‘Even if they [his creations] were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.’
PART ONE: DEATH
ENGLAND EXPECTS!
TO ALL YOU JOLLY JACK TARS & STOUT FELLOWS OF OLDE ENGLAND! AN EXHORTATION & OPPORTUNITY.
WHEREAS ENGLAND HAS BRED YOU BOLD & STRONG, YOUR NATION DESERVES SERVICE IN RETURN.
OUR GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN REQUIRES MEN OF ALL DEGREES TO SERVE ABOARD HIS NAVY OF SO MANY GLORIOUS TRIUMPHS.
LIKEWISE, BRAVE LORD NELSON OF IMMORTAL MEMORY.
FRESH VICTORIES AWAIT!
SHALL THE CALL GO UNHEEDED? SHALL THE DASTARDLY FRENCH ACCOUNT OUR RACE AS COWARDS ? WHAT STORIES SHALL YOU RECOUNT IN AFTER-TIMES TO YOUR LITTLE ONES AND SWEETHEARTS? WHEN DEATH CALLS (AS IT MUST TO ALL IN DUE FRUITION) WHAT TALE WILL YOU TELL?
REPAIR TODAY TO HIS MAJESTY’S DOCKYARD, PORTSMOUTH WHERE BOLD LORD NELSON OFFERS GENEROUS TERMS & ADVENTURE TO:
ABLE & ORDINARY SEAMEN &
MERCHANT MARINERS &
WAISTERS & LANDSMEN &
TIME-SERVED MARINES & SOLDIERY &
WILLING APPRENTICE LADS &
OWNERS OF RECENTLY REVIVED UNDEAD.
ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN—LIVING OR LAZARAN—WILL DO HIS DUTY.
GOD SAVE THE KING
Printed under Royal license and gracious permission by Thomas Pothecary, bookseller and stationer by appointment. Mincing Lane, London, the Year of our Lord 1835.
PROLOGUES (plural)
‘More wine!’ ordered Ada—but got death instead.
True, Foxglove, her butler, whom she expected to bring the wine, occasionally looked like death warmed up, especially after a night on the tiles or a boxing bout, but he was most definitely numbered amongst the living. Those who answered Ada’s call down the voice-tube couldn’t say as much.
In fact they couldn’t say much at all. Low grade Lazarans were the product of low grade serum which started the heart but would never fire up witty conversation.
They did bring wine though. A bottle of it with which they broke poor Ada’s head.
The bottle contained a fine vintage and when shattered against her skull released the ghost of a long lost Spanish summer. Likewise, the skull it shattered released a ghost of equally fine lineage: the descendent of soldiers and poets mixed with a heady dash of genius or madness.
Her many admirers said that Ada was a blue blood as well as ‘blue-stocking.’ Not so. The deep-dark wine proved a perfect colour match to Ada’s lifeblood as it ebbed away. Both pooled on the writing desk on which they killed her, too free-flowing to be soaked up by the piles of paperwork.
Ada’s calculations for Mr Babbage were quite spoiled.
Wine was Mr Babbage’s downfall too. A single glass (never more nor less) was his invariable habit before retiring for the night, but it had never made him sleep so sound before…
‘Oh dear,’ said the police constable who eventually shook him awake. ‘Oh dear. What a busy bed!’
Through a thick head and eyes prickled by broad daylight Mr Babbage perceived that his bed did indeed seem heavily laden, even more so than when dear Mrs Babbage was still alive. That was another mystery to add to this shockingly late rising and there being a policeman in his bedroom.
The constable enlightened him on the latter conundrum.
‘Your man-servant alerted us, sir. Shortly after delivering your morning tea and Times. And he begs me to inform you that he has quit your service to never return. Likewise all your staff when they saw.
‘Saw? Saw what?’
With curling lip the constable drew back the covers and thus resolved another puzzle. The mattress sagged because Mr Babbage had company.
Two oiled youths, one to either side, smiled invitingly—or as best those revived from death can. They signalled every sign of intimate acquaintance.
‘We—go—again?’ enquired one, in typically Lazaran flat tones. And reached out.
‘Errrgh!’ exclaimed Babbage, and tried to hurl himself from the bed.
‘Too late, sir, I’m afraid,’ said the constable, detaining him. ‘Likewise, I much regret I’m the unbribable variety of officer, so don’t try that malarkey, there’s a good gentleman.’
Babbage was half tangled in the sheets, half still embroiled in the Lazarans’ loathsome embraces. Prisoners of their programming, they called to him.
‘Come —back —to —bed —master…’
Babbage tried to bat them off with his night-cap.
‘I can explain everything, officer!’
But the policeman merely sighed and shook his world-weary head. And Babbage, being an honest man, saw his point.
‘No, you’re right,’ he conceded heavily. ‘I can’t…’
The arresting officer had the decency to look downcast as he took out notebook and pencil.
‘Sodomy’s a hanging offence as well you know, Mr Babbage. Sexual relations with Lazarans likewise. So we’ve really gone to town viz a viz capital crime, haven’t we, sir? But be of good cheer; maybe your—previous—good name—will get sentence commuted to the treadmill…’
There was nothing more to be said. Babbage’s mind was like the calculating devices he sought to construct. Even as he pondered the injustice of it all. Innocent as an angel of any wrongdoing and the victim of a wicked plot, his brain dispassionately processed the new data.
Farewell, house of thirty years and marital memories. Farewell, workshop wherein he’d laboured at machines to make miracles. Most certainly farewell, reputation and government grants towards his project.
Obviously blueprints and prototypes were now out of the question for the foreseeable future, even assuming he didn’t swing. However, perhaps mental computations might still be possible whilst turning a treadmill?
It was no idle question. History hung in the balance that morning in number 1 Dorset Street, Manchester Square, Westminster. The world’s future depended on the answer.
Alone of those present, only Babbage could perceive that. He saw, with a clarity that banished personal considerations like shame and sorrow, precisely what lay at stake. On the one hand stood further same old same old. History at its customary snail’s-pace. On the other a huge shovel load of coal stoked into the fireplace of human progress.