William Gibson - The Difference Engine

Mallory shook his head quickly, looking about the lobby. "You're not afraid to use your pistol, if you have to do so?"

"Afraid?" Brian said. "If you warn't a civilian, Ned, I might take that question ill."

Mallory stared at him.

Brian met his eyes boldly. "It's for the family, ain't it? That's what we fought the Russkies for—for the sake of the folks at home."

"Where is Thomas?"

"He's eating in the—well, I'll show you."

Brian led the way into the Palace saloon. The scholarly precincts were crowded with babbling, raucous diners, working-folk mostly, forking up potatoes off the Palace china as if famished. Young Tom Mallory, dressed rather flash in a short linen coat and checked trousers, sat at table with a companion, over the remains of fried fish and lemonade.

The other man was Ebenezer Fraser.

"Ned!" cried Tom. "I knew you'd come!" He rose, and seized another chair. "Sit down with us, sit down! Your friend Mr. Fraser here has been kind enough to buy us lunch."

"And how are you. Dr. Mallory?" Fraser inquired glumly.

"A bit fatigued," Mallory told him, sitting, "but nothing a bite of food and a huckle-buff wouldn't set to rights. How are you, Fraser? Quite recovered, I hope?" He lowered his voice. "And what line of clever nonsense have you been telling my poor brothers, pray?"

Fraser said nothing.

"Sergeant Fraser's a London policeman," Mallory said. "Of the dark-lantern variety."

"Truly?" Tom blurted, alarmed.

A waiter worked his way toward the table, one of the regular staff, looking harried and apologetic. "Dr. Mallory—the Palace larder's a bit low, sir. Simple fish-and-taters would be best, sir, if you don't mind it."

"That will be fine. And if you could mix a huckle-buff—well, never mind. Bring me coffee. Strong and black."

Fraser watched the waiter leave, with melancholy patience. "You must have had a lively night," Fraser remarked, when the man was out of ear-shot. Both Tom and Brian were watching Fraser with a new, half-resentful suspicion.

"I have discovered that the tout—Captain Swing, that is—has gone to earth in the West India Docks," Mallory said. "He's attempting to incite a general insurrection!"

Fraser's lips tightened.

"He has an Engine printing-press, and a rabble of confederates. He's printing seditious documents by the scores and hundreds. I confiscated a few specimens this morning—obscene, libelous, Luddite filth!"

"You've been industrious."

Mallory snorted. "I'll shortly be a deal busier yet, Fraser. I mean to hunt the wretch down directly and put a sharp end to this!"

Brian leaned forward. "It was this 'Captain Swing' who wrote that lying slander against our Maddy, then, was it?"

"Yes."

Tom sat up straight in his chair, with a flush of excitement. "West India Docks. Where's that, then?"

"Down on the Limehouse Reach, clear across London," Fraser said.

"That don't matter a hang," Tom said quickly. "I've my Zephyr!"

Mallory was startled. "You brought the Brotherhood's racer?"

Tom shook his head. "Not that old banger, Ned, but the latest model! She's a spanking-new little beauty, sitting in your Palace stables. Took us all the way from Sussex in a morning, and would have gone faster yet, if I hadn't had a coal-wain hitched to her." He laughed. "We can go wherever we like!"

"Let's not lose our heads, gentlemen," Fraser warned.

They fell unwillingly silent for a moment, as the waiter deftly set Mallory's food before him. The sight of fried plaice and sliced potatoes made Mallory's stomach knot with a famished pang. "We are free British subjects and may go as we please," Mallory said firmly, then seized his silverware and fell to at once.

"I can only call that foolish," said Fraser. "Riotous mobs are roaming the streets, and the man you seek is as cunning as an adder."

Mallory grunted derisively.

Fraser was dour. "Dr. Mallory, it is my duty to see that you don't come to harm! We can't have you stirring up dangerous serpent's-nests in the vilest slums in London!"

Mallory gulped hot coffee. "You know that he means to destroy me," he told Fraser, locking eyes with him. "If I don't finish him now, while I've the chance, he'll slowly peck me into pieces. There's not a dashed thing you can do that can protect me! This man is not like you and I, Fraser! He is beyond the pale! The stakes are life and death—it is him, or me! You know that is the truth."

Fraser, struck by Mallory's argument, looked shaken. Tom and Brian, even more alarmed at this new revelation of the depth of their troubles, glanced at one another in confusion, then turned to glare angrily at Fraser.

Fraser spoke reluctantly. "Let's not act hastily! Once the fog lifts, and law and order have returned—"

"Captain Swing lives within a fog that never lifts," Mallory said.

Brian broke in, with a swipe of his gilded sleeve. "I see no point in this, Mr. Fraser! You have deliberately deceived my brother Thomas and myself! I can put no credit in any of your counsel!"

"Brian's right!" said Tom. He regarded Fraser with a mingled scorn and wonder. "This man claimed he was a friend of yours, Ned, and got me and Brian to talking free-and-easy about you! Now he's a-trying to order us about!" Tom shook his clenched fist, sinewy and work-hardened. "I mean to teach this Captain Swing a sharp lesson! If I need to start with you, Mr. Fraser, then I stand a-ready!"

"Softly now, lads," Mallory told his brothers. Other diners nearby had begun to stare. Mallory deliberately wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Fortune favors us, Mr. Fraser," he said quietly. "I have acquired a pistol. And young Brian is also armed."

"Oh, dear," said Fraser.

"I'm not afraid of Swing," Mallory told him. "Remember, I knocked him flat at the Derby. Face-to-face, he's nought but a yellow cur."

"He is at the Docks, Mallory!" Fraser said. "D'ye think you're going to waltz and polka through a riot in the hardest part of London?"

"We Mallory lads aren't fancy-jacks from any dancing academy," Mallory told the policeman. "D'ye think the London poor more frightful to face than Wyoming savages?"

"Actually, yes," Fraser said slowly. "Considerably worse, I should judge."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Fraser! Don't waste our time with this trifling! We must grapple once and for all with this slippery phantom, and a better chance will never come! In the name of sanity and justice, put an end to your useless, officious grizzling!"

Fraser sighed. "And suppose, in this brave expedition, that you are cunningly trapped and murdered, like your colleague Rudwick? What then? How would I answer to my superiors?"

But now Brian fixed Fraser with a soldier's steely eye. "Did you ever have a little sister, Mr. Fraser? Did you ever have to watch that girl's happiness shattered like a china cup, trampled by a monster? And with her broken heart, the honest heart of a Crimean hero, whose simple, manly intention was to make her his bride—"

Fraser groaned aloud. "Enough!"

Brian leaned back, looking somewhat crestfallen at the interruption.

Fraser smoothed his dark lapels with both hands. "It seems the fated time for risks," he admitted, with a lopsided shrug, and a passing wince. "I haven't had a bit of luck since I met you. Dr. Mallory, and I daresay I'm due for a change of fortune." Suddenly, his eyes glittered. "Who's to say that we might not bag the scoundrel, eh? Arrest him! He's clever, but four brave men might catch the nasty wretch with his guard down, whilst he swaggers about in poor stricken London like some Jacobin prince." Fraser scowled, his lean face twisting with genuine anger. It was an unexpectedly fearsome sight.

"Fortune favors the brave," Brian said.

"And God looks after fools," muttered Fraser. He leaned forward intently, plucking his trouser-legs from his bony knees. "This is no light matter, gentlemen! No lark for amateurs. This is dire work! We shall be taking the law, and our lives, and our honor, into our own hands. If it is to be done at all, it must be done in the strictest and most permanent secrecy."