The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories by Ian Watson, Ian Whates
Authors: Ian Watson, Ian Whates
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Alternative histories (Fiction); English, Fantasy Fiction; American, Alternative History, Fantasy Fiction; English, Alternative histories (Fiction), Alternative histories (Fiction); American
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sir?”
“Yet as we see,” I went on, “the world is not over-run with” - I glanced out of the window - “rabbits, let us say, or nettles. All that are born do not survive, and those who do must, on average, have some perhaps slight advantage which - so to speak - selects them for survival over their less fit brethren. If we dare to imagine this process repeated, generation after generation, over many ages and revolutions of the Earth . . . but I fear I am rushing too far, in too speculative a direction.”
“No!” she said. She clutched my wrist, then withdrew her too-hasty hand. This time, she did blush. “Please, do go on.”
I did. By the time we reached the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, her textbook was covered with delighted scribbles linking facts at last, and her face with astonished smiles and happy frowns at the results.
I was about to part with her, at the station - which is called simply Edinburgh Central, Walter Scott in this world having remained an advocate at the Bar - smug in my Improving zeal, when she caught my elbow.
“Mr Jones,” she said, “may I presume upon our acquaintance to ask you to escort me to my destination? It is in the West Port, and - “ She looked away.
“And the Grassmarket is notorious for footpads, and you cannot afford a cab? Don’t worry, Miss Dykes. I can’t afford one either. Let us walk together.”
I carried her luggage. It was pathetically light.
“Mr Jones,” she enquired anxiously as we emerged from the rear of the station on to Market Street and caught our first stagnant whiff of the Nor Loch, “I see you carry no weapon.”
“I need none,” I assured her. “I am an adept in the martial arts of the East.”
She laughed. “Ancient arts are no match for a good pistol, sir, but I still trust in your protection.”
* * * *
Across the Royal Mile, down St Mary’s Street into the Cowgate, then along beneath the North Bridge and Charles IV Bridge towards the Grassmarket. High, dank walls like cliff-faces dripped. Opium dens wafted their dark allure. Gypsy fiddles enlivened the air around hostelries. Homeward cars and velocipedes splashed through the noxious puddles. After the Cowgate, the Grassmarket was respectability itself, even with its tinker stalls, beggar families, skulking footpads, stilt-walking clowns, and carousing students of medicine, divinity and law. The flag of the Three Kingdoms, aflutter in the evening breeze, could be glimpsed over the Castle which, like its Rock, straddles history sturdy and aloof with only its flags changing, above the Grassmarket’s seething pool of probabilities.
Out of that seething pool stepped my pursuer. Two metres in front of us, and no one in between. If I hadn’t recognized his face, the levelled thing in his hand would have identified him surely enough. In this world, it might have seemed no more than a glittering toy, but Mary Ann divined its sinister import in an instant. Or perhaps she just reacted to my start. She clutched my upper arm with both hands. From the point of view of one about to draw on the martial arts of the East, this was not a welcome move, however pleasing it might have been under other circumstances.
After a split second of bafflement, I realized that my pursuer must have stayed in the GBR, guessed - or been leaked - my destination and blithely taken the faster train of that more advanced world, then sidestepped to this world of Tairlidhe’s victory to await me. How he’d found out that this was the world to which I’d fled to evade him, I didn’t care to guess. Infiltration and defection are permanent possibilities, across all probabilities.
I had no choice. I sidestepped, back to the GBR. I may have hoped my pursuer wouldn’t expect that, but in all honesty it was a reflex.
I had never before sidestepped with someone holding on to me. I was almost as surprised as Mary Ann to find us still together,
“Yet as we see,” I went on, “the world is not over-run with” - I glanced out of the window - “rabbits, let us say, or nettles. All that are born do not survive, and those who do must, on average, have some perhaps slight advantage which - so to speak - selects them for survival over their less fit brethren. If we dare to imagine this process repeated, generation after generation, over many ages and revolutions of the Earth . . . but I fear I am rushing too far, in too speculative a direction.”
“No!” she said. She clutched my wrist, then withdrew her too-hasty hand. This time, she did blush. “Please, do go on.”
I did. By the time we reached the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, her textbook was covered with delighted scribbles linking facts at last, and her face with astonished smiles and happy frowns at the results.
I was about to part with her, at the station - which is called simply Edinburgh Central, Walter Scott in this world having remained an advocate at the Bar - smug in my Improving zeal, when she caught my elbow.
“Mr Jones,” she said, “may I presume upon our acquaintance to ask you to escort me to my destination? It is in the West Port, and - “ She looked away.
“And the Grassmarket is notorious for footpads, and you cannot afford a cab? Don’t worry, Miss Dykes. I can’t afford one either. Let us walk together.”
I carried her luggage. It was pathetically light.
“Mr Jones,” she enquired anxiously as we emerged from the rear of the station on to Market Street and caught our first stagnant whiff of the Nor Loch, “I see you carry no weapon.”
“I need none,” I assured her. “I am an adept in the martial arts of the East.”
She laughed. “Ancient arts are no match for a good pistol, sir, but I still trust in your protection.”
* * * *
Across the Royal Mile, down St Mary’s Street into the Cowgate, then along beneath the North Bridge and Charles IV Bridge towards the Grassmarket. High, dank walls like cliff-faces dripped. Opium dens wafted their dark allure. Gypsy fiddles enlivened the air around hostelries. Homeward cars and velocipedes splashed through the noxious puddles. After the Cowgate, the Grassmarket was respectability itself, even with its tinker stalls, beggar families, skulking footpads, stilt-walking clowns, and carousing students of medicine, divinity and law. The flag of the Three Kingdoms, aflutter in the evening breeze, could be glimpsed over the Castle which, like its Rock, straddles history sturdy and aloof with only its flags changing, above the Grassmarket’s seething pool of probabilities.
Out of that seething pool stepped my pursuer. Two metres in front of us, and no one in between. If I hadn’t recognized his face, the levelled thing in his hand would have identified him surely enough. In this world, it might have seemed no more than a glittering toy, but Mary Ann divined its sinister import in an instant. Or perhaps she just reacted to my start. She clutched my upper arm with both hands. From the point of view of one about to draw on the martial arts of the East, this was not a welcome move, however pleasing it might have been under other circumstances.
After a split second of bafflement, I realized that my pursuer must have stayed in the GBR, guessed - or been leaked - my destination and blithely taken the faster train of that more advanced world, then sidestepped to this world of Tairlidhe’s victory to await me. How he’d found out that this was the world to which I’d fled to evade him, I didn’t care to guess. Infiltration and defection are permanent possibilities, across all probabilities.
I had no choice. I sidestepped, back to the GBR. I may have hoped my pursuer wouldn’t expect that, but in all honesty it was a reflex.
I had never before sidestepped with someone holding on to me. I was almost as surprised as Mary Ann to find us still together,
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