The Forever Engine by Frank Chadwick Page B

fake voluntary reactions, but not involuntary ones. He soiled himself. It’s a common but completely involuntary response to sudden danger. He was as surprised as the rest of us.”
    “ You didn’t soil yourself,” Buller observed.
    “I knew I was in for a long and stressful day, maybe even torture, so I took a tactical dump on the train right before we got to London.”
    “And what, pray tell, is a tactical dump ?” he demanded.
    I told him.
    Thomson laughed, and one of the young officers snickered, which made Buller frown all the more fiercely.
    “You never filled your trousers in combat, General?” I asked.
    His scowl grew even darker and his face reddened.
    “Different matter altogether,” he snapped. “Water’s always bad on campaign; a soldier learns to live with dysentery. Not the same thing at all.”
    “No, of course not,” I said.
    “Damn you, Fargo. How do you explain his convenient marks-manship? Hasn’t it occurred to you he may have been trying to kill you?”
    “Yeah, but I decided against it. Use your head, General. If he works for a guy who wants to ‘collect’ me, whatever the hell that means, why would he want to kill me? No, his shooting makes perfect sense. You’ve been in tough combat before or you wouldn’t have a Victoria Cross, so think about it.
    “His stress level was through the ceiling, so his hands shook, and he’d lost fine-detail resolution in his vision. He couldn’t see the sight on the end of his pistol. His first shot was pure muscle memory; he raised his hand, and it automatically pointed where his eyes were looking. After that he started thinking about it, trying to aim, and so he put bullets all over the place.”
    Buller studied me carefully for a few seconds, and I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he thought it over. He’d probably never heard it explained that way before, but if he really had seen a lot of combat, it would make sense.
    “Loss of fine-vision resolution, involuntary responses, muscle memory —how do you know all this?” he asked.
    “I’ll tell you some day. But right now you’ve got a more pressing problem, don’t you?”
    “Yes, the spy. Well, that’s thin soup, Fargo, but it’s the only soup we have, I’m afraid. Damned if I’m certain why, but I think you’re right. Blast you, Gordon! My life would be a deal easier if you were guilty.”
    Buller waved the three rigid officers to ease and sat down behind the large wooden desk. I found a chair.
    “I’m a fair suspect myself, I suppose,” Thomson said. “I knew all the details concerning Fargo’s story, and I was on bad terms with Tyndall and the other X Club members.”
    The same thing had already occurred to me. I liked Thomson, but that didn’t change the facts.
    Buller opened a folder on his desk and studied its contents, frowning in thought.
    “Your argument with the X Club was public, Professor, but I hardly consider it a motive for these killings. Your position is rather sensible, if you ask me. All this Origins of Species nonsense the X Club members spouted—I knew my grandfather, by God, and he was no monkey.”
    Across the desk I saw Gordon’s face tighten, but he said nothing. Buller turned to me.
    “Professor Thomson disproved all that rubbish, you know, but the X Club johnnies still stuck with it. Rather thick of them, if you ask me. Not to speak ill of the dead, of course.”
    “Disproved it?” I asked.
    Thomson shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cast a guilty look at Gordon.
    “I . . . ah . . . calculated the age of the Earth based on its internal temperature and the rate of cooling of its component elements. It is not old enough for the processes Mr. Darwin outlines to have played out . . . at least not in the fashion he describes.”
    He looked down and away when he was finished. Maybe he felt uncomfortable bringing up a disagreement with the late lamented Tyndall.
    “Right, but that’s hardly a motive for you to go around killing