redoubtable aeronaut picked his way through the twisted wreckage of the time machine.
“Professor? Can you hear me? Professor?” A familiar voice-affected English, oddly enunciated vowels, almost amusing. “Professor Reardon?”
“Tangeni?”
He hadn’t been moved from the spot where he’d fallen, nor had the sweaty smell of soot and steam dissipated, nor could he yet tell to which destination the time machine had brought them. It was dark outside, beyond the mess of pipes and beams. A dozen black faces huddled in a semi-circle over him, greeting his gaze with either smiles or puzzled frowns. Tangeni’s torch flame lent the aeronauts a magnificent, mysterious air, as though they were indeed from another time, another world from Cecil’s.
“We all glad you okay, Professor,” one of the younger men said, an apprentice in Kibo’s engine room if Cecil recalled. “Billy and me-we make you up some sarsaparilla. It no longer fizz, but it still good.” He handed Cecil the cup.
“Thank you, young man.” When he tried to sit up, Cecil felt a tear in his right leg that knocked him sick. He yelped in pain and couldn’t stop coughing.
“Here. You need to drink something.” Tangeni pressed the cup to his lips, poured in a mouthful of sarsaparilla. “You’re badly hurt, Professor. The piston pinned your leg to the floor, almost severed it. I tied it with a tourniquet and the bleeding has stopped. But you’re in poor shape, I’m afraid. Reba and Philomena, they have gone for help. But Eembu taught me to always be honest in times like these-I think that whatever happens, you have lost that leg, Professor. Nothing can be done.”
Cecil shivered coldly, clasped Tangeni’s hand. Such terrible news and yet he took it well, only a vague regret of never being able to ride a penny farthing-something he’d always wanted to try but had never quite got around to-aching his heart. Punchdrunk priorities.
“Billy? Where’s Billy?”
“’Ere, Cecil. How are you feelin’?” The lad was watching from Cecil’s left, chin on hands atop a buckled beam.
“Like I’ve just slid down the biggest snake on the board.”
After a pause, “You can ’ave another throw if you like. You ’ave as many as you want.”
“Much obliged.” Sweet boy. Saving him from the clutches of Agnes Polperro had been a proud moment, one he would never forget. Speaking of which…
“Where is that she-devil?”
“Gone. Soon after the baryonyx left, one of her cronies woke up. I think it was the one you knocked cold, Professor.” Delaney. Tangeni had seen a lot. “He carried Miss Polperro out, that way.” He pointed at the front entrance. “Out into the centre of London.”
“Excuse me? Did you say-”
“Yeah, we did it, Cecil.” A note of barely-restrained defiance lifted Billy’s voice. “We proved that old witch wrong after all. It were nothin’. I pictured Embrey runnin’ there in the rain, right before ’e got into our car. That were just before the first time jump. It were easy. I could do it again any time, no problem.”
“So we’re back in London? The very same night?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Time-wise, they’d found the correct grain of salt on a sandy beach at night…in a hurricane?
“Not the same night, no,” Tangeni replied. “It is dry outside. No storm. And if this were even soon after the original time jump, would not the whole area be swarming with panicked people? With police? The military?”
“You’re right there, Tangeni.”
The African waved his torch away to the west, toward the centre of London. “It is only the factory and ourselves made it back. Eembu and Embrey, they-”
“I know. We lost them. I lost them, my friend.”
Tangeni held his head high, his bottom lip quivering.
“But I can get them back too.” Cecil didn’t have an inkling of how he might accomplish that feat, but the determination felt so inviolate inside every fibre of his being that he knew he’d either achieve it or die trying. Verity and Embrey had given him his chance to make amends, to return the survivors to London. They’d granted him this victory over time and over fate. Now it was his turn to repay the debt-a debt borne deep in his heart, for they would never be nearer and farther from him than they were at this moment.
He began to shiver uncontrollably. The faint sound of a dog barking reminded him where they were, what might be coming-the full wrath of the Leviacrum. It was time to think of the future.
“Tangeni, will you do what I ask? We don’t have much time.”
“Aye, Professor. Whatever you ask.”
“Is the Harrison Clock still intact, or is it crushed?”
“The Harris-”
“The device inside the cylindrical casing, a few feet behind you.”
Wavering firelight. Shuffling feet. Hushed voices. “It is still intact.”
“Very well. Good. I need you to unclasp the lid on both sides, and then unscrew the nickel wheel casings from the device inside.”
More whispering. A collective effort from sharp, capable minds light-years out of their milieu. Scraping, squeaking metal. “Done, Professor.”
“Good, Tangeni, good. Now lift the device out and wrap it in a coat or something. Two coats, three, to make sure.”
“What shall we do with it?” Concern, rather than inquisitiveness sharpened Tangeni’s question.
Cecil’s every muscle began to tingle, to fade from his control. He knew his life was leaving him. But there was still a chance for Embrey and Verity.
“I need you to…take it to Professor Sorensen in Tromso.” His eyes eased closed of their own accord. “Make note of the sequence of numbers on the exposed dial…the one with ten digits. Make sure Professor Sorensen gets…that number.” The last embers of his life seemed to melt into fizzy liquid and leak out from his outstretched fingertips. “For Billy,” he whispered. “Look after Billy. Always watch out for…for Billy.”
“I will, Professor. I swear it.”
“Go now. Protect my secret. Go and best time…one last time. Save the young heir and…and his air maiden from…”
A dog barked again, closer this time. It sounded like Leonard, his bandy-legged bulldog he’d loved as a boy. He smiled, contented. If Leonard was there waiting for him, maybe Lisa and Edmond were waiting there too.
Maybe…
Chapter 19
Already a pungent, scorched-earth smell spread from the factory, and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck bristled as Verity dragged Embrey outside over the rubble. The cold and the damp mist had subsided a little. She could see the Empress clearly. Embrey stirred, groaned and then doubled up in agony, the bullet wound in his side leaking more blood than she’d like.
“Here.” She removed her scarf and bunched it to the size of a fist. “Keep this pressed to the wound, no matter how much it hurts.” Helping him to his feet, she tried to blank his suffering and the deafening volleys of gunfire from her mind-her one concern now was to get him to her cabin and remove the bullet. But the scorched- earth smell hadn’t dissipated, and the charged air remained bristly and potent. Reardon had better get a move on. Maybe she should have stayed with him until he shut the blasted thing down after all. Maybe she should go back now and see it through…
A gigantic, muscular bulk lumbered out of the mist ahead, as big as a tram and twice as heavy. The baryonyx positioned itself between her and the airship, its massive tail whipping the steel deck ladder, almost yanking it off its tethers. The dinosaur turned to see what had made the clanging noise, then scraped its teeth along the starboard bulwark.
