Mark Hodder - Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

“Follow me!” Wells called.

The two spiders clanked out of the warehouse and onto a wide thoroughfare. For half a mile, the machines scuttled along the road, weaving in and out between other vehicles, with crowds surging along to either side of them. Then they passed the last outlying building and Wells led the way off the road and onto the dusty savannah, leaving the fleeing Taborans behind. He stopped his vehicle and Burton drew his own to a halt beside him. The mist was thinning and, through it, the huge orange globe of the sun was visible ahead of them.

“We'll go eastward across country,” Wells said. “If we stay a little north of the exodus, we'll be closer to the German forces but free of the crowds.”

“What's your destination, Bertie?”

“My only objective is to get past the end of Hell's Run. After that, I don't know. Where do we have to go to get you home to 1863?”

“To the Mountains of the Moon.”

Wells shook his head. “We'll not get through the Blood Jungle. It's impassable.”

“Nevertheless.”

The war correspondent lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “Whatever you say. Onward!”

“Wait!” Burton snapped. He pointed to Wells's left, at the ground.

His friend looked down. “What the hell?” he uttered in astonishment.

A line of poppies was sprouting out of the hard earth.

Wells looked at Burton, a baffled expression on his face.

“It keeps happening,” the king's agent said. “They bloom right in front of me, in an instant.”

“It's impossible, Richard. How can they grow so fast? Have the Eugenicists made them?”

“How is one thing, Bertie, but I'm more interested in why!”

They watched as the flowers opened, a long line of them, snaking unevenly into the haze.

“North,” Burton muttered. “Bertie, I want to follow them.”

“It will take us straight into the German trenches. If the Hun doesn't do for us, the lurchers will.”

“Maybe.”

Wells reached down and unclipped the sheath containing his rifle. He took his pistol from its holster, checked that it was fully loaded, then slipped it back into place. He looked at Burton, smiled, and, in his high-pitched squeaky voice, said, “Well then: in for a penny, in for a pound!”

The two harvestmen scurried northward, following the line of red flowers, and disappeared into the mist.

“What the devil are you playing at?” William Trounce roared. “You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!”

Herbert Spencer lowered the pistol, which, when he'd pulled the trigger, had done nothing.

“Herbert! Explain yourself!” Burton demanded.

“I'm sorry, William,” Spencer said. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

“How in blue blazes can shooting at a man's head not scare him, you tin-headed dolt?”

“But I didn't shoot, an' that's the point.”

“Not for want of trying! I clearly saw you squeeze the trigger!”

“So did I,” Swinburne added. He'd drawn his own weapon and was pointing it uncertainly at the philosopher.

“Yus, an'-as I expected-nothin' bloomin' well happened, did it!”

Burton paced forward and snatched the gun out of Spencer's hand. “As you expected? What are you talking about?”

“When we stepped onto this rock, Boss, I felt every spring in me body go slack. We've entered the Eye of Naga's area of influence. None o' the guns will work now. Nor will any other mechanical device. Henry Morton Stanley couldn't fly his rotorchairs any farther than this. You'll remember they was found by Arabs, an' they weren't functionin' at all.”

Swinburne directed his gun at the sky and squeezed the trigger. It felt loose under his finger. The weapon didn't fire.

Trounce scowled. “Firstly, Spencer, there was no need for a bloody demonstration, especially one that involved me! You've been fitted with voice apparatus-ruddy well use it! Secondly, why are you still standing?”

Burton answered before Spencer could. “We encountered this same emanation when we went after the South American Eye. The fact that Herbert's mind is embedded in the Cambodian stones gives him the ability to neutralise it.”

“I say, Herbert!” Swinburne exclaimed. “If you radiate an opposing force, could you cast it wide enough to make our guns work? It would give us one up on the Prussians!”

“Perhaps a gun I was holdin' meself,” Spencer replied.

“By thunder!” Trounce yelled furiously. “You see! What if your magic rays, or whatever they are, had worked on the pistol in your hand? You'd have blown my bloody head off!”

“All right, all right,” Burton growled impatiently. “Let's leave it be. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, Herbert, I'll throw your key into the middle of the Ukerewe Lake.”

“I'm sorry, Boss.”

Leading the horses, they moved to the edge of the rock, which the jungle overhung, and settled in the shade. The trees around them were crowded with blue monkeys that had fallen silent when the men appeared but which now took up their distinctive and piercing cries again- Pee-oww! Pee-oww! — and began to pelt the group with fruit and sticks. Sidi Bombay shouted and waved his arms but the tormentors took no notice.

“Confound the little monsters!” Trounce grumbled. “We'll not get any peace here!”

Swinburne removed the dressings from the detective's legs and applied fresh poultices. He checked the wound on his friend's arm. It was red and puckered but the infection had disappeared.

They abandoned the clearing and plunged back into the jungle, the men trailing behind Spencer as he swiped his machete back and forth, clearing the route. Pox and Malady had elected to sit on one of the horse's saddles rather than in their habitual position on the clockwork philosopher's head, causing Swinburne to wonder whether Spencer had fallen out of favour with the two parakeets as well.

The poet struggled with his thoughts. Hadn't he noticed something about the brass man's philosophical treatise back in Ugogi? Something unusual? What was it? Why couldn't he remember? Why was a part of him feeling ambivalent about Spencer? It didn't make sense-Herbert was a fine fellow!

Moving to Burton's side, he opened his mouth to ask if the explorer shared his misgivings. Instead, he found himself saying, “It's awfully humid, just like in the coast regions.”

“Humph!” Burton replied, by way of agreement.

It was near sundown by the time they stumbled wearily out of the vegetation. They were at the base of a hill, with a wide, clear, and shallow stream crossing their path.

The horses drank greedily. One of them collapsed.

“It's done for, poor thing,” Trounce said. “I'd put a bullet through its brain if I could. It's the proper thing to do.”

“If our guns worked,” Burton responded, “that would alert Speke to our presence.”

“Allow me,” said Spencer, limping over to the stricken animal. He bent, took its head in his hands, and twisted it with all his mechanical might. The horse's neck popped. It kicked and died.

They moved half a mile upstream, washed, ate, and set up camp.

Burton spoke to Pox: “Message for Isabel Arundell. Please report. Message ends. Go.”

Pox blew a raspberry, took to the air, and disappeared over the jungle.

“Weasel thief!” Malady screeched, and flew after his mate.

The men sat quietly for a little while then entered the tent and almost immediately fell into a deep slumber.

Dawn came, and so did a warning from their clockwork sentry: “Rouse yourselves, gents! Twenty men approachin' an' they don't look very cheerful!”

Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce crawled into the open and rubbed the sleep from their eyes. They found Spencer and Bombay watching a gang of men, some way off, marching toward them. Their hair was fashioned into multiple spikes and held in place with red mud, their faces striped with ridged scars, their noses adorned with copper rings, and their shadows stretched across the golden hillside. They were armed with spears and held long oval shields.