32

The explosion erupted.

The moonship was torn into fragments. Shards of metal blasted in every direction. Ten million panes of glass fragmented in the Crystal Palace. Courtiers flung themselves in front of Her Majesty.[25] Beyond the electrified perimeter fence Will and Tim were bowled back by the force of the blast, and rich and and famous folk who sprawled upon the clipped lawns were swept away as if painted dollies before the hand of a petulant child. The bandstand collapsed, spilling musicians. A mushroom cloud rose into the sky.

All was chaos and destruction and devastation.

Will raised his head. His hair was scorched, his face somewhat reddened, but he seemed otherwise uninjured.

“Tim,” he called. “Tim.”

Folk were fleeing now. Some of them were on fire. Will caught sight of Oscar Wilde, his trousers ablaze, and Lord Babbage and Mr Tesla and, it seemed, every notable body of the age, running and screaming and patting at their burning bits and bobs. It was mayhem.

“Bugger me,” said Tim, raising himself from beneath a fallen section of bandstand and freeing himself from beneath his hair. “Will?”

“I’m here,” Will dusted debris from his person. “We’re both here. Both still here.”

“But the moonship? Our many times great-granddad?”

“I don’t know,” said Will.

“But he couldn’t have survived.”

“I just don’t know.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Tim.

“We can’t. People are injured. Many people. We’ll have to help.”

“You’re right.”

A wild-eyed and trembly Queen Victoria was being escorted away from the scene of devastation. Military fellows were stumbling about, helping up the fallen. The Crystal Palace itself was now ablaze.

Tim pointed towards it. “I remember being taught in history about that burning down,” he said, “although it seems that they got the date wrong and the circumstances.”

“We really should get out of here, chief,” said Barry. “Leave this to the professionals. You don’t know anything about first aid.”

Will pressed his fists to his temples. “You could have prevented this,” he shouted.

“Me, chief? But you didn’t ask. You’re doing things your way, remember?”

“Take me back then, ten minutes into the past and I’ll stop it from happening.”

“No can do, chief. That’s not the way it works. I can’t do anything to change what’s already happened. Only what might happen.”

“Are you okay?” Tim asked.

“Of course I’m not. Are you?”

“Anything but. So should we help?”

“No,” Will shook his head. “We couldn’t stop this. But we’ll stop what is to come.”

“I don’t think I quite follow you.”

“I’m angry now,” said Will. “I’m very angry. Come on. Follow me.”

Joseph Carey Merrick was putting the finishing touches to the paste and paper model he had been constructing of the Tesla dynamo factory, the rooftops of which he could see from his lodgings in Bedstead Square. The miniature radio mast he held between tweezers dropped from them as Tim and Will burst into his rooms.

“You bastard,” said Will. “You murderous bastard.”

“William” said the Elephant Man, “you startled me.”

“Blimey,” said Tim. “You’re one ugly mother-f–”

“Leave this to me,” said Will and he approached Mr Merrick. “You didn’t attend the launching of the moonship,” he said.

“I make few public appearances,” said Mr Merrick. “I remain shy. You can understand that, considering my appearance. Most folk find it troubling.”

“You feared for your miserable life.” Will was upon him now; he dragged the cripple to his feet.

“Unhand me,” cried Mr Merrick.

“You had the moonship rigged with a bomb. People died. Many people.”

“Please let me go. My body is frail.”

“I will wring the life from it.”

“I saved your life. Yours and millions more.”

“You killed my great- great- great- grandfather.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said the Elephant Man.

“No it doesn’t. But you killed all those people.”

“I had to do it. How did you know?”

“I heard you,” said Will. “Three nights ago, when I was here with you, I heard you communicating with your alien controller.”

“Please let me go. You’re hurting me.”

“I could kill you,” said Will. “With nothing more than a fingertip’s pressure. I am a master of Dimac”

“Taught to you, no doubt, by my old friend Hugo Rune.”

Will let the Elephant Man drop. He sank back into his chair.

“Speak to me.” Will swept aside Mr Merrick’s model building, reducing it to destruction.

“I have worked for months upon that.”

“You’re next,” said Will. “Tell me everything, or I will surely kill you.”

“And so you should. I welcome death. Can you imagine what it is like to be me?”

“You seem to do all right with the ladies.”

“Yes, but apart from that.”

“Just speak to me,” said Will. “And quickly.”

“Iyomcwmctykttami.”

“Not that quickly.”

“If you overheard me communicating with my controller,” said Mr Merrick, “then you know the truth about my identity. I am half man and half what you call alien. Martian to be precise.”

“Real Martian,” said Tim. “Not in our future.”

“What is this man saying?” Mr Merrick asked.

“Never mind,” said Will. “Continue.”

“The folk of Mars do not wish for war,” said Mr Merrick.

“No one’s declaring war on Mars,” said Will.

“The British Empire will,” said Mr Merrick. “They declare war upon everybody. They extend their Empire mercilessly. On and on, within five years it will encompass the globe. But it must not extend beyond Earth into space. Not to Mars. The British Empire’s space programme must be halted.”

“You can’t halt progress,” said Will. “Well, I mean, well, you shouldn’t.”

“I must,” said Mr Merrick. “That is my mission. If I fail and the British Empire extends to Mars, then the Martian army will invade Earth and destroy every human upon it.”

“You’ll lose,” said Will. “I’ve read Mr H.G. Wells’ book. I know how it ends.”

“I fail to understand you.”

“If Mars invades Earth,” said Will, “Mars will fail. All the Martians will die.”

“And many men too.”

“And many men too,” said Will.

“And I do not wish for that to happen. Do you?”

“No,” said Will. “I do not.”

There was a bit of a silence.

And then Tim broke it.

“Are you going to kill him, then?” Tim asked.

“Are we going to kill him then?” a pinch-faced woman enquired of another pinch-faced woman. The two of them were staring down at Colonel William Starling, who lay prone upon the cold stone floor of the cell at Brentford nick.

“Turn him over,” said a pinch-faced woman.

Another pinch-faced woman turned over the Colonel with her boot.

“It isn’t him,” she said.

“Isn’t him?” another pinch-faced woman asked.

There were four of them, all women, and all pinch-faced.

“Isn’t him?”

“Look at the magnificent sideburns. He could hardly have grown them overnight, could he? It’s not him.”

“Then it’s one of his ancestors.”

“Which means that if we—”

“Exactly.”

“Then shall we?”

“Shall we what, ladies?” asked Constable Meek, entering the cell.

“Nothing, constable, but this is not the man you want.”

“Eh?” said a cabbie, entering hot on the heels of the constable. “But it looks just like him. His photo is here on the front page of the Brentford Mercury.” The cabbie held up the newspaper. “You’re not trying to swindle me out of my one thousand quid, are you?”

“Sideburns,” said a pinch-faced woman pointing to the front-page photograph. “This man had much larger sideburns. He could hardly have grown them overnight, could he?”