“My goodness!” Miss Mayson exclaimed. “Was that a compliment?”
Burton blew out a breath. “Please,” he said, “there's no time for this!”
She gave a small nod and placed the parakeet on Burton's shoulder. It hunkered down and he felt its little claws sinking into the soggy cloth of his overcoat.
“Good luck!” the young woman said, stepping back. “Constable, call in tomorrow and tell me all about it!”
Bhatti smiled and nodded. “Get yourself inside and dry off,” he advised. “Your slippers are wet through!”
Sir Richard Francis Burton snapped his reins the way she'd shown him. His swan stretched out its wings, ran five steps forward, and, with a mighty flapping, soared into the air. The leather straps of the harness uncoiled, snaked up after it, jerked taut, and his kite shot upward.
Thrown violently back into his canvas seat, the king's agent found himself rising at phenomenal speed into the sodden atmosphere. The rain pelted against his face. His swan spiralled higher and, when he glanced back, he saw that his colleagues were following behind.
The chase was on!
T he water-laden air jabbed cold needles into Burton's face, but despite being hatless-for, like the others, he'd placed his headgear into a spacious pocket at the back of the kite-he actually felt unpleasantly warm; a sign that his malarial fever was developing rapidly. He tried to stay focused but a peculiar sense of disassociation was creeping over him.
“Bloody git-face,” POX JR5 mumbled.
The five giant swans began to circle over the western end of Orange Street. Visibility was poor in the rain so the men flew them close to the rooftops, except for Swinburne, who, despite being the most experienced flier, was having problems controlling his unruly bird. He was currently somewhere overhead, inside the low blanket of cloud.
Tracking the mega-dray proved easier than Burton had anticipated.
It was Bhatti who spotted the trail. He steered his swan in beside Burton's, but the kites, at the end of their long tethers, were flying extremely erratically due to the wind and beating rain, making it impossible to shout across to one another.
Burton spoke to the parakeet: “Pox! Message for Constable Shyamji Bhatti. Message begins. What is it? Message ends. Go.”
The brightly coloured bird launched itself from his shoulder. A few moments later, when the constable's kite tumbled upward past his own, Burton saw that the messenger was already squawking into the young policeman's ear.
The explorer shifted his hips, trying to stabilise his vehicle. It was foul weather for flying!
The parakeet returned. “Message from dribbling sponge-head Constable Shyamji Bhatti!” it whistled. “Message begins. Look off to the right, snot-picker-the bloody litter-crabs are all along Haymarket. Message ends.”
Burton told Pox to take the message to Trounce, Swinburne, and Spencer. He then sent his swan wheeling to the right and along Haymarket. He passed over four of the large eight-legged, steam-driven street cleaners and spotted a fifth at the end of Piccadilly. Yanking at the reins, he veered to the left and followed the thoroughfare. He soared past a sixth crab, a seventh, an eighth, and Green Park hove into view. The ninth litter-crab was clearing up a mountain of steaming manure outside the exclusive Parthenon Hotel; after that, all the way to Hyde Park Corner, he didn't see a single one.
Pox returned to his shoulder.
He circled counterclockwise around the edge of Green Park, peering into the gloom.
There!
The massive pantechnicon was in the park, close to the Queen Victoria Memorial, with the mega-dray towering in front of it.
Looking back, he saw his colleagues following. Swinburne's bird suddenly plummeted from the clouds, honked loudly, and swooped downward to land in the park. Behind it, the box kite was dragged through treetops, splintering and ripping until nothing of it was left. Burton saw the tiny poet bounce from branch to branch and tumble from the trees to the ground.
With a heartfelt curse, he slowed his swan, pulled it around in a tight turn, and flew low over his friend.
“Are you hurt?” he bellowed as he flapped past.
He wheeled again; flew back.
“Yes!” came a small voice from below. “It was thrilling!”
Burton marvelled at his swan's manoeuvrability as he pivoted it through the air to fly over Swinburne once more.
“Round up some policemen!” he shouted. “Capture that pantechnicon!”
He increased altitude, wiping the rain from his eyes, and rejoined the others, who were circling above the massive vehicle. The bulky figure of Isambard Kingdom Brunel could be seen at the back of it. He was unloading four machines, aided by his three clockwork men.
As always, Burton felt awed by the sight of the Steam Man.
The most famous and successful engineer in the world stood on three multijointed mechanical legs. These were attached to a horizontal disk-shaped chassis affixed to the bottom of Brunel's body. The body was like a barrel lying on its side, with domed protrusions at either end. Each of these bore nine triple-jointed arms, and each arm ended in a different tool, ranging from delicate fingers to slashing blades, drills, hammers, spanners, and welders.
A further dome rose from the top of Brunel's body. From this, too, arms extended-six in all-though these were more like tentacles, long and flexible. Each ended in a clamplike hand.
At various places around the barrel-body, revolving cogwheels poked through slots, and on one shoulder a piston slowly rose and fell. On the other, something resembling a bellows pumped up and down and Burton knew from previous experience that it made a hideous wheezing noise.
This massive mechanism kept Brunel alive-but what of the man inside? How did he breathe or see or hear or eat? How much of his humanity did he retain?
The king's agent-along with Swinburne, Trounce, and two or three others-was aware that some of the engineer's recent activities were not only ethically dubious but had, perhaps, gone beyond the boundaries of the law. However, as Sir Richard Mayne, chief commissioner of police at Scotland Yard, said: “It would be unwise to arrest a national hero-a man who has done, and secretly continues to do, great good for the Empire-unless we have absolute and irrefutable proof of his crimes.”
So far, that proof had not been forthcoming.
Burton gave a whistle of amazement. He'd just realised what Brunel and his assistants were doing. They were unpacking and unfolding ornithopters.
“Message for Detective Inspector Trounce,” he said. “Message begins. They have ornithopters. I don't know how fast these swans are but they're about to be tested. Message ends. Go.”
Pox plunged out of the kite.
Along with gas-filled airships and electrical engines, ornithopters were generally considered to be one of the Technologists’ “dead-end” inventions-good in theory but not in practice. The winged machines possessed great speed and could cover enormous distances without refuelling, but they were also impossible for a person to control; human reactions simply weren't fast enough to compensate for their innate instability. It had been suggested that a babbage could fly them but, of course, babbages were rare and prohibitively expensive. Except, Burton thought, there were three of them down there right now, with Brunel, each housed in a clockwork body, each mounting an ornithopter's saddle.
The engineer's own flying machine was massive-the biggest of the type the explorer had ever seen-which it needed to be in order to carry Brunel's great weight.
The four swans swooped overhead as the ornithopters started to roll forward.
The parakeet returned to Burton's shoulder.
“Message from skunk-scented Detective Inspector Trounce!” it screeched. “Message begins. Use your gun. Shoot the blasted ornithopters, you sludge-brained nincompoop, but don't fire at bilious Brunel. Message ends.”
