Moving to the front door, he opened it just in time to see a plush leather armchair descend from the sky.

It landed across the street from his cottage, the spinning wings above it slowing down, the paradiddle of its motor becoming lazier, steam rolling away.

The noise stopped. The wings became still. The man in the seat pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, lit a pipe, and began to smoke.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter sighed and stepped out of his house. He closed the front door, walked down the path, opened the gate, crossed the spotlessly clean street, stood next to the chair, and said, "Sangappa."

The man looked up, and with his pipe stem clenched between his teeth mumbled, "Beg pardon?"

"Sangappa," repeated Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. "It's the best leather softener money can buy. They send it over from India. Hard to find and a mite expensive but worth every penny. There's nothing to top it. Sangappa. It'd do that chair of yours a world of good, take my word for it."

"I do," said the man, raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes and directing them down the street.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter ate his crumpet and chewed thoughtfully while he looked to where the lenses were pointing: at the high street's junction with Bearbinder Lane, the lower end of the village, beyond which fields and woods sloped up to the next hill.

"Bird-watching?" he asked, after a pause.

"Sort of."

"Parakeets?"

The man lowered his glasses and looked at the villager. "Funny you should say that."

"It's been a funny sort of day. Police, are you?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Your boots."

"Ah. Oh dear."

"Good for boots, too, that Sangappa is. They're in the woods."

"The parakeets, you mean?"

"Yes. In cages, in bags, in the hands of men, in the woods."

"How many? Men, that is."

"An infestation, I should say. Is that one of 'em new clockwork lamps?"

He pointed to a cylindrical object resting in a coil of rope between the constable's police-issue boots.

"Yes, it is."

"Do me out of job, that would, if it weren't for the fact that I'm twice retired."

"Twice?"

"Yes. Good, is it? Bright?"

"Very bright indeed, Mr.-?"

"They call me Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, sir, on account of the fact that I used to be a lamp-lighter before I retired."

"I thought that might be their reason."

"Detective, are you?"

"No. Constable. What else are you retired from?"

"Soldiering. King's Royal Rifle Corps. They have nets too."

"As well as rifles?"

"I mean the men in the woods, sir. Nets and parakeets."

"I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. I'm Constable Krishnamurthy. Your information is most useful. Would you accept a little advice?"

"Only fair, sir. I advised you about Sangappa, after all."

"You did. In return, my advice is this: stay indoors this evening!"

The policemen and Letty Green villagers left Pipers End as the sun was setting. They moved in a wide, silent arc toward Old Ford and the southern, western, and northern borders of the Alsop field.

Detective Inspector Thomas Honesty led the men to the south.

Detective Inspector William Trounce led the men to the west.

Sir Richard Francis Burton led the men to the north.

Meanwhile, opposite the lower eastern end of the field, in the isolated cottage, the Alsop family hunched around a table in the candlelit cellar and played games of whist, while above them, on a chair in the hallway, Sister Raghavendra sat facing the front door. She held a revolver in her lap and kept her finger on the trigger.

Farther to the east, beyond the village, near a derelict farmhouse, six rotorchairs landed. Their drivers sat and watched Old Ford. If they saw Constable Krishnamurthy's chair rise from it, they would fire up their engines and follow him.

The forces marshalled by Sir Richard Francis Burton were ready to pounce.

However, so were the forces gathered by the opposition.

Beneath the trees surrounding the Alsop field, the Rakes slouched insouciantly and endured the insults hurled at them by the caged birds.

In Darkening Towers, on the outskirts of Waterford, three miles to the west of Old Ford, the orangutan known as Mr. Belljar, who was actually Henry de La Poer Beresford, the Mad Marquess, impatiently paced up and down the huge empty ballroom, its chandelier blazing above him. The light would attract any parakeet that happened to have a message for him.

Outside, in the grounds, two rotorships sat. The larger, which dwarfed the other, had its engines idling. It contained Charles Darwin, the automaton Francis Galton, Nurse Florence Nightingale, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, John Hanning Speke, and a great many Technologists.

Along the shadow of a hedgerow between Waterford and Old Ford, an injured albino limped eastward. At his heels, following obediently, were twenty-three robed and hooded figures who walked with a peculiar lurching gait and who occasionally emitted slavering growls, like starving dogs.

Soon these forces would meet.

It was just a matter of time.

n September 28, 1861, Spring Heeled Jack bounced onto the brown, dying lawn outside the veranda doors of Darkening Towers. They stood open and the lights were on in the ballroom. He stalked in.

"Henry! Henry, where are you?"

"Stay there, Oxford!" commanded a brash, ugly voice. It came from behind a French screen in the corner of the big, decrepit room.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the time traveller.

"It's me, Edward-Henry Beresford."

"You sound different. Why are you hiding? Come out!"

Fire suddenly erupted from the control unit on his chest.

"The suit is almost dead!" he groaned, smothering it with his cloak. "Come out, damn you!"

"Listen to me, Oxford. This is important. I had a serious accident," gurgled the thick voice. "I broke my neck. They had to perform extreme surgery to preserve my life. Prepare yourself. I'm not the man I used to be."

An orangutan lumbered out from behind the screen. The top of its head was missing and had been replaced by a liquid-filled bell jar in which a brain floated.

Edward Oxford started to laugh. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" he gasped.

"It's temporary, I hope," said the orangutan.

Oxford doubled over, his laughter rising in pitch, echoing around the large chamber.

"This world-is-fuck-fucking-insane!" he screamed.

"Calm down, Edward! It's strange for me, too. I was beginning to think I'd dreamed you up. I can hardly believe you're real after all this time."

The orangutan lurched toward the stilt-walker and reached out a hand to him.

Spring Heeled Jack staggered back. "Don't touch me, ape!" he cried.

"All right! All right! Just try to control yourself, man! I have the list of girls for you!"

Oxford looked at the primate. "Is it really you, Henry?"

"Yes."

"And you were successful?"

"In the main, yes."

"In the main? What do you mean, `in the main'?"

"One of the families moved to South Africa. I've lost track of them."

"Well, find them, you fool! She could be the one!"

"I'm doing all I can, Edward. In the meantime, I have the descriptions and locations of Angela Tew, Marian Steephill, Connie Fairweather, Lucy Harkness, and Alicia Pipkiss."