The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(141)
“Perhaps he’s right, Derek,” Claire addressed her husband. “Perhaps it wasn’t only your love for me that brought you here. Perhaps there is another reason?”
“But Claire . . . ,” Shackleton protested.
Claire placed her hand on her husband’s arm with the utmost tenderness.
“I think you should at least try, Derek,” she insisted, giving him a pleading look.
Shackleton remained silent, gazing into her eyes, while we all awaited his decision anxiously.
“Very well, Claire, I’ll try,” he said.
“Excellent!” I exclaimed, overjoyed at his decision, while everyone began applauding, overcome with emotion. “We’re going to the year 2000!”
I watched Harold the coachman surreptitiously wipe a tear from his cheek, while the other servants exchanged hugs and pats on the back. Only my wife remained frosty, refusing to join in the general merriment.
“I’ll go with you,” my cousin declared, overcome with emotion.
“No, Andrew,” I said, smiling. “Only the captain and I will go. It’s dangerous out there. Remember, Captain Shackleton plays a crucial role in this situation: he must stop the invasion, and the future tells us he will, which means he won’t die at least until then. However, there’s no guarantee that those who go with him will also be spared, so you must stay here, Andrew, and take care of the women. I’m sure the charming Keller sisters could not endure being widowed at the same time,” I joked. My cousin made as if to protest, but I cut him short with a gesture. “Harold, prepare the carriage.”
The coachman shot a glance at Andrew, who nodded.
“The carriage will be ready in five minutes, Mr. Winslow,” he said.
“Make that two.” I grinned.
After he had gone, Shackleton and I began saying our goodbyes to those staying behind in the refuge. Claire implored Shackleton to be careful, and I told Andrew once again to look after the women as best he could. Victoria did not approach me: she simply shook her head in dismay, and I gave a shrug. That silent exchange of reproaches constituted our farewell. She didn’t know I was trying to save the planet, and I didn’t know I would never see her again. And even if we had known, would we have behaved any differently?
XXXII
CHARLES BLEW GENTLY ON THE LAST PARAGRAPH until the ink was dry. He closed the notebook, placing the pen diagonally across it, and stared at it blankly. Two years had passed since he last saw his wife, and now it pained him deeply, as few things ever had in his life, that he had refused to swallow his pride and bid her farewell with a loving kiss, or failing that, if modesty prevented him, with a more or less affectionate, more or less heartfelt embrace.
Just then, he became aware of the rodent-like squeak coming from his neck shackle. Almost immediately, he felt the familiar tickling sensation that seemed to originate from the spot where the shackle was implanted in his back through a web of thin tentacles, roughly at the level of his fourth vertebra. Within seconds, the tingling sensation spread like a stream of molten lava down his back, searing his spinal cord, before subsiding as it reached his feet in a series of painful spasms. Clenching his teeth, Charles waited for the torment to pass, leaving him, as it did every morning, with a knot in his stomach, his body limp, his legs shaking. Fortunately the pain did not last long, a few seconds, and as time went on he had almost become accustomed to it. At first, he thought this sword of fire scorching his back would melt his spinal cord, or possibly his insides, but the only lasting harm had been a couple of cracked teeth and a sense of shame that would haunt him for the rest of his days, for more than once he had lost control of his bowels and been forced to attend the work camp carrying a humiliating load in his ragged trousers.
With this unnecessary fanfare, the buzz of the shackle was telling him it was time to leave his cell. When the spasms in his feet had subsided, Charles got up and placed the notebook under his pallet, pleased at having finished the entry just in time. He left his cell sleepily, pretending he had just woken up. His cell was one of the topmost cubicles in the vast metal barracks where the prisoners lived, and from the narrow walkway, along which his fellow prisoners were now dragging their weary bodies, he had a view of the entire Martian camp. Charles decided to stop for a moment and survey the place where he would die, the panorama that seemed stranger to him each day, for it was changing imperceptibly.
Although not yet complete, the huge pyramid being built at the center already dominated the camp. Just then, as the rising sun peeped out from behind one side of the pyramid, casting an orange glow over its chromed surface, Charles even thought it looked beautiful. Yet he knew this vast edifice was in fact monstrous. For the past few months, greenish sparks that emitted a peculiar buzzing noise had begun running horizontally around the lower levels of the pyramid, closest to the ground. The pyramid’s perimeter was so vast that these sparks took hours to travel round it, and if Charles happened to be working in the vicinity of the structure when the strange flashes passed, he felt a sharp pain in his lungs, which instantly sparked a fit of coughing. Whatever effect that colossal pyramid was supposed to have on the Earth’s atmosphere, it had already started.
Beyond the pyramid stood a cluster of unsightly Martian huts, like pale pink bubbles. Poking through the top of them were rubbery glass tubes that drooped gracelessly down the outside, giving them the appearance of giant upturned jellyfish. The tubes trailed down to the ground and, at a distance from the huts, disappeared underground in the direction of the pyramid. To the left of the camp, quite close to the huts, was a huge, funnel-shaped hole in the ground where they threw the dead human bodies, which would revolve in slow circles before sliding down and being sucked into the hole in the center. But not only dead bodies went into the grisly orifice. If the Martians thought a prisoner deserved to be punished, or if one fell ill and was too weak to work, his neck shackle would give off a high-pitched wail, and the wretched man would start walking helplessly toward the funnel, like a puppet guided by invisible threads, and hurl himself into it, spinning faster and faster as he descended, until with a howl of terror he disappeared into the central maw.