The amazing Dr. Darwin by Charles Sheffield

Author:Charles Sheffield [Sheffield, Charles ]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, General, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - Adventure, Science fiction, American, Science Fiction - High Tech, High Tech, Physicians, Darwin, Erasmus, Darwin, Erasmus, Adventure stories, American, 1731-1802, Naturalists
ISBN: 9780743435291
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2002-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

THE SOLBORNE VAMPIRE

It was late afternoon on the shortest day of the year. An iron frost had lain since noon on the ground outside, and now it was settling on the flat roof of the square brick warehouse.

At nine o'clock of that same morning, the building roof had been comfortably warm. The temperature inside had been scorching hot, well over ninety degrees. The explosion of the boiler, at twenty-seven minutes before midday, had taken out every window and scattered fragments of glass and black iron a quarter mile in every direction. The inside heat had been bleeding away ever since. Wet towels were turning rigid, and soon once-boiling water in jugs and bowls would freeze.

The injured had been treated and the dead removed. The clean-up crew had done their best and were leaving. Shards of metal, embedded deep in solid brick walls, would have to wait, as would a thorough examination of the shattered relic in the middle of the room.

Just two people remained. The younger, a man of about forty with a gloomy, introspective face, was pacing one wall. He would not look at the ruined steam engine.

"That's it," he said. "It's all over. I should never have left Glasgow. I'll not build another one, no matter how you and Matthew urge."

Erasmus Darwin had been picking up bloody rags and swabs and dropping them into a bucket. Now he straightened. He had worked through the previous night with a difficult delivery, and awakened to come to the Birmingham suburb after only three hours of sleep. His fat face was grey and he drooped with fatigue, but he permitted no sign of that to show in his voice.

"You won't build another tonight, Jimmy, that I will admit. But tomorrow? Wait and see. I'll wager you will see differently."

"You would lose. I'm finished with all of this. I'll go back to instrument making."

"You cannot do that." Darwin bent to pick up one last rag, grunted at his aching bones, and moved to where his medical chest stood on a work bench. Somehow, despite his weariness, the smile on his pockmarked face managed to be reassuring. "You must labor on, Jimmy. The world awaits the perfection of your ideas. The day will come when they"—he swept a hefty arm to take in the whole of the north of England—"will use your engines to drive a million spinning jennys. Your inventions will run the world. A hundred years from now, water power will be one with Nineveh and Babylon."

"Waterwheels at least do not kill and maim."

"One man died here—miracle enough, seeing the force of the explosion. And I gather that Ned Sumpton disobeyed your orders."

"I told him not to start without me, that I would be busy at the Soho works until noon." For the first time, the balding Scotsman glanced at the wreckage of the engine that reflected so much of his dreams and labor. "Ned was so impatient. I said to him, time and time, steam is not a toy, it's a force of nature.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.