William Gibson - The Difference Engine

"Never saw any savant talk straight to a sand-hog… "

"Then you don't know Ned Mallory! I honor any honest man who truly knows his business."

Fraser considered this. He seemed a bit dubious, if one could judge by his leaden expression. "Dangerous working-class rioters, your sand-hogs."

"A fine Radical union. They stood stoutly by the Party in the early days. And still do."

"Killed a deal of police, in the Time of Troubles."

"But those were Wellington's police," Mallory said.

Fraser nodded somberly.

There seemed little help for it but to walk all the way to Disraeli's. Fraser, whose long-legged, loping stride matched Mallory's with ease, was nothing loath. Retracing their steps, they entered Hyde Park, Mallory hoping for a breath of fresher air. But here the summer foliage seemed half-wilted in the oily stillness, and the greenish light beneath the boughs was extraordinary in its glum malignity.

The sky had become a bowl of smoke, roiling and thickening. The untoward sight seemed to panic the London starlings, for a great flock of the little birds had risen over the park. Mallory watched in admiration as he walked. Rocking activity was a very elegant lesson in dynamical physics. Quite extraordinary how the systematic interaction of so many little birds could form vast elegant shapes in the air: a trapezoid, then a lopped-off pyramid, becoming a flattened crescent, then bowing up in the center like the movement of a tidal surge. There was likely a good paper in the phenomenon.

Mallory stumbled on a tree-root. Fraser caught his arm. "Sir."

"Yes, Mr. Fraser?"

"Keep an eye peeled, if you would. We might perhaps be followed."

Mallory glanced about him. It was not much use; the park was crowded and he could see no sign of the Coughing Gent or his derbied henchman.

On Rotten Row, a small detachment of amazon cavalry—"pretty horse-breakers" they were called in the papers, this being a euphemism for well-to-do courtesans—had gathered about one of their number, thrown from her side-saddle by her chestnut gelding. Mallory and Fraser, as they came closer, saw that the beast had collapsed, and lay frothily panting in the damp grass by the side of the trail. The rider was muddied but unhurt. She was cursing London, and the filthy air, and the women who had urged her to gallop, and the man who had bought her the horse.

Fraser politely ignored the unseemly spectacle. "Sir, in my line of work we learn to cultivate the open air. There are no doors ajar or keyholes about us at the moment. Will you inform me of your troubles, in your own plain words, as you yourself have witnessed the events?"

Mallory tramped on silently for some moments, juggling the matter in his mind. He was tempted to trust Fraser; of all those men in authority whose aid he might have sought in his troubles this sturdy policeman alone seemed primed to boldly grapple problems at their root. Yet there was much hazard in that trust, and the risk was not to himself alone.

"Mr. Fraser, the reputation of a very great lady is involved in this affair. Before I speak, I must have your word as a gentleman that you will not damage the lady's interests."

Fraser walked on with a meditative air, hands clasped behind his back. "Ada Byron?" he asked at length.

"Why, yes! Oliphant told you the truth, did he?"

Fraser slowly shook his head. "Mr. Oliphant is very discreet. But we of Bow Street are often called upon to put the muzzle on the Byrons' family difficulties. One might almost say that we specialize in the effort."

"But you seemed to know almost at once, Mr. Fraser! How could that be?"

"Sad experience, sir. I know those words of yours, I know that worshipful tone—'the interests of a very great lady.' " Fraser gazed about the gloomy park, taking in the curved benches of teak and iron, crowded with open-collared men, flush-faced women fanning themselves, wilted hordes of city children gone red-eyed and peevish in the stinking heat. "Your duchesses, your countesses, they all had their fancy mansions burnt down in the Time of Troubles. Your Rad Ladyships may put on airs, but no one calls them 'great ladies' in quite that old-fashioned way, unless referring to the Queen herself, or our so-called Queen of Engines."

He stepped carefully over the small feathered corpse of a starling, lying quite dead in the graveled path, with its wings spread and its small wrinkled claws in the air. A few yards on, the two slowed to pick their way through a score of them. "Perhaps you'd best begin at the beginning, sir. Start with the late Mr. Rudwick, and that business."

"Very well." Mallory wiped sweat from his face. His kerchief came away dotted with specks of soot. "I am a Doctor of Paleontology. It follows that I'm a good Party man. My family is somewhat humble, but thanks to the Rads I took a doctorate, with honors. I loyally support my Government."

"Go on," Fraser said.

"I had two years in South America, bone-digging with Lord Loudon, but I was not a leading savant on my own account. When I was offered the chance to lead my own expedition, generously financed, I took it. And so, I later learned, did poor Francis Rudwick, for similar reasons."

"You both took the money of the Royal Society's Commission on Free Trade."

"Not merely their financing, but their orders, Mr. Fraser. I took fifteen men across the American frontier. We dug bones, of course, and we made a great discovery. But we also smuggled guns to the red-skins, to help them keep the Yankees at bay. We mapped routes down from Canada, taking the lay of the land in detail. If there's war between Britain and America some day…" Mallory paused. "Well, there's an almighty war in America already, is there not? We are with the southern Confederates, in all but name."

"You had no idea that Rudwick might be in danger from these secret activities?"

"Danger? Of course there was danger. But not at home in England… I was in Wyoming when Rudwick was killed here; I knew nothing of it, till I read of it in Canada. It was a shock to me… I fought bitterly with Rudwick over theory, and I knew he had gone to dig in Mexico, but I didn't know that he and I had the same secret. I didn't know that Rudwick was a Commission dark-lantern man; I only knew that he excelled at our profession." Mallory sighed on the foul air. His own words surprised him; he had never fully admitted these matters even to himself. "I rather envied Rudwick, I suppose. He was somewhat my elder, and he was a pupil of Buckland's."

"Buckland?"

"One of the greatest men of our field. He's gone now as well. But truth to tell, I didn't know Rudwick well. He was an unpleasant man, haughty and cold in his relations. He was at his best exploring overseas, at a good distance from decent society." Mallory wiped the back of his neck. "When I read of his death in a low brawl, I wasn't entirely surprised at the manner of it."

"Do you know if Rudwick ever knew Ada Byron?"

"No," Mallory said, surprised. "I don't know. He and I were not that highly placed in savant circles—not at Lady Ada's level, certainly! Perhaps they were introduced, but I think I should have known it had she favored him."

"He was brilliant, you said."

"But not galante."

Fraser changed the subject. "Oliphant seems to believe that Rudwick was killed by the Texians."

"I don't know about any Texians," Mallory said angrily. "Who knows anything about Texas? A damned wilderness, seas and continents away! If the Texians killed poor Rudwick, I suppose the Royal Navy should shell their ports in reprisal, or something of the sort." He shook his head. The whole foul business, which had once seemed so daring and clever to him, now seemed something inglorious and vile, little more than a low cheat. "We were fools to get involved in that Commission's work, Rudwick and I. A few rich lords, scheming in camera to harass the Yankees. The Yankee republics are already tearing at each other's throats, over slavery or provincial rights or some other damned foolishness! Rudwick died because of that, when he might be alive now, and digging up marvels. It makes me ashamed!"