William Gibson - The Difference Engine

"Now what?" Mallory said.

"We wait for it to spin through," the boy said.

"How long?"

"It always takes twice as long as you think," the boy said, settling back in his chair. "Even if you double your estimate. Something of a natural law."

Mallory nodded. The delay could not be helped, and might be useful. "Have you worked here long, Mr. Tobias?"

"Not long enough to go mad."

Mallory chuckled.

"You think I'm joking," Tobias said darkly.

"Why do you work here, if you hate it so?"

"Everyone hates it, who has a spark of sense," Tobias said. "Of course, it's fine work here, if you work the top floors, and are one of the big'uns." He jabbed his gloved thumb, discreetly, at the ceiling. "Which I ain't, of course. But mostly, the work needs little folk. They need us by the scores and dozens and hundreds. We come and go. Two years of this work, maybe three, makes your eyes and your nerves go. You can go quite mad from staring at little holes. Mad as a dancing dormouse." Tobias slid his hands into his apron-pockets. "I'll wager you think, sir, from looking at us low clerks dressed like so many white pigeons, that we're all the same inside! But we ain't, sir, not at all. You see, there's only so many people in Britain who can read and write, and spell and add, as neat as they need here. Most coves who can do that, they'll get far better work, if they've a mind to look. So the Bureau gets your… well… unsettled sorts." Tobias smiled thinly. "They've even hired women sometimes. Seamstresses, what lost their jobs to knitting-jennies. Government hire 'em to read and punch cards. Very good at detail-work, your former seamstresses."

"It seems an odd policy," Mallory said.

"Pressure of circumstance," Tobias said. "Nature of the business. You ever work for Her Majesty's Government, Mr. Mallory?"

"In a way," Mallory said. He'd worked for the Royal Society's Commission on Free Trade. He'd believed their patriotic talk, their promises of back-stage influence—and they'd cut him loose to fend for himself, when they were through with him. A private audience with the Commission's Lord Gallon, a warm handshake, an expression of "deep regret" that there could be "no open recognition of his gallant service… " And that was all. Not so much as a signed scrap of paper.

"What kind of Government work?" Tobias said.

"Ever seen the so-called Land Leviathan?"

"In the museum," Tobias said. "Brontosaurus they call it, a reptile elephant. Had its teeth in the end of its trunk. The beast ate trees."

"Clever chap, Tobias."

"You're Leviathan Mallory," Tobias said, "the famous savant!" He flushed bright red.

A bell rang. Tobias leapt to his feet. He took a pamphlet of accordioned paper from a tray in the wall.

"In luck, sir. Male suspect is done. I told you the skull business would help." Tobias spread the paper on the table, before Mallory.

It was a collection of stipple-printed Engine-portraits. Dark-haired Englishmen with hangdog looks. The little square picture-bits of the Engine-prints were just big enough to distort their faces slightly, so that the men all seemed to have black drool in their mouths and dirt in the corners of their eyes. They all looked like brothers, some strange human sub-species of the devious and disenchanted. The portraits were nameless; they had citizen-numbers beneath them. "I hadn't expected dozens of them," Mallory said.

"We could have narrowed the choice, with better parameters on the anthropometry," Tobias said. "But just take your time, sir, and look closely. If we have him, he's here."

Mallory stared at the glowering ranks of numbered scapegraces, many of them with disquietingly misshapen heads. He remembered the tout's face with great clarity. He remembered it twisted with homicidal rage, bloody spittle in the cracked teeth. The sight was etched forever in his mind's eye, as vivid as the knuckle-shapes of the beast's spine, when first he'd seen his great prize jutting from the Wyoming shale. In one long dawning moment, then. Mallory had seen through those drab stone lumps and perceived the immanent glow of his own great glory, his coming fame. In just such a manner, he had seen, in the tout's face, a lethal challenge that could transform his life.

But none of these dazed and sullen portraits matched the memory. "Is there any reason why you wouldn't have this man?"

"Perhaps your man has no criminal record," Tobias said. "We could run the card again, to check against the general population. But that would take us weeks of Engine-spinning, and require a special clearance from the people upstairs."

"Why so long, pray?"

"Dr. Mallory, we have everyone in Britain in our records. Everyone who's ever applied for work, or paid taxes, or been arrested." Tobias was apologetic, painfully eager to help. "Is he a foreigner perhaps?"

"I'm certain he was British, and a blackguard. He was armed and dangerous. But I simply don't see him here."

"Perhaps it is a bad likeness, sir. Your criminal classes, they like to puff out their cheeks for criminal photography. Wads of cotton up their noses, and suchlike tricks. I'm sure he's there, sir."

"I don't believe it. Is there another possibility?"

Tobias sat down, defeated. "That's all we have, sir. Unless you want to change your description."

"Might someone have removed his portrait?"

Tobias looked shocked. "That would be tampering with official files, sir. A felony transportation-offense. I'm sure none of the clerks would have done such a thing." There was a heavy pause.

"However?" Mallory urged.

"Well, the files are sacrosanct, sir. It is what we're all about here, as you know. But there are certain highly placed officials, from outside the Bureau—men who serve the confidential safety of the realm. If you know the gents I mean."

"I don't believe I do," Mallory said.

"A very few gentlemen, in positions of great trust and discretion," Tobias said. He glanced at the other men in the room, and lowered his voice. "Perhaps you've heard of what they call 'the Special Cabinet'? Or the Special Bureau of the Bow Street police…?"

"Anyone else?" Mallory said.

"Well, the Royal Family, of course. We are servants of the Crown here, after all. If Albert himself were to command our Minister of Statistics…"

"What about the Prime Minister? Lord Byron?"

Tobias made no reply. His face had soured.

"An idle question," Mallory said. "Forget I asked it. It's a scholar's habit, you see—when a topic interests me, I explore its specifics, even to the point of pedantry. But it has no relevance here." Mallory peered at the pictures again, with a show of close attention. "No doubt it is my own fault—the light here is not all it might be."

"Let me turn up the gas," the boy said, half-rising.

"No," Mallory said. "Let me save my attention for the woman. Perhaps we'll have better luck there."

Tobias sank back in his seat. As they awaited the Engine-spin, Mallory feigned a relaxed indifference. "Slow work, eh, Mr. Tobias? A lad of your intelligence must long for a greater challenge."

"I do love Engines," Tobias said. "Not these great lummox monsters, but the cleverer, aesthetic ones. I wanted to learn clacking."

"Why aren't you in school, then?"

"Can't afford it, sir. The family doesn't approve."

"Did you try the National Merit Exams?"

"No scholarship for me—I failed the calculus." Tobias looked sullen. "I'm no scientist, anyway. It's art that I live for. Kinotropy!"

"Theatre work, eh? They say it's in the blood."

"I spend every spare shilling on spinning-time," the boy said. "We have a little club of enthusiasts. The Palladium rents its kinotrope to us, during the wee hours. You see quite amazing things, sometimes, along with a deal of amateur drivel."