I hadn't understood some of the words he used, but I gathered the general import of his explanation. "So this is what you did? Used my father's device for this… Future perception?"
"Sure did. Me and Miss McThane both. We spent so much time staring into the lens on that box, while it went flickity-flick into our eyeballs – Christ, I'm telling ya." He shook his head. "I've spent so much time in the Future… I don't really belong back in this time any more. That's why I talk like this, you know? This is the way some grandkid of mine is gonna talk some day. And I got the personality, too – a Future personality. I mean, I was pretty much of a crook before; but since I've taken on the characteristics of the way people are gonna be in the next century – jeez, I'm a real sharp dealer. I guess it's just the way everybody's gonna be some day."
That was a daunting prospect. A world of Scapes – perhaps it was best that I was not meant to see anymore of such a dismal vista's approach.
"Actually," continued Scape, "I think I might've looked into it a little too much. All that flashing kinda screwed up my eyes – can't take anything too bright. That's why I wear the shades all the time. I guess it's a good thing that the device finally wore out and flew to pieces; otherwise I would've gone on staring into it until I was blind."
The subject worked a horrible fascination upon me. "What… what is the Future going to be like, then?"
"Hey, it's gonna be a gas," Scape assured me. "If you're into machines and stuff – like I am – you'd go for it. People are gonna have all kinds of shit. Do whatever they want with it. That's why it didn't faze me when ol' Bendray first told me about wanting to blow up the world. Hey – in the Future, everybody will want to!"
He had satisfied my curiosity; I wished to hear no further of these dreadful days to come. "This device, then, is no more?"
"Yeah – when it went, it went like a bomb. I couldn't even begin to put it back together. So me and Miss McThane – with our new improved brains – figured maybe we could sell the other thing – the violinist we couldn't get started up – for a lotta money. We heard that sonuvabitch Sir Charles Wroth was interested in stuff like that, so we trekked down south with it to show him. To make the sale, we had to give him that line about being able to get the Paganinicon working if we went into London and got the Aetheric Regulator from you. He assumed we knew what we were talking about; actually, if I'd known that there was a regulator already inside the Paganinicon, and all it needed was to be brought close to you in order to start it ticking, I could've saved myself a lotta trouble. As it was, I only had an idea of what I was looking for when I broke into your shop because Sir Charles had recommended me to his Royal Anti-Society buddy Lord Bendray, and he told me what the Regulator he wanted for his earthsmashing machine looked like. Then when Miss McThane and I were staking out your place, we saw that dark-skinned guy bring around just the thing we needed, so we tried to get it off you. That's all."
"So you were employed by both Sir Charles and Lord Bendray?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I was trying to build up kind of a clientele among all those old farts in the Royal Anti-Society. You know, as sort of a consultant on the stuff that your father built for them; except I had to be careful not to let on that some of it was just a bunch of fakes, like that big contraption your old man unloaded on Bendray. No sense spoiling their fun."
I was still puzzled. "But what about the church back in London – with all that fishing tackle? What were you doing there?"
He laughed and shook his head. "You know – I'm still wondering about that, myself. I think it just goes to show that ol' Bendray's gone round the bend. We were there in London, me and Miss McThane, trying to get that Regulator off of you, and he shows up with that crackbrained scheme of going around to that old church and stuffing it with all that Izaak Walton stuff, and fishing rods and things. Weird. Just a weird business. Something to do with those ugly-looking people that hang out there. I didn't know there were any like that living in London until that night they showed up at the church; I had seen ones like 'em in Dampford, that village next to his estate, so I assume they're related in some way. Country and City cousins, I suppose. But what Bendray wanted to accomplish by showing 'em a church with fish-hooks and lines all over it – beats the hell out of me."
We lapsed into silence together. I was about to put another question to him, when I heard the sound of him snoring. Lulled by the motion of the ship, and warmed by a momentary parting of the clouds, he had fallen asleep with his head tilted back against the hatchway.
I pushed Abel's head from my own lap, and stood up. With Scape's wild expositions – what part dementia, and what part truth, I still could not determine – whirling in my head, I made my way towards my cabin below the deck.
An ambush was sprung upon me before I reached my destination. In the dark passageway, a pair of arms encircled my neck and pulled me off my feet.
Miss McThane's breath was warm against my face. "I heard you talking," she whispered in my ear. "I was down in the hatchway, and I could hear you two."
"Please-" I endeavoured to free myself. The white expanse of her throat, and the soft shapes below, seemed almost luminous in the dark. "Please restrain yourself-"
"Hey-" Something wet touched the inside of my ear, startling me further; I was just able to discern the tip of her tongue withdrawing behind her salacious smile. "Everything Scape told you – it's all true. Everything."
"That – that may be-" The fervour of her embrace had expelled most of the air from my lungs. "But-"
She threw her head back, the sharp points of her small teeth glinting fiercely. "I got a brain out of the Future inside my head. This is the way it's gonna be some day – no more of that ladylike crap. In the Future, women are just gonna take what they want." Her mouth swooped down upon me again, an eagle on its prey.
"God help us." I broke free of her grasp, but was within seconds pinned against the door of my cabin.
Her voracious gaze locked into my eyes. "Not just women," she breathed. "Women – men – everybody. It's all they'll think about – all the time." Her panting breath became even more rapid. "Not like you – you drive me crazy. You're so goddamn cold – unexcited – like a goddamn machine. You're the one that's clockwork." Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Well, all that's gonna change, right now. I can't stand it – get ready, sucker-"
The door sprang open behind me, and I fell backwards, tearing free of Miss McThane's embrace. This sudden event so took her by surprise, that there was time for me to scramble to my knees, slam the door shut, and brace my shoulder against it to prevent her entry.
She went away, after several minutes of repeated entreaties. I sat wearily on my bed, my head in my hands, appalled at this vision of the Future – a foreign country far from this one, where a person such as I would be as out of place as though lost in the Mongolian wastes. If what Scape had told me was true, then they would be different people, those residents of the Time to Come; different, and crueller, rending the flesh of their pleasures in their shining teeth.
So unnerving was this vision, that for a moment I thought I had at last become deranged. I looked up at a sound of grinding wood, and saw a stalk of glistening metal rising from the floor of my cabin. A brass flower blossomed at its end, and swivelled towards me.
A voice – familiar, unforgettable – spoke. "Dower you are there?" The Brown Leather Man's words echoed hollow, as though coming through the tube from a great distance below.