“I don’t mean any offence,” Sadhvi said, “but to which class do you belong, Mr. Bendyshe?”
Bendyshe grinned and for an instant looked almost identical to his ancestor. “By virtue of our ability to evade government influence, the members of the Cannibal Club cannot be classified. We are fugitives. Ghosts. We inhabit the cracks in the system.”
The floor vibrated, and a rumble signified the starting of the ship’s engines.
Having been reminded of the original Thomas Bendyshe, Burton said, “You hinted at some reason for your resemblance to your—what?— great-great-great-grandfather?”
“Seven greats.”
“By my Aunt Gwendolyn’s woefully woven wig!” Swinburne cried out. “Have we really come so far?”
“You are two hundred and seventy years from home. Yes, Sir Richard, I resemble him because my father’s DNA was manipulated to accentuate the Bendyshe inheritance, and I am his—my father’s, I mean—clone.”
The floor tilted slightly as the Mary Seacole rose into the air and turned.
“You’ve lost me,” Burton said. “I understand what DNA is, having briefly inhabited the mind of the sane Edward Oxford, but—”
“That doesn’t help me,” Trounce grumbled. “I hardly understand a bloody word. You might as well speak in Greek.”
Burton looked at his friend, thought for a moment, then said, “DNA is a component of the cells in your body. It dictates how you will grow, what you will look like, what strengths and weaknesses you possess, and to some extent, how you will behave.” He turned back to Bendyshe. “Correct?”
“In a nutshell.”
“But clone?”
“Cloning involves the exact reproduction of DNA. I am not my father’s son. I am his replica, as he was of his father. All the current Cannibals are identical to their immediate forebears. You see, it was discovered during the twenty-first century that memories are inscribed into DNA and can be passed on to clones, though it requires medical intercession to make those from earlier generations available. My father had many of his ancestors’ recollections brought to the fore. They’ve been passed on to me. The Cannibal Club’s mission is one that spans centuries, so we felt it would be advantageous to have this continuity.” He stopped, peered at Burton, and went on, “For example, I vaguely recall your last meeting with my namesake. I believe we—I mean, you and he—took lunch at the Athenaeum and were interrupted by the arrival of a constable?”
“Bismillah! How is it possible?”
“It must seem miraculous, I know, but it’s only science.”
“Only!” Herbert Wells cried out. “What miracles Man has achieved!”
“Woman, actually,” Bendyshe corrected. “The inscription of memory and character on DNA was proven by Doctor Hildegunn Skogstad in 2093. She then went on to develop the techniques we use to retrieve it.”
Swinburne scratched his head vigorously, crossed his legs, and uncrossed them. “I must say, old chap, despite the similarity of appearance, you’re considerably more subdued than the Tom Bendyshe I knew. You must count yourself fortunate. He was an utter ass. Loveable. But an ass. My goodness, I saw him—what?—last week and suddenly miss him terribly!”
“I’m my own man,” Bendyshe said. “I’m writing my own memories.”
“This must be what Patricia Honesty was referring to when she said we’d no longer need to take a new Cannibal aboard at each stop,” Burton murmured. “You’re better placed to advise us.”
“Yes, because I have the history you hopped over stored away in here,” Bendyshe said with a tap to his head.
“I’m tripping,” Mick Farren declared, then clarified, “Hallucinating. You’re talking about stuff that’s so far out there it’s like, y’know, just plain crazy, man. And suddenly you’re all wearing the same clothes. What’s up with that?”
“Democratic greys,” Bendyshe said. “Your AugMems are taking effect. We won’t block the government’s broadcast yet. I want you to see what they want you to see before you’re exposed to the truth.”
“Riddles,” Trounce murmured. “I bloody hate them. It’s why I became a detective. To solve the bloody things until there were none left.”
Burton blinked. A moment ago, the Scotland Yard man had been wearing a dark suit. Now he was in a grey and very utilitarian one. The chrononauts uttered cries of astonishment as they, too, experienced the odd transition. In a matter of moments, they were all attired in identical outfits. Yet they discovered that, when they looked down at themselves, they perceived their own clothes.
“Much of the Empire is in the same way illusory,” Bendyshe explained. He stood and stepped over to a porthole. “We’re crossing the Channel. The Mary Seacole is registered as a freighter. She’ll not raise suspicion. We’ll land in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Our agenda?” Burton asked.
“I understand you were involved in the Grosvenor Square riot of 1968?”
“We were, unfortunately.”
“We’ll revisit the scene. Don’t worry. There won’t be any trouble this time. I simply want you to compare the present with what you’ve already experienced. On the way there, you’ll be exposed to the lie generated by the Turing Fulcrum. On the way back, I’ll reveal to you the reality of the world.”
Fifteen minutes later, the chrononauts crowded around the portholes and gazed in wonder as dawn broke over the substantially expanded London of 2130. The city sprawled from horizon to horizon and stretched its thousands of towers high into the sky. It was a glittering, shining, blinking, reflecting, dazzling, multifaceted jewel cut through by the meandering Thames, the only part of it instantly recognisable to the travellers, though they eventually spotted the tiny-looking but apparently timeless landmarks of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and the parks—Hyde, Green, Regent’s, and Hampstead Heath.
Gone, though, was the Battersea Power Station. Where it had once stood, and extending across all of Battersea Fields, there was now a massive aerodrome. As the Mary Seacole sank toward it, Bendyshe said, “The station was demolished in 2040. It had been standing derelict since the old Department of Guided Science was disbanded in the 1880s.”
“I thought it a permanent fixture,” Burton murmured.
“Nothing is,” Bendyshe responded. “Only Time has dominion.”
The rotors moaned, and the ship settled with a slight bump.
Bendyshe ushered the chrononauts toward the hatch. “We’ll drive to New Centre Point then walk from there to Grosvenor Square. We’re sightseeing, nothing more. When we’re on foot, keep your voices low. Try not to be overheard. If any citizen hears you say something that can be regarded as suspicious or unusual, they will report it. Informing is a means to earn credit. The citizens of the Anglo-Saxon Empire are eager to denounce one another. Careless talk costs lives.”
He opened the hatch. A vehicle was parked at the end of the ramp, a six-wheeled contraption of smooth curves and black glass.
“Straight into the minibus, please,” Bendyshe said. “Our driver’s name is Odessa Penniforth.”
He hurried them down and into the conveyance. As they settled on the soft, well-upholstered seats, a slightly built young woman with cropped blonde hair and wide brown eyes looked back at them and said, “Hallo! I can’t believe it. Are you really from the past?”
“Miss Penniforth,” Burton replied. “We are practically dinosaurs.”
Bendyshe pulled the door shut. “Let’s go.”
Smoothly and silently, the car pulled away and headed toward Chelsea Bridge, which proved to be a different and much wider structure to the one Burton and his friends had known. It was clogged with crawling traffic.