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"We're going to crash!" screamed the ship's operator, and he made to run for the door, but the Francis Galton automaton was standing behind him and, clamping its hands around the man's neck, it held him in front of the controls.

"We command you to fly the ship!" ordered Darwin.

"I can't! I can't!"

"You must!"

Burton reached down and took hold of Oxford's head.

"In cold blood?" asked the time traveller.

"Whatever is necessary," replied Burton.

"What will it achieve?"

Sir Richard Francis Burton looked the man in the eyes. "Stable coordinates," he said.

"Enjoy your reboot," whispered Spring Heeled Jack.

Burton yanked Edward John Oxford's head around, breaking his neck.

"That was a serious mistake," said Darwin. "However, what's done is done. Now get us out of here before the vessel is destroyed. Bring the corpse, the helmet, and the boots."

The king's agent glanced at the windows and saw Darkening Towers looming large in them.

"No, Darwin," he said. "The time suit must be destroyed. Your experiments must end."

"We disagree. Allow us at least to debate the point with you before you act. We propose to you, Burton, that access to time travel will allow us to finally put to rest the great delusion of a God who intercedes in human affairs. We will eliminate the absurd notions of fate and destiny. We will choose our own paths through time. We will place reins on the process of evolution to steer it where we will!"

"So nothing will happen by chance?" suggested Burton.

"Precisely! Save the time suit!"

"And you?"

"And us! Yes, save us!"

Burton glanced at the window.

"We would have your response," came Darwin's double-toned voice. "What do you say?"

The king's agent paced over to the door. He looked back at the malformed scientist.

"I'm sorry," he said. "There will be no debate today."

"The evolved must survive!" cried the scientist.

Burton opened the door and passed through. Swinburne was holding Nurse Nightingale at bay with his pistol. A man lay on the floor clutching his bleeding side.

"I was aiming at his leg, I swear!" claimed the poet.

Burton gripped Nightingale by the arm and dragged her to the access ladder.

"Up!" he ordered.

"No," she replied.

He punched her forehead and she collapsed into his arms.

"No time for niceties," he said. "Up you go, Algy!"

Swinburne ascended and Burton followed, with the woman over his shoulder.

Less than a minute later, the front of the titanic rotorship collided with Darkening Towers. The ancient mansion exploded into a cloud of flying bricks, masonry, and glass. Crumpling metal screamed as it tore through the building and hit the earth.

The inhabitants of nearby Waterford were jerked out of their sleep by the terrifying sound of destruction. The floor shook beneath their beds and their house windows shattered as the ship ploughed a wide furrow through the grounds of the Beresford estate before finally coming to rest almost a quarter of a mile beyond, a mass of torn and twisted metal.

For a moment a strange sort of calm descended and it seemed that the devastation was complete. Then, one after the other, the ship's boilers exploded-a series of terrific detonations that blew the back half of the ship to pieces, throwing debris hundreds of feet into the air and sending a thick pall of steam rolling outward.

Finally, the scene of the crash became quiet but for occasional clangs and squeals as the wreckage settled.

Of Darkening Towers, nothing remained except a smear across the landscape.

Burton had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. Wrapped in a roll of the thick insulating material, he'd been thrown violently around the small storage bay until his senses were shaken from him. Now, as they returned, he gingerly tested each limb, and though his right arm pained him where Oliphant's sword had pierced it, he found that all his bones were intact.

With much difficulty, he wriggled out of the material onto the slanting and twisted deck, pulled his clockwork