“A screw loose, more like!” Swinburne suggested.
“P'raps. I tells you, though-it's a strange thing to be mechanical. I fear me springs may snap or cogs grind to a halt at any bloomin' moment. Speaking o' which, I have good news-I'll be comin' to Africa, after all.”
“How so?” Burton asked as they crossed the courtyard. “Conditions will hardly be conducive to your functioning.”
“Mr. Brunel's scientists have dreamt up a new material what they makes usin' a chemical process. They calls it polymethylene. It's brown, very flexible, but waxy in texture. It's also waterproof, an' can't be penetrated by dust. They've used it to tailor a number of one-piece suits for me, what'll entirely protect me from the climate.”
“You're certain that you'll be shielded and that the material will endure? Remember, there are extremes of heat and cold, as well as mud and dust,” Burton cautioned. “During my previous expedition the clothes literally rotted off my back.”
They arrived at the tall doors of the main building. Spencer reached out and took hold of one of the handles. “The material will no doubt deteriorate over time, Boss,” he said, “but they've supplied me with fifteen of the bloomin' outfits, so I daresay they'll last. Besides-” he gestured at the fog that surrounded them, “-if I can survive this funk, I can survive anythin'!”
“Then I'm delighted,” Burton replied. “You were pivotal in our securing of the South American diamond, and your presence might be of crucial importance when-or, rather, if-we reach the African stone. Welcome to the team, Herbert!”
“Marvellous!” Swinburne added.
The clockwork man pulled the door far enough open for them to pass through.
“Enter, please, gents.”
The two men stepped into the Technologists' headquarters and were almost blinded by the bright lights within.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel had built Battersea Power Station in 1837. At the time, he'd been full of strange ideas inspired by his acquaintance Henry Beresford, and had designed the station to generate something he referred to as “geothermal energy.” The copper rods that stood in each corner of the edifice rose high above it like four tall chimneys, but they extended much farther in the opposite direction, plunging deep into the Earth's crust. Brunel, just thirty-one years old in '37 and still rather prone to exaggeration, had announced that these rods would produce enough energy to provide the whole of London with electricity, which could then be adapted to provide lighting and heat. Unfortunately, since its construction, the only thing Battersea Power Station had ever managed to illuminate was itself, although it was rumoured that this might soon change, for Brunel was thought to have discovered a means to significantly increase the output of the copper rods.
Shielding their eyes, Burton and Swinburne looked into the station and observed a vast workshop. A number of globes hung from the high ceiling. Lightning bolts had somehow been trapped inside them, and they bathed the floor beneath in an incandescent glare, which reflected off the surfaces of megalithic machines-contrivances whose functions were baffling in the extreme. Electricity fizzed, crackled, and buzzed across their surfaces, and shafts of it whipped and snapped across the open spaces, filling the place with the sharp tang of ozone.
Among all this, over to their right, there stood a bulky vehicle. Around twelve feet high and thirty-six in length, it was tubular in shape-the front half a cabin, the back half a powerful engine-and it was mounted on a large number of short jointed legs. Rows of legs also projected from its top and sides. At its rear, steam funnels stuck horizontally outward, while its front was dominated by a huge drill, which tapered from the outer edges of the vehicle to a point, the tip of which stood some eighteen feet in advance of the main body.
Spencer, noticing them looking at it, explained: “That's a Worm-one of the machines what they're usin' to dig the London Underground tunnels. They reckons Underground trains will make it easier for people to move around the city, now that the streets are so congested with traffic. But you won't find me gettin' into one o' them trains. I'd be afraid o' suffocatin'!”
“You can't suffocate, Herbert,” Swinburne objected.
“Aye, so you says!”
Another contrivance caught their eye. Surrounded by a group of technicians and engineers, it was a large barrel-shaped affair on tripod legs with a myriad of mechanical arms, each ending in pliers or a blowtorch or a saw or some other tool. As Burton, Swinburne, and Spencer entered, it swung toward them, lurched away from the Technologists, and stamped over.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” it said, and its voice was identical to Herbert Spencer's, except pitched at a low baritone.
“Hello, Isambard,” Burton answered, for, indeed, this hulking mechanism was the famous engineer-or, more accurately, it was the life maintaining apparatus that had encased him since 1859, earning him the nickname the Steam Man.The king's agent continued: “The crew of the Orpheusis standing ready to take delivery of the vehicles and further supplies. Is everything prepared?”
“Yes, Sir Richard. My people will tarry-harry-excuse me, carry-everything aboard.”
“I say, Izzy!” Swinburne piped up, with a mischievous twinkle in his green eyes. “Has your new speech-rendering device broken?”
“No,” Brunel answered. “But it is not currently interacting sufficiently-effusively-expectantly-I mean, efficiently-with the calculating elephants-um- elements-of my cerebral impasse-er, impulse-calculators. Unanticipated variegations-vegetations-my apologies- variationsare occurring in the calibration of the device's sensory nodes.”
“My hat!” Swinburne exclaimed. “The problem is obviously chronic! I didn't understand a single word you just said! It was absolute gibberish!”
“Algy,” Burton muttered. “Behave yourself!”
“It's all right, Sir Pilchard-er, Sir Richard,” Brunel interjected. “Mr. Spinbroom has not yet forgiven me for the way I treated him during the String Filled Sack affair. I mean the Spring Heeled Jack despair-um- affair.Kleep.”
“Kleep?” Swinburne asked, trying to stifle a giggle.
“Random noise,” Brunel replied. “A recurring poodle. I mean, problem.”
The poet clutched his sides, bent over, and let loose a peal of shrill laughter.
Burton sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Mr. Brunel's speakin' apparatus is the same as me own,” Herbert Spencer put in, raising a brass finger to touch the rounded arrangement of pipes on his head. “But, as you know, me intellect is knockin' around inside the structure o' black diamonds, whereas his ain't, and the instrument responds better to impulses from inorganic matter than from organic.”
“Ah-ha!” Swinburne cried out, wiping tears from his eyes. “So you still have fleshly form inside that big tank of yours, do you, Izzy?”
“That's quite enough,” Burton interrupted, pushing his diminutive assistant aside. He steered the conversation back to the business at hand: “Are we on schedule, Isambard?”
“Yes. We have to declare-compare- repairthe ventilation and leaping-um, heating-system, but the League of Chimney Sweeps has guaranteed periphery-I mean, delivery-of a new section of pipe by six o'clock today, and the work itself will slake- take-but an hour or so.”
Swinburne, who'd regained control of himself, asked, “Why can't you fabricate the pipe yourself?”
“Reg-parp-ulations,” Brunel answered.
Burton explained: “The Beetle has recently secured the sole manufacturing and trading rights to any pipes through which his people must crawl to clean or service.”
“That boy is a genius,” Swinburne commented.
“Indeed,” Burton agreed. “Very well, we'll leave you to it, Isambard. The ship's crew will help your people to load the supplies. The passengers will reconvene here tomorrow morning at nine.”