The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [105]
"If you let machines think they can manipulate lives," Dakkar said, continuing to glower.
"Well, can't they?" Verne said.
The captain didn't reply. Then he said, more softly, as if thinking to himself, "But what if the machines themselves are at opposite ends?" and his eyes took in Orphan with a disconcerting gaze, and came to rest on Orphan's thumb, the one the Binder had… had taken.
"That's neither here nor there," Verne said, oblivious. And, to Orphan, cheerfully, "There was always the possibility you'd fail, of course. But you didn't, did you? It all worked out, and here you are. Here we are."
"Yes," Orphan said. "Here we are."
It was Dakkar himself who had sent the message to the pirates. The attack had been engineered. Orphan had suspected Aramis wrongly. He thought of all the people who had died, all so he would – fail. He was angry – but at the same time, simply glad to be alive. And Verne had saved him, in the last count.
It had been an uncomfortable journey back. They did not speak much. Orphan wondered what he would do. Hunt down the Bookman, he thought. And – Lucy. Would she understand? The Bookman must already know Orphan had failed him. What would he do?
Verne wanted to know everything about the island. He was fascinated by Orphan's raft. Already, he said, he was working on a new novel, though he was sparse with details. Something involving giant squid, Orphan gathered. Giant squid in space.
Verne and Dakkar had no further instructions from the Bookman. Their last, Verne had said, was simply to find Orphan and then return home. Verne looked tired; Dakkar, mostly annoyed. Orphan gathered he intended returning to India as soon as was possible and with his excess baggage of passengers suitably discharged. A revolution was coming, he said.
Change was in the air.
Change was in the air on the day Orphan landed back in the city. It was night time; the fog swirled, noxious and thick, over the abandoned wharf of Limehouse; and Orphan, stepping onto dry land from the sub-aquatic vehicle for the first time in what seemed like forever, stopped and breathed in the city like a man rolling fine, expensive wine on the tongue after a long-enforced abstinence.
The city smelled of a thousand different things, manure and smoke, polish and oil, shag tobacco and flowery perfume; somewhere, faint and yet overpowering, the musty smell of venerable old books. The city echoed with a thousand different sounds, from the distant, mournful song of the whales clustered by Waterloo Bridge, to a distant gunshot and, nearer, the scratchy sound of an Edison record, and someone singing. The tune was quick, fiery, and as for the words… it took Orphan by surprise, recognising the words of an old Shelley poem, set to the music, and the unknown singer sang:
"The sound is of whirlwind underground, earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven; the shape is awful, like the sound, clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven, a sceptre of pale gold."
"Earthquake and fire!" came the refrain. The music rolled around the dockyard and seemed to Orphan to eddy with the fog. He felt it stir something in him, a quickening of the blood, a response as to a call to arms. "To stay steps proud, over the slow cloud, his veined hand doth hold," sang the unknown voice, and the words were those of Panthea, speaking of Prometheus, who rebelled against the gods. "Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, like one who does, not suffers wrong!"
"Not suffers wrong!"
Almost, it sounded to him like Jack's voice. Jack, shouting, inflamed with the passion of… of revolution. Then the song died down, faded into the fog, its origin unknown. Yet he was to hear it elsewhere, wherever he went in the city, like a musical bond holding together the citizens and subjects of Victoria, Lizard Queen of an empire on which the sun never set, and stirring them into strange and inexplicable acts of rebellion.
"My friend," Verne said as they parted. "Be careful."
Orphan shook