Two men from Atwood"s party lifted Josephine out of Atwood"s lap and laid her on the floor. Arthur couldn"t avoid noting the resemblance of her posture to what"s-his-name"s Ophelia. The thought made him sick.
"Not Mars," Atwood said. "Or not precisely." He waved a hand at the ceiling, as if to indicate the heavens. Looking around, Arthur noticed for the first time that some pack of lunatics had vandalised the floor with a huge shaky-handed maze of paint, a ma.s.s of nonsense scribbles.
"Precisely," Arthur said. "Precisely?"
"We were exploring certain energy states within the astral light," Atwood said. "The aether, as you may know it-Mars is the sign or symbol of that Sphere of Being. We had slowed our vibrations to the point of-"
"Stop jabbering. Speak English. What have you done to her?"
"We appear to have lost her," Jupiter said.
Atwood got up and paced, jabbing an accusatory finger at Jupiter. "You don"t know that!"
Arthur thumped the table. "What have you done to her, Atwood?"
Atwood thumped the table too. "I should have you arrested!"
"What have you done to her? Is this poisons? Or hypnotism? Or, or, or-"
"I wouldn"t expect you to understand. G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" Atwood turned to one of his party, a man who oddly resembled the Prime Minister. "Call Gracewell. Bring him here this instant-tell him, tell him we need new calculations. We must retrieve her-"
"New calculations?" Jupiter said. "Delay and distraction. Now is not the time."
Arthur and Atwood both shouted Delay? Jupiter raised an eyebrow.
The Prime Ministerial-looking fellow hurried out of the room.
"Wait a moment," Arthur said. "Gracewell? The calculations-you mean from his Engine? But Gracewell"s gone."
Atwood stopped pacing. "What do you mean, gone?"
"Kidnapped, I suppose; by the same men who cut me."
Jupiter threw up her hands in exasperation and walked away from the table.
The maid came back, with a butler in tow. They had a kettle, a silver basin, and a tray with needle and thread and scissors, et cetera, which they laid out on the table. The Indian gentleman called for better light, and started to cut Arthur"s shirt open. The man had strong hands, square fingers, and a golden ring with an ornate design that Arthur couldn"t quite make sense of.
"Arthur." The woman who spoke had been silent until now. She was dressed in black velvet, fair-haired and pale, perhaps in her forties, and very beautiful. She sounded French. "Arthur: who were these men?"
"I don"t-ow! G.o.d d.a.m.n it-I don"t know."
Beside the Frenchwoman was a much younger woman, in colourful Indian-style attire, who appeared to be on the verge of fainting. In a corner of the room a long-bearded and beaky old chap in a green velvet coat stood talking to a man of rather square proportions in a black suit, who was holding a rifle. That appeared to be the whole of Atwood"s party.
Arthur tried to stand. The Indian gentleman restrained him, politely but firmly.
"Let me go, d.a.m.n you."
"You may call me Sun, Mr Shaw. Now sit, before you do yourself further injury."
"b.l.o.o.d.y lunatics," Arthur said. "Mayfair warlocks and table-rappers-this, this, b.l.o.o.d.y Mad Hatter"s tea party. What will you do if I don"t sit? Turn me into a frog?"
"If necessary," Sun said.
"This is all nonsense. No one can go to Mars-no one can go to Mars by sitting around a table calling each other stupid names. It"s b.l.o.o.d.y nonsense! You"ve drugged her. I"m taking her to a doctor."
"Come here," Atwood said.
Jupiter said, "No."
"Yes! Come here, and see if it"s nonsense, Shaw. Mr Sun-please help him."
He walked away, towards a door in the corner of the room.
Arthur followed, leaning on Sun"s shoulder, thinking that-wound or no wound-if he jumped on Atwood from behind he could break his little neck.
Atwood unlocked the door and turned on an electrical light. Behind the door was another, much smaller library. It smelled strongly of dust and of dead flowers. All of the books were locked away behind gla.s.s and wrought iron; Arthur supposed that this was the pride of Atwood"s collection. There was a fine oak table in the middle of the room, on which lay what Arthur first took to be a little girl, in a dress of blue and purple lace, curled up and sleeping.
On a second glance, it was not remotely similar to a little girl, but nor was it a great deal more similar to anything else in Arthur"s experience. It had long thin limbs. Four of them; two arms and two legs. Normal enough, but each leg had two double-jointed knees, so that they could fold up in a way that no human being"s limbs could, not even those of a circus contortionist or yogi. The creature was wasp-waisted beyond a corset-maker"s wildest fantasies, while its chest was deep and powerful-looking. It might have been tremendously tall if it were standing, but it folded up into a tiny thing, like a flower shrinks when it dries. What had reminded Arthur briefly of a frilly dress was part of its body-wings, perhaps, though they did not look strong or solid enough to fly. It was breathing, though with apparent difficulty. Its face resembled nothing quite like any of the races of the Earth: long and thin, almost noseless, a bright petal of a mouth ...
Arthur felt the world shift beneath his feet.
"What"s..." His throat was dry. "What is that, Atwood?"
"We don"t know," Jupiter said. "We brought it back by accident on our last exploration. We were investigating the border of the Fourth Sphere. Somehow we pulled it along in our wake."
"We bagged it by accident," Atwood said. "But nevertheless we bagged it. A native."
"It"s-it"s alive."
"In a manner of speaking," Atwood said. "I believe that its consciousness became intertwined with ours-perhaps it was conducting a similar experiment from the other side, perhaps merely studying the stars-and when we pulled it back with us ... well, Shaw, I don"t want to dazzle you with jargon. I believe it to be a thought-form. The thing, finding itself in what must appear to it to be Heaven, or h.e.l.l, managed-in what may have been an unconscious exercise of the will-to clothe itself in a memory of its proper flesh. A memory condensed from the stuff of the aether and from the powers we had invoked that night. It appears to have exhausted the last of its strength."
"Balderdash," called the old man in the green coat. "It"s an angel."
Atwood locked the thing away again. For a moment he looked thoroughly pleased with himself, as if a brilliant idea had struck him; then he glanced at Josephine and his face fell.
Sun helped Arthur back to the table. The Frenchwoman watched him with a certain ironic sympathy. Her panicky young colleague appeared to have fled.
He was aware of the debates amongst astronomers over the possibility of life on other worlds, and whether the lines that were visible by telescope on the face of Mars were or were not ca.n.a.ls. The Mammoth"s readers took a heated interest in Mars; it was fashionable, and entertaining, and it seemed to many people that the question of the progress or decline of Martian civilization was full of urgent significance for the progress or decline of England, and indeed of Earth. Arthur had always been something of an agnostic. He"d always doubted that the "ca.n.a.ls" were anything more than shadows, smudges on the lens, figments of the astronomer"s imagination-a product of the very human desire to see pattern, order, and purpose in the universe. On the other hand, it had always seemed to him that Mars ought to be inhabited; it would be a rather second-rate Creation if G.o.d had left most of it empty.
But what kind of G.o.d would make that-thing? And in whose image?
He looked at Josephine and was suddenly angry again. He was so tired and confused that he hardly knew where to direct his anger.
"She wouldn"t!" He thumped the table. "Why would she get involved in-in-in whatever this-something so dangerous, so mad? That thing-did she know? Did she know what you were doing?"
Atwood stiffened. He seemed to take offense. "Yes. Of course. Do you think I am a-a kidnapper of some sort? She came of her own free will."
"Why would she do that? Why wouldn"t she tell me?"
"She"s a woman of exceptional sensitivity, Shaw, exceptional talent-she understood the importance of this experiment. No doubt she could see you wouldn"t understand."
"I visited her," Jupiter said.
Atwood turned to her. "What?"
"I visited her, and I urged her to join tonight"s experiment."
Arthur said, "You? Why did she-why would she?"
Jupiter looked at him, and at Atwood, and then said, "I offered her two hundred pounds from the Company"s general fund. And I instructed her not to tell you, Atwood, because I knew you would make a fuss."
Atwood stared, open-mouthed. "A fuss?"
Arthur slumped in his chair. He felt faint.
Jupiter shrugged. "You said it yourself, Atwood-she had talent. Look what happened, the very first time she joined us! We needed strength. She needed money. And we cannot have further delays."
She looked around the room, and sighed. "Good Lord, we hardly need enemies when we have jealous lovers!"
Arthur tried to stand-possibly to throttle someone, he wasn"t sure-but his leg went out from under him.
The Indian gentleman steadied him. "Sit still, Mr Shaw, or you may die before you can answer our questions."
Gritting his teeth, Arthur permitted Mr Sun to see to his wound.
While Sun cleaned and st.i.tched, the remaining members of Atwood"s party conferred. Arthur learned that the Frenchwoman was called Therese Didot. The bearded, beaky old chap was called Ura.n.u.s, or Donaldson, and had a professorial, pedantic manner. They all quickly reached agreement that Gracewell had to be rescued from wherever he"d been taken.
"No," Arthur said. "To h.e.l.l with Gracewell-you have to help Josephine."
"Yes," Atwood said. "Of course. But first we need Gracewell. We need Gracewell"s Engine to calculate her whereabouts."
"Her whereabouts?"
"Don"t be dense. I mean, the whereabouts of her consciousness, within the astral realms."
"But his Engine"s in ruins."
"He"s rebuilding it. All the more reason not to waste time."
"I certainly agree we must recover Gracewell," Jupiter said. "I see very little hope of finding Miss Bradman without him."
"No," Atwood said. "No, no-only he can determine our energy at the time, our trajectory of descent, our ... Look, Shaw, make yourself useful. Who took Gracewell? Where?"
"Bring her a b.l.o.o.d.y pillow, at least."
"What?"
"She"s lying on the floor, Atwood. Send your maid for a pillow."
"Oh. Oh, yes, yes..." He went off to ring the bell for one of his servants.
"Who took Gracewell?" Jupiter said. "Describe them."
Arthur looked around the room. Jabbering madmen, broken gla.s.s, nonsense painted on the floor, that, that thing in the next room ...
"I won"t leave Josephine"s fate in the hands of you, you, you maniacs. We have to save her. I"ll-I"ll-"
The Frenchwoman leaned forward and touched his hand. "Who took Mr Gracewell, Arthur?"
Jupiter toyed thoughtfully with her necklace. "Perhaps you can help us, Mr Shaw."
"If I must. If I must."
"We do need a ninth," said the Frenchwoman. "I think perhaps we need a ninth and an eighth, because I think that little thing and her Indian dress may not be coming back..."
Atwood returned to the table.
Jupiter said, "Mr Shaw wishes to join our company. If not until he attains enlightenment, then at least for the duration of the present hostilities."
"What? I didn"t say-oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, all right, if I must. Ow, d.a.m.n it, that hurts."
Atwood looked at Arthur, and then around the faces at the table. "Oh. Hmm. Well, then. Around and around, changing chairs. Will we employ Mr Lewis next, or the cook? Clearly Lewis is unsuited to be a doorman."
"Gracewell was able to make use of Mr Shaw," Jupiter said. "And so long as the girl is in peril, we can trust him."
"It goes against the grain to poach from the Engine. Not the done thing, somehow. But these are desperate times."
Sun, having finished st.i.tching, lit a cigarette and asked if all were agreed.
"We are," Atwood said. "Welcome to the Company of the Spheres, Mr Shaw. Now, speak. Tell us how you lost Mr Gracewell."
"I wasn"t his b.l.o.o.d.y bodyguard. n.o.body told me I was anybody"s b.l.o.o.d.y bodyguard. Besides, he"d sent me off to the country to see a Mrs Archer-"
Miss Didot hissed. Jupiter leapt to her feet. "Archer! What does that awful old woman have to do with this?"
"She was working with Gracewell-something to do with the stars. Good G.o.d, is that what it was all for? For-this, this-"
"Who"s Archer, then?" said the man in the black suit.
"A woman of notorious reputation, in certain circles," said Jupiter. "Quite notorious. Atwood-did you know? How long has she been involved in all this?"
"Yes. For some time. We needed her. I knew you would be upset! But she knows nothing, and I can control her, if need be."
"Ha!"
"Please, my dear-not now. Let Mr Shaw finish."