Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [62]
"See – those are for the breathing supply." Lord Bendray pushed his face close to mine, the better to point out the details inside the sphere. "Food and other essentials in those cabinets over there. The controls for the signalling lanterns and other external armatures… Rather well thought out, don't you agree?"
I drew away from him. "I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this device."
"Well, it's really all very simple. When the earth shatters apart, something like that can't fail to come to the attention of beings from those other worlds. They'll surely come to investigate the debris. And when they do, I'll be able to signal to them, as though from a lifeboat bobbing about over a sunken ship. Once they've ascertained my peerage and citizenship, I imagine they'll take me back to the place whence they came for long discussions and consultation." He rubbed his chin meditatively. "I would think… Mars. Yes; very likely to Mars."
The platform's handrail grew damp in my grasp. "But what of the earth? And all the people on it?"
"Tut, tut. We can't let mere sentiment intrude. This is Science."
"But all of Mankind destroyed? In one final cataclysm?"
"None of that," scoffed Lord Bendray. "Look at those camp beds in there. I'll have you know I've made extensive provision for several of my household staff to come along with me. A gentleman couldn't very well travel without them, could he?"
I swayed backwards, dizzied by this calm discussion of death and horror. "This is madness, and you know it! Yes!" I seized the front of the old man's coat. "No one could actually contemplate such a deed – that's why you've never set this hideous machinery into operation!"
He brushed my trembling hands from his lapels. "Hardly," he said with lofty disdain. "The fact of the matter is that the device was left incomplete at your father's death. The great structure is there, set to hammer its destructive rhythm into the earth's core; but what has been lacking is the subtle regulatory device necessary to determine those pulsations and set the machinery into the appropriate motion. Lacking until now, that is."
Retreating from his words – for my heart had already plummeted, knowing what they would be – I came close to falling down the metal steps, retaining my balance only by my grip upon the rail.
"Yes," said Lord Bendray, smiling at me. "Now the great work can be completed. You have brought the Regulator to me."
I turned and fled, headlong down the metal steps, away from his quavering soft voice and benign smile, and into the maze of stone arches before me.
9
An Interrupted Recital
"The man's insane – we have to stop him! Before he destroys the world!"
Even through the blue lenses, Scape's pitying glance was clearly readable. He tilted a bottle of port, identical to that private stock from which Lord Bendray had served me, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Did he lay that tired old wheeze on you? What a jerk." He shook his head in disgust.
I was still out of breath owing to my panicked flight from Lord Bendray's subterranean laboratory, my hands bruised from collision with the stone arches. Guided only by desperation, I had blundered my way up into the Hall itself, and had at last found Scape in one of the upstairs rooms, sitting in his shirtsleeves on the corner of a bed. My brain was still awhirl with the quavering voice and its words. "Don't you understand?" I cried. "The cataclysm – everything, bits and pieces – like marching soldiers–"
Miss McThane wandered in from an adjoining bathroom, her arms bare as she rubbed her damp hair with a towel. "What's all the shouting about?"
Scape pointed his thumb at me. "Ol' Bendray just told Dower that he's planning on blowing up the world."
"Oh, that." She drifted back out of the room.
I grasped him by the shoulder. "But, we have to do something–"
He shook me off. "Simmer down, for Christ's sake. I can't believe you just now flashed on the fact that Bendray's crazy."