Frankenstein’s Legions
- Автор: Whitbourn John
- Год: 2011
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Попаданец
Электронная книга - «Frankenstein’s Legions». Краткое содержание книги:
but the Governments who have hijacked his discoveries see the advantage of
resurrection on an industrial scale. What better way to fight their
never-ending wars than with armies of obedient undead soldiers, recycled from
earlier battles? And how better to silence their own citizens who protest at
ceaseless conflict and plundered graveyards?
Set in the 1830s,
Frankenstein’s Legions details an alternative history in which Frankensteinian
science is a reality, revived after patchy prohibition by a second and even
more fanatical French Revolution. The republican regime, inspired by zeal and
desperation, has swept over Europe, employing inexhaustible swarms of
zombie-like (or Lazaroid) troops. The remaining independent nations, including
England, are obliged to shed their scruples and likewise raise Lazaroid
armies.
Across this crazed and Gothic history stride Julius Frankenstein,
soldier nephew of the notorious scientist; Charles Babbage inventor of the
proto-computer Difference Engine; and the Honourable Augusta Ada, Countess of
Lovelace, genius daughter of Lord Byron. Pulling their strings – they believe
– are the puppetmasters Talleyrand, French statesman par excellence and now a
renegade in English employ; and Sir Percy Blakeney, sometime Scarlet Pimpernel
and current head of the British Secret Service.
Meanwhile, the French
have been unwise enough to revive their recently deceased Emperor. The
intention was simply to pick the brain of history’s foremost military mind.
However, the risen Emperor Napoleon is developing fresh ambitions of his own…
‘Selling the family jewellery works too,’ Frankenstein added sourly. ‘I am told it greatly speeds one’s trajectory to debtors’ prison.’
Ada took it on the chin.
‘That also, good doctor. My once dear husband, Lord Lovelace, would have shot or divorced me had he known, but my researches were simply ravenous in their consumption of cash. Taking on the roulette wheel or the vagaries of the turf are not for the financially faint-hearted, I can assure you. However, the great project had to continue at all costs and so I liquidated the capital contained in my finery. A Hebrew in Hatton Gardens had replicas made.’
‘In that case, madam, I wonder that you’ve bothered to burden your britches with them.’
Julius blunted his barb by blushing again. Such tavern-talk was not his natural weaponry.
‘Do not let pique make you vulgar,’ Ada instructed. ‘You’ve been almost gentlemanly so far—for a foreigner and mercenary. Why spoil it? Also, have a care, for Foxglove does not take kindly to impudence in my presence.’
Hearing his name mentioned, if nothing more, the servant looked over from his orbital patrol. To Julius’ horror, Lady Lovelace waved back in precisely the way fugitives shouldn’t. Then she resumed.
‘If I had spurned such valuables, alone amongst all the pillaged items, it would have aroused suspicions and my ruse might have been exposed. But not only that, I keep them for a better day. Had not death and Mr Babbage’s… misfortune not intervened it was my firm intention to make good the deception one day. No one need ever have known.’
‘Save yourself,’ said Julius, ‘when wearing them; deceiving all who those admired their beauty.’
Lady Lovelace laughed, raising her white face dangerously high.
‘Oh, I know all manner of wicked secrets, Mr Swiss! You can hardly conceive… One more hardly makes any difference, does it. And are you still so very cross with me, mein herr? Can you not be just a little… mollified?’
Happily, the play on words sailed over Frankenstein’s head. He was not to know that ‘mollie’ was the low-English term for bachelors who had not met the right girl yet (and never would).
Even so, he quickened their pace and frowned.
‘Madam, I refer you to my earlier statement on indifference.’
Ada squeezed his arm, a disconcertingly marital gesture.
‘I don’t believe you, gold-digger doctor. But comfort yourself: the jewellery and all manner of other things shall be restored to how they should be. In due course, just as soon as I have conquered the deities of chance…’
They were passing by the lake and Duck Island, secure avian HQ in the centre of the metropolis. From it birds quested out to demand dinner from passers-by.
Fortunately for Julius and Ada there were a lot of the latter. Both place and hour provided perfect concealment in tidal flows of Westminster government workers taking lunch or otherwise about their business. The generation-long War had greatly inflated both their numbers and busy-ness.
Though excellent cover, Ada placed too much faith in it. She dilly-dallied and chit-chatted. The world was her oyster again and she was peckish.
‘Did you know,’ she enquired, indicating the tiny islet, ‘that on a whim and in his cups, King Charles II appointed a exiled French poet ‘military governor’ of Duck Island? Complete with handsome salary and title? I should have liked that post; and to confound the giver I would have taken it seriously, with tours of inspection and schemes of defence. That would have been most amusing, don’t you think?’
Julius knew she hadn’t been drinking, for he’d been with her all the time. Therefore this must be the madness of the British aristocracy he’d heard about—doubtless a function of inbreeding and lack of mental exercise. It would make a fascinating medical study for a student who gave a damn.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t,’—and dragged her on.
Once past the island of Ada’s obsession, Frankenstein headed for another concentration of cover. At the fringes of the park, where they wouldn’t be in the way of their betters, a crowd of Revived clerks and menials were gathered round a street-preacher on a soapbox. Since the established church barred Lazarans from its places of worship they had to meet their spiritual needs as and when they could. In practice, this meant during those rare occasions when anyone deigned to address them and their masters didn’t know where they were. Therefore the throng was avid, their yearning palpable.
And the preacher was fit to meet it: his eyes were as wild as his hair; his voice powered with passion.
‘… Souls?’ he was shouting, all the time looking round for the Park Police who’d inevitably move him on. Or arrest him. Or truncheon him. ‘Of course you have souls! Let no man tell you otherwise: least of all the venal prelates of the lickspittle state church! ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’? ‘False shepherd of Babylon’ more like! What does he know? Can mere Man burgle the Afterlife? Can the created steal from its Creator? Rubbish! Purchased dogma! Bought-and-paid-for Blasphemy! No: I tell you most solemnly: you all—all—have souls. Somewhere… in some inexpressible form known only to God…’
‘Testify!’ the recalled dead cried out, inspired by their own version of joy and urging him on. ‘Testify!’
A smattering of living supporters present, eccentrics and/or idealists, approved more measuredly. Some bore banners. Julius saw one that read:
‘ARE THEY NOT
AS WE
SHALL BE?’
A sort-of truth which only prompted him to think ‘God forbid!,’ and stunned all sympathy.
‘Therefore,’ the preacher continued, waving his arms, ‘I assure you, dear brothers, dear sisters, that you are far more than cannon-fodder! Better than mere meat machines! You are alive again—and thus basking in Divine love—for better reasons than accountancy!’
That got a cheer. Some masters had no mercy and drafted their Lazarans into the drearier professions. Likewise the sad fields where their already cold hearts came in handy. Lawyers now employed more undead than living.
‘Wherefore, you deserve the dignity that comes with those Divine origins. Are ye latter-day Gibeonites: those whom Scripture says the Israelites enslaved to be forever ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’? No, You are men: children of God and made in his image!’
Here was a weak point in his thesis, for many of those images gathered round him didn’t look very god-like. Rhetoric demanded he either get louder or more daring.
He did both. The Preacher looked about, even more haunted than before, and bellowed:
‘Nor are you beasts! Mere vermin to be hunted for perverse pleasure!’
This was pushing his luck. Lazaran blood-sports were forbidden (a waste of war material for a start) but everyone knew it went on. It was a melancholy fact that hardcore hunters found former-humans so much more challenging, more mettlesome and miles-for-your-money than a fox or deer. However, those who (allegedly) indulged tended to be both addicted and aristocratic: that is to say committed, well-connected, people averse to the limelight. The ‘Earl of This’ or ‘Lord That’ didn’t care for loose talk which might spoil the fun. There was even rumours of a Parliamentary Pack. It most certainly ‘didn’t do’ to go public about it.
And sure enough, soon afterwards someone must have ‘told’ on all the subversive talk. A constabulary whistle signalled suppression was on its way.