Саймон Морден - Another War

‘Destroy it,’ he said to Thacker. ‘You must have some way of annihilating matter by now, some death ray, that will make sure that thing can never be used again. If you don’t destroy it, it will destroy you. Do you understand, Major?’

‘I understand. It’s not my call.’

‘The Ankhani will come and they will take what they want and they will want to take everything.’

‘I get the idea. Dickson, a word.’

As Dickson got up, Adams started cursing again. ‘They don’t believe us. They don’t. They’re not going to do anything. They’re bloody well not going to do anything. They’re going to try and control the blasted thing.’

Thacker closed the tent flap on the pair.

‘What do you reckon?’

‘Ancient Egyptian monsters sucking the life out of people? Can you imagine the Home Secretary’s expression?’

‘I can imagine it if they turn out to be right.’

‘Thacker!’

‘What reason do they have to lie? However long they’ve had to concoct a story, be it years or months, they ought to have come up with something better than that preposterous nonsense. And we have the unalterable fact that two days ago, Henbury Hall wasn’t even on the map. So far, they’ve given us the only coherent explanation of what happened, fantastical though it may be.’

‘Sherlock Holmes,’ said Dickson.

‘Sorry?’

‘Sherlock Holmes. When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’

‘So is what they’ve said improbable or impossible?’

‘I’d say it was impossible. That’s what I’m going to tell my Lords and Masters.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to go down to London, give a briefing and get some shut-eye. I suggest you do the same. You’re all washed out. I’ll be back in the morning, and we can start making some plans. Like what we’re going to tell the Americans, and when.’

‘What’s happening with the documents we brought out?’

‘I’m personally taking them to the British Museum in the morning. See if they can decipher anything. It’s too important to entrust to someone else.’

‘I’ll pack those two off to bed.’

‘Don’t let anyone talk to them. Or let them talk to anyone. I don’t want any unilateral action. That machine is not to be touched.’

Thacker thought that last warning was directed more than a little at himself. ‘I’ll make sure.’

He was woken from his fitful sleep by the sound of rain on canvas. Outside, down in the valley, dust was turning to mud and sluicing away into the stream, staining it black and coating everything from there to London Bridge with a fine layer of death.

Shapeless, nameless creatures rose up from the bed of the Thames and shambled along the Embankment, through Parliament Square and up the Mall to rot the gates of the Palace and crown themselves kings.

Then Thacker woke up for the second time. The rain was real. The rest was not.

He lay for a moment, shivering and sweating, on his camp bed, before throwing the covers to one side and dressing quickly. The floodlights outside cast shadows on the tent and gave him enough light to see by.

He strapped on his sidearm and threw on a poncho. He stepped out into the rain, the trampled grass already slick with mud, and navigated the maze of guy ropes and iron pegs to the quarantine tent where Henbury and Adams were kept.

The guards, cold and miserable, gave a half-hearted challenge, and Thacker waved them aside. He pulled the hood of his poncho back and knelt next to Henbury’s bed.

The man was curled up tightly in his blankets, his face twitching with dreams.

‘Henbury, wake up.’

In an instant, Henbury had gasped, shrank back, and covered his face with his hands. He peeped out through his fingers.

‘It’s Thacker,’ he whispered. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Now? Yes, now, why not? The other man’s gone, hasn’t he?’ Henbury sat up, his bed creaking.

‘Dickson. He’ll be back tomorrow. Listen. I’m going to ask you this once and once only. Is what you told us true?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh crap.’ Thacker sat on the bed next to Henbury, and regarded Adams’ sleeping form. ‘I still don’t get this business with Jack. He brought this thing with him from Egypt, and installed it in your house, and you didn’t ask any questions?’

‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know what he was doing. No one did, until it was too late.’

‘Everybody lived in the east wing. Except Jack. Didn’t you go and see him, see what he was up to?’

Henbury lowered his head. ‘When Jack came to live at the Hall, it was an act of charity. He had nowhere else to go. His father, my father’s younger brother, had all but cut him off. He had an allowance that wouldn’t have let him even eat in this country. Jack had been in Egypt. He came with crates of curios and artefacts. He was supposed to be writing a book about the ancients, so everything was carried to the rooms in the west wing to keep his clutter out of the way. And him.’

‘You didn’t get on.’

‘We’d never got on. He bullied me when I was young. Until I knocked him down. Bloody noblesse oblige . I should have told him no.’

‘Can’t choose your family, can you?’

‘I don’t do stairs very well, with my leg missing. And… oh Christ, this is hard. I was engaged to my nurse, Emily. She started seeing Jack. I knew about it, but didn’t want to think about it. Blocked it out. That was why I never went to his rooms, in case I found the two of them together. I would have had to have done something then, and it would have been all very unseemly.’

‘He sounds a right bastard.’ Thacker took a deep breath. ‘By the way… Emily says she’s sorry.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I saw her yesterday. She said she was sorry for hurting you.’

‘Emily?’ There was hope in his voice that was entirely misplaced. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s a hundred and five years old, Robert.’ He caught the look in his eye. ‘Not a good idea. You are, quite literally, from two different worlds now. It would break both your hearts. If it’s any consolation at all, she missed you all her life.’

‘Oh dear God, what a mess. I’m marooned in the future, and there’s no way to go back.’

‘We can do amazing things. We’ve walked on the Moon, we can talk to anyone anywhere at anytime, we’ve cured diseases that used to kill millions. We’re busy unravelling the secrets of life itself, and we still have to live one second at a time. I’m sorry, too. What are we going to do about the machine?’

Henbury wiped his nose on his sleeve and sniffed. ‘Can you destroy it?’

‘I don’t know. Does it come apart?’

‘I think it must do. Jack must have assembled it in his rooms, thinking about the number of boxes that came with him.’

‘Perhaps we can take one vital part, and get rid of that.’ Thacker slapped himself on the forehead. ‘Dickson’s got all the paperwork: diagrams, journal, everything.’

‘There’s always brute force.’

‘I’ve seen it. It looks pretty solid.’

‘Explosives?’

‘I don’t know what it was like in your day, but they don’t hand out the C4 like sweeties anymore.’ Thacker silently considered for a moment. ‘This would cost me everything, you realise that? Dickson has dreams of a protective shield over London, and he can sell that dream to the politicians. Who wouldn’t jump at it? Every city safe from missiles and bombs, skipping into a future moments after the explosion and ready to fight back.’

‘It’s a trap,’ hissed Henbury. ‘It caught Jack. Now it’s caught your friend. The Ankhani will betray him, just as they betrayed Jack. You can’t use it. It’s theirs.’