"Anti-Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

14 THE FRANC-TIREUR

“We have not an hour to lose,” I insisted to Traveller. “Even now the Prince Albert may be closing with the Prussian forces; and we can be sure that when battle is joined the situation of those innocents on the cruiser will become even more perilous.”

Traveller rubbed at his chin. “Yes. And your foolhardy plans to extract Françoise will scarcely be aided by Prussian and French shells lacing the air. We must aim to rendezvous with the liner before it joins with the Prussians. And there is another cause for urgency which may not occur to you.”

“Which is?”

He clenched one bony fist. “The anti-ice weaponry.”

I said, “Surely the preparation of the devices you have described will take some time—especially since you have removed yourself and your expertise so precipitately from England.”

He shook his great head. “I fear not. Various rocket craft—prototypes for the engines of the Phaeton—lie completed in my laboratory. It would not take long for Gladstone’s men to adapt them. And Ned, you must not exaggerate my personal importance: the principles of my anti-ice engines would have been comprehensible to Newton; a few minutes’ examination should more than suffice for any competent modern engineer. Even my more original contributions, like the gyroscopic guidance system, are hardly opaque.”

His remarks were troubling. “My God. Then we must take off at once!”

“No.” Traveller indicated the failing light—it was already five of an autumn afternoon. “It would hardly be practical to land the Phaeton in the middle of a battlefield in the pitch dark. And besides,” he added, “this has been a long day for both of us; it is barely a few hours since I greeted Old Glad Eyes in my study.”

I argued against this delay with all the force I could muster; but Traveller was unmoveable. And so it was that we prepared to spend another night within Phaeton’s aluminum walls. I scraped together a meal from the replenished stocks of pressed meat; Traveller poured globes of his fine old brandy; and we sat by the light of the mantles in the Smoking Cabin, just as when we were between worlds.

The centerpiece of the Cabin, the elaborate model of the Great Eastern, had been replaced by a replica, as far as I could see an exact match in every detail. Traveller’s little piano remained folded in its place, a sad reminder of happier moments.

For a while we reminisced on our voyage into space, but our minds were too full of the morrow. At length I proposed, “It is not, of course, merely the availability of your experimental rockets which will determine the schedule of this war. For the government will surely use the diplomatic channels available. The knowledge of British determination to use anti-ice will focus the minds of these continentals wonderfully.”

He laughed. “So, merely on Old Glad Eyes’ admonishment, they will lay down their arms like good chaps? No, Ned; we must face the facts. Bismarck knew all about our possession of anti-ice before he provoked this awful war, and must therefore have discounted Britain’s will to use it. Only the detonation of an anti-ice shell in the midst of his battle lines will convince him otherwise. And as for the French—Ned, these fellows are fighting for their lives, their honor, and their precious patrie. They are scarcely likely to respond to the abstract possibility of a British super-weapon. Again, only the deployment of such a device is likely to change their minds. So diplomacy is meaningless; there is no argument for delay. And this, I am sure, is the calculation which Gladstone and his Cabinet have made.”

His words were somber; I pulled a deep draft of brandy. “Then you feel all the arguments are for the use of anti-ice.”

His eyes roamed around the flickering mantles. “I can see no alternative.”

I leaned forward. “Sir Josiah, perhaps you should have stayed in England and argued against this course of action. Perhaps your force of argument might have made some difference.”

He looked at me, a flicker of amusement in his cold eyes. “Thank you for that well-thought-out and rounded piece of advice: from the man who gave me no choice but to accompany him away from the scene! But in any event, my presence would have made little difference. Gladstone did not come to my home to debate the issue, but to force me to comply with his decision.”

So the evening passed.

As darkness closed in we settled down once more into our narrow bunks. I lay still all night, but, my head whirling with the possibilities of the morrow, failed to sleep a wink.

We both rose as the first graying of dawn reached the windows. The Little Moon was high in the clear sky, a beacon of brilliant white illuminating the awakening landscape.

With few words we washed and dressed ourselves, ate a hasty breakfast, and—not an hour after dawn—took the Phaeton once more into the skies of occupied France.

The old city of Orléans is situated some fifty miles south of Paris, on the banks of the Loire. Four centuries ago it was relieved from an English siege by Joan, called the Maid of Orléans; now it was in the front line of another war, with France in still more desperate peril.

Traveller insisted that the water tanks needed filling, and—to my intense irritation—put down the Phaeton on the river bank. Grousing loudly, I helped him wrestle lengths of hose to the reedy water’s edge and stood by impatiently while the craft’s pumps sucked up the liquid the motors required.

We reached Orléans a little before seven-thirty. Despite Gambetta’s recent victory at nearby Coulmiers, Orléans herself was still occupied. And, as we hovered perhaps a quarter of a mile above the rooftops and spires of the city and inspected the upturned faces of the citizens through our telescopes, everywhere we saw Prussian troops and officers. One soldier—a cuirassier, splendid in his white metal breastplate and dazzling cockade—raised his rifle to us and let off a shot. I saw the flash of the muzzle and heard, a few moments later, the distant report of the explosion; but the bullet fell harmlessly to earth.

There was no sign of the Prince Albert. I suggested landing to seek fresh news, but Traveller pointed out Prussians emerging from billets all over the city into the early morning light; a column was forming up in marching order on the northern outskirts of the town. “I think discretion is the wisest course,” he said. “A blundering descent by the Phaeton would scarcely put at ease these battle-ready Germans.”

“Then what should we do?”

The engineer, lying in his control couch, snapped a fresh eyepiece to his periscope. “I would say the Prussian column is making ready to march to the west—perhaps toward Coulmiers, there to engage the French once more. Our best chance of encountering the Albert surely lies in that direction.”

“And if we fail again?”

“Then we will indeed need to put down and hope to acquire more information without getting our heads blown off. But let us meet that difficulty when we come to it. To Coulmiers!”

From Orléans, Traveller traced the shining path of the Loire to the west, then veered off north, crossing a broad plain crudely delimited by hedgerow. But as we neared the town of Coulmiers itself I noticed on the approaching horizon a great carpet which lay across these dull French fields, a blue- gray sheet of dust and motion and the glint of metal. Soon I could discern that this sea of activity was making its way slowly but purposefully to the east, back toward Orléans!

So we came upon the French Army of the Loire, Gambetta’s new levée en masse.

We swooped like some bird of prey over the advancing army. Close to, this great ragged force was less impressive. Artillery pieces labored like horse-drawn rafts of gunmetal in a river of soldiery; but the infantrymen’s dark blue greatcoats, their red caps, their battered white haversacks and bivouac tents, all showed the signs of many nights’ hard usage in the fields. And their faces, young and old, seemed full of fatigue and fear.

Once again potshots were fired at us, to no effect; but when an artillery piece was halted and its muzzle raised toward us Traveller rapidly increased our altitude.

As the soldiers merged once more into a monstrous sea of humanity my sense of the scale of this force returned; it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, a tide set on sweeping away the cockaded Prussians like so many Canutes.

“Dear God, Traveller, this is surely an army to end all armies. There must be half a million men here. They will crush those Prussians once more by sheer weight of numbers.”

“Perhaps. This Gambetta chap has obviously done well to raise such a force. Although some of those artillery pieces look a little elderly; and did you notice the wide variety of rifle makes? One wonders about the availability of ammunition to these brave fellows, too.”

I had observed none of this. I said, “Then you are less optimistic about their chances of success against the Prussians today?”

He pushed away his periscope and rubbed at his eyes. “I have seen enough of war to know more than I would wish to know about its science. Numerical superiority, while a significant factor, is far outweighed by training and expertise. Look at the poor Frenchies’ formation, Ned! As they march they are already deployed into their battle units. Clearly they are incapable of short-order maneuvers; and so their commanders must draw them together like so many sheep and herd them off into battle.

“Meanwhile the Prussians are marching comfortably and competently to meet them…

“Ned, I fear we are about to witness a day of blood and horror; and if it is decisive it can only be in favor of the Prussians—”

But I was scarcely listening; for on the eastern horizon I had made out something new. It was like a fortress whose walls loomed over the flashing bayonets of the French soldiery; but this was a fortress which rolled with the infantry across the plain…

Unable to contain my excitement I turned to Traveller and grabbed his shoulder. “Sir Josiah, look ahead. Will those Prussians not turn and flee before—that?”

It was the Prince Albert. We had found it at last!

The land liner was an ingot of iron adrift in this ocean of greatcoated humanity. Behind the vessel we could make out tracks of churned earth stretching in a perfect straight line to the horizon. Traveller was pleased by this, seeing it as proof that his anti-ice propulsive system had performed as desired.

There were clearly plenty still left aboard the Albert who understood its provenance, and its link with the extraordinary aerial boat which hovered above; for we were greeted with cheers from the Promenade Deck and from soldiers who walked close to its muddy tracks. I waved back, hoping I could be seen through the Phaeton’s dome. It was, I reflected, a pleasant change from potshots.

But Traveller’s expression was grim; he inspected through his periscope the damage his craft had suffered.

Five of the six funnels still stood, though their proud red paintwork was scarred and mud-spattered; where the sixth had stood there was only a black and gaping wound which led, like the mouth of a corpse, into the dark stomach of the ship. Peering into this wound, and recalling the details of the ghastly August day of the craft’s launch, the blood surged to my head with an almost audible rush.

The rest of the damage seemed more superficial. The glass-covered companionways which had once adorned the flanks of the craft had been hacked away to be replaced by rope ladders—for speed of retraction in case of attack, I supposed. A thousand irregularly-placed slits had been knocked through the hull. Through these slits I could see—not the elegance of salons or the delicate wrought- iron work which had characterized the ship’s sparse elegance—but the ugly snouts of small artillery pieces.

The land liner had indeed been transformed into a machine of war.

Traveller’s anger was deep and bitter. “Ned, if the Prussians only realized how fragile the Albert truly is, they surely would not have allowed it to penetrate so deep into France unchallenged.”

“But you can see it’s an icon, a rallying-point for these Frenchie infantry.”

“It’s a symbol, but can be no more. Ned, it’s more likely to lead these poor lads to their early deaths than victory.”

I frowned and turned to the east-facing window. “Then we’d better land without further delay, Sir Josiah, for—look!”

On the horizon, under the gleaming Little Moon, was a line of glinting silver, of dark blue tunics, of the looming mouths of artillery pieces, of the nervous movements of horses: it was the Prussian Army out of Orléans, drawn into battle order.

War was perhaps half an hour away.

Albert’s ornamental pond had been boarded over, and its garden reduced to a pool of mud punctuated by the snapped stumps of trees. The whole upper deck swarmed with artillery pieces and soldiery; these assorted troops ranged from the magnificence of Hussar officers, in their sleek black lambswool busbies, to citizens—both men and women—in the ragged remains of fine clothes. On seeing these last my heart gave a leap; if such noble folk had stayed with the ship since its ill-fated launch, perhaps there was indeed a chance of finding Françoise still alive.

Traveller held the Phaeton steady for some moments, until his intention evidently became apparent; and one of the Hussar officers began to clear a landing area.

The Phaeton set down as gentle as an eggshell. Without waiting for the nozzles to cool I undogged the hatches, lowered a rope ladder and scrambled to the deck.

I was dazzled by the strengthening sunlight. (By now it was past eight-thirty.) As the noise of the engines echoed away the inhabitants of the Promenade Deck, soldiers and citizens alike, began to approach us. Every one bore a rifle—even, I was shocked to see, a woman! This extraordinary person wore the remnants of a silk gown reminiscent of that worn by Françoise on the launch day; but the gown was bloodied and torn, revealing expanses of undergarments that, in less grisly circumstances, might have seemed indiscreet. Her face obscured by shadow and dirt, she held a chassepot before her, the muzzle pointed in my direction, with as much evidence of competence and command as any of her male companions.

From this suspicious crowd emerged the officer who had earlier cleared the deck. He was a tall man of about thirty who bore well the brown tunic and white sash of his regiment, and his fierce brown eyes and pencil moustache, all framed by a brass chinstrap, spoke of strength, intelligence and competence. But his eyes were deeply shadowed, and his face was covered with the stubble of several nights. He introduced himself as a Captain of the Second Hussars, and inquired as to our business; but before I could reply a sound like a suppressed cough came from the eastern horizon.

The Hussar dropped to his face, as if felled; Traveller and I followed his lead more slowly. Traveller whispered, “Prussian artillery.”

“What? Are we close enough?”

“Undoubtedly. Let them find their range and—”

A whistling shriek tore the air, somewhere to my left; a shell fell to earth some distance from the sea of French troops and exploded harmlessly, evoking a ragged cheer from the Albert’s passengers.

But they were less keen to applaud when a second shell plowed into the ground perhaps a quarter- mile behind us, scattering troops like skittles. The deck shook beneath me, and before my horrified eyes a great gout of rust-colored soil spewed into the air. The mingling of earth and human flesh was such that it was as if the Earth herself had been wounded.

“Traveller, is this war?”

“I’m afraid so, lad.”

The Hussar officer turned to us and said, in rapid French, “Gentlemen, you can see how we are fixed; if you do not wish your fancy toy blown to pieces I suggest you fly to some quieter spot.”

I grabbed his arm. “Wait! We are seeking a passenger on this ship; she was trapped here when—”

But the Captain shook away my hand with angry impatience and hurried to his troops.

I turned to Traveller. “I must find her.”

“Ned, we have but minutes. One good shot by those Prussians—”

I grabbed his shoulders desperately. “We’ve come so far. Will you wait for me?”

He pushed me away. “Don’t waste time, boy.”

I wandered as if in a nightmare over the Deck. Within, I could not accept any image of Françoise save that of trapped passenger, of victim. And so I searched for her in places where she might be cowering, or might be locked away. I peered down stairwells which led into the interior of the ship; but where once champagne and glittering conversation had filled the air, now I was reminded of nothing so much as the interior of one of Lord Nelson’s battleships. Artillery pieces protruded like the muzzles of dogs through pushed-out hull panels, and everywhere there was the stink of cordite, the fumes of formaldehyde, the heaped bandages of an improvised field hospital. I found the Grand Saloon—or what was left of it; where the funnel had once passed through the room concealed by decoration there was only an obscene, gaping chimney, and the interior of the Saloon was uniformly blackened and destroyed. But men and women moved purposefully about, tending weaponry. The elegantly painted panels, battered and charred, looked down with exquisite incongruity over scenes their painters had surely never anticipated.

But there was no sign of Françoise. My tension and anxiety wound to snapping point.

I climbed back to the Promenade Deck. All around me there was shouting. Peering beyond the rim of the Deck to the field below I could see that the ragged French formations were already exchanging rifle shots with their Prussian opponents. Shells continued to whistle over us, splashing into the bloodied ground throughout the body of Frenchmen. The Albert’s guns had also begun to speak now; and with every shell they blasted away, the whole fragile edifice of the liner bucked and shuddered.

Then I heard, like the note of an oboe amid the din of a great orchestra, the voice of Traveller, calling my name. I looked back toward the Phaeton. When the engineer saw he had my eye he pointed skywards. Squinting against the climbing sunlight I made out a line of white, like a very thin cloud, sketched across the heavens and arcing past the Little Moon. The line was growing, as if being writ by the hand of God… and it was passing over our battleground in the direction of Orléans. This apparition made no noise, and went unnoticed by the eager and terrified troops on the ground.

The meaning was clear. It was an anti-ice rocket. My heart sank, not only out of personal fear, but out of shame to be British at that hour.

I shook my head and returned the focus of my attention to the growing chaos around me, wondering how I could complete my search in the few moments the anti-ice shell had left me.

I espied the woman “soldier” I had noticed earlier. This ferocious damsel had now lodged herself at the rail at the bow of the ship and had raised her rifle to her shoulder, aiming at the Prussians. I resolved to speak to her. Surely the few remaining women on board the craft, no matter what their attitudes to this conflict, would help and support each other in this arena; and so perhaps this modern Joan would be able to direct me to Françoise, whose rescue had become my only fixed point in all this turmoil!

I made my way forward. It was slow going. Excitable Frenchmen rushed from side to side of the craft, the scent of Prussian blood in their nostrils, more than once bowling me over. Prussian shells continued to burst in the air all around, and every few seconds I was forced to duck, or flatten myself to the plates of the Deck.

But at last I reached the warrior lady; by now she was squeezing off shots with clinical efficiency, and when I laid a hand on her shoulder she turned to me and snapped, in rapid Marseilles-accented French: “Damn you! What do you want?…” Then her voice tailed away and her eyes narrowed—sky- blue eyes which were still, behind their mask of dirt, quite lovely.

I stepped back, oblivious to the falling shells. “Françoise? Is it you?”

“Obviously! And who the Hell—Ah, I remember. Vicars. Ned Vicars.” Her face seemed to recede from me, as if my eyes had been transmuted to telescopes; my face felt numb, and the crash of battle seemed far away.

So it was true. As Holden had suspected, as Traveller’s quick insight had discerned, as I in my foolish naпvety had refused to accept.

She shook her head, wonder briefly breaking through her tension and anger. “Ned Vicars. I thought you were dead in the explosion.”

“I was aboard the Phaeton, and she was not destroyed. Frédéric Bourne stole her. We flew off—Françoise, we flew to the Moon!”

She looked at me as if I were mad. “What did you say?… But what of Frédéric?”

“He survived; and is safely locked away. But you—” I laid my hands on her shoulders, and felt only knots of muscles. “Françoise, what has happened to you?”

She punched away my arms and clutched her rifle against the oily remains of her dress. “Nothing has happened to me.”

“But your manner… this gun—”

She laughed. “What is so strange about a gun in the hands of a woman? I am French, and my country is in mortal peril! Of course I will use a gun.”

“But…” The stink of dust and cordite, the shriek of the shells, the shuddering of the Deck—all of it rattled loudly in my head. “I thought you might have been killed when the funnel exploded; or, if you survived, perhaps you had become a prisoner.”

She leaned closer to me and peered into my eyes; her face, which once had seemed so beautiful to me, was a mask of contempt. She said, “Once I thought you and your like… sweet. Harmless, at worst. Now you seem criminally stupid. Ned, listen to me. I was not injured in that funnel explosion because—after I set the funnel stopcock, during our tour with that dour engineer—I made sure I was in a far, far corner of the ship.”

I knew, now, why I had determined to come to this terrible place. I had come to confront the truth at last: and here it was, in all its bare horror. I could scarcely speak. An approaching shell shrieked, more loudly than ever; over its noise I shouted, “Françoise… come back with me.”

Now she opened her mouth and laughed out loud; I saw how spittle looped across her perfect teeth. “Ned, you Englishmen will never understand war. Go home.” She turned away from me—

—then the Deck lurched beneath me, and I was thrown to my back; a great shout filled my ears.

The Albert was hit. The land liner ground to a halt. Traveller had been right: one accurate shell had been enough to stop the ship. Four funnels still pumped out steam, but from the fifth there came only ominous black smoke; and from somewhere in the depths of the craft there was a low, agonized grinding, as if the ship’s metal limbs still strove to propel it over the earth.

The Promenade Deck was bent into great metal waves. Plates had been torn apart from each other, their rivets snapped.

Soldiers and guns had been scattered like toys. But all around me there was already purposeful movement, as men climbed over their companions to seize their fallen weapons.

Of Françoise there was no sign. She may have recovered before me—or she might even now be lying sprawled and broken among her countrymen, a new Maid of Orléans.

There was nothing I could do for her now—it seemed there never had been—and I must concentrate on saving myself. At the far end of the deck the Phaeton still stood, a little crazily; as I ran toward her the land liner was racked by a second explosion, and I was thrown again to the bloodied deck. It seemed the Prince Albert would tear itself to pieces without further aid from the Prussians.

Steam belched from the Phaeton’s nozzles. I scrambled up the rope ladder, dragged it in after me, and slammed home the hatch; then, with what was left of my strength, I hauled myself into the Bridge.

Traveller lay in his couch, his face a grotesque mask; for his platinum nose had been smashed away, and the gaping socket was a pit of dark, still-trickling blood. From above this hole his cold eyes flickered over me once—and then he wrenched at his control levers, and the Phaeton shot without ceremony into the air.

But even as we rose the Bridge was flooded with light. I clung to the deck while the vessel bucked in the roiling air like a frightened horse!

The Albert’s Dewars had failed. The anti-ice energy they contained was released in a flood, and the fragile frame of the liner burst like a paper bag. A gust of heat like a wind from hell rushed up and caught the Phaeton, hurling her upwards like an autumn leaf over a bonfire. For long seconds Traveller fought with his controls, and I could only wait, thinking that we should surely flip over and fall crashing at last into the earth.

…But slowly, as one emerges from a storm, the boiling of the air subsided. The Phaeton’s bucking settled to a gentle roll, at last becoming still.

I stood cautiously; every inch of my body felt as if it had been systematically pummeled, but I remained intact and unbroken, and once more I offered grateful prayers to God for my deliverance.

Traveller turned his terrible mask of a face to me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I… Françoise is a franc-tireur.”

“Ned, she is certainly dead now. But she chose her own path… As must I,” he added darkly.

I looked out of the glass dome. The French and Prussian infantries had joined now. Below us was a bowl of dust, splashed blood, and a thousand small explosions: it was a field of battle from which we were mercifully so aloof that the cries of the wounded and the stink of blood were lost.

Traveller pointed, off to his left. “Look. Can you see? The trail of Gladstone’s shell from London.”

I looked up into the sky. By squinting hard I could make out the strange line of vapour which stretched across the sky, a little more ragged now. Was it only minutes since I had stood on the deck of the Albert, studying that trail?

“Traveller, where is it going?”

“Well, it’s surely intended for the battlefield. What better way to demonstrate His Majesty’s displeasure than to flatten the pride of Prussia and France with one blow?… But Gladstone’s bunglers have made a mess of it. They’ve overshot. I knew I should have stayed home to get it right for them. I knew…”

His voice was steady and rational, but it had a strange undercurrent; and I sensed that his control was about to snap. “Traveller, perhaps the shell’s inaccuracy is a blessing. If it falls harmlessly into an uninhabited area—”

“Ned, the shell will be tipped by a Dewar containing several pounds of anti-ice. It is unlikely to be ‘harmless’… and in any event, I have observed it long enough to be sure of where it will fall.”

“Where?”

“It will be any second now, Ned; you should shield your eyes.”

“Where, damn you?”

“…Orléans.”

First there came a flowering of light, quite beautiful, which fled along the ground in all directions from the center of the old city. When that had faded, and we were able to open our dazzled and streaming eyes, we saw how a great wind was scouring after the light across the plain; trees snapped like matchstalks and buildings exploded to rubble.

Within seconds of the impact a great bubble of cloud formed over the city center. The cloud lifted to the sky, a monstrous thunderhead growing out of the ground; it blackened as it rose, and was lit from below by a hellish red glow—undoubtedly the burning of Orléans—and from above by the flickering of lightning between plumes of cloud.

It was all quite soundless.

I became aware that the clashing armies below had grown still, that their guns no longer spoke; I imagined hundreds of thousands of men straightening, facing their erstwhile opponents, and turning to this monstrous new apparition.

Traveller said: “What have I done? It makes Sebastopol look like a candle.”

I sought words. “You could not have stopped this—”

He turned to me, a bizarre smile superimposed on his travesty of a face. “Ned, I have dedicated my life since the Crimea to the peaceful exploitation of anti-ice. For if I could get the damn stuff used up on peaceable, if spectacular, purposes, then men would never again use it on each other. Well, at least the stuff will be exhausted now by these follies of Gladstone’s… But I have failed. And more: by developing ever more ingenious technologies for the exploitation of the ice, I have brought this day upon the Earth.

“Ned, I would like to show you another invention.” His face still disfigured by that ghastly smile he began to open his restraints.

“…What?”

“A conception of Leonardo’s—one of the few Latins with any sense of the practical. I think you’ll find it amusing…”

And those were the last words he spoke to me before his fist came crashing into my temple.

Cold air slapped me awake. I opened my eyes, my head throbbing.

The Little Moon filled my eyes.

I was sitting in the hatchway near the base of the Smoking Cabin. My legs dangled out of the open hatchway; the battle-strewn ground was many hundreds of feet below. A strange khaki pack, like a soldier’s knapsack, was fixed to my chest.

Startled to full wakefulness I made to grab at the lip of the hatchway. A hand rested on my shoulder; I turned and stared at long fingers dully, as if they comprised some odd spider.

It was Traveller, of course. He said, shouting over the rushing air, “It is nearly done, Ned. The supply of Antarctic anti-ice is all but exhausted. Now I must finish it.” He laughed, his voice distorted by the hole in his face.

His tone was terrifying. “Traveller, let us land in safety and—”

“No, Ned. Once, our young French saboteur told us that to waste a few ounces of anti-ice was worth the life of a patriot. Well, I’ve come to believe he was right. I mean to destroy the Phaeton, and in this act of atonement to hasten the removal of the anti-ice curse from Earth.”

I searched for words. “Traveller, I understand. But—”

But there was time for no more; for I was administered a kick to the small of my back, which propelled me feet first from the vessel and into mid-air!

As the chill air whistled past my ears I screamed, convinced I was to die at last. I wondered at the depths of despair which had compelled Traveller to commit such an act—but then, after a fall of fifty feet, there was a sharp tug to my chest. Cables fixed to my pack had tautened, and now I dangled, slowly descending. I looked up—uncomfortably, for the straps of the pack had bunched under my armpits. The cables were fixed to a construct of canvas and cable, an inverted cone which was catching the air as I fell and so slowing my fall to a safe rate.

Squirming in my straps I looked down, beyond my dangling feet. The anti-ice thunderhead, still growing, climbed high over the corpse of Orléans. The armies of France and Prussia lay spread out beneath me, but there was little sign of movement; and I found it inconceivable that men should resume killing each other after such an event. Perhaps, I reflected in the silence and calm of my mid- air suspension, now that the world’s anti-ice was virtually exhausted, this ghastly—accident—would serve as a warning for generations to come of the perils and horror of war.

Perhaps Traveller had at last achieved his goal of a warless world—but at a cost he would find difficult to accept.

From somewhere above my canopy there came a roar, a flash of steam and fire. I twisted my head back once more—there was the Little Moon staring down, bemused, at this tortured Earth—and there went the fabulous Phaeton, rising for the last time on her plumes of steam.

The ship continued to climb, unwavering. Soon only a vapor trail, reminiscent of Gladstone’s shell, marked out her path; and it became obvious that Traveller had no intention of returning again to the world of men. At last the trail thinned to the near-invisible as Traveller reached the edge of the atmosphere… but it was a trail that pointed like an arrow at the heart of the Little Moon.

Now his intention was clear; he meant to drive the craft into the bulk of the satellite itself.

Some minutes passed. Traveller’s trail dispersed slowly, and I swung impotently but comfortably beneath Leonardo’s canopy; I kept my eyes fixed on the Little Moon, hoping to be able to detect the moment of the Phaeton’s impact with it—

The world was flooded with light, from horizon to horizon; it was as if the sky itself had caught fire.

The Little Moon seemed to have exploded.

Barely able to see, I fell heavily to the ground among a group of wondering French infantrymen.