some cold cuts and so forth?'
'That would be excellent. Thank you.'
She departed.
Burton rolled one of the copies and placed it into a canister. This he put into the messenger pipe. With a blast of steam, it went on its way to Buckingham Palace. A few moments later, he sent the second copy to 10 Downing Street.
He prepared the study for his guests-stoking the fire, arranging armchairs around it, refilling the brandy decanter.
He sat and read for half an hour.
Algernon Swinburne was the first to arrive. Like Burton, he was covered in yellowing bruises and healing injuries. He was limping slightly.
'Your little paperboy, Oscar, just accosted me on the street,' he announced. 'He asked me to pass on his congratulations and he hopes you're recovering from your injuries.'
'How the dickens did he get wind of it?' exclaimed Burton. 'There's been nothing said to the press!'
'You know what these newsboys are like,' replied Swinburne, easing himself carefully into a chair. 'They know a great deal about far too much. He also asked me to advise you that `one can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.''
Burton laughed. 'Quips is being exceptionally optimistic. I hardly think our little victory is enough to mend my reputation. Richard Burton might be battered and bruised but `Ruffian Dick' is alive and well, I'm sure!'
'That might be true in certain quarters, but, for certain, your stock has risen with King Albert and Lord Palmerston, and that's what matters. I'll have a brandy, please-but purely for medicinal reasons.'
'How are you, Algy? Recovering?'
'Yes, though the hole in my arse cheek hurts like blazes. I fear I shall have to skip my birchings for a few weeks.'
'Bad news for London's houses of ill repute,' noted Burton, pouring his friend's drink. 'They'll have to tighten their belts, if you'll pardon the pun.'
'Thank you,' said Swinburne, accepting the glass. 'By the sound of those thundering footsteps, old Trounce is coming up the stairs.'
The door opened and the thickset Yard man stomped in.
'Greetings, both!' he announced, slapping his bowler onto a desk. 'The confounded fog is closing in again. Every pea-souper is a bonanza for the criminal classes! I tell you, I'm going to have my work cut out for me over the next few days. I say, Burton, what the heck did Spring Heeled Jack mean?'
'When?' asked the king's agent.
Trounce threw himself into an armchair and stretched out his legs to warm his feet by the fire. He took a proffered cigar from his host.
'You said he told you to-what was it?-`enjoy your boots'?'
'No. He said `enjoy your reboot.' A curious turn of phrase. Language is a malleable thing, old chap; it follows a process much like Darwin's evolution-parts of it become defunct and fade from usage, while new forms develop to fit particular needs. I have little doubt that `reboot' has a very specific significance in the future. His future, at least.'
'The meaning seems clear enough,' mused Swinburne. 'Replacing your old boots with new ones is like preparing yourself for a new and potentially long journey. Your old boots may not last for the duration, so you reboot, as it were, before you set off. Like reshoeing a horse.'
'It seems as good an explanation as any,' agreed Burton. 'And it fits the context.'
He handed Trounce a brandy and, with his own, sat down and lit a cigar.
'Detective Inspector Honesty should be along soon. Have you two made your peace?'
'I'll say!' enthused the police detective. 'The man saved me from a werewolf! He may look like a whippet but he fights like a tiger. I saw him taking on men twice his size with his bare hands-and he downed the blighters! Besides, when the dust had settled he came over, shook my hand, and apologised for ever doubting me. I'm not one to hold a grudge, especially against a man like that!'
'Ow!' yelled Swinburne. 'Bloody dog!'
'Come here, Fidget!' ordered Burton. 'Sorry, Algy. I forgot he was in the room!'
The basset hound hung his head and ambled over to its master, settling at his feet, from where it gazed fixedly at Swinburne's ankles.
'Blessed pest!' grumbled the poet.
'You owe this blessed pest your life,' observed Burton. 'Excuse me a moment.'
He'd heard a rattle from the messenger tube. A canister thunked into it as he reached the desk. It was a message from Palmerston: Burke and Hare dismantled wreckage. Remains of Darwin, Galton, Beresford, and Oxford identified. Time suit recovered and destroyed. Good work.
'Palmerston says the time suit has been destroyed,' he told his guests.
'Do you believe him?' asked Trounce.
'Not at all. It will at least have been put out of harm's way, though.'
'We can but hope,' muttered Swinburne.
Mrs. Angell entered with a tray of cold meats, pickles, sliced bread, and a pot of coffee. Detective Inspector Honesty stepped in behind her.
'Sorry, late!' he said. 'Came on velocipede. Broke down. Accursed things.'
'Have a seat, Honesty! Thank you, Mrs. Angell,' said Burton.
His housekeeper glanced dolefully at Honesty's well-greased hair, obviously considering the well-being of her embroidered antimacassars. She left the study.
The newly arrived policeman sat, refused a brandy, and lit a pipe.
'A hundred and twenty-six men in custody,' he declared. 'Seventy-two Rakes. Fifty-four Technologists. All charged with assault.'
'And Brunel?' asked Burton, returning to his chair.
'Location unknown. Nothing to charge him with.'
'And to be frank,' added Trounce, 'the chief commissioner is reluctant to press charges, anyway. As far as most people are concerned, Isambard Kingdom Brunel died a national hero a couple of years ago. The powers that be are reluctant to expose his continued existence, the thing that he's become, or the fact that he appears to have crossed ethical boundaries.'
'And Florence Nightingale?' asked Swinburne.
'Same,' said Honesty. 'No charges.'
'She's a strange one,' mused Swinburne.
'Not as strange as the Edward Oxfords,' grunted Trounce. 'I still can't get to grips with the fact that the man I saw trying to stop the assassination of Queen Victoria was struggling with his own ancestor, and was the same man as the stilt-walker who ran past me, the same man as the stilt-walker who jumped out of the trees, and the same man we fought over in the Battle of Old Ford twenty years later! Good lord! Time travel! It's more than I can cope with!'
Burton blew out a plume of cigar smoke.
'That's the least of it. We removed the cause but we didn't repair the damage. The fact of the matter is that we live in a world that shouldn't exist. Oxford changed the course of history. His presence sent out ripples that altered everything. If I understand it correctly, this period of time should be called the Victorian Age, and if you care to get up and look out of the window, what you'll see bears only a superficial resemblance to what you'd be looking at had he never travelled back through time.'
'And we are changed, too,' added Swinburne. 'Our time has presented us with different opportunities and challenges; we are not the same as the people recorded in Oxford's history!'
'If we made it into his history at all!' muttered Trounce.
Sir Richard Francis Burton shifted uneasily in his chair.
Marry the bitch. Settle down. Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the fuck else they send you.
For the remainder of that evening, the four men relaxed together, discussed the case, and cemented their