The Sensaurum and the Lexis Read online

  “And were you content, Sir Mortimer?” asked Mrs Grimble, or Riggs or whatever she was called.

  “I was, Jackson is turning into a resourceful young man,” he replied. “You have been working hard, with no end in sight. Jessamine and others tell me that you are learning quickly. It’s time for you to have a little freedom and something to reward your efforts.”

  Jessamine spoke, “We are to go to the entertainments tonight. Clarence will get us tickets for entrance and Langdon has provided a little money for food and sundries.”

  Clarence smiled. “I know the man on the entrance gate; he receives treats from me and in return, knows when to look away.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jackson said, before today, he would have taken his chance to slip away and disappear forever. He had been ready to try for freedom, there were places he could go, they would never find him. Now, after all that had happened, he had changed his mind. He considered Jessamine. He knew that there was something about her, life without her, on the run, would be unbearable. He had a sudden vision of Patching, stood over him, Jessamine watching. Yet as he thought it, he had the feeling that Langdon knew his plan, could see inside his head. Perhaps this was also part of the test.

  “What are these entertainments?” Jackson asked.

  Clarence gave him a strange look. “Have you never heard of them?”

  “I recall something, are they not a fair of some sort? Remember, I have been in the orphanage for six years, I know little about the modern world.”

  “No wonder then,” Clarry replied. “Yes, they are a fair of sorts, but there is so much more. You did well today but the times coming need strong men, doers as well as thinkers, I hope you’re a quick study.”

  “I will take care of him,” Jessamine replied.

  “I believe you will,” Mrs Grimble said. “Then he is in safe hands.”

  “Jessamine,” Clarry said in a worried tone, “changing the subject, I heard about Enoch. What happened?”

  “He wasn’t as careful as he could have been, Jackson is his replacement,” Langdon said.

  “Gawd help us all then,” replied the man. “Now where’s that Char?”

  The three left Langdon and Mrs Grimble in discussion and shortly arrived at the great park, on the other side to the place where Jackson and Jessamine had lunched. Here was a permanent exhibition of the wonders of the world, chiefly a showcase of Norlandian talents and enterprise, but with exhibits from all countries.

  The man on the gate gave them both pieces of card with the word ‘Unlimited Admission’ printed on them. “These are today’s, Clarry,” he said, pocketing the small bottle. “They can get into most places with them, no questions asked.”

  Clarry handed them the tickets. “You have a good evening. It was a pleasure to meet you, Jackson.” He shook his hand again. “Well done in your test, now enjoy your reward.”

  The entertainments were a sprawling area in the park, enclosed by a tall wire fence, dotted with gawping children. The place was packed with people, with lines of tents and mechanical contraptions. As they had walked past the fence on their way to the entrance, Jackson had caught glimpses of what was on offer. There were huge steam powered carousels, thrill rides with blaring music from a contraption that sounded like nothing he had ever heard. Everywhere was the smell of fried foods and ale, he saw brightly dressed marching bands and exotic animals. There were fire-eaters, jugglers and magicians, stalls with games of skill and chance, even a Drogan, a sullen looking beast in a huge steel cage.

  Now they were inside, they wandered up and down the rows. “Let’s ride on that,” Jessamine shouted, as they passed a thing that Jackson saw as a vision of some nightmare. A large wooden platform rotated at speed and upon it were what looked like half-barrels with seats. They also rotated, swung by a man who balanced on the boards and moved among them. They showed their tickets and were placed in one of the barrels. The sensations it produced were violent, but Jessamine laughed and after a while he too found it exhilarating. The best part of it was the way they were pushed together by the forces. Jackson revelled in the contact, felt the heat from her body.

  Then, as they staggered from that, she insisted on riding a thing like a miniature Rail Ryde. Carts were pulled to the top of a slope by a steam engine. There they were released to ride a track that looped and turned sharply. They were only kept from falling by a leather belt, gravity meant that they often left the seats and were held by it. This was more exciting than the last one, especially when they held hands and shrieked at the acceleration down the slopes.

  Next, Jackson tried his hand at a game where hard balls were thrown at targets. The rewards were toy animals made of felted cloth, the like of which he had never seen before. He imagined them to be a product of the stallholder’s dreams. In the event, he won a splendid looking Macquette, at least that was what the stallholder said as he handed it over. “It’s a beast from the Spice Islands,” he explained. “Never seen in real life by the people of this land.” It was simian in form, orange in colour with exaggerated limbs and a fixed grin.

  Jessamine held it to her chest. “Thank you, Jackson,” she said and impulsively hugged him. Again, Jackson felt the softness of her against him and the smell of fresh flowers from her hair.

  The smells of fresh foods, exotic and spicy, drew them towards an area filled with stalls, all selling different comestibles. “Try this,” Jessamine suggested, pulling Jackson to one manned by a tall, bearded fellow in the garb of the Spice Islands, all multicoloured robes, a bushy beard and gold rings on fingers and in his ears.

  “Greetings,” he said. “Would you have some of my Khorri?”

  “What is that?” asked Jackson, all he could smell was overlaid spice and oil. “A meat and allium stew, heavily spiced and served in a rolled bread,” the man explained. Jackson tried it; there may have been flavour but the spice brought tears to his eyes.

  Jessamine laughed at his discomfort. “’Tis an acquired taste?” she said, as his eyes watered and he felt himself flush.

  “Water,” he eventually managed to gasp. The stallholder smiled. “Water will make it worse, young sir,” he said. “You need plain Char to counter the effects.” He passed Jackson a small glass of the liquid and Jackson gulped it down. It was true, he felt less affected and he took another bite. This one tasted different, more flavour than heat. “I’m starting to like this,” he said, while the stallholder smiled.

  As they strolled on through the seemingly endless stalls, darkness fell and they came to a huge glass and metal structure, rising above the trees and lit from within. “That’s the Palais of Curiosities,” Jessamine exclaimed. “I’ve been in here before. Come, Jackson, you must see it.”

  “What is it? Some sort of theatre?”

  “It’s an exhibition, of all the new inventions and discoveries from all nations, under one roof. There is a separate hall for statics; you will love it – as long as you can keep your hands from touching the wires.”

  “That was unfair, I was tricked,” he replied.

  “I know, we all have been on the receiving end of that trick at some time.”

  They showed their tickets and went through the entrance. Inside, the floor was covered in wooden boards, through which trees grew, as well as the metal pillars that supported the glass roof. Everywhere was hung with gas lights; the whole effect was akin to being in an enchanted forest.

  The crowds were less, Jackson recalled from one of the lectures that Fairview had said science frightened a lot of people, they saw it as magical and somehow not to be trusted.

  “Will there be things that we could purchase?” he asked. She shook her head.

  “Oh no, it’s not that sort of display. Anyway, Oswald has all we need, he keeps his eye on the latest developments. Indeed he is responsible for many of them. The scientific community all share each other’s ideas and we get all the latest equipment before the public knows of it. If you see something you find interesting, remember it and tell him w
hen we return.”

  ~~~~

  If Jackson had been surprised at the land outside the orphanage, then the Palais was another revelation. Here were wonders from the very reaches of the globe. There were folk from foreign lands and things that were claimed to have never before been seen in Norlandia.

  “The displays change every month,” she explained, “as new wonders are discovered or invented. Oswald comes here for ideas and to show some of his inventions. Businesses buy his inventions, the money that he makes helps pay for our operations. Did I mention that there’s a whole part of the building dedicated to statics? Apparently they are the coming thing.”

  She was clearly excited by the Palais, she was repeating herself. Jackson could understand why. He found it hard to take it all in.

  First, they saw the displays of machinery, devices of every type were on show, together with an army of men and women demonstrating them to onlookers.

  There was a mechanical calculator, where numbers were manipulated by the turn of a crank. The hardest problems could be solved. Jackson spoke to the inventor, who declined to explain the workings. He promised that he was working on a more advanced version, driven by clockwork, that could do ever more complex calculations with speed and ease. He also hoped to reduce the size, eventually producing a machine that might be carried in the palm of the hand and slipped into a pocket.

  It sounded preposterous, but the man’s enthusiasm made it feel possible. “With this machine to help us,” he said, “we can build ever more complex machines, by testing the theories and proving the science more quickly. Think of what might be achieved.”

  They passed by stands showing machines to automate the business of farming, all manner of attachments for the farm-mobile, a version of the new conveyance but with a continuous belt of hinged metal along each side instead of wheels, designed for use on muddy or rough ground. Machines that could sow and plough, plant and harvest, even ones that took a live fowl at one end and produced a plucked and drawn carcass at the other. There seemed to be no limit to man’s ingenuity.

  Then he saw a thing that seemed almost too impossible, even for this place. It was called the Rotaplane, a strange looking version of a flying machine, more an elongated wingless bubble, with two giant propellers on top of the body, one at each end. The demonstrator was extolling its virtues.

  “The Rotaplane needs no field,” he said. “Indeed, it can depart from any flat surface vertically. Witness this model, at one twentieth actual size. It is exact in every detail, save that the model’s engine is driven by clockwork, instead of burning gas.” He attached the model on a vertical wire and released the spring. Both propellers rotated quickly, almost before the man could move his hand, the model rose up the wire, yawing gently as it did.

  “That was amazing,” said Jackson. “Jessamine, did you see this contraption?”

  “There is more control in the real thing,” said the man as Jessamine came over to stand by them. “We cannot fit all the controls into the model, hence the wire.”

  “It’s very impressive,” Jessamine said. “I suppose the propellers spin in opposite directions to balance out the rotational forces?”

  The man was stunned. “Hardly anybody notices that; you are correct, madam. Tell me, are you an engineer of some sort?”

  “No,” she replied, “just a student and observant.”

  “Well, if you ever want a more technical discussion, then please seek me out,” he said and handed her a small card. “My address is on there,” he added.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I will consider it.”

  Jackson waited until they had moved away from the stall. “He was attracted to you,” he said.

  Jessamine laughed. “He was, and I fancy he would expect more than a discussion about rotational forces from me; if I were to accept his offer.” She tore the card in two and threw the pieces into a small receptacle by the path. “He was not my type,” she said enigmatically. She took Jackson’s arm. “Let us visit the statics display.”

  After the visible wonders of the mechanical, the room of statics was a different place. Lit by Wasperton-Byler globes it had the quiet, contemplative air of a library. Here was no grease or complex moving hunks of metal. Instead, white-coated men wrote long sentences of what looked like children’s scribblings on large sheets of paper, then argued over them. There were fewer items on display, a lot more drawings and ideas.

  But there was one thing that caught Jackson’s eye. A torch worked by what the handbill described as a ‘friction motor’. It was demonstrated by a woman, under her control it threw a beam of light that could be varied, from a pin-point to a wide arc. It was charged by compressing the handle. “The workings are secret,” whispered the woman who was demonstrating the device. “I cannot tell you; the details are protected by government order.”

  “She doesn’t know how it works,” Jessamine declared behind her hand. “I will speak to Oswald, he will know, they would be a useful addition to our equipment.”

  Just then Jackson heard a clock strike ten bells of the evening. “Should we not be going back?” he asked.

  “Only if you wish,” she replied. “We are not bound by Skies and his curfew. There is another entrance, direct to our sleeping quarters. We have a special key.”

  That was a relief; Jackson had visions of arriving at a locked gate and having to climb the wall again. They spent another hour exploring, then caught the tram back to the orphanage, sharing it with groups of revellers returning from a night’s entertainment. There was high spirited talk, singing and camaraderie among them, helped in no small part by the ale and wine they had consumed. They had parcels of fried foods and opened bottles that they passed around between the passengers, continuing their revelries. They were rowdy but good-natured and insisted on Jessamine and Jackson partaking of their repast. Jackson was offered a small piece of the food. He found that it was a sort of piscine, cooked in spiced breadcrumbs. It was delicious. Jessamine declined, but in such a charming way that no offence could be taken.

  When they arrived at the orphanage, they walked past the closed gates and sleeping watchman in his hut. Around the corner, Jackson saw a recess in the wall, with a stout black door. To one side was a small silver box. “This is the lock,” explained Jessamine, “one of Oswald’s devices. You have to enter a number; it changes every day.”

  “How do we know it?”

  “’Tis simple, when you are ready to work, you will be given a number, you use it, and the day's date, my number is seven and today is the fourteenth of the month, so I enter seven and then fourteen. The lock opens, I am recorded as entering. Oswald keeps a record of who uses the door. That, and the man in the gatehouse, confirms where everyone is. We are not all together very often; many of us are out working, we don’t all come home for tea at four.”

  “I suppose not.” The door opened onto the small courtyard where Jackson had first met Jessamine, the night they had climbed the wall. Across it and up the steps and they were in the pantry.

  Alyious was sat in the classroom, his head in his hands.

  “Enoch is dead,” he said. “He succumbed this morning, just after you left. There will be a meeting to decide what we must do to avenge him, Vyner is distraught. I’m sorry, Jackson, but this is a thing that does not concern you. Please leave us to grieve and discuss this in private.”

  Jackson was shocked; he mumbled, “Of course, I’m so sorry. Thank you for today,” he said to Jessamine. Her face had disolved into a mask of tears and anguish, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Alyious moved to hug and console her.

  Not really knowing what else to do, he returned to his room. There was a lot for him to think about, this day had given him much to mull over before he could sleep.

  Jackson sat on his bed, his good mood forgotten. This was no longer a game, people died doing what he was learning to do. At least he had more training to undergo, and maybe a few more pleasant trips outside, before he got involved in anything dangerous.<
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  That was all very well, he realised. Jessamine was correct in what she had said. She was involved, she could be in danger at any time. He could not leave her now.

  Interlude

  The Professor shook his head as he looked at the corpse on the operating table; there was no sympathy in his expression, only annoyance. Why did they keep dying?

  He had proved that the modification to the prosthetic arm worked, after much trial and effort he had found an implant that worked perfectly. There had been many versions of his initial idea that had not, they would have to be retrieved and exchanged for the ones that had.

  Fortunately, he had a plan and a method for doing just that. With the mechanical version now having an unblemished success rate, he had a large number of unsuspecting individuals, scattered across the city and beyond, who could be controlled, their limbs switched on and off, at the touch of a button on his Sensaurum.

  With that knowledge, it should have been simple for him to transfer his process to humans, after all the physiology was identical, just flesh instead of metal. It was only the same as the work involved in fitting a prosthetic limb, attaching wires to nerves. It was proven science, done a thousand times. Maybe more delicate, as it involved the brain itself but nothing that could not be done. In his mind, there was no reason why it did not work in every case.

  He had bought time with his initial success, just as he had when he had worked with Professor Woolon. The process had been shown to work, even his present employer, a non-scientist, could see the logic and agree that the transition to implantation in humans was possible.

  The crucial difference was that his present employer was more tolerant of his failures, less bothered about the human cost. True there were successes, but more than half of his subjects never regained consciousness or if they did, were unable to function. There was no logic or pattern to suggest which would live and which would not.

  Thanks to some method that he would rather not know about, there was a steady stream of volunteers, so he could practise to his heart’s content, keep copious notes and try to repeat the successes. He had asked; but had been told that a record of the failures was not required; they were removed, that was sufficient.