He dived into the murk. Something had caught his eye moments ago. It had possibilities.
“We have to keep moving, Captain!” Hare called after him.
Burton ran back the way they'd come until he reached the edge of the square. He peered to his right, through the swirling haze.
It was still there.
He returned to Burke and Hare.
“There's an abandoned omnipede,” he reported, taking back the pistol. “I suggest we hijack the blighter. It'll get us over Waterloo Bridge in no time.”
“You can drive the contraption?” Hare asked.
“I can try. I don't think the controls are much different from those on a rotorchair. Come on.”
He helped Hare with Burke, dragging him along until they reached the giant mechanised millipede. It was slumped across the road, empty but for the driver, whose corpse hung over the edge of the control seat.
“Looks like he was bludgeoned,” Hare muttered.
They hauled Burke up the steps in the side of the vehicle's carapace and laid him on a bench. He stirred and moaned.
“Help me to shift the driver,” Burton said. “Try not to use your injured arm-I don't want you bleeding any more than you already are.”
“Me neither, Sir Richard.”
They descended and moved to what used to be the head of the gigantic insect. As they dragged the dead body down and across to the side of the road, Hare noted that there weren't many people about. “It seems like a wave of rioters has come and gone through this part of town,” he ruminated. “I wonder where they are now? Do you think they're still at it, Captain?”
“From the various cries and screams we're hearing, it appears that passions are still running high,” Burton replied. “But whether the riot is dying down or has just moved past this district remains to be seen. There were certainly a fair few unfortunates in that tavern when the landau hit it.”
He suddenly pointed the pistol at the other man and pressed the trigger. With a soft phut! seven spines flew past Hare's ear and embedded themselves in the throat of the woman who'd loomed out of the smoke behind him. The length of pipe she held poised to crack down onto his head fell from numb fingers and clanged onto the road. She dropped on top of it.
“Much obliged,” said Hare.
“Take the cactus gun again. I'll drive. You shoot.”
Hare grasped the proffered weapon and clambered back onto the omnipede. He stood by the bench upon which Burke lay and braced himself against the canopy, clamping his injured arm against his side, holding the spine-shooter ready.
Burton slipped into the driver's seat and examined the controls. A gauge indicated that the furnace was still burning and another that boiler pressure was high. He settled his feet onto a plate which operated in the same way as the one in his rotorchair: press it forward with the toes to accelerate and backward with the heels to slow and brake. There were two levers to facilitate steering.
“Simple enough,” he breathed. “Let's be off.”
He pushed gently on the footplate. The insect shuddered and rattled, steam whistling from the vents between its many legs. It jerked ahead, stopped, the engines spluttered, snarled, and the vehicle began to rumble forward.
Burton struggled with the controls. The machine was so long that, as he exited the square and guided it onto Waterloo Road, its middle strayed onto the pavement and scraped against the corner of a bakery, grinding horribly on the brickwork and causing red dust to plume into the already dense atmosphere.
Some of the millipede's legs cracked and snapped against the building. The shop's display window shattered.
“Careful! Careful!” Hare shouted.
Burton jammed down his heels.
“Steer out into the centre of the street, else we'll lose all the limbs along this side!”
“Sorry,” the king's agent mumbled. He looked back along the length of the vehicle, trying to judge distances. “Whose bloody stupid idea was it to turn an insect into a confounded ‘bus?” he growled.
A yank at the right-hand lever followed by a slow pull back on the left sent the machine away from the corner and out into the middle of the road.
He accelerated along the thoroughfare, fighting to maintain control as the omnipede snaked wildly from side to side, hurtling into abandoned carts, overturned braziers, and all manner of debris, smashing everything aside or crushing it flat beneath its numerous short, powerful legs.
Burton tried to slow it down-he could barely see where he was going-but the footplate was far too responsive and his clumsy efforts caused a jolting motion that had his teeth clicking together and Hare yelling at him.
“Stop or go, if you please, Captain, but for pity's sake try not to do both at once!”
The king's agent glanced again at the gauges.
Perhaps if- -
He reached to a small wheel beside the pressure indicator and turned it counterclockwise. Immediately, all along the great length of the omnibus, plumes of steam screamed out of the vents.
The vehicle stabilised.
“The pressure was too high!” he called. “I've got her in hand now!”
Phut! Phut! Phut!
He looked back.
Gregory Hare was shooting at a brougham that had emerged from the swirling smoke and was racing alongside, its steam-horse panting, its driver hollering incoherently. A man was hanging loosely out of the passenger cabin, his arms dangling, cactus spines projecting from the side of his head. Behind him, using him as cover, another man was brandishing a pair of pistols and taking potshots at Hare.
“Shoot the blessed driver!” Burton yelled.
“I'm trying! Perhaps you could pilot this contraption a little more steadily?”
“God-damned stupid machine!” ground out Burton through gritted teeth. “Why in the name of all that's holy did I ever leave Africa?”
He wrenched at the left steering lever, sending the omnipede thundering around a motionless and badly dented litter-crab.
A bullet whined past his ear.
“Lions I can bloody well cope with. Mosquitoes I can bloody well cope with. Even traitorous bloody partners, I can bloody well cope with. But giant steam-operated insects I can quite-”
The ’bus slammed into a beer wagon, sending splintered wood exploding outward.
“-happily-”
The vehicle bucked and shook as it trampled over the shattered cart.
“-do without!”
“I'm hit!” Hare cried.
Burton looked back and saw that Palmerston's man had slumped down, clutching his hip, his wide mouth contorted with pain.
The brougham drew closer to the head of the racing insect.
“Stupid stuck-up ponce!” bawled the driver. “You think you can cheat Tichborne?”
Bullets thudded into the carapace at Burton's side.
The stench of the Thames wafted over the king's agent as the omnipede streaked past empty tollbooths and out onto Waterloo Bridge. He caught a glimpse of Big Ben through the stifling atmosphere. Orange light reflected from the side of the tower. The Houses of Parliament were burning.
A shot clipped his ear.
“Upper-class pig bastard!”
“Snooty pisspot!” yelled the brougham's passenger. “Tichborne forever!”
“You two are worse than parakeets,” Burton shouted. “And I've had quite enough of it!”
He tugged at the right steering lever, sending the omnibus swerving sideways until it collided with the pursuers. The driver shrieked as his vehicle was rammed into the bridge's parapet.
“Sweet Jesus!” screamed the man inside the cabin as it crunched against the stone barrier. With shocking rapidity, the entire box suddenly flew to pieces and was thrown into the air. The steam-horse overturned and the disintegrating brougham somersaulted over it, smashed against the railing, and disappeared over the side of the bridge.
“There you are, gents,” Burton muttered. “A little river water for you. Wash your mouths out.” He called over his shoulder: “Are you all right, Hare?”
“Just keep going, Captain! I seem to be immobilised but I daresay I'll live!”