“Would you mind if I explained later, Miss Mayson? There really isn't any time to spare.”
“Very well. This way, please.” She lifted an umbrella from a stand and led them along the passage. “I'm afraid you'll have to pass the parakeets to get to the swans.”
Bhatti grinned and said, “We policemen are used to a little abuse. I take it they've not found a solution to the problem yet?”
“Through this room, gentlemen. The cages are beyond. No, Constable-um-?”
“Bhatti, Miss.”
“No, Constable Bhatti, they haven't. Wait a moment.”
She stopped at a door, fiddled with a key ring, located the appropriate key, and fitted it into the lock.
“Brace yourselves,” she advised, with a wry smile.
She opened the door and they all stepped through.
Insults exploded from the stacked cages encircling the room: “Piss-guzzlers! Cheese-brains! Stench-makers! Cross-eyed baboons! Drooling fumblers! Flush-faced sots! Blubberous flab-guts! Witless remnants! Boneheaded contortionists! Sheep-tickling louts! Maggotous duffers! Ugly buffoons! Slime-lickers!”
It was a deafening roar, and it didn't let up for a moment as they traversed the long chamber toward the door at its far end.
“I'm sorry!” Miss Mayson shouted at the top of her voice. “Take it on the chin!”
Swinburne giggled.
Messenger parakeets had been one of the first practical applications of the Eugenicists’ science to be adopted by the British public. A person only had to visit a post office to give one of their birds a message, name, and address, and the parakeet would fly off to deliver the communication. No one but the Eugenicists knew how the colourful little creatures found the addresses, but they always did.
There was one problem.
The parakeets cursed and insulted everyone they encountered. Invariably, messages were liberally peppered with expletives not put there by the sender. Nevertheless, the system proved popular, especially as some of the birds displayed a rather amusing talent for creating totally meaningless words that, nevertheless, sounded insulting. These “new insults” were all the rage at Society events. Swinburne himself had recently been called a “blibbering chub-fluffer” by a parakeet delivering an invitation to a poetry reading at Lord Haverleigh's. He'd laughed about it for days. You are cordially invited-you blibbering chub-fluffer-to an evening of stinking poetry and abysmal piss wine -
The foul-mouthed birds demonstrated an issue that had troubled eugenics from the very start. Whatever modification the scientists bred into a species, it always brought with it an unexpected side effect. The giant dray horses, for example, had no control over their bladders or bowels and were overproductive in both departments. This had proven a serious problem in London's already filthy streets until the Engineering branch of the Technologists invented the automated mechanical cleaners, popularly known as “litter-crabs,” to tackle the issue.
“Hag-kissers! Slack-jaws! Dirt-gobblers! Mumblebums! Dolts! Filthy blackguards! Bulging scumbags! Gusset- sniffers! Gibbering loonies! Puppy-munchers!”
Trailing behind Miss Mayson, the men reached the other side of the room. The young woman unlocked a door, threw it open, and ushered them through. The portal slammed shut behind them and she leaned against it, opening the umbrella. “That's quite enough of that, I think! My apologies, gentlemen.”
They stood in a very spacious rain-swept yard beside a row of cages, each containing an upright wheel. In each wheel there was a dog-all greyhounds-sprinting at top speed. There must have been at least twenty of them, and the rumble of the spinning wheels drowned out even the noise of the rain.
The greyhounds were known as runners, and they formed the other half of the British Postal Service. Where the parakeets communicated spoken messages, the dogs delivered letters, racing from door to door with the missives held gently between their teeth. In fact, they were unable to stop running, and even when they arrived at a delivery destination they jogged on the spot until the letter they carried was taken. They were also voracious eaters, and any person using the service was obliged to feed them.
“They've just gone to sleep,” Miss Mayson said, gesturing toward the animals.
“They run in their sleep?” Swinburne asked wonderingly.
“Yes, which is why I had the wheels put inside their cages. It's better than having them racing around the yard. The swans are over there.”
She indicated the far end of the enclosure, where nine breathtakingly huge birds stood in high-roofed pens. Their heads were poised, about fifteen feet up, at the top of elegantly curved necks. Their beady eyes watched the group as it approached them.
“Don't worry. They're almost tame.”
“Almost?” Trounce asked, doubtfully. “Somehow, I don't find that very comforting.”
“If they were any wilder, they'd bite your head off before you could blink. They're aggressive by nature.”
Trounce smoothed his mustache with his fingers.
“But four are tame enough to fly, yes?” Burton asked.
“Five,” Spencer added.
“Yes, sir, though you might struggle a bit. They're a touch headstrong.”
“Let's get them buckled up. We have to work fast.”
Miss Mayson crossed to a shed from which she produced harnesses and big folded box kites. Then she picked up a long, thin wooden cane, returned to the pens, and used it to drive out five of the enormous white birds.
“Down!” she commanded, while slapping one of the swans on its side with the rod. It obligingly squatted, and, while Spencer held the umbrella over her, she showed the men how to attach the long reins to the base of the bird's neck, passing them over its back. Swinburne, who'd flown swans before, assisted her by buckling the ends of lengthy leather straps to its legs and clipping the other ends to one of the box kites which Burton and Trounce had unfolded.
While they worked, the king's agent instructed his companions: “Look out for litter-crabs.”
“Why litter-crabs?” Trounce asked in a puzzled tone.
“I noticed that the end of Saint Martin's hadn't been cleaned,” Burton responded. “Now I know why. The litter-crabs were tempted away from it by the mega-dray. You know how the contraptions tend to follow behind the horses, cleaning up the manure. I dare say they're still on its trail!”
“Good thinking, Captain!” the policeman exclaimed.
Miss Mayson helped Constable Bhatti into a kite. He sat on the canvas seat, slipped his boots through the stirrups, and took the reins. The woman showed him how to control the bird.
A few minutes later, all five men were in position.
Miss Mayson stepped back. “Half a mo!” she cried. “Wait there-I have an idea!”
She ran back along the yard and into the training centre.
“What's she up to?” Burton grumbled truculently, but even as he spoke she reappeared and hurried over to them.
She held a small blue and yellow parakeet in her hand.
“All messenger parakeets are identified by a postcode,” she said. “This is POX JR5. She's one of the new breed. As long as she knows you, she'll be able to find you. She doesn't even need your address. You can use her to communicate between the kites. She'll keep up with the swans-she's the swiftest of all my birds. Tell her your names!” She held the parakeet out to each of the men in turn.
“Captain Richard Burton.”
“Odorous thug!” the bird whistled.
“Detective Inspector William Trounce.”
“Ponderous buffoon!” it cheeped.
“Algernon Charles Swinburne.”
“Illiterate bum-pincher!” it cackled.
“Constable Shyamji Bhatti.”
“Nurdle-thwacker!” it squawked.
“Herbert Spencer.”
“Angel-faced beauty,” it crooned.
