bound by the Act, but I am not bound to its zealous enforcement. Miss Somerset was never, to the best of my knowledge, informed of her responsibilities under the Act, if indeed she has any at all, which I doubt. On the twenty-eighth last, she officially renounced the British half of her dual citizenship. Beyond that she was never sworn to secrecy concerning…anything regarding Sovereign.”

“Why not?” Dumba asked.

For the first time since arriving at the Austrian embassy George smiled. “An oversight, I suspect, or perhaps the misguided belief that there was nothing much to fear from the actions of one young lady.” He turned and looked at her fondly and she reached out and took his hand.

“Yes, extremely misguided in this case it seems,” Dumba answered. He rose, walked to a window, and parted the curtain to look out. Sunlight briefly cast an irregular pattern on the floor, filtered through the patina of soot on the outside of the window panes. He dropped the curtains and turned back.

“I almost forgot. We share a common friend, Miss Somerset. Mister Lincoln at the US Consulate has been anxious after you. He has tried to contact you but has lost track of your whereabouts after leaving some government house or other.”

“Dorset House? But he knows my new lodgings,” Annabelle said. “He recommended them.”

Dumba shrugged. “Could that have slipped his mind? Like me, he has a lawyer’s mind, so I think not.”

Annabelle exchanged a look with George. Surely Lincoln had recommended the lodgings. Hadn’t he? The note had come anonymously, but it had come from the US Consulate—or at least from a gentleman standing outside of it. If not from Lincoln, then from whom?

A knock sounded at the door. “Now what?” Dumba asked in exasperation.

The clerk entered. “My apologies, Doctor, but you said to bring Professor Stone to you as soon as he arrived.

“Nathanial?” Annabelle said.

5.

BEDFORD HARDLY RECOGNISED Stone, even though his exterior appearance—extreme height, ginger-coloured hair, and thick whiskers—was unmistakable, but fatigue and pain lined his face and his eyes had a wild, desperate look to them.

“Good God, man! Are you injured?” Bedford asked, helping Annabelle to her feet.

Far from relief or delight at seeing them, Nathanial looked at Bedford and then Annabelle with an expression close to panic. “What…? I thought I was to see the ambassador in private!”

Bedford glanced at Annabelle and saw the remark had cut her deeply. She swayed as if to back away and then her face cleared and became an expressionless mask. Nathanial passed his hand over his face and shook it slightly, as if clearing it of unwonted visions.

“I am very sorry for… I have been under some stress,” he said. He looked at his bandaged hand and added, “I have been in a fire and have not slept in some time.”

“Captain Folkard was with you. Is he safe?” Bedford asked.

“He was when last I saw him. I have left his company as our interests no longer coincide. I… It is good to see you well, Annabelle. I have worried a great deal about you.”

“I thank you for your concern,” she answered coolly.

“Yes. Um…your leg—it functions in a satisfactory manner?” he asked, as if struggling for a subject of conversation.

“I have no complaints,” she answered.

Bedford glanced at her before speaking himself. “She uses the peg carved by your Martian friend. The authorities took her mechanical leg from her when she was held in the Tower.”

“Took it?” Nathanial asked and Bedford saw a flash of pain pass across his face, pain and guilt.

“There will be time for reunions later,” Doctor Dumba broke in. “You have come here with information, I believe, Professor Stone. Your friends have already shared theirs with me. Perhaps you would care to do likewise. Pull a chair over to the desk.”

Nathanial stood awkwardly for a moment and then did as told, dragging one up so that he sat with Bedford between himself and Annabelle. He looked from Bedford to Dumba uncertainly, still clearly off-balance from the unexpected encounter.

“I know about Project ‘G’,” he said at last.

Bedford looked at Doctor Dumba’s face but saw no change at all, not a flicker of recognition or of surprise. Dumba, he thought, had chosen his career well. His face gave nothing away across a conference table.

“Do you have nothing to say about that?” Nathanial asked after a moment of silence.

Dumba shifted in his chair and frowned. “You were the one who requested my time, Professor Stone, and insisted you had something of great import to tell me. Surely ‘I know about Project “G”’ is not the sum of it.”

“It is odd to think,” Nathanial resumed, “that it was going on under our noses when Annabelle and I were at Mercury. The mention of the Austrian geological survey parties, the heavy deep shaft mining equipment in evidence, all of this becomes clear now, although at the time it seemed quite innocent. Mercury is mineral-rich for its size. Given the number of schemes in train for its exploitation, one more simply blended into the background. But that equipment was not used to extract metal, was it? Do you even know the material’s name, Bedford? Do you know what makes up that mysterious centre deck of your vessel?”

Bedford did not know in scientific terms, but he knew its effect plainly enough. He returned Nathanial’s gaze without answering.

“Commander Bedford has already explained he is honour-bound to remain silent on this issue,” Dumba said.

Nathanial looked away, his face twisted with contempt. “Honour! There’s a word used to excuse villainy more often than oppose it. Tell Edwin about your honour. Poor Edwin.”

Bedford was surprised to see Nathanial hastily wipe a tear from his cheek. What had happened to craft this profound a change in the man?

“Plastik-Schwerkraftmaterial,” Nathanial said, “that’s what the Austrian scientists named it, due to its malleability. Ours call it gravitar, hence Project ‘G’. Remarkable substance! I have, ah, procured all the documentation on it. All other matter we have encountered in the universe exerts a gravitational force exactly proportionate to its mass. Gravitar exerts a force over one thousand times that of its mass. How much of Mercury’s gravitational pull is due to the layer of gravitar deep beneath its surface, do you suppose?”

“I have no idea, Professor Stone,” Dumba answered. “My doctorate is in law, not physics.”

“No, but you’ve probably read the reports of your men. They don’t know either. It is certain the entire core of the world cannot be composed of it, given its orbit and apparent mass—whatever mass now means. But circumspection is required in its excavation, is it not? Who knows what the effect of disturbing the planet’s inner shell of gravitar might be?

“But that is really the least scientifically interesting thing about it. Gravitar’s force is polarized, bi-directional instead of omni-directional. A carefully constructed sheet, one crafted so the crystalline structure is aligned and coherent, exerts a constant gravitational pull in each direction perpendicular to the sheet.”

Stone turned and looked directly at Bedford. “You see, that’s what had me puzzled about HMAS Sovereign. If you just had a deck made of some super-dense substance, it would not attract everyone up and down to it as if it were a floor on Earth. It would attract everyone to the very centre of its mass, you see? And the tidal effects, due to its irregular shape, you’d suffer moving around on or near it! Why, I can hardly sort them out in my own mind, but they would not be pleasant.”

Bedford admitted that had never occurred to him, but now it was obvious. Men at the extremes of the centre deck should not be attracted to the deck beneath their feet, but to the very centre of the deck mass itself, and yet the deck remained a steady and constant down.

“So Great Britain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire embarked upon this joint secret project, a project founded on Mercury but which we touched first on HMAS Sovereign, and then entirely by accident on Peregrine Station,” Nathanial went on.

“But why?” Annabelle asked, speaking for the first time since Nathanial sat. “What is its purpose, aside from convenience?” She directed the question to Dumba, but his eyes turned to Nathanial, inviting him to continue.

“Health is the simple answer. People suffer marked deterioration in their health by prolonged times in an environment without gravity, particularly to their muscles, bones, and heart. Voyages between the worlds are short enough that the effects are not felt, and even frequent trips seem to have little long-term effects if a reasonable time is spent between them in gravity. But crews of the two orbital heliograph stations have to be rotated frequently. A deep-space station carrying out long-term research posed a special challenge to which gravitar provided the immediate answer, hence its use on Peregrine Station.” Nathanial paused, his eyes distant. “Why was it kept such a secret? As to that I can only speculate, but as a scientist I can easily come up with a dozen possible military applications, and that is not my normal field of endeavour. But there are more secrets here than simply the existence of gravitar, aren’t there? There is also the special nature of HMAS Sovereign, which was a secret even from you, was it not, Doctor?”

Bedford watched as Dumba returned Nathanial’s gaze for a moment and then nodded. That admission must have cost him something, Bedford thought. Dumba looked like the sort of man who was never comfortable unless he knew more than those he faced across a desk.

“Yes, Lord Chillingham arranged this conspiracy,” Nathanial continued, “this conspiracy of silence, and then he betrayed you. He took the gravitar laboriously assembled for the Venusian heliograph station and diverted it to the construction of HMAS Sovereign, so Great Britain would have not only the most powerful aether battleship aloft, but one capable of unlimited deployments away from Earth. He could only keep this move secret for so long, of course. Sooner or later your government would wonder why the Venusian heliograph station had not yet been built. The destruction of Peregrine actually helped him, I think, by providing a distraction as well as a reason to postpone further work on the Venusian station until the fate of Peregrine could be sorted out.”

Was this all true, Bedford wondered? It certainly fit what little he knew of Sovereign’s construction and the cloud of secrecy which surrounded centre deck and its effect. Everything else was entirely new to him, aside from the obvious reality that there had been a secret research facility called Peregrine and that first Stone and then Annabelle had been implicated in its destruction.

Doctor Dumba again studied the landscape painting on the wall in silence for some time and then shook his head.

“Interesting, but my principal concern at the moment is the threat to my country’s new ambassador. Miss Somerset and Commander Bedford have evidence of another gunpowder plot to assassinate His Excellence Hengelmüller von Hengervár. If it succeeds, Austria will lose a gifted and valued diplomat, but it will also lead to a rupture in relations with Great Britain, perhaps even war.”

“A French saboteur was behind the attack on Peregrine Station,” Annabelle said. “Could France be behind this as well? War between Austria and Britain might serve their purposes.”

Dumba thought for a moment before answering. “Anything is possible, of course, Miss Somerset. But my understanding of France’s policy lies in dividing the continental resistance to her. She has been particularly interested in separating Austrian interests from those of Bismarck and the Kaiser to the north. For all that the current British government blusters and postures, Mister Gladstone’s party advocates a more conciliatory policy and who knows what surprises your next election will produce? It makes diplomacy with your government so…eventful. Germany is the more deadly and constant foe of France. A rupture between my country and Britain would, by necessity, drive us into Bismarck’s steely embrace. No, I do not think France would desire that result.

“I also do not believe Lord Chillingham is behind this. In the event of an open breech in relations there is little my country can do in a material sense to punish Britain, but my government would certainly make public the discovery of gravitar. Your government’s clandestine violation of the Luna Treaty would then come to light as well, and shatter Britain’s system of European alliances. Yes, we know about Luna as well. I read your dispatches in the Gazette, Commander Bedford. They make for exciting reading, but it is easy to read between the lines when the other information is available as well. Tell me, are the rumours of an alien intelligence embedded deep in Luna true as well?”

“The Heart? Yes, quite true,” Annabelle answered. “Contact with that mind has rendered my uncle… Well, no longer himself.”

“But for all that,” Nathanial said, “it promises an extraordinary advance in our knowledge of the Solar System. It has even suggested travel beyond the asteroids as a possibility.”

Bedford saw Annabelle stiffen beside him and small wonder. Stone had as much as written off Annabelle’s uncle, who was also Stone’s own scientific mentor, in the name of progress toward some absurd vision of travel beyond the asteroids. To what? Bedford wondered. Worlds of frozen ice?

“Intriguing,” Dumba said, “but beside the point for the moment. What is clear is that Lord Chillingham has an interest in maintaining the secrecy of his various projects and is therefore unlikely to undertake action which will inevitably lead to their exposure. What does he gain?”

Bedford knew a possible answer to that although he was reluctant to give it voice. Still, someone had to. “The elimination of the Prince of Wales as a political rival,” he said. The others stared at him.

“I cannot dismiss it out of hand,” Dumba said at length. “I have a hard time believing even Lord Chillingham would involve himself in such a scheme, however. The risks are enormous, the rewards uncertain. In my experience he is a more careful man than that, and it still does not explain the assassination of Ambassador Deym. Clearly we are not yet at the bottom of this mystery and we are all but out of time.

“I can cable my government and delay the arrival of the ambassador, but knowing Hengelmüller that will not suit him. I am here to smooth the way for his arrival, not keep him away, but my resources are limited to a half-dozen clerks. I have no police power, no authority, but I still have a number of contacts from my previous posting here. I will put these at your disposal if you will undertake to uncover and thwart this bomb plot. Given your actions to date, I hardly think this beyond your capacities, nor will it compromise your other loyalties given the hazard to your own high government officials.”

“And in return?” Bedford asked.

“Ah. I am constrained with respect to rewards, but I am singularly well-placed to insure that all hint of public blame for the Peregrine incident will be shifted away from Professor Stone and Miss Somerset. Your names will be cleared, and the heroic nature of your efforts to thwart the true villains will be known. That much my government can offer in return for this service.”

“My objective is simply to understand what has transpired,” Annabelle said, “to discover what was so important that respected men would conduct themselves so shamefully. What we do with that knowledge is our responsibility, I believe.”

Bedford looked at her and wondered what she intended to do with such knowledge, but sensed she had no fixed intention yet. What she had said was simply a statement of truth as she understood it: her future course was hers to chart. Then she looked at him and smiled softly, as if to say that did not mean charting it alone. The smile warmed him.

“Will Chillingham’s duplicity be exposed?” Nathanial asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“That I cannot promise. The knowledge of his secret is the only real leverage my government has over him. To expose it throws away our only chip. You must decide, Professor Stone, which is more important to you: personal revenge or removing the stain upon your reputation, and by association your family’s as well.” Then he sneezed again.