"Balderdash," Mycroft expostulated.
"Baron Maupertuis does not think so," the Doctor said.
"What do you mean?"
The Doctor seemed to grow within his strange costume. A flicker of sparks from the fire caught his eyes and made them glow with a fierce, blue light.
"Baron Maupertuis is raising an army to invade that world in the name of colonial imperialism. He intends claiming it by force. It"s a barbaric act, and it must be stopped. I shall stop it. Humanity"s crimes will be appalling enough when it eventually develops s.p.a.ce travel, but to have Victorian armies spreading unchecked through dimensional gateways is almost too much to bear. And if the planet in question is inhabited... even with your antiquated weapons, the slaughter of innocent indigents could be immense."
There was a silence after the Doctor spoke in which the import of his words seemed to echo gently, like a struck bell.
"How did Maupertuis hear about it?" I asked, then cursed myself for getting sucked into the Doctor"s deranged story.
"I don"t know," he mused. "Somebody must have tipped him off. Perhaps this Madame Sosostris. She appears to know more about piercing the veil than I would have liked"
"Or perhaps the cowled figure," Holmes growled. "I knew I should have stayed behind to unmask him!"
"I"m sorry," Mycroft said, echoing my own thoughts, "but this is all. too preposterous for words. I"m not surprised that you"ve got sucked into it, Sherlock, you always were an excitable child, but you, Sherringford, you disappoint me. I always looked up to you as the hard-working member of the family, devoid of fancy. Now I find you accepting this lunatic"s unsubstantiated word for a story more riddled with holes than a Gruyere.
Talking of which, I do believe that I can hear a substantial dinner and a bottle of port calling to me, so if you"ll excuse me..."
Mycroft began to manoeuvre his ma.s.sive bulk towards the door, like a battleship attempting to come alongside a narrow dock.
"Unsubstantiated?" the Doctor said quietly, but with such force that Mycroft halted in his tracks. "I think not. Perhaps you could introduce us to your other guest, Mr Holmes."
Sherringford said nothing. The Doctor crossed the room and, grasping an edge of the tapestry, pulled it sharply to one side. The tapestry moved like a curtain, revealing an alcove in which stood . . .
. . . in which stood . . .
. . . I cannot bring myself to write the words, even now, without a great mental effort and a stiff tumbler of brandy. It has been said that if you shake a man"s world hard enough, it is the man that crumbles, not the world.
When the creature in the alcove walked forward, its five spindly legs jointed in odd directions and supporting a wrinkled and sagging body, the whole thing looking like something that a man with a handful of pipe-cleaners and a walnut might have modelled in an odd moment, I felt my mind teeter on the verge of collapse. A red mist rose before my eyes and the floor rocked beneath my feet. I could not believe what I was seeing, and yet I knew with a terrible certainty that it was no illusion or puppet. I knew, because I had seen it before. It had been hidden in the shadows outside Mrs Prendersly"s house, it had moved across a fire on the other side of the Serpentine, it had been standing in the garden of the brothel in Drummond Crescent and we had followed it to the Library.
It had been following me.
"Gentlemen," it said in a soft, sibilant voice as it halted in the centre of the room, "we of Ry"leh need your help."
Interlude AF135/5/3/14.
V-ON, BRD-ABLE, WPU - 546.7.
VERBAL INPUT, COMPRESS AND SAVE.
MILITARY LOG FILE EPSILON.
CODE GREEN FIVE.
ENABLE.
I"m crouched on a catwalk about a hundred and fifty metres above the ground. Well, I say catwalk. Actually it"s just three strips of wood running from side to side of one building to another, and they don"t have cats here, just chocolate-favoured animals with skates, and three-legged rats.
I tracked the things back to where they came from. Bit of a trek - couple of hundred klicks, I guess. It"s a town, heavily fortified. The things live here and worship in this big temple thing. There"s other creatures out on the plain -vicious things, killers. They seem to act like guards. Don"t quite understand the set-up.
I"m hugging the wall beneath a slit-like window, trying to make out a conversation inside the temple-thing. I"m dictating this live, just in case something happens to me, like I fall, or I"m found out. I can hear voices inside the room. I"m holding the log-implant up to the window now.
"My children, you have done well. I am pleased."
That"s one"s actually in the room. Odd-sounding voice, like it"s not real at all. Like that old Pink Floyd song: there"s someone in my head, but it"s not me.
"When shall we bask again in your presence?"
Bloke"s voice. Sounds like it"s a long way away.
"Soon, very soon."
"The armies are gathered."
"You must see to them yourself. The brethren will be committed to moving me soon."
"I would crave a request, oh luminous one."
Crawler.
"Name it. You are my favoured son."
G.o.d, they"re all at it. It"s like a convention of teachers" pets.
"There is interference here. I would ask that a few of the brethren are spared to protect this side of the gateway."
"Interference? You displease me. The guards are mobilizing. Soon they may realize our plans. I am loath to spare any of the brethren."
"A detective and a stranger called the Doctor are investigating our affairs.
They are nothing, but I would not take chances with your safety at stake."
Yay, Professor! Nice to know that it"s all coming together.
"Nothing can threaten my safety, but this Doctor may pose problems. You may have four of the brethren. They will be waiting this side of the gateway..."
There"s a sort of scuffle, then the background noise an the room changes in some strange way I can"t quite put my finger on. I think contact has been broken.
Just as I"m about to scramble down, the thing in the room murmurs something to itself.
"If only the gateway wasn"t so dangerous," it says, like it"s talking to itself.
Self-pity just ladled on with a trowel. "If they sing one note wrong then I shall never escape this h.e.l.lish place."
Then it trails off into silence, and heavy breathing. Time to leave. I think I"ll make my way back to the plain. To where the Doctor said things would be happening. Beats being bored, dunnit?"
DISABLE.
3531/748/AD PIP.
Chapter 8.
In which a journey is continued and a conversation is recalled.
Bright morning sunshine hit the Mediterranean and shattered into a thousand silvery fragments. I raised a hand to shield my eyes and squinted into the glare. Across the glittering sea I could just make out the line of sand that marked the Egyptian coast. It seemed to float upon the water like a dirty brown sc.u.m.
We had engaged pa.s.sage upon the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company"s ship SS Matilda Briggs. Two weeks out of Tilbury, bound for Bombay, we had just come within sight of Port Said - gateway to the Suez Ca.n.a.l. The town was just a jumble of sand-coloured buildings with the occasional dyed awning or flag fluttering in the breeze. Those pa.s.sengers who had not made the trip before would no doubt flock to sh.o.r.e. The rest of us would be in the bar.
The stretch of water between the ship and the town was already littered with a flotsam of small boats, rafts and dinghies, all heading our way. I knew what to expect. Within the hour we would be invaded by all manner of Arab salesmen hawking insanitary food, unfashionable tropical clothing and insalubrious "French photographs", along with an entourage of conjurors and beggars, gawkers and hangers-on. The crew would stand by to repel boarders, of course, but it would be of no avail. These peaceful but insistent pirates could not be stopped.
I turned, luxuriating in the slight movement of air across my skin. I was clad only in my nightshirt, as were all of the gentlemen on this side of the deck.
Most of us had rolled up our bedding by now, and soon we would dress to allow the lascars to swab the decks. Any ladies brave enough to sleep above deck would, I presumed, be doing so on the other side of the ship.
We all had cabins, of course. Those of us who had made the trip before were travelling POSH - port out, starboard home - to escape direct sunlight.
The weather had been comfortable for the first week, but as we pa.s.sed Italy and Greece the calm, temperate climate of Europe had given way to the oppressive sultriness of the tropics and the captain had given permission for anybody who so wished to sleep on deck. Old hands like me knew the value of staking an immediate claim, and had bagged deckchairs in the lee of the superstructure of funnels and masts. The johnny-come-latelies would have to make do with the bare deck nearer the rails.
I dressed leisurely and wandered forward. The lascars were folding away the canvas part.i.tions and beginning to hose down the decks. As I pa.s.sed the lifeboats I caught a glimpse of the Doctor"s diminutive form at the prow of the ship, standing in the same position that I had left him in the previous night.
"Did you sleep well?" I ventured, walking over to join him. Warm salt water sprayed my face as the Matilda Briggs cleaved the waves.
"I don"t sleep," he rejoined without taking his gaze from the glittering sea.
I took his measure. His eyes were bright, and his countenance ruddy, although his dark scowl suggested some inner turmoil. His hair was slicked back by the spume.
"I can provide you with a sleeping draught."
"You misunderstand," he said. "I mean I don"t sleep. Ever."
"The human const.i.tution is not designed to operate without rest."
"Indeed," he said dismissively, "a crippling flaw which I would have advised against if the designer had consulted me first"
I let that one pa.s.s, and gazed out across the water. I could make out small figures on the quayside now, swarming like ants. The heat was like an oppressive weight. A sudden gust of wind swept spray into my face, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
"What have you been doing all night, if not sleeping?" I said eventually, more to break the silence than for any other reason.
"Thinking."
"Deep thoughts, then, to have taken so long."
He turned his head and gazed at me. His eyes were violet in colour, shot through with tiny threads of orange. I had never seen their like before. I could see no expression that I recognized in them, nothing human at all.
"The deepest," he said quietly. "This journey worries me. We"re too exposed.
If Baron Maupertuis or his mysterious hooded colleague wish to stop us, we"re sitting here like horda in a pit."
"Like what?"
He smiled suddenly, and his face was transformed from sulky glower to almost imbecilic happiness.
I mean, like china ducks in a shooting gallery." He sighed. "I won"t feel safe until we get to Bombay."
I gazed out across the water, but in my mind it was a different sea and I was just a boy.
"I remember, many years ago," I murmured, more to myself than to the Doctor, "travelling to Australia with my father and brother in a decrepit barque with a leaky hull and a cracked main spar. We rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the middle of a storm. I hope to G.o.d never to sail seas that rough again. I was as sick as a dog for weeks on end. I thought I was condemned to live on the ship forever, the journey took so long."
A dash of sea-spray in my face pulled me back to reality.
"Nowadays, thanks to modern know-how," I continued, "a six-month journey from England to India can be accomplished in four weeks."
A slight sneer seemed to caress the Doctor"s lips.
"Modern know-how? You humans are all the same. Would it surprise you to learn that the first ca.n.a.l linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was dug over two thousand years ago? Not much more than a furrow in the sand, but they only had small ships in those days, not -" and he looked around him" - miracles of technology such as this. That ca.n.a.l lasted for eight hundred years before falling into disuse. Do you think this one will last anywhere near as long?"
He c.o.c.ked his head on one side and looked up at me with a bright, sparrow-like gaze. I opened my mouth to stammer an answer, but he continued speaking.
"Pharaoh Necho started to re-dig the ca.n.a.l a century later. The Ca.n.a.l of the Pharaohs, they called it. A hundred thousand men died in the digging.
Perhaps they should have called it the Ca.n.a.l of the Dead. Necho was the son of old Psammitichus, you know? Lovely man: liked his drink, but then don"t we all? Anyway, Darius took it over when Necho snuffed it, and my old friend Ptolemy took it over when Darius shuffled off this mortal coil. Or was taken upon the boat of the Night to join his ancestors, as I"m sure he would have liked to think of it. Ptolemy even built a lock in the ca.n.a.l: you probably thought that the English invented locks, didn"t you?"
I shook my head, but the Doctor wasn"t looking. He seemed to have got himself into a rut, and intended to keep talking until the subject was exhausted.
"Well, after about five hundred years the ca.n.a.l was impa.s.sable, and it wasn"t until the Romans took over the country that anything more got done.
They liked straight roads, did the Romans. They must have loved the idea of a ca.n.a.l. Emperor Trajan restored it, but a hundred years later it had silted up again. When the Moslems conquered Egypt the Caliph Omar ordered the governor, a little rat-faced man by the name of Amr-ibn-al-Aas as I recall, to ream it out again. They called it the Ca.n.a.l of the Prince of the Faithful, and it lasted until the eighth century. That was a thousand years ago. Your version of the Suez Ca.n.a.l has been open for - what? twenty years? -and you think you"ve given Mother Nature a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. What was it Sh.e.l.ley wrote?
"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing endures, Doctor Watson, nothing endures."
He stopped abruptly. I felt chastened.
"Your historical knowledge is exceptional," I said eventually.
"I pick things up, here and there."
"There"s usually a trip arranged across land to see Cairo and the pyramids.
You can pick up the ship again at Suez. Will you be signing up for it?"