Dracula Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss Page B

Louisiana.
    Gathering his wits, he turned back into the cab. The train gave a lurch sideways.
    The LCD coordinates had ceased to spin. Bodenland stared at them incredulously, and then checked other readings. They had materialized some 270 million years before his present, in the Carboniferous age.
    The cab rocked under his feet and tilted a few more degrees to one side. Black water lapped over the lip of the door up to his feet. Staring out, he saw that the weight of the train was bearing it rapidly down into the swamp.
    â€œYou,” he said, shaking the supine driver under his cover. “I’m going to pitch you out into that swamp unless you tell me fast how we get out of here.”
    â€œIt’s the secret override. I forgot to tell you about it—I’ll help you all I can, since you were merciful to me—”
    â€œOkay, you remember now. What do we do?”
    The dark water came washing in as the driver said, “The override is designed to stop unauthorized persons from meddling with the time controls. Only the space controls responded to your instructions, the others went into reverse.”
    While he was speaking, the train tilted again and Clift’s body slid toward the door.
    â€œWhat do we do, apart from drown?”
    â€œThe train is programmed for its next stop and I can’t change that. Best thing is to complete that journey, after which the program’s finished and the override cuts out. So you just switch on, canceling the previous coordinates you punched in.”
    The water was pouring in now, splashing the men. A bejeweled fly swung in and orbited Bodenland’s head.
    â€œWhere’s this preprogrammed journey taking us?”
    With an extra surge of water, a warty shape rose from the swamp, steadying itself with a clumsy foot at the doorway. A flat amphibian head looked in at them. Two toad eyes stared, as if without sight. A wide mouth cracked open. A goiter in the yellow throat throbbed. The head darted forward as Bodenland instinctively jumped back, clinging to a support.
    The lipless frog-mouth fastened on Clift’s body. With a leisurely movement, the amphibian withdrew, bearing its meal with it down into the waters of the swamp. It disappeared from view and the black surface closed over it.
    Bodenland slammed the sliding door shut and staggered to the keyboard. He punched on the Start pressurepads and heard the roar of generators, which died as the engine seemed to lift.
    The outer world with its majestic colonnades of trees blurred, whited out, faded to gray and down the color spectrum, until the zero-light of time quanta came in. The driver sat up in the dirty water swilling about him and peered haggard-faced from his tarpaulin.
    Drained by the excitement of the last few hours, appalled by the loss of his friend, Bodenland watched the numerals juggling with themselves in the oily wells of the display panel. He came to with a start, realizing he might fall asleep.
    Making an effort, he got down a length of thin cable and secured the driver with it, before locking the door to the corridor.
    He stood over his captive, who began to plead for mercy.
    â€œYou don’t have a great store of courage.”
    â€œI don’t need courage. You need the courage. I know you have ten thousand adversaries against you.”
    Bodenland looked down, contemplating kicking the creature. On hands and knees, he looked up pitiably before seizing Bodenland’s leg and kissing it.
    â€œWhere are we programmed for?” Bodenland asked, pushing the wretch away.
    â€œWe have to visit Transylvania. But the program is set only as far as London, in the year 1896, where we let off a powerful female agent.”
    â€œOh yes? And what’s she up to?”
    The driver paused miserably before yielding up a further scrap of information.
    â€œShe has business at the home of a man living near London, a man by the name of Bram Stoker.”

7
    She went over to look