Georgiana Spencer-Poyntz Cavendish, 17th Duchess of Devonshire, looked out on the manicured lawn of Green Park from the windows of London’s Cavalry and Guards Club.
It was mid-May in 2204 and it was raining, predictably, spring's drops tapping and patterning the windowpane. England’s foremost adventuress and landowner of not inconsiderable fortune turned to her host, “Kitchener, what earthly purpose is there in weather satellites when they can’t control the weather?”
Lord Kitchener fixed Devonshire with a friendly eye over a cup of afternoon Darjeeling, freshly brought in that very day from Her Imperial Majesty’s territories in Burma. “Earthly, Devo?” he had known her since they were children playing on the grounds of Chatsworth, “I’d say more celestial, don’t you think?” Devonshire sat down neatly and helped herself to tea, “Celestial, Field Marshall?”
“Yes, just that. To be more precise, the Celestial Kingdom.”
“You mean Mars, New China? I thought that settled business.”
Kitchener frowned, “Settled? In a sense, yes. New China isn’t about to eject our Legations, the Dowager Empress is gone and Prince Qing sits on the throne. He’s favourable to us, as well he should be.”
The Field Marshall thought back to the high orbit bombardment his Anglo-US fleet had rained down on the Empress’ forces. A merciless hail of incandescent fury which, as if out of spite, had obliterated the Chinese Summer Palace and the priceless artefacts therein. Well, war was war, even if limited.
“You see, Devo, the raid was successful, but there’s the small matter of a diamond, the Erebus Diamond.”
Devonshire looked askance, “The Erebus Diamond? What do you mean, surely we have that?” Kitchener smiled, and instantly they found themselves in Null Space, free from prying eyes and ears, the comfort of of 127 Piccadilly replaced by the no-space of Null, a grey background surging with damping static.
“There,” said Kitchener, above the hissing sound, “The diamond. As you know, Sir Carter Headington was carrying the gem in transit when we launched our strike on the Palace and lifted the siege.” Devonshire glanced agreement, “And?”
“It's disappeared. Gone. Lost, if you’ll forgive the phrase, in the 'fog of war, Nebel des Krieges.' We suspect the Tongs have it, which means Empress Cixi intends to have it, which must never happen. You understand.”
“I most certainly do,” remarked Devonshire, tragically widowed when her philandering husband met his end in an alcohol-fueled duel on the Crystal Palace space elevator. His opponent had been in the pay of the Chinese Dowager Empress and of course she had killed him, a matter of honour. Yes, Devonshire knew something of the danger of Cixi. But so be it, the elevator incident had left her vastly wealthy and free to do as she pleased.
Georgiana regarded Kitchener with her famously insouciant grin. He replied, “I think you know what to do, Devo, old girl. Go out and get that diamond. And by the way, should Cixi disappear, which of course she has already, that would be helpful.”
Devonshire nodded, and in an instant they were back in the reassuring warmth of the club. She descended the long stairwell in a rustle of skirts, admiring the paintings of illustrious charges. Such was Empire. Then to her Brougham and a brisk clip past the Palace, Apsley House, where the Wellington's held court when in Town, and on through Hyde Park, and the towering Albert Memorial.
Georgiana looked up at the soaring gothic magnificence of its spire, which seemed to pierce heaven itself, and reflected on the Prince Consort's cryogenically frozen head, sealed there, in its midst. Her neural implants picked up traces of Albert's refrigerated voice, vestigial waves of the mind emanating from his frosty sepulchre, What of worth has ever been achieved which did not inspire fear?
"Quite," thought Devonshire, "if Teutonic." The Consort had been dead, for the most part, for well over two hundred years and still the people wore mourning. She did herself, perfectly, in black.
Perhaps this was about to change, but regardless, the heroine of Olympus Mons thought on the brilliance of the Erebus Diamond and plotted a mental course for Phobos, Great Britain’s Imperial staging post for the Red Planet.
Yes, this story writes itself... I think.
Cheers,
LSP
