An Alien Heat

11. The Quest for Bromley

The time machine was a sphere full of milky fluid in which the traveller floated enclosed in a rubber suit, breathing through a mask attacked to a hose leading into the wall of the machine.

Jherek Carnelian looked at it in some distaste. It was rather small, rather battered. There were what looked like scorch marks on its metallic sides.

"Where did it come from, Brannart?" He stretched his rubber-swathed limbs.

"Oh, it could be from almost anywhere. In deciphering the internal dating system I came to the conclusion that it's from a period about two thousand years before the period you want to visit. That's why I chose it for you. It seemed that it might slightly improve your chances." Brannart Morphail pottered about his laboratory, which was crammed with instruments and machinery, most of them in various stages of disrepair, from many different ages. Most of the least sophisticated looking instruments were the inventions of Brannart Morphail himself.

"Is it safe?" Gingerly Jherek touched the pitted metal of the sphere. Some cracks appeared to have been welded over. It had done a lot of service, that time machine.

"Safe? What time machine is safe? It's as safe as any other." Brannart waved a dismissive hand. "It is you, Jherek, who want to travel in it. I have tried to dissuade you from pursuing this folly further."

"Brannart, you have no imagination. No sense of drama, Brannart," chided My Lady Charlotina, her eyes twinkling as she lounged on her couch in a corner of the laboratory.

Taking a deep breath, Jherek clambered into the machine and adjusted his breathing apparatus before lowering himself into the fluid.

"You are a martyr , Jherek Carnelian!" sighed My Lady Charlotina. "You may perish in the service of temporal exploration. You will be remembered as a Hero, should you die — crucified, tempestuous time-traveller, Casanova of Chrononauts, upon the Cross of Time!" Her couch sped forward and she reached out to press in his right hand a translation pill and, into his left, a crushed rose of a peculiar bluish-green.

"I intend to save her, My Lady Charlotina, to bring her back." His voice came out as a somewhat muffled squeak.

"Of course you do! And you are a splendid saviour Jherek!"

"Thank you." He still maintained a cool attitude towards her. She seemed to have forgotten that it was because of her that he was forced into this dangerous action.

Her couch fell back. She waved a green handkerchief. "Speed through the hours, my Horos! Through the days and the months! The centuries and the millennia, most dedicated of lovers — as Hitler sped to Eva. As Oscar sped to Bosie! On! On! Oh, I am moved . I am entranced. I am faint with rapture!"

Jherek scowled at her, but he took her gifts with him as he slipped deeper into the sphere and felt the airlock close over his head. He floated, uncomfortably weightless, and readied himself for his plunge into the timestream.

Through the fluid he could see the instruments, cryptographic, unconventional, seeming to swim, as he swam, in the fluid. They made no sound, there was no movement on their faces.

Then one of the dials flickered. A series of green and red figures came and went. Jherek's stomach grew tight.

He felt his body shift. Then it was all still again. It seemed that the machine had rolled over.

He could hear his breath hissing in the tube. The machine was so uncomfortable, the rubber suit so restricting, that he was almost on the point of suggesting they try a different machine.

Then the same dial flickered again. Green and red. Then two more dials came to life. Blue and yellow. A white light flashed rapidly. The speed of the flashing grew faster and faster.

He heard a gurgling noise. A thump. The liquid in which he floated became darker and darker.

He felt pain (he had never really felt physical pain before).

He screamed, but his voice was muffled.

He was on his way.

He fainted.

He woke up. He was being jolted horribly. The sphere seemed to have cracked. The fluid was rushing out of the crack and as a result his body was being bumped from side to side as the sphere rolled along. He opened his eyes. He closed them. He wailed.

Air hissed as the tube was wrenched from his face. The plastic lining of the machine began to sink until Jherek lay with his back against the metal of the wall, realising that the sphere had stopped rolling. He groaned. He was bruised everywhere. Still, he consoled himself, he was suffering now. No one could doubt that.

He looked at the jagged crack in the sphere. He would have to find another time machine, wherever he was, for this one had failed to take the strain of the trip. If he was in 1896 and could find Mrs. Amelia Underwood (assuming that she, herself, had arrived back safely) he would have to approach an inventor and borrow a machine. Still, that was the slightest difficulty he would encounter, he was sure.

He tried to move his body and yelped as what had been a relatively dull pain turned, for a moment, into throbbing agony. The pain slowly died. He shivered as he felt the cold air blowing through the time machine's ruptured wall. It seemed to be dark beyond the crack.

He got up, wincing, and stripped off the suit. Underneath was his crumpled Victorian coat and trousers, in a delicate scarlet and purple. He checked that his power rings were still on his fingers and was satisfied. There was the ruby, there the emerald and there the diamond. The air, while cold, also smelled very strange, very thick. He coughed.

He edged his way to the crack and stepped through into the darkness. It was extremely misty. The machine seemed to have landed on some hard, man-made surface, on the edge of a stretch of water. A flight of stone steps led up through the mist and it was probable that the machine had bumped down these before it shattered. High above he could see a dim light, a yellow light, flickering.

He shivered.

This was not what he had expected. If he were in Dawn Age London, then the whole city was deserted! He had imagined it to be packed with people — with millions of people, for this was also the age of the Multitude Cultures.

He decided to make for the light. He stumbled towards the steps. He touched his face and felt the dampness clinging to it. Then he realised what it was he was experiencing and he gave an involuntary sigh of delight.

"Fog…"

It was fog.

Rather more cheerfully he felt his way up the steps and eventually struck his shoulder against a metal column. On the top of the column glowed a gas-lamp very similar to those Mrs. Amelia Underwood had asked him to make for her. He patted the lamp. He was in the right period at least. Brannart Morphail had been unduly pessimistic.

But was it the right place. Was this Bromley? He looked back through the fog at the wide stretch of murky water. Mrs. Underwood had spoken much of Bromley, but she had never mentioned a large river. Still, it could be London, which was near Bromley, and, if so, that river was the Thames. Something hooted from the depths of the fog. He heard a thin, distant shout. Then there was silence again.

He found himself in a narrow alley-way with an uneven, cobbled surface. There were sheets of paper pasted on the dark, brick walls on both sides of the alley. Jherek saw that the paper was covered in graphics and writing but, of course, he could not read anything. Even the translation pills, which worked their subtle engineering upon the brain cells, could not teach him to decipher a written language. He realised that he was still holding the pill My Lady Charlotina had given him. He would wait until he met someone before swallowing it. In his other hand was the crushed rose; all, for the present, that he had left of Mrs. Amelia Underwood.

The alley opened onto a street and here the fog was a little lighter. He could see a few yards in both directions and there were several more lamps whose yellow light tried to penetrate the fog.

But still the place seemed deserted as he followed the street, looking with fascination at house after crumbling house as he passed. A few of the houses did have lights shining from behind the blinds at their windows. Once or twice he heard a muffled voice. For some reason, then, the population was staying inside. Doubtless he would find an answer to this mystery in time.

The next street he reached was wider still and here were taller houses (though in the same decrepit state) with their lower windows displaying a variety of objets d'art — here sewing machines, mangles, frying pans — there beds and chairs, tools and clothing. He paused every minute to glance in at these windows. The owners were right to display their treasures so proudly. And what a profusion! Admittedly some of the objects were a little smaller, a little darker, than he had imagined and many, of course, he could not recognise at all. However, when he and Mrs. Underwood returned, he would be able to make her considerably more artefacts to please her and remind her of home.

Now he could see a more intense light ahead. And he saw human figures there, heard voices. He struck off across the street and at that moment his ears were filled by a peculiar clacking noise, a rattling noise. He heard a shout. He looked to his left and saw a black beast emerging from the fog. Its eyes rolled, its nostrils flared.

"A horse!" he cried. "It is a horse!"

He had often made his own, of course, but it was not the same as seeing the original.

Again the shout.

He shouted back, cheering and waving his arms.

The horse was drawing something behind it — a tall black carriage on top of which was perched a man with a whip. It was the man who was shouting.

The horse stood up on its hind legs as Jherek waved. It seemed to him that the horse was waving back to him. Strange to be greeted by a beast upon one's first arrival in a century.

Then Jherek felt something strike him on the head and he fell down and to one side as the horse and carriage clattered past and disappeared into the fog.

Jherek tried to get up, but he felt faint again. He groaned. There were people running towards him now, from the direction of the bright light. Soon, as he raised himself to his hands and knees, he saw about a dozen men and women all like himself, dressed in period, standing in a circle around him. Their faces were heavy and serious. None of them spoke at first.

"What —?" He realised that they would not understand him. "I apologise. If you wait one moment…"

Then they were all babbling at once. He raised the translation pill to his lips and swallowed it.

"Foreigner o' some kind. A Russian, most likely, round'ere. Off one o' their boats…" he heard a man say.

"Have you any idea what happened to me just then?" Jherek asked him.

The man looked astonished and pushed his battered bowler hat onto the back of his head. "I coulda swore you wos a foreigner!"

"You wos knocked darn by an 'ansom, that's wot 'appened to you, me old gonoph," said another man in a tone of great satisfaction. This man wore a large cloth cap shading his eyes. He put his hands into the pockets of his trousers and continued sagely: " 'Cause you waved at the 'orse an' made it rear up, didn't you?"

"Aha! And one of its hoofs struck my head, eh?"

"Yus!" said the first man in a tone of congratulation, as if Jherek had just passed a difficult test.

One of the women helped Jherek to get to his feet. She seemed a bit wrinkled and she smelt very strongly of something Jherek could not identify. Her face was covered in a variety of paints and powders.

She leered at him.

Politely, Jherek leered back.

"Thank you," he said.

"That's all right, lovey," said the lady. " 'Ad one too many meself, I reckon." She laughed a harsh, cackling laugh and addressed the gathering in general. " 'Aven't we all, at two o'clock in the morning? I can tell you're a toff," she told him, looking him up and down. "Bin to a party, 'ave you? Or maybe you're an artiste — a performer, eh?" She twitched her hips and made her long skirt swing.

"I'm sorry…" said Jherek. "I don't…"

"There, there," she said, planting a wet kiss on his moist and dirty face. "Wanna warm bed for the night, do yer?" She snuggled her body against him, adding in a murmur for his ears alone, "It won't cost yer much. I like the looks o' you."

"You wish to make love to me?" he said, realisation dawning. "I'm flattered. You are very wrinkled. It would be interesting. Unfortunately, however, I am —"

"Cheek!" She dropped her arm from his. "Bleedin' cheek! Nasty drunken bastard!" She flounced off while all the others jeered after her.

"I offended her, I think," said Jherek. "I didn't mean to."

"Somefink of an achievement, that," said a younger man wearing a yellow jacket, brown trousers and a brown, curly-brimmed bowler. He had a thin, lively face. He winked at Jherek. "Elsie is gettin' on a bit."

The concept of age had never really struck Jherek before, though he knew it was a feature of this sort of period. Now, as he looked around him at the people and saw that they were in different stages of decay, he realised what it meant. They had not deliberately moulded their features in this way. They had no choice.

"How interesting," he said to himself.

"Well, 'ave a good look," said one of the men. "Be my guest!"

Understanding that he was about to offend another one, Jherek quickly apologised. Then he pointed to the source of the light. "I was on my way over there. What is it?"

"That's the coffee-stall," said the young man in the yellow coat. "The very hub of Whitechapel, that is. As Piccadilly is to the Empire, so Charley's coffee-stall is to the East End. You'd better 'ave a cup while you're at it. Charley's coffee'll kill or cure you, that's for certain!"

The young man led Jherek to a square van which was open on one side. From the opening a canvas awning extended for several feet and under this awning the customers were now reassembling. Inside the van were several large metal containers (evidently hot) a lot of white china cups and plates and a variety of different objects which were probably food of some kind. A big man with whiskers and the reddest face Jherek had ever seen stood in the van, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a striped apron over his chest, and served the other people with cups of liquid which he drew from the metal containers.

"I'll pay for this one," said the young man generously.

"Pay?" said Jherek as he watched the young man hand some small brown discs to the bewhiskered one who served out the cups and plates. In exchange the young man received two china cups. He handed one to Jherek who gasped as the heat was absorbed by his fingers. Gingerly, he sipped the stuff. It was bitter and sweet at the same time. He quite liked it.

The young man was looking Jherek over. "You speak good English," he said.

"Thanks," said Jherek, "though really it's no reflection on my talents. A translation pill, you know."

"Do what?" said the young man. But he didn't pursue the matter. His mind seemed to be on other things as he sipped his coffee and glanced absently around him. "Very good," he said. "I'd have taken you for an English gent, straight. If it wasn't for the clothes, o' course — and that language you was speaking just after you was knocked down. Come off a ship, have you?" His eyes narrowed as he spoke.

"In a manner of speaking," said Jherek. There was no point in mentioning the time machine at this stage. The helpful young man might want to take him to an inventor right away and get him a new one. His main interest at present was in finding Mrs. Amelia Underwood. "Is this 1896?" he asked.

"What, the year? Yes, of course. April Four, 1896. D'you reckon the date's different, then, where you come from?"

Jherek smiled. "More or less."

The other people were beginning to drift away, calling good night to one another as they left.

"Night night, Snoozer," called a woman to the young man.

"Night, Meggo."

"You're called Snoozer?" said Jherek.

"Right. Nickname." Snoozer lifted the index finger of his right hand and laid it alongside his nose. He winked. "What's your monnicker, mate?"

"My name? Jherek Carnelian."

"I'll call you Jerry, eh? All right."

"Certainly. And I'll call you Snoozer."

"Well, about that —" Snoozer put down his empty cup on the counter. "Maybe you could call me Mr. Vine — which is by way of being my real name, see? I wouldn't mind, in the normal course of things, but where we're going 'Mr. Vine' would sound more respectable, see?"

"Mr. Vine it is. Tell me, Mr. Vine, is Bromley hereabouts?"

"Bromley in Kent?" Snoozer laughed. "It depends what you mean. You can get to it fast enough on the train. Less than half-an-hour from Victoria Station — or is it Waterloo? Why, you got some relative there, have you?"

"My — um — betrothed."

"Young lady, eh? English, is she?"

"I believe so."

"Good for you. Well, I'll help you get to Bromley, Jerry. Not tonight, o' course, because it's too late. You got somewhere to stay, 'ave you?"

"I hadn't considered it."

"Ah, well that's all right. How'd you like to sleep in a nice hotel bed tonight — no charge at all? A comfortable bed in a posh West End hotel. At my expense."

"You're very kind, Mr. Vine." Really, thought Jherek, the people of this age were extremely friendly. "I am rather cold and I am extremely battered." He laughed.

"Yes, your clothes could do with a bit of cleaning, eh?" Snoozer Vine fingered his chin. "Well, I think I can help you there, too. Fix you up with a fresh suit of clothes and everything. And you'll need some luggage. Have you got any luggage?"

"Well, no. I —"

"Don't say another word. Luggage will be supplied. Supplied, Jerry, my friend, courtesy of Snoozer's suitcase emporium. What was your last name again?"

"Carnelian."

"Carnell. I'll call you Carnell, if you don't mind."

"By all means, Mr. Vine."

Snoozer Vine uttered a wild and cheerful laugh. "I can see we're going to get on like old friends, Lord Carnell."

"Lord?"

" My nickname for you , see? All right?"

"If it pleases you."

"Good. Good. What a card you are, Jerry! I think our association's going to be very profitable indeed."

"Profitable?"

He slapped Jherek heartily on the back. "In what you might call a spiritual sense, I mean. A friendship, I mean. Come on, we'll get back to my gaff on the double and soon have you fitted up like the toff you most undoubtedly are!"

Bemused but beginning to feel more hopeful, Jherek Carnelian followed his young friend through a maze of dark and foggy streets until they came at last to a tall, black building which stood by itself at the end of an alley. Several of the windows were lit and from them came sounds of laughter, shouts and, Jherek thought, voices raised in anger.

"Is this your castle, Mr. Vine?" he asked.

"Well —" Snoozer Vine grinned at Jherek. "It is and it isn't, your lordship. I sometimes share' it, you might say with one or two mates. Fellow craftsmen, sir." He bowed low and gestured elaborately for Jherek to precede him up the broken steps to the main door, a thing of cracked wood and rusted metal, with peeling brown paint and, in its centre, a dirty brass knocker shaped like a lion's head.

They reached the top of the steps.

"Is this where we're to stay tonight, Mr. Vine?" Jherek looked with interest at the door. It was marvellously ugly.

"No. no. We'll just fit ourselves up here and then go on — in a cab."

"To Bromley?"

"Bromley later."

"But I must get to Bromley as soon as possible. You see, I —"

"I know. Love calls. Bromley beckons. Rest assured, you'll be united with your lady tomorrow."

"You are very certain, Mr. Vine." Jherek was pleased to have found such an omniscient guide in his quest. He was certain that his luck was changing at last.

"I am, indeed. If Snoozer Vine gives a promise, your lordship, it means something."

"So this place is —?"

"You might call it a sort of extraordinary lodging house —for gentlemen of independent means, sir. For professional ladies. And for children — and others — bent on learning a trade. Welcome, your lordship, to Jones's Kitchen."

And Snoozer Vine leaned past Jherek and rapped several times with the knocker upon the door.

But the door was already opening. A little boy stood in the shadows of the mephitic hallway. He was dressed entirely in what appeared to be strips of rag. His hair was greasy and long and his face was smeared with grime.

"Otherwise known," said the boy, sneering up at the pair, "as the Devil's Arsehole. 'Ello, Snoozer — who's yer mate?"