Molly hugged my arm firmly to her side. “Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere without me?”
I grinned at her. “I really like this being an item thing.”
“You romantic devil, you. Flatter me with your silver tongue, why don’t you?”
“Together, forever,” I said. “How about that?”
“Forever and ever and ever,” said Molly.
I led her into the long hangar. It’s a huge place, packed full of all the early technological wonders produced down the ages by family Armourers with a bee in their bonnet. It had to be said: Both the museum and its exhibits had known better days. The inner walls were cracked and discoloured, and dull yellow sunlight fell through glass panels left cloudy and spotted by age and neglect. This was just a storage space now, for things whose time had moved on. Strange and wondrous artefacts that had once been ahead of their time, now overtaken and forgotten.
Like the 1880s Moon Launch Cannon, only used once. And the oversized Moleship, basically just a steel cabin with a bloody big diamond-studded drill head mounted on the front. It had been constructed to investigate the interior of the earth, back in the days when people still believed in the Hollow Earth theory. The hulking exhibit before us was actually Mole II, built so the family could go looking for whatever had happened to Mole I. In the end it never got used, because we had to fill in and block off the original tunnel after something big and nasty from the lower depths tried to crawl back up it.
“And we used to have a giant mechanical spider,” I said, leading Molly through the exhibits. “We confiscated it from some American mad genius, back in the Wild West. Not entirely sure what happened to it. I think it ran away.”
“Boys and their toys,” said Molly, smiling sweetly. “You’ll be boasting about the size of your engines next. Why keep all this stuff if you never use it anymore?”
“Because the family never lets go of anything that belongs to it,” I said. “Besides, this is history. It’s… interesting. Not to mention instructive. And you never know when you might need something again. Better to have a thing and not need it, than need it and not have it. Like the Time Train… I only remembered it was here because I used to love reading about things like that when I was a kid, and sloping off from my lessons.”
We weren’t alone in the hangar. A dozen or so men and women in scruffy overalls fussed around various exhibits, tinkering with the machinery or just polishing and cleaning them to within an inch of their lives. None of them looked at us, as long as we were careful to maintain a respectful distance. Molly gestured at them, and raised an eyebrow.
“Enthusiasts,” I said. “They all volunteer to work here in their spare time. All obsessed with a particular period, or device. They keep the exhibits in order, just for the joy of it. Express the slightest interest in their particular pride and joy, and they’ll talk your ear off.”
“Now, let me be sure I’ve got this right,” said Molly. “This Time Train you want to use… No one’s actually taken it out of the hangar in ages, it’s pretty damned dangerous even when it’s working properly, and the only guarantee we have it’ll work at all is some dedicated amateur technician? Have I missed anything? You are not filling me with confidence here, Eddie.”
By now we’d reached the Time Train, and the sheer size of the thing dwarfed all the other exhibits. The Time Train itself was a big, black, old-fashioned steam engine, gleaming and glistening like the night, with luxurious silver and brass fittings, all of them buffed and polished to a cheery warm glow. Haifa dozen luxury Pullman coaches, in the familiar milk chocolate and cream livery, stretched away behind the coal tender. A quick peek through the coaches’ curtained windows revealed a whole other world of seats and fittings whose quality would have shamed the Orient Express in its heyday. The family never did believe in doing things by half. The huge black engine towered over us like a sleeping beast, only waiting to be roused. A tall gangling individual appeared suddenly in the cab and smiled bashfully down at us.
“Oh hello,” he said. “Visitors, how nice. We don’t get many visitors, old Ivor and me. Ivor is the engine, you see.”
“Yes,” I said. “I had a hunch it might be. Molly, allow me to present to you the family’s one and only expert steam train engineer: Tony Drood. Latest in a long line of such enthusiasts, right Tony?”
“Oh yes,” he said, clambering agilely down the gleaming steel ladder on the side of the cab to join us. He had to be in his late fifties, though his hair was still suspiciously jet-black. He wore a set of grubby overalls, and his hands and face were covered with dirty smudges from whatever he’d just been working on. He finally stood before us, smiling and bobbing his head just a bit shyly. “An honour to meet you both, Edwin and Miss Molly. Can’t remember the last time anyone of quality came to see us, eh, Ivor, old thing?”
He reached up and fondly patted the bulging black steel chamber.
“Ivor really is very…impressive,” said Molly, and Tony beamed at her as though she’d just taken a thorn out of his paw.
“Impressive he is indeed, Miss Molly, and that is no lie. I have made it my business to see that he is kept spotless, and in perfect working order, ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
“Ready to go anywhere, anywhen?” I said. “Even into the far future?”
“All of time is at your disposal,” said Tony, just a bit grandly. “Ivor can take you back to the dawn of the world, or up any of the future timetracks. You do understand about parallel future histories… of course you do, we’ve all seen Star Trek. Though I always preferred the original series. Where was I? Oh yes, Ivor is fully functional and raring to go! He can do the Kessel run in under five centuries!”
“He’s still a bit… ancient, though, isn’t he?” said Molly.
Tony glowered at her. “Do not listen to her, Ivor! She is a philistine, and knows no better. I will have you know, Miss Molly, this engine was built back in the days when they still valued skill and craftsmanship, as well as efficiency. This is no modern soulless device; this is Ivor, the Time Train! A comfortable and civilised way to travel in time. I tell you, Miss Molly, Ivor could still do the family proud, given half a chance.”
“Funny you should say that, Tony,” I said. “As it turns out, you are in a position to do me and the family a great service. I think it’s well past time Ivor was allowed out for a little trip.”
Tony grinned so broadly it must have hurt his cheeks, and actually wrung his hands together in his enthusiasm. “Just say the word, Edwin! I’ve waited all my life for a chance to take the old boy out and show what he can do! No one in the family’s authorised use of the Time Train since my grandfather took her out, at the end of the nineteenth century.” His face fell, and he looked at Molly and me just a little guiltily. “An unfortunate business, that… Bit of a disaster all around, really. The last Matriarch but three, Catherine Drood that was, got a bee in her bonnet that one of the Old Ones was waking up, down on some obscure little island in the southern hemisphere. And nothing would do but that grandfather take the newly invented Time Train back into the recent past, with a team of expert specialists, to shut the Old One down before it could properly awaken. Of course it all went horribly wrong. Turned out that it was the energies generated by Ivor’s arrival that woke the Old One up in the first place… One thing led to another, and in the end grandfather and his team had no choice but to blow up the whole damned island to seal the Old One back in its tomb.
“Krakatoa, the island was called. Anyway, Ivor got all the blame, which was really quite unfair, and he’s been out of favour ever since.”