Previous: Philip Tennant – do unto others
Meeting of the Sparks – Symposium of the Wizards – A new heart for the Tin Man – Mission to Khartoum – News from far away – An unexpected passenger
NO NOISE NO STEAM
Rina Prescott reporting
It is not often that we get the chance to see the Beast of Algernon, the tracked vehicle that served our university so well on our expedition in North Africa, in action. Today, Mr. Andrew Parsons and our own Miss Carrie StJohn performed a test. Expertly driven by Miss. StJohn, the Beast made a circuit of the garden, under carefully measured conditions, and successfully returned to its lair deep underneath the main building. Well done Mr. Parsons, and well done Carrie!
Didn't the thing stop half way through? -- LD
It did, but they got it going again. -- RP
Did you talk to Carrie? -- LD
Tried to, but she'd found some new friends. -- RP
Eh? -- LD
The Sparks. I'm not going anywhere near them. -- RP
Why not? -- LD
They creep me out. And they were busy anyway. -- RP
Which subject is best? Well, obviously my subjects are. I teach Physics, concentrating on Newtonian laws of motion. Well understood, well supported, and as close as one can get to Truth in a universe that seems to be designed specially to baffle us humans. You can drop a weight off the University Tower, and allowing for some atmospheric variation, it will always, always land on the ground in exactly the same amount of time. That is good news for young Alexandra, who depends on these very laws to put a bullet exactly were she wants it to go.
Likewise, my second subject of Archaeology allows us to determine what happened in the past. The past is immutable. It has happened. Things that happen, stay happened. The only thing that ever changes about the past is our understanding of it. Maybe the jawbone you thought belonged to a Homo Habilis was instead used to nosh carrots by a Homo Erectus. But bones, dwellings, tools, the footprints of Humanity, stay put.
My third subject of Anthropology is delightfully weird and squishy. The study of humans. While you can predict in large strokes what most people will do, as soon as you try to write their behaviour down in a hard and fast law of Nature, they’ll do something entirely different just to spite you. Part of my job is to sit here, with a little gnomic smile, and say I knew you were going to do that.
And then of course, there are more vague matters than even that. Our founder Charles Algernon Parsons drew a firm thick black line at any studies of the Paranormal and Supernatural, but speaking as an Anthropologist, there is nothing that seduces people more than a thick black line. How far can they cross it? Which is why we have Professor Brassica of Homoeopathy. I may not know about the memories of water, the concept of like curing like instead of making it worse. I may not know how to listen to the Music of the Spheres, or delve into the domains beyond length, width, height, and time. But I do know a lot about mind-broadening chemicals and their effect on an already wobbly mind, and I can draw my own conclusions.
Another hive of woolly thinking is the study of Electricity and Magnetism. If we are to believe the likes of Dr. Parker, we are wading in a soup of occult ‘waves’ passing through us without as much as a by-your-leave. The language is much the same as that of the Homoeopaths. At least the Electromancers are able to come up with reproducible results, and their doctrines have uses beyond making someone believe they feel better.
When I found out that Dr. Parker had got permission to organise a symposium, I added my name to the guest list without a second thought. Sparker’s studies fall under Physics, so I had long wanted to take a look in his kitchen, to see if what happens there does not sully the name of my subject. It’s considered rude for fellow Professors to ask silly questions or point and laugh from the back row, but guests in symposia are common. Now the word symposium may give you images of massive lecture halls filled to the brim, but Sparker’s Symposium was a more, shall we say modest affair. He had invited all Electromancers from Dublin’s Trinity College, which came to one prof and two students, and those from Edinburgh, where our own Messrs. Uda and Yagi were stationed. Add to that our own sparks, three boys, and we had a symposium of ten people, including myself.
I had finished my last lecture for the day. It is always hard to keep students’ attention on a subject as dull as the culture of the Homo Neanderthalensis. One of my colleagues, a Prof. Auel, has a most effective solution to this, but those are depths I will not sink to. Yes, I do have a copy of her works. The bell was loud enough to wake up most of the students, and I released them back into the wild. I took a stroll into the campus common, when one of the University’s carriages arrived. It stopped and produced a professor and two students wearing the Trinity dark blue blazer, grey trousers, and grey chequered skirt. They had that faraway look in their eyes of those who contemplate the World Beyond This World. Or the mildly sea-sick.
I wandered over and introduced myself to the professor, named Walton.
“You’re here for the symposium, then?” I said.
“Indeed, Dr. Enderby. Are you a colleague of Dr. Parker?”
“Strictly speaking, yes,” I said. Which was a little mean of me, so I added. “My speciality is slightly more… mechanical in nature than Dr. Parker’s.”
Walton looked amused. “We have been trying to capture a few of the Little People do do our work for us, but they’re slippery buggers. We have to do our own sums and formulae.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We’re used to it. My secondary subject is Mathematics, and that’s only because nobody would touch my equations.” He chuckled. “We have a legitimate use for imaginary numbers.”
His students, a tall lanky boy and a pleasantly chunky lass with long red plaits, were standing to attention. Walton gave them the once-over to check if they properly represented Trinity College, turned back to me.
“Could you direct us to the registry offices?”
I took Walton and his students to the Porters, and they were duly assigned rooms to sleep in, given a years-old map of the Campus that didn’t include the High Energy Alchemy building, and then left to fend for themselves. I felt like a mother hen who has had some ducklings imprint on her, and since dinner time was coming up, they followed me in single file to the mess hall. I looked round, and in one of the gloomier parts of the hall spotted two of Parker’s sparks. I marched over.
“Fernsby? Dankworth?”
Two pairs of eyes looked up at me suspiciously.
“Ma’am?”
I pointed. “These are the people from Trinity, here for Prof. Parker’s do.”
Dankworth stood up. “You’re the Trinity lot?”
“Aye,” said the boy. “I’m Murphy.”
Dankworth looked from Murphy to the girl. “Is Reid here as well? Don’t tell me he couldn’t make it!”
The girl coughed, waved. “Hi!”
Dankworth gaped at her. “You’re Reid?”
“Eileen Reid, pleased to meet ye.”
“But… You’re a girl!”
Reid rolled her eyes. “Ah bejayzes, what gave me away? It’s the skirt isn’t it?”
Dankworth looked at Reid as if she’d sprouted rabbit ears. “There’s no girls in the Sparks! We’re famous for it! No girls ever get anywhere near us!”
“Really? I wonder why,” said Reid.
“That’s not what I…”
“Shut up Dank,” Fernsby turned to Reid, and to a lesser degree Murphy. “I’m Fernsby, he’s Dankworth. Welcome to Algernon.”
“Is Sallow in?” Murphy said. “What about Mr. Uda? Mr. Yagi?”
“Uda and Yagi are travelling. Should be in early tomorrow. Sallow is monitoring on the GBA.”
“The George Bennett Array.” Reid sounded hungry.
“Aye,” Dankworth grinned at Reid. “It’s an hour to dinner. Want to see it?”
“Is the Pope a Catholic?” She cast a pleading eye at Prof. Walton.
“Go!” Walton said. “Try not to break anything.”
With the children out playing, I was left with Walton. We wandered over to the faculty break room, where I found Sparker in conversation with a man I didn’t know.
“What ho Parker! Your guests have begun to arrive!”
Parker looked up, recognised Walton. “Michael! You’re here! W-welcome!”
“Clifford,” said Walton. “What a pleasure to finally put a face to the name.” He turned to me. “We’ve never met in person before. All of our communications have been through letters or by Hermes device.”
“Good afternoon,” said Parker’s companion.
Parker turned round. “Oh. I’m forgetting my manners. Let me introduce Second Mate Stewart from the Ipswich Maritime Institute. He’s here for a lecture on Aldis lights and how t-to use them.”
Second Mate Stewart gave us a nod. “Dr. Parker told me about an Aldis light that can transmit over the horizon. I had to come. We can find a use for such a thing.”
“W-we haven’t t-tried to p-put them on ships,” Parker said. “That w-would be a good experiment.”
“Hmm.” Walton rubbed his chin. “Wouldn’t it be a hazard having electrical equipment in a salt water environment?”
“Doctor,” Stewart said. “Ships were designed to have the wet stuff outside. We can keep a cargo of grain dry. Your equipment wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“Of course,” Walton said. “I apologise.”
“An Aldis light by night can be seen some three miles away. A signal flare, one of the new Coston types, could be visible for thirty miles around. Imagine being able to send not just ‘Help!’ but detailed messages over such a distance.”
“Oh we can signal over much greater distances,” Walton said. “We could detect signals as far as…”
“Michael.” Parker raised his hands. “We haven’t p-p-proven that yet.”
Walton opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind. “Of course. I was talking about theoretical distances.”
First Mate Stewart looked from Parker to Walton and back. “What’s a Hermes Device? Is that the name for one of your magical Aldis lights?”
“Um, yes.” Parker looked away. “Named after the messenger god of Greek mythology.”
“And you and Dr. Walton here were using it to exchange messages.”
Parker said nothing.
“Between Ipswich and Dublin. A little under three hundred miles. Nautical miles of course.”
Parker gave Walton a look, then nodded at Stewart.
“Gentlemen, with such a device, a merchant ship could be in constant contact with its owner up to the Gulf of Biscay!”
“Maybe,” said Parker. “As I said, we don’t know if it even w-w-w…” He took a breath. “On board a ship.”
Stewart’s eyes gleamed. “As it happens, we do have a ship or two at the Institute. I’m sure if I ask the Admiral…”
Parker heaved a deep sigh. “Mr. Stewart. W-we can’t promise you anything. I w-would ask you to k-keep all this c-confidential if you would.”
“Don’t worry, Professor. I can keep a secret.”
“Good.”
Stewart looked at me.
“Oh I’m in the know already,” I said. “This invention has deep archaeological and physical significance.”
“Thank you P-professor Enderby.” Parker turned to Stewart. “Do you know all you need?”
“Tomorrow, lecture at four, arrive by three, bring an Aldis lamp.”
“Exactly. Now if you will excuse me, I must t-take Professor Walton to see my equipment.”
“I shall see you tomorrow. Dr. Parker.”
The electromancers disappeared in a puff of smoke, transporting themselves to the Wizard’s tower. I was left with Stewart.
“Professor? Do you know what this… this device of theirs is capable of? Have you seen it in operation?”
“Not personally, but I have read some reports.”
“Tell me. How far does this light shine?”
“I don’t know. Maybe all the way to the Moon and back.”
The next morning, I grounded myself with a nice solid lecture on thermodynamics. The relation between the mass, the volume, the temperature, and the pressure of a gas can be described with a simple set of formulae devised by a group of gentlemen named Robert Boyle, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro, and Jacques Charles. They each picked two of their favourite properties of an ideal gas, while keeping the others constant in a scientific tug-of-war. To the delight of steam engineers, these laws have not needed changing in at least two hundred years. I finished my lecture, wiped the blackboard clean of formulae, graphs and pressure vessels, and made my way to room 2B, where Dr. Parker’s symposium was to be held. As symposia go, it was a more intimate setting, with room 2B holding maybe two dozen students. I found a seat in the middle of the room, placed my feet firmly on the ground, my bum firmly in my seat, pulled out a notebook for the looks of it, and prepared to be mystified by Things Unseen.
Parker was at the front, helping Stewart set up his Aldis light. The Trinity students and Walton were sitting near the front with polite expressions on their faces. Dankworth, Sallow, and Fernsby came in carrying some heavy equipment between them, which they put into a corner of the room for later use. I turned at a noise to find Mr. Omar Khouri sitting next to me. He gave me a polite nod and a smile.
“Mr. Khouri. What brings you here?”
“Simple curiosity, Professor. I have heard of the estimable professor Parker and his accomplishments in long-range communications. It fascinates me.”
“I have to admit it still sounds like utter codswallop to me, but there is no denying that his devices seem to work.”
“Cods. Wallop.” An amused gleam was in Mr. Khouri’s eyes. “The English language is so expressive. Especially when informing the other of their intellectual shortcomings.”
There was a knock on the door, and more students came in. I didn’t know them, but from the look in their eyes I could tell they were with Prof. Brassica’s lot. Drawn here by the enticing talk about vibrations that span the Earth and the deeper implications for the nature of Reality itself. I’m afraid I could not suppress a little smirk anticipating the questions they were likely to ask. Behind them sat Miss Linda Davenport of the Algernon Clarion, the student newspaper.
They were followed by Miss Felicia Sunderland and Andrew Parsons. Miss Felicia waved at me, and led Andrew to a place near the door. I knew she did this deliberately so that she could, if needed, take him outside without too much disturbance.
The next arrivals were our Nipponese exchange students, Mr. Uda and Mr. Yagi, with big smiles on their faces, carrying one of their fishbone-like antennae for sniffing out Hermes devices.
“Uda, you wanker!” Dankworth walked up to him. “What sort of time do you call this? We weren’t even sure you were going to show up at all!”
“Konnichi-wa, Baka-san,” said Uda with an Oriental bow. “I do apologise. Our train was severely delayed due to running into a leaf on the tracks. The Scottish engineers said they would need three days to repair the damage, but through great acts of ingenuity, they managed to do it in only three hours.”
“There’s only you and Yagi? Look, the Trinity lot is here already, and they brought a girl! Didn’t anyone from Scotland want to come with you?”
Mr. Yagi sneered. “We did try to invite other students, but they said they did not want to work with Chinamen. We cannot blame them for that, because neither would we.”
“Bunch of idiots,” said Sallow. “Their loss. We’ve set up one of the low power Hermes in a secret location, and it’s transmitting now. Do you want to demo sounding it out? It’s on the Kirov frequency. Better if you do it because we already know where it is.”
“It will be our honour,” said Yagi. “Do you have the scanner?”
Fernsby pointed. “Over there. We set it up after the Admiral there does his part.”
Reid and Murphy came up and introduced themselves. They were a disparate group, united by a single interest. The world is changing. Where once you would choose your companions based on which island you were born on, now you choose by the contents of your mind. Messrs. Uda and Yagi would have had to travel for years by ship and on foot before the invention of the airship. Maybe some day, countries will cease to matter at all.
High up in the Wizard’s tower, the bell rang, and Sparker stood in front of the empty blackboard, shoulders straight, addressing the small crowd in a way I had never seen him do before.
“Good afternoon, and welcome to all you who have come here to learn of the secrets of Electricity, Magnetism, and their uses in speaking to people all over the world. Throughout History, many inventions have propelled Humanity forward to a brighter future. The invention of fire. The invention of the wheel. The invention of the ship. The invention of the steam engine. My friends, I believe that we are standing at the beginning of another such leap into the future, but it will not be an advancement of the body, but of the mind.”
I could see several students of Brassica’s open their notebooks and start scribbling furiously. This must be music to their ears. Sparker continued.
“I believe that this invention is only second to the invention of writing in its impact. Letters may take weeks to travel from sender to recipient, depending on their location on Earth. Our Hermes devices can send messages instantly, with no regard to where on Earth they may be. It is this instant connection of minds that will ensure a lasting peace on this Earth.”
Next to me, Omar Khouri laughed quietly. “Academics. I find their limitless optimism so inspiring.”
I looked at him, but I could not see a hint of sarcasm.
“Optimism?” I said.
“Is not this very technology being used in the cause of Evil as we speak?”
I looked at Sparker, and only now realised that he had completely lost his stammer.
“In that case, it’s about time we caught up.”
“Indeed it is.”
Sparker finished his speech, and introduced First Mate Stewart. Stewart stepped up to the blackboard without a word. Instead, he reached out to the Aldis light and blinked out a message. He looked round the room.
“Did any of you understand what the message said?”
Nobody answered, though Mr. Khouri made a note in his notebook.
“Well then, allow me to repeat myself. I am First Mate Stewart of the Ipswich Maritime Institute, and I am here to tell you about the light standing next to me. This is a medium size Aldis light, designed by Mr. Arthur Cyril Webb Aldis. We use them for ship-to-ship communications over a useful distance up to the horizon, about thirty miles. When there is sufficient cloud cover, we can extend this range using the largest of our search lights, by lighting up the clouds. Aldis lights are also used on airships, to communicate with airport traffic control.”
“I’ve seen Captain Tennant do that,” I said, quietly.
“Then he must be speaking the truth,” said Mr. Khouri.
Stewart continued. “You have seen me use a combination of long and short flashes of light. Dots and dashes. This method was first conceived by Vice Admiral Philip Howard Colomb, though his method was later improved by Mr. Samuel Morse.” Stewart hung up a sheet of paper containing all the letters of the alphabet and their patterns of dots and dashes. “These are the codes. For instance.” He stepped over to the light and signalled.
.- .-.. --. . .-. -. --- -.
“Can anyone guess what this message said?”
“Algernon.”
Stewart slowly turned round to Andrew. “That is correct! Sir, if you could understand Morse code, why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“You had not shown me the key.”
Stewart blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You did not show the key until after the first message. I did not know the code.”
“And now you suddenly do?”
“It is on the paper on the blackboard.”
Stewart fell silent for a long moment. “Is this some kind of joke?!“
“No Sir.” Felicia radiated maternal pride. “He does that. Just carry on.”
Stewart took a deep breath and turned back to the class. “For us mere mortals, please do not memorise the dots and dashes. If you have to translate the patterns of light or sound to dots and dashes, and from there to a letter, you lose valuable time. Learn to translate the rhythms directly into letters. We use the method of Ludwig Koch, where you start listening to messages containing only two letters at full speed, until you can copy them nine times out of ten. Then, you add one more letter and repeat, until you can copy all the letters. We find that is the easiest way.” He looked at Andrew. “For normal people.”
Stewart spent the next ten minutes signalling out messages containing only the N, the T, and the I for us to copy. Only Andrew and Mr. Khouri managed to copy the whole stream of flashes with no mistakes. I’m sure Alexandra, Carl, or Philip with their aviator’s papers would have managed as well. I wondered where they were now, and how they were doing, and lost track of the flashes. I gave up and put down my pen.
“And that concludes this presentation. For those of you who wish to learn the art of signalling, I have been authorised by the Admiral to offer a few more guest lectures by our own signalman Mr. Phillips. If you are interested, please put your name on the list by the door.” Stewart turned off the Aldis lamp. “Are there any questions? No? Thank you very much.”
Stewart stepped down, and Sparker returned, picked up a long white pointer. Behind him, Dankworth and Sallow exploded into action, carrying the equipment to the centre of the stage.
“As you know, we of the Electricity and Magnetism department have been studying a method for transmitting messages by means of electricity, over vast distances, instantly. Using the directional antennae invented by Mr. Shintaro Uda and Mr. Hidetsugu Yagi of Tohoko University in Nippon, who we are honoured to have as our exchange students, we are able to detect the direction from which a device is transmitting.” He pointed at a map of the British Isles. “We used to have only two listening posts, one here in Ipswich, and another in Dublin, at Trinity College. Trinity College being roughly East of us, we could easily triangulate and determine the position of any station either to our North, or to our South. But for stations to our East or West, the difference in angles becomes too small for an accurate calculation. For this reason, we built another listening station to the North at the University of Edinburgh, manned by Mr. Uda and Mr. Yagi, under Professor McCoy of Applied Physics, who…” Parker looked at Mr. Uda, who shook his head. “Has chosen not t-to join us at this t-t-time.” Parker stabbed at the map with his pointer. “With three stations, we are able to triangulate the position of any station with satisfactory accuracy.”
“Those poor boys,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Khouri said.
“You do not let students travel here all the way from the Frozen North unaccompanied. Poor form, Professor McCoy. Poor form.”
“That seems a little careless,” said Mr. Khouri.
“It is time for a demonstration!” Sparker walked to the blackboard and hung up a large sheet of paper. “This is a map of our University grounds, courtesy of the Civil Engineers.”
Our Civil Engineers, among their many other pursuits, spend large portions of their lives crawling all over the University grounds with theodolites, measuring the location, height, and size of the buildings, hills, trees, and on one occasion a Philosophy professor named Clifton who stood by one of the walls contemplating a rebuttal to the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God, or some such piece of pretentious theoretical bullshit, and would not move. Professor Clifton is one-hundred and eighty centimetres tall, if you must know. As a result, there are maps of our University more detailed than any sane person could ask for. Sparker had borrowed one, and drawn circles and lines all over it in red. Some Civil Engineering student would not be pleased. While this was going on, the boys dragged a big trunk to centre stage.
“We have hidden a transmitter somewhere on the University grounds, and we will now attempt to find it.” He stabbed at the map. “We are here. This is the bell tower with our measuring equipment, and we have measured the transmissions in this direction. To find the exact location of the transmitter, Mr. Sallow… no, Mr. Uda will now take a second bearing. The device can be found at the intersection of the two lines. Mr. Uda, please?”
Mr. Uda walked up to the stage, and picked up the magic wand. Slowly, he turned the device round over our heads. Several people ducked. He stopped, turned back a little, called out the heading on the compass. As Parker made a note on the blackboard, Mr. Uda frowned. He reached for the machine and made some adjustments. He turned the wand round again.
“Dank-san? I am picking up a signal from the South.”
“South? We didn’t put anything in the South.” Dankworth walked up to the Device. “Bloody hell! This thing is blowing our poxy little test transmitter all the way to next Wednesday!”
“Has the Kirov Hermes device been re-activated?” Uda turned to Sparker. “The azimuth is one hundred and eighty two, Sir.”
Stewart coughed. “Um. Boys? Even if Kirov is hundreds of miles away from the nearest body of water, I can still tell you, it’s not to our South.”
Dankworth sneered. “No, it only uses the frequency of the Kirov apparatus. We were using that because someone torched the Kirov device.”
One of Brassica’s flower girls piped up. “This device can change the frequency of the world?!“
“Uh. No.” Dankworth frowned. “What do you mean, the frequency of the world?”
“The higher dimensional vibrations of the Merkabah, resonating with the Third Chakra.”
“Uh… No. Sorry. Another type of frequency.”
Uda turned the magic wand back to where it was before. “Parker-Sensei? The other signal has stopped. Azimuth now two-hundred and eighty degrees.”
“Echh!” Reid sneered. “I wish we had someone up in my tower. I’d have had them.”
“One of these days, Reid,” said Dankworth. “You have to tell me how you find those stations so fast.”
Reid raised her hands. “I turn the antenna till the Eye is smallest?”
“Yeah, so do we, but if I crank any faster, the mechanism will break.”
“I don’t have a mechanism. I’m up in the tower with the antennas. Four fixed ones to know it’s there, one rotary one for precision.”
Sallow grinned. “You’re up in the tower? Do you let your hair down to get out?”
Reid looked at Sallow strangely. “Wot?”
“Like Rapunzel. You’re a princess in your tower.”
“Ah bejayzes…” Reid buried her face in her hands. “Murphy? Hit him.”
Murphy chuckled. “Only for half of your Kingdom and your hand in marriage.”
“I bloody hate all of you.”
Sparker coughed loudly. “Two hundred and eighty, thank you Mr. Uda.” He walked over to the map and drew a line. It intersected with the other line exactly at the old disused chapel. Fernsby confirmed that was indeed the place where it was. And then, it was time for tea.
Sparker had arranged for tea and biscuits in the hall outside 2B. Surely, no expense had been spared. We took a fifteen minute break, and walked back inside where Walton had taken the stand. He talked about how the potency of a transmitter like the Hermes device grows with the wave length used, because these mystical waves are able to diffract around mountains and other obstacles along their way like ripples on a pond around an island. Some of these waves are over a thousand metres long, which is impressive, but doesn’t explain what it is that is doing the waving. I know of these things. A longer string on a piano will give a lower tone. Lower tones have a lower frequency, but there aren’t any mile-long pianos as far as I know. What, in short, were these people on about?
First mate Stewart raised a hand. “If it is permitted to ask now? How far are these ‘waves’ of yours able to go?”
Walton gave Sparker a look. Sparker shrugged. Walton turned back to the classroom. “Theoretically, we could detect a long range transmitter on the next continent, ten thousand miles away.”
Next to me, Mr. Khouri dropped his pencil. He quickly picked it up and wrote something in his notebook, underlining it twice. Without my reference book, I could only catch the words Iinahum Yarwnana before he saw me looking and closed the notebook. They see us. They see us?
“You alright Mr. Khouri?”
“Yes, yes. This is most impressive.” He gave me a look. “Should they be divulging this, though?”
“Yes. This is a place of learning.” I looked round the room. The plastered brick walls hung with maps, images of prehistoric animals, a table of all the alchemical elements known to humanity, its cupboards, bookcases. I turned back to Mr. Khouri. “This is a place dedicated to knowledge. We know things. That is what we do. For everyone to know more.” I smiled at him innocently. “You’d be surprised, the things we know.”
“Knowledge is power.”
“It is.”
The symposium was drawing to an end. Tomorrow, there would be groups of people working together, exchanging notes, forging bonds between like minded individuals. To close the event, Sparker took the stand. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered himself up.
“My friends.” Parker hesitated. He looked at the note in his hand, changed his mind, put it in his pocket. “Today you have seen demonstrations of the application of the Electrical sciences to communication between people of all places on this world. As with all progress, we did not accomplish this on our own. Science can be compared to a relay race. The torch is passed from one researcher, one thinker, one scientist, to the next. Among others, Heinrich Hertz, James Maxwell, Michael Faraday. These people are the ones who worked tirelessly in the face of disdain and ridicule, like we were witch doctors! Without their work, we could not have done what we have today.”
He took off his glasses, spent a moment polishing them, put them back on. “It is not only from our friends and colleagues that we learn things. The first working Hermes device was built by people who do not mean us well. The evildoers who attacked our school last year belonged to the same organisation. I travelled to Paris, and found there the final pieces to the puzzle. I am here to remind you that it is not only through the efforts of scientists that we make progress. There are those who keep us warm, fed, and above all else, safe.”
Dr. Parker’s face was solemn, quiet, like a dam holding back a sea of anger. “George Bennett was one of those men. He was stationed in Paris, guarding the Hermes device. In the short time I knew him, he became not only my protector, but also my friend. If it weren’t for the ultimate sacrifice of George Bennett, I would not be standing here today. It is in his honour that I named our listening post the George Bennett Array. Though George Bennett has passed, his name lives on, as does his vigilance. No matter where our enemies may hide, we will find them!”
I once led a group of a dozen Maths undergraduates from the Indies around our University, and since I can’t speak Hindi, and they spoke little English, much hand waving and pointing was involved. I managed to guide them through their week in faraway Ipswich with no casualties. This did not go unnoticed, so now I have a reputation as the matron of lost souls. Where is room 2B? When will the exam results be announced and where? Why won’t this girl even talk to me when I am only trying to be nice? Does everybody get homesick? Ask Professor Enderby, she will know.
The Trinity lot were staying here for a week, and they were not allowed to spend all that time in the Wizard’s Tower. Naturally, they flocked around me for the practical things. Which is fine. It’s not like I have students to teach, research to do, papers to correct. Herding two students and an Irish Prof keeps me from getting bored. I was just about to pick up Reid and Murphy for a lecture on Optics as applied to telescopes and microscopes. It wasn’t hard to guess where they would be, so I made my way to Sparker’s lair. On the way I bumped into Felicia and Andrew.
“Hello Margaret.” Felicia pointed at Andrew. “Are you up for a demonstration? The Beast is going for a run.”
“Sorry, can’t. I have a Physics lecture. I’m rounding up a few of the Sparks.”
“Well get them to come and see! Andrew has finished his… what is it called again, Andrew?”
“We have finished the installation of the Electromagnetic Turbines Mark One in the Tracked Vehicle Mark One. We will be conducting measurements to deduce the values of variables as yet unknown.”
“There you go.” Felicia beamed. “It’s also a big moment for Miss StJohn. She will be driving the Beast.” She looked at her watch. “Demonstration starts in twenty minutes.”
I hadn’t seen the Beast since we came back from Africa, so I made my way to the Tower and collected all the Sparks who knew something Electrical when they saw it, went into my class and collected my own students, who were perfectly happy to watch anything other than a bunch of formulae on refraction indices, and walked into the courtyard trailing a string of students without even a flute. We weren’t the first to arrive, as most girls and boys of the Rifle Club were already there.
I poked Miss Florence Albrecht. “What are you lot doing here? Developed a sudden interest in magic motors?”
“Naah. We’re here to cheer Carrie on. She’s driving.”
Miss Rina Prescott flipped open her notebook. “Doors are opening.”
Andrew stood in the doorway with his back to us. Deep within, there was a rumbling noise and a dark metal Thing moved within, advancing as Andrew walked backwards. Up top, the periscope moved from left to right as Miss StJohn inside turned her head to look where she was going. As soon as the Beast’s metal treads left the stone floor of its lair, there was an unworldly silence, broken only by a high-pitched whining noise coming from within. A massive lump of metal moved slowly forward. Without the noise of steam. Without belching smoke. And above all, quietly. Andrew held up his hands and all noise and movement ceased. The hatch opened and Miss StJohn’s head popped out.
“It’s working!”
Andrew didn’t even nod. Of course it was working. He walked into the shop and came out with one of those measuring wheels used by surveyors and two orange flags on thin sticks. He put one flag a few yards in front of the Beast, measured out exactly one hundred metres, planted the flag, pulled out a stop watch, and waved at Miss StJohn. She disappeared inside. Faint noises came from the Beast, and it set itself in motion. It ran over the first flag and trundled on towards the second flag in almost complete silence. The second flag fell. Andrew didn’t bother to write it down. He would remember. The Beast turned on the spot, one of the treads running forward, the other backward. Andrew picked up the fallen flag, put it back up, and came walking towards us with his surveyor’s wheel. He put the other flag back up and gave Miss StJohn a wave. Once more, the Beast started to move. About half way down the courtyard, it slowed down, to come to a stop about thirty yards away from the second flag. The hatch opened and Miss StJohn came up.
“Something is wrong. I’ve lost power. The lights have gone out.”
“The batteries are depleted,” said Andrew. “They must be recharged.”
Andrew rolled his surveyor’s wheel to the Beast, looked at the meter.
“The Tracked Vehicle Mark One has travelled one hundred and seventy four metres on a fully charged Planté cell. Plus the distance from the garage.”
Miss StJohn looked at the Beast, somewhat dismayed. “That won’t get us very far. Do you mean to say that we’ve been working all this time only to have it fail?”
“We have not failed,” said Andrew. “Results are within expectations.”
Miss StJohn scowled. “I was expecting something more than a trip to the gardens and back. Not even back all the way!”
“You were mistaken,” said Andrew. “We will move the Tracked Vehicle back into its garage. I will request materials for a larger battery from the Chancellor.”
“How?”
“I will request a team of horses from the stables. They can move the Vehicle back into its garage.”
And without another word, Andrew turned round and walked away into the building. Miss StJohn sat down on the ground, her back to the machine that until a moment ago had been her most proud achievement. She pulled off her hat and her long dark hair fell over her face, hiding it. I sat down next to her with many a creak in my joints.
“Miss StJohn?”
No answer.
“Carrie?”
She said nothing, and I nudged her with an elbow.
“Congratulations.”
An incredulous look was on her face. “What?“
“Your experiment was a success.”
“A success? It broke down!”
“No it didn’t. It’s out of fuel. It worked perfectly. All your welds held. All your pipes were connected properly.”
“Wires.”
“Yes. You can be proud.”
“I’ve achieved nothing.” Her voice sounded dull. “It needs too much electricity for a Planté cell.”
“Andrew is requesting the materials for a bigger cell.”
“There isn’t a big enough cell in the world! The vehicle would need a train of cells a mile long, and then maybe it could travel for two miles. We’ve put all this work into the machine and we’ve only made it worse. This thing is useless.”
“Carrie.” She looked up at me. “This may come as a surprise to you, but we are scientists. We produce ideas. We produce knowledge. We don’t usually make useful things. That’s an engineer’s work. Tell me. What have you learnt working on this thing?”
Miss StJohn thought a moment. “Welding. Electric wiring. Measuring. Design.”
“There. You are right that the Beast as it stands now will never go anywhere. But maybe someone will find a use for that engine in it. Maybe the way in which you control it will be used where you never expected it to go. Someone will find a use for the things you have thought up. Nothing is lost.”
“I wanted to ride it. It only worked for a few minutes, but…”
“Hey. StJohn.” Dankworth stood in front of us. “Ran out of juice then?”
Miss StJohn sighed. “Yeah.”
“That’s what I thought. Did I hear right that Parsons is going to get a couple of horsies?”
She nodded. Dankworth pointed over his shoulder where Sallow and Fernsby stood by a cart bearing large urns.
“That’s bloody embarrassing. Not going to happen,” said Dankworth. “Not when the Sparks can do something about it. These are the spare batteries from the GBA. Want to hook them up? It should get you back into the garage.”
Miss StJohn opened her mouth to say something, but broke out in a smile instead. She held up her hand, Dankworth took it and pulled her to her feet. I held my hand up as well, and Fernsby won second prize. They all disappeared inside, and maybe ten minutes later Miss StJohn looked out of the top hatch.
“Everybody, out of the way!”
And so ended the first and last ride of the Electrical Tracked Vehicle. Andrew applied for two thousand litres of sulphuric acid and half a ton of lead, but sadly, Malcolm Munroe denied the request. Andrew and Miss StJohn later put the steam turbines back into the Beast and used the electrical engine for another project. Miss StJohn volunteered for a few monitoring shifts on the George Bennett Array, decided she liked it, dropped her Biology, and signed up for Parker’s classes instead. Good. We need more girls in Physics.
It was a few days after the Electrical Beast Experiment. The Trinity lot had gone home, and Parker would be accompanying Mr. Uda and Mr. Yagi back to Edinburgh for some gentle yet forceful words on their treatment there. There was a knock on my door and I opened it on Mr. Omar Khouri. He would be setting off for Khartoum on the evening airship to Cairo, and then on to Khartoum by train.
“Omar,” I said. “Come on in. I was about to make some tea, would you like some?”
“Yes please, if I don’t inconvenience you.”
I put the kettle on and we sat down.
“I would like to thank you, Professor Enderby. You and Professor Wadcroft have been most helpful in piecing together the events leading to Najilah’s death, Allah yarhemha. I only wish I could have spoken with Miss Alexandra Tennant.”
“Their airship was lost in Mesoamerica. We don’t know if they are still alive.”
“That is only in the hands of Allah, but if I know anything, I think we have not heard the last of the Tennant family.”
“Deo volente,” I said. “Do you have all the information you need?”
“I believe I can convince Mr. Bouzid Moghadam that it was Sabine Moreau’s gun, and ultimately her will, that killed her.”
“The objective truth,” I said. “But maybe not the absolute truth.”
Omar laughed sadly. “In her final moments, Najilah repented of her wild adventures and Sabine killed her for it. That is what I will tell Ahmad. As for Bouzid…” Omar thought a moment. “I think I will tell him the full truth. Unlike Ahmad, he is aware of the darker places in Najilah’s character. He would not believe anything I could make up.” He put down his teacup and stood up. “Is there anything you wish to tell me before I leave?”
I took him to the door. “Give our condolences to Ahmad and his father.”
“I will do that. Fare well until Inshallah, we meet again.”
I opened the door to let Omar out, and found Parker out there about to knock. My goodness, I haven’t been this popular with the men since my own university days.
“What ho, Parker! What can I do you for?”
“Can I t-talk to you?” Parker looked at Omar, who gave him a friendly smile. “In p-p-private?”
“I will be on my way. Goodbye Professor.” He nodded at Parker. “Professor.”
Omar walked down the hallway. I took Parker inside, and scarlet woman that I am, I offered him tea as well. Old age robs you of all semblance of morals.
“What do you have Parker?”
“This came in from Dublin.” He put a note on my desk, turned it to me.
INTERCEPTED MORSE MESSAGE AZ 253. TIME 0428 PARTIAL MESSAGE READS NCONTRE CARL FATIN BEBE TENNANT, AUSSI PRESENT PHILIP ET ALEXANDER TENNANT BRENDA LI. TOUS VIF. ONT AID PNAL ENTRER CITE. LADY I EN PANNE NON CAPABLE DE VOL. MESSAGE ENDS. IS THIS FRENCH? RAPUNZEL.I took a breath. “They’re alive!”
“Yes.”
“Thank God!” I looked at the message again. “The Tennants are crawling all over the City of Hooptyfloop. I hope they’re being careful. Oh what am I saying? Lady I is, um, not capable of… theft? No, flight. So they’re stuck there. Bloody hell.” I looked up at Parker. “Rapunzel?“
“Miss Eileen Reid. They call her that because her listening p-post is in the t-top of the t-tower. And she has long hair.”
“She managed to catch all that? She is good!“
“She is the Empress of b-biscuits.”
“Thank you for this, Parker. Have you told Wadcroft?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s go.”
We made our way to Wadcroft’s chambers and banged on his door. He wasn’t in, or hiding under his desk. I pulled out my class schedule, and found he was giving a lecture on Interesting Rocks in auditorium one. We walked over there, sneaked into the back seats, and spent fifteen minutes listening to Alan holding forth about ignivomous crystals or something. He finished his lecture and we marched up to him.
“Wadcroft!”
Alan calmly gathered up his notes, put them in a folder. “Hello Margaret. Parker. Good to see you are finally taking an interest in things coming out of volcanoes. Is there anything you need to have explained?”
“They’re alive!“
“They are? Splendid!” Wadcroft took off his glasses and put them in their case. “Margaret, would you mind terribly explaining what you are on about?”
“The Tennants, you oaf! We’ve had news of them!”
“What? Have they returned?”
“No. Lady I is broken down, and they can’t fly. They’re sneaking round Anctapolepl.”
“Good Lord! How do you know this?”
I grinned at Wadcroft. “Well, we are living in the New World, don’t you know?”
“Miss Reid intercepted a message,” said Parker.
“Biscuit for her,” said Alan. “Shall we inform Malcolm?”
Chancellor Malcolm Munroe has his office near the entrance gates, and we made for it. As we walked into the courtyard, a carriage came rolling through the gates. It stopped and out came Dr. Godfrey Pike, Miss Jocelyn Vale wearing a rather fetching blue striped dress and dark stockings instead of her school uniform, and Agent Wainwright of the Secret Service. I had missed Jocelyn in my Physics class, but she had a note from Pike. I waved at them.
“Oi you lot. Follow me. We’ve got news!”
“So do we,” said Pike.
We all bundled into Clarice’s office, and she stuck her head in Malcolm’s office to see if he was entertaining. He wasn’t, and we were all let in even without an appointment. The End Days are here, I tell you. Malcolm’s office has a beautiful hardwood table for board meetings, and we all sat down and compared notes.
Jocelyn shuffled uncomfortably on her chair, half raised her finger before remembering that she was here in her capacity of International Woman of Mystery.
“Um,” she said. “Can I tell the Club about this? We’ve all been trying not to think about Miss Tennant and her family. I know, operational secrecy and all that, but it doesn’t feel right that I am the only one who knows they are still alive.”
Pike looked at her for a few moments. “Tell them that Captain Tennant wrote to me, and that we know they are alive. But not a word more than that. If they insist, tell them I told you nothing more. Understood?”
Jocelyn nodded. “Understood. Thank you.”
Pike pulled out a stack of photographs of documents. “This information was collected from Arkham. We know that Boreas initially had no hostile intentions towards Lady I, but nevertheless a firefight broke out. Boreas was destroyed. Lady I was disabled. If we may believe Master Nazeem, there was an… Influence on board Boreas, which drove them to attack. I have no idea how reliable that information is.”
“That’s usually the case where Master Nazeem is involved.” I looked at one of the photographs. “Is that the muster roll?”
“It is. The one interesting name on it is blacked out with ink. All we know is that person’s name starts with an O, because it’s between Oldfield and O’Rourke.”
“Or an R.” I picked up the photograph. “O’Rourke sometimes gets sorted under Rourke rather than O.”
Pike blinked. “O or R, then. If we assume that a vowel follows the R, it could be Ra, Re, or Ri.”
Alan put his hand on the table, and we looked at each other.
“Riley!” we said, both at the same time.
The Algernon Expeditions 