Part 15 (1/2)
Two men from Atwood's party lifted Josephine out of Atwood's lap and laid her on the floor. Arthur couldn't avoid noting the resemblance of her posture to what's-his-name's Ophelia. The thought made him sick.
”Not Mars,” Atwood said. ”Or not precisely.” He waved a hand at the ceiling, as if to indicate the heavens. Looking around, Arthur noticed for the first time that some pack of lunatics had vandalised the floor with a huge shaky-handed maze of paint, a ma.s.s of nonsense scribbles.
”Precisely,” Arthur said. ”Precisely?”
”We were exploring certain energy states within the astral light,” Atwood said. ”The aether, as you may know it-Mars is the sign or symbol of that Sphere of Being. We had slowed our vibrations to the point of-”
”Stop jabbering. Speak English. What have you done to her?”
”We appear to have lost her,” Jupiter said.
Atwood got up and paced, jabbing an accusatory finger at Jupiter. ”You don't know that!”
Arthur thumped the table. ”What have you done to her, Atwood?”
Atwood thumped the table too. ”I should have you arrested!”
”What have you done to her? Is this poisons? Or hypnotism? Or, or, or-”
”I wouldn't expect you to understand. G.o.d d.a.m.n it!” Atwood turned to one of his party, a man who oddly resembled the Prime Minister. ”Call Gracewell. Bring him here this instant-tell him, tell him we need new calculations. We must retrieve her-”
”New calculations?” Jupiter said. ”Delay and distraction. Now is not the time.”
Arthur and Atwood both shouted Delay? Jupiter raised an eyebrow.
The Prime Ministerial-looking fellow hurried out of the room.
”Wait a moment,” Arthur said. ”Gracewell? The calculations-you mean from his Engine? But Gracewell's gone.”
Atwood stopped pacing. ”What do you mean, gone?”
”Kidnapped, I suppose; by the same men who cut me.”
Jupiter threw up her hands in exasperation and walked away from the table.
The maid came back, with a butler in tow. They had a kettle, a silver basin, and a tray with needle and thread and scissors, et cetera, which they laid out on the table. The Indian gentleman called for better light, and started to cut Arthur's s.h.i.+rt open. The man had strong hands, square fingers, and a golden ring with an ornate design that Arthur couldn't quite make sense of.
”Arthur.” The woman who spoke had been silent until now. She was dressed in black velvet, fair-haired and pale, perhaps in her forties, and very beautiful. She sounded French. ”Arthur: who were these men?”
”I don't-ow! G.o.d d.a.m.n it-I don't know.”
Beside the Frenchwoman was a much younger woman, in colourful Indian-style attire, who appeared to be on the verge of fainting. In a corner of the room a long-bearded and beaky old chap in a green velvet coat stood talking to a man of rather square proportions in a black suit, who was holding a rifle. That appeared to be the whole of Atwood's party.
Arthur tried to stand. The Indian gentleman restrained him, politely but firmly.
”Let me go, d.a.m.n you.”
”You may call me Sun, Mr Shaw. Now sit, before you do yourself further injury.”
”b.l.o.o.d.y lunatics,” Arthur said. ”Mayfair warlocks and table-rappers-this, this, b.l.o.o.d.y Mad Hatter's tea party. What will you do if I don't sit? Turn me into a frog?”
”If necessary,” Sun said.
”This is all nonsense. No one can go to Mars-no one can go to Mars by sitting around a table calling each other stupid names. It's b.l.o.o.d.y nonsense! You've drugged her. I'm taking her to a doctor.”
”Come here,” Atwood said.
Jupiter said, ”No.”
”Yes! Come here, and see if it's nonsense, Shaw. Mr Sun-please help him.”
He walked away, towards a door in the corner of the room.
Arthur followed, leaning on Sun's shoulder, thinking that-wound or no wound-if he jumped on Atwood from behind he could break his little neck.
Atwood unlocked the door and turned on an electrical light. Behind the door was another, much smaller library. It smelled strongly of dust and of dead flowers. All of the books were locked away behind gla.s.s and wrought iron; Arthur supposed that this was the pride of Atwood's collection. There was a fine oak table in the middle of the room, on which lay what Arthur first took to be a little girl, in a dress of blue and purple lace, curled up and sleeping.
On a second glance, it was not remotely similar to a little girl, but nor was it a great deal more similar to anything else in Arthur's experience. It had long thin limbs. Four of them; two arms and two legs. Normal enough, but each leg had two double-jointed knees, so that they could fold up in a way that no human being's limbs could, not even those of a circus contortionist or yogi. The creature was wasp-waisted beyond a corset-maker's wildest fantasies, while its chest was deep and powerful-looking. It might have been tremendously tall if it were standing, but it folded up into a tiny thing, like a flower shrinks when it dries. What had reminded Arthur briefly of a frilly dress was part of its body-wings, perhaps, though they did not look strong or solid enough to fly. It was breathing, though with apparent difficulty. Its face resembled nothing quite like any of the races of the Earth: long and thin, almost noseless, a bright petal of a mouth ...
Arthur felt the world s.h.i.+ft beneath his feet.
”What's...” His throat was dry. ”What is that, Atwood?”
”We don't know,” Jupiter said. ”We brought it back by accident on our last exploration. We were investigating the border of the Fourth Sphere. Somehow we pulled it along in our wake.”
”We bagged it by accident,” Atwood said. ”But nevertheless we bagged it. A native.”
”It's-it's alive.”
”In a manner of speaking,” Atwood said. ”I believe that its consciousness became intertwined with ours-perhaps it was conducting a similar experiment from the other side, perhaps merely studying the stars-and when we pulled it back with us ... well, Shaw, I don't want to dazzle you with jargon. I believe it to be a thought-form. The thing, finding itself in what must appear to it to be Heaven, or h.e.l.l, managed-in what may have been an unconscious exercise of the will-to clothe itself in a memory of its proper flesh. A memory condensed from the stuff of the aether and from the powers we had invoked that night. It appears to have exhausted the last of its strength.”
”Balderdash,” called the old man in the green coat. ”It's an angel.”
Atwood locked the thing away again. For a moment he looked thoroughly pleased with himself, as if a brilliant idea had struck him; then he glanced at Josephine and his face fell.
Sun helped Arthur back to the table. The Frenchwoman watched him with a certain ironic sympathy. Her panicky young colleague appeared to have fled.
He was aware of the debates amongst astronomers over the possibility of life on other worlds, and whether the lines that were visible by telescope on the face of Mars were or were not ca.n.a.ls. The Mammoth's readers took a heated interest in Mars; it was fas.h.i.+onable, and entertaining, and it seemed to many people that the question of the progress or decline of Martian civilization was full of urgent significance for the progress or decline of England, and indeed of Earth. Arthur had always been something of an agnostic. He'd always doubted that the ”ca.n.a.ls” were anything more than shadows, smudges on the lens, figments of the astronomer's imagination-a product of the very human desire to see pattern, order, and purpose in the universe. On the other hand, it had always seemed to him that Mars ought to be inhabited; it would be a rather second-rate Creation if G.o.d had left most of it empty.
But what kind of G.o.d would make that-thing? And in whose image?
He looked at Josephine and was suddenly angry again. He was so tired and confused that he hardly knew where to direct his anger.
”She wouldn't!” He thumped the table. ”Why would she get involved in-in-in whatever this-something so dangerous, so mad? That thing-did she know? Did she know what you were doing?”
Atwood stiffened. He seemed to take offense. ”Yes. Of course. Do you think I am a-a kidnapper of some sort? She came of her own free will.”
”Why would she do that? Why wouldn't she tell me?”