Dream London by Tony Ballantyne

Author:Tony Ballantyne [Ballantyne, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

THE SPIRAL

WE LEFT THE Laughing Dog and hurried towards the railway station.

“Where are we going?” I asked Bill.

“The Spiral,” she replied.

“Why there?”

“It’s being watched.”

“Watched? By who?”

“By my superiors.”

“The ones who want to bomb Angel Tower?”

“Yep.”

I shook my head as we walked.

“You’ve not been up there,” I said. “I don’t think bombs will work. All the old machinery is warped into something else in Dream London.” I frowned as I looked at the railway line, soaring above the streets on its green embankment. “You know, the numbers don’t work. People get lost when they try to leave. I wonder if it’s connected?”

Bill said nothing, moving through the Egg Market with a determined stride.

“Is there a something in science where you don’t know where you are?” I wondered aloud. “Where you know where you’re moving to, but you can’t figure out your position? That’s what it’s like riding the railways in Dream London.”

We were approaching the steps to the station now.

A green alligator train slid into the station. I saw the huge bulk of two men, staring out of the windows.

“On second thoughts, we’ll walk,” I said.

“No way,” said Bill. “We need to get a move on.”

“There are two of the Daddio’s Quantifiers on there,” I said. “Do you feel as if you could fight them?”

“No,” she said, perfectly truthfully. “We’ll take a taxi, then,”

We turned and began to walk away. Somewhere behind me I could hear the voice of Miss Elizabeth Baines calling after me.

“Captain Wedderburn! Oh, Captain! Stop! It’s urgent!”

“Not her too,” I said.

“Who is that woman?” asked Bill as I hurried her along.

“That’s Miss Elizabeth Baines. She’s mad. She thinks I’m going to marry her.”

“She sounds pretty upset.”

“Of course she’s upset,” I replied. “She thinks I’d make a suitable husband. Wouldn’t the thought of marrying me upset you? Like I said, she’s mad. Just like everyone else in this city.”

There were two pedalcabs and one hansom cab waiting outside the station.

“Not the horse,” said Bill.

“Okay.”

We climbed into the first pedal cab. The driver was a young woman barely five feet tall. She stood on the pedals above a mountain of silver cogs and gears, her legs like young trees.

“The Spiral, please!” called Bill.

“Twenty minutes,” replied our driver and she let out a huge grunt and began to pedal. Slowly the cab began to move. A scatter of filigree-patterned starlings erupted around the cab as we glided down a side street, and then we were rolling down the ramp onto the Kingsway. A flight of bright green parakeets arrowed alongside the road, heading for the docks and passage to other lands.

“You talked about the Numbers Floor,” said Bill, suddenly. “Did you hear about the mathematicians, James?”

“No? What about them?”

“They committed suicide. All the ones remaining in Dream London. At least, it looked like suicide.”

“It’ll have been suicide,” I said, thinking of the Numbers Floor. “Trust me.”

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