The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(7)

One morning, they received an invitation from Charles Dodgson to take tea with him at his house in Oxford. During the past months the two men had corresponded occasionally. The professor had benignly inquired how his ex-pupil’s research was going, but Wells had been evasive. He had decided to tell Charles nothing until he had succeeded in synthesizing the virus and had shown that it worked by injecting Newton. Then he would write to him, or call him through the communication glove, and invite him to his house, bestowing on him the privilege of being the first scientist outside his team to discover that mankind had found a way of saving itself. But since Newton had not disappeared as he was supposed to, that call had never taken place. Two exasperating months later, Wells received the invitation from Dodgson. He considered refusing it but didn’t have the heart. The last thing he wanted was to have to admit to Charles that the virus did not work. Jane told him he might benefit from his old friend’s advice. Besides, Charles still lived at Knowledge Church College, Wells’s alma mater, and perhaps the memories associated with those noble edifices would inspire him with new ideas, not to mention allow him to take a walk in the beautiful surrounding countryside, for it never hurt to get some fresh air. Wells agreed, not so much because the idea appealed to him, but in order to avoid an argument with his wife. He didn’t even raise an objection when Jane suggested taking along Newton, who when left alone at home would amuse himself by chewing up cushions, books, or other objects accidentally left within reach of his jaws. And so, one cold January afternoon, an ornithopter left the couple and Newton in front of the college gates, where Charles was awaiting them, his carefully groomed hair mussed by the downdraft of the vehicle’s propellers.

When the ornithopter had taken off again, Wells and Charles regarded each other for a moment in silence, like two men who had agreed to take part in a duel at dawn. Then they burst out laughing and embraced affectionately, slapping each other vigorously on the back as if trying to warm each other up.

“I’m sorry you lost the debate, Charles,” Wells felt compelled to say.

“You mustn’t apologize,” Charles admonished. “Just as I wouldn’t if you had lost. We each believe the other is mistaken, but provided you think me brilliantly mistaken, I don’t mind.”

Then Charles gave Jane the warmest welcome and excused his wife, Pleasance, who was busy giving a lecture. If her students didn’t keep her too long, she might see them before they left.

“But what have we here?” Charles exclaimed, addressing the dog, who instantly began wagging his tail.

Before Wells could explain that it was a constant reminder of his failure, Jane said: “His name is Newton, and he’s been living with us for the last five months.”

Charles stooped to stroke the tuft of white hair between the dog’s eyes while uttering a few words to it, which only Newton appeared to understand. After this exchange of confidences, the professor, smoothing down his tousled hair, led his guests through a small garden to his chambers near the cathedral spire. In one of the larger rooms, where the wallpaper pattern was of sunflowers the size of plates, a domestic automaton was arranging a tea set on an exquisitely carved table, around which stood four Chippendale chairs. Hearing them come in, the automaton swung round, placed its metallic palms on the floor, and walked over to them on its hands before reverting to the normal hominid posture and greeting them with a theatrical bow, doffing an invisible hat.

“I see you still can’t resist reprogramming your automatons, Charles,” Wells remarked.

“Oh, I’m just trying to give them a bit of personality. I can’t abide those tedious factory settings.” The professor grinned, and then, addressing the automaton, he added: “Thank you, Robert Louis. No one can balance the cups and saucers on the sugar bowl quite like you.” The automaton acknowledged the compliment and appeared to blush, doubtless the result of another of Charles’s additions to its original programming. Wells shook his head in amusement while Robert Louis, knee joints creaking, went over to the door to await further orders. Wells’s domestic automaton was also an RL6 Prometheus, but it would never have occurred to him to give it a name using those initials, much less open up its skull and rearrange its wiring to give it the soul of an acrobat. Charles, on the other hand, was unable to accept things as they came; he had to put his stamp on them, and that was precisely why Wells had learned to appreciate him more than his other professors.

While Charles and Jane finished laying the table, Wells took the opportunity to stroll around the room. Alongside some of the most technologically advanced appliances (Wells saw a food warmer, a writing glove, a heat transmitter, and even a dust-swallowing mouse stretched out on a pedestal table, its innards exposed, as though Charles were halfway through performing a dissection) was a different type of object that offered a glimpse into the professor’s more eccentric side, including some antique toys and a collection of music boxes. Wells walked over to where they were stacked on a shelf and stroked a couple of them the way he would a dozing cat, but he did not venture to open them, refusing to unleash their music and the minute ballerina that might lie squashed inside. At the back of the room a heavy curtain separated the formal part of the room from the terra incognita of the professor’s laboratory.

Then Wells studied the walls, adorned with several of Charles’s own drawings, illustrations from his textbooks on mathematical logic for children. Notwithstanding the playful spirit in which they were written, the Church, accustomed to indulging Charles’s foibles, had given his books its blessing, for they were thought to help children develop their intelligence from an early age. Even so, fearing his reputation as a scientist might be compromised, Charles had taken the precaution of publishing them under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll. He had written most of them whilst sitting on the banks of the river Thames, in the honey-colored spring light, for the professor was in the habit of boating on the river, gently cleaving its waters with his oars. More than once, when Wells was still his pupil, he had enjoyed the privilege of accompanying him.