The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder Read Free Book Online

the experiment at exactly nine o’clock.”
    Charles Babbage suddenly came out of his self-absorption, stepped forward, and slapped a hand down onto the worktop. “The synthetic intelligence is responsive, not active. I could not have issued the command independently.”
    A particularly violent bolt of lightning whipped through one of the overhanging globes. The crackling detonations echoed around the massive hall, and the white light momentarily illuminated the normally shadowed sockets of the scientist’s eyes, revealing a fanatical glint within.
    Burton felt the inexplicable suspicion that, rather than being present in Battersea Power Station, he was somewhere entirely different.
    From afar, he heard Swinburne cry out, “Command? What command? My hat! In all the many histories, is there a single Charles Babbage who can get to the confounded point?”
    As the king’s agent splintered into innumerable renditions of himself, Gooch said, “At the exact moment the Field Amplifier accessed the ruined headpiece, a bubble of chronostatic energy formed around the damaged time suit. It sliced through Isambard’s wrist, popped, and the suit, along with our friend’s hand, vanished.”
    “It travelled into time,” Babbage snarled. “Of its own accord.”

 
    From amid the complex of jointed metal limbs that hung from the centre of the ceiling like angular jungle lianas, one emerged with a sword clutched in its mechanical digits. Gently, it tapped the blade first against Captain Richard Francis Burton’s right shoulder, then against his left.
    The king’s agent stood, now a Knight of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George.
    Due to the damage done to the monarch’s vocal apparatus during the attack on Buckingham Palace, a white-stockinged royal equerry had spoken the words of the ceremony. Burton felt relieved by this. King Ernest Augustus I was demented at the best of times, and the past three months had been far from the best. Had he been able to express himself, he’d no doubt have ranted endlessly about the violence done to him—for the palace was, in effect, his own body; his limbs were built into every part of it, all controlled from the Crown Room, where his brain floated in a tank of vital fluids. The destruction of the western wing had been the equivalent of having an arm blown off. His Majesty was nettled, to say the least.
    Burton took three steps back, bowed, and returned to his seat.
    “Did your leg fall asleep?” whispered Monckton Milnes, who was sitting to his left.
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    “You were limping.”
    Burton made a sound of puzzlement. “Was I? By Allah’s beard, I do feel a little strange. My mind was wandering all over the place. I imagined myself to be at Battersea Power Station.”
    “Maybe it wasn’t just the leg, then,” his friend suggested, sotto voce . “Perhaps all of you fell asleep. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, despite the occasion. Not after what you’ve been through.”
    “I was daydreaming, that’s all. You know I have no patience for these official functions. When can we get out of this asylum?”
    “Shhh! The walls have ears.”
    Burton mentally kicked himself. “I mean no disrespect to the king, but I was probably thinking of Battersea Power Station because I have to be there by nine o’clock. Babbage is activating Oxford’s suit.”
    An abstruse thought intruded. What? Again?
    “These ceremonies don’t usually occur so late in the day,” Monckton Milnes observed, “but His Majesty spent all morning with his architects, and the meeting went past its allotted hours. It’s rumoured that he wants the palace rebuilt and made the tallest edifice in the city. I expect he’s eager to get back to his plans and sketches, which is why, believe it or not, formalities are proceeding at such a rapid pace.”
    “This is rapid?”
    “By comparison to the norm. Be patient, there are only three more to be knighted, then we’ll