“It rather sounds as if some commercial interest may be obtained from this matter,” I mused. “Although I can’t offhand think quite what—”
“Absolutely!” Holden sat back in his chair once more, his head wreathed in smoke. “Imagine if we could replace our cables under the Atlantic with channels of Enhanced Conductance. Then the smallest current, the weakest of signals, could cross the ocean without the slightest loss! And again, if power transmission lines were made of Enhanced material, electrical energy could be scattered throughout the continents, with distance no object!” He thumped his free hand on the table, making the remaining cutlery dance, and one or two heads were turned curiously in our direction. “I tell you, Vicars, such a transformation would make the treasures delivered so far by anti-ice seem like mere baubles. It would change the world, man!”
I laughed, rising to his enthusiasm. “Are the savants confident of delivering such wires and cables?”
He sighed, as if deflating. “I believe Josiah Traveller has constructed prototype devices which exploit Enhanced paths within blocks of anti-ice itself. But it has not proved possible to isolate that component of anti-ice which provides Enhanced Conductance.”
I nodded sympathetically, seeing in his rather odd, round little face the soul of a man whose dream—of a transformed Europe—seemed almost attainable, but remained out of reach.
Now he cocked an eye at me, and at my empty brandy glass. “Are you in the mood to hear of other advantages of anti-ice? Such as the high temperatures it generates, which leads to an impressive Carnot efficiency, proportional to the difference in working temperatures between—”
I waved my glass in the air. “By Jove, good fellow, I am impressed by your erudition, but more so by your perspicacity. You are correct!—I am indeed in no mood to dwell further on such scientific ramifications. But, look there!” Rather dramatically I flung my hand toward the picture window.
It was very late now, and—through reflections of the carriage’s reduced gas-mantles—I could see how the starry sky bore that rich luminescence, the not-quite-darkness of midsummer. And, like a raft of stars fallen from the sky, the lights of some huge ship were passing beneath our metal viaduct. We craned our heads as the trains motion carried us away from the vessel; with perspective the lights could be seen more clearly to delineate the contours of the ship. The whole tableau was framed by winking hazard lanterns mounted on the Light Rail pylons. “Good Lord,” Holden said, “what a marvelous sight.”
I had to turn my head from side to side to capture the full length of the craft. “Why, it must be a half- mile long! Surely such a leviathan must be muscled by anti-ice.”
Holden sat back in his chair and called for more drink. “Indeed. That monster can only be the Great Eastern.”
“Brunel’s famous design?”
“No, no; I mean the craft designed by Josiah Traveller some five years back, and so named in honor of the great engineer.” Holden smiled over his refilled glass. “It is ironic that Traveller suffered similar financial troubles to Brunel in funding his Eastern. But then Brunel’s vessel was neither fish nor fowclass="underline" a passenger liner too ugly and dirty to offer much beyond novelty value. At least Traveller determined from the start that his ship should be primarily a freighter. And so, powered by its anti- ice turbine, large enough to be virtually immune to the weather, and—thanks to the Cryosynthesists—preserving and transporting the most perishable of cargoes, it circles the world without even stopping to refuel!”
I raised my snifter and said, a little more loudly than I might have hoped, “Then here’s to Traveller, and all his works!”
Holden raised his glass—his round body, with short arms protruding, put me at that giddy moment in mind of an animated balloon. “Josiah Traveller,” Holden mused. “A complex man. At least as fine an engineer as Brunel, and yet scarcely better equipped to deal with the complexities of the world. Perhaps less so. At least Brunel got out and about, and worked with his peers. Traveller, I understand, labors in seclusion in his laboratory at Farnham. He does not work by blueprint or drafting-table; rather, he constructs prototypes of novel inventions which lesser men must translate into operable mechanisms.”
“And yet the vision remains his.”
“Indeed.”
I sat forward eagerly. “And is it true, Holden, that Traveller has journeyed above the air? Those photographs on display in Manchester—”
He waved a hand, a little over-dismissive. “Who knows? With Traveller it is difficult to separate legend from truth. Perhaps the mix of fantasy in him—while a source of creative strength—is also his flaw. Look at his Prince Albert project. Does Europe really need a land liner? That, I am afraid, is the sort of hard-nosed question asked by your average investor, who would rather sink money into cotton-mills and lathes; not much fantasy in those souls, I fear.”
I sipped my brandy. “No, and I suspect such stay-at-home moneypots will not be the only ones pleased if the Albert project were to collapse in financial ignominy.”
“Ah.” Holden nodded, his eyes narrowing to give him a crafty look. “Quite so. Not every Frenchman will welcome the sight of such a leviathan trailing Union flags to the gates of Paris. Envy is an emotion quite common among your continentals.”
I laughed. “Some diplomat you would make, sir!”
“Well, consider them in turn!” he went on confidently. “You have your French under Louis Napoleon, the so-called nephew of Bonaparte, forever conjuring up the bloody days of old. The Russians are a medieval mass dreaming of the future. Austria is little more than a husk—look at the way she folded up in the Seven Weeks War with her German cousin! No wonder they all cast envious eyes at Britain, home of initiative and enterprise—home of the future!”
Caught up by his vigor and lively humor I said, “Perhaps you are right. And as for the Prussians, we can expect the attention of Herr Bismarck to be fully occupied with thoughts of France. Hah! He will soon find he has bitten off more than he can chew, I fear.”
Holden looked sharper, more thoughtful. “What a combustible, volatile mixture Europe is… Ned, have you come across the pamphlets of the Sons of Gascony? ‘Once More Unto Calais’… a stirring title. The Sons believe it is a British duty to impose order on the muddled foreigners.”
“Sir,” I said carefully, a little disturbed by the hard light emerging from beneath Holden’s good humor, “remember that Britain is a constitutional monarchy. That is the great difference between us and our continental neighbors; in Britain power is soundly lodged, not in the hands of an individual, but in the fabric of ancient institutions and conventions.”
“Quite so,” Holden said, nodding. “And yet our Emperor-King—and his mother—advocate the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France! What do you think of that? How constitutional is that? Eh?”
I frowned, trying to frame an answer; then I looked into my glass for inspiration, only to find it had emptied itself again; and when I looked up into Holden’s pugnacious face I found I had forgotten his question. “I think,” I said, “that it is time to retire.”
“Retire!” He sounded shocked. “My boy, look yonder: those are the lights of Ostend. You forget you live in the Age of Miracles, Ned; we have arrived! Come now; I think we should down fresh coffees before we land and begin our forlorn search for a hansom…”