Free The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats by Mark Hodder

things it says are generated only by a very complex sequence of algorithms.”
    â€œAnd what are they?”
    â€œFrom the Latin, Algoritmi ,” Burton put in. “The name given to Mu ḥ ammad ibn M Å« s ā al-Khw ā rizm Ä« , a Persian mathematician.”
    Trounce frowned. “An Arabian was speaking to us through a ball in the ceiling?”
    â€œHe’s been dead for centuries.”
    â€œBut,” Raghavendra said, “the mathematical principles he created are at the heart of the device, as is something called the Oxford Equation, which allows it to guide us through time. Here we are.”
    She opened a door and they passed through into a well-appointed room that, portholes aside, looked as if it more properly belonged in a country house than in a flying machine. A handsome young Indian greeted them. “Hello there, good fellows! If you don’t remember, I’m Maneesh Krishnamurthy.”
    Handshakes were exchanged.
    A parakeet on a perch screeched, “Sheep fumblers! Giggling bum-slap swappers!”
    â€œAnd you’ve already met Pox,” Raghavendra observed. “Eugenically bred, in a different history, to carry messages. If he knows you, he can find you, unless you’re shut indoors or out of his flight range. Very useful.”
    Krishnamurthy added, “And very rude. A flaw in the eugenic design.” He moved over to a cabinet and got to work with glasses and a decanter. “Our illustrious leader has been in a deep self-induced trance for a considerable period but should be conscious enough by now to communicate with you. Have a thimbleful first, to steady your nerves.”
    â€œGood chap!” Swinburne enthused.
    Trounce slumped into a seat and fanned himself with his hat. “It’s too much. I was shot dead. Shot dead in the street. And now all this. I think, if you don’t mind, I shall go to sleep. Don’t bother rousing me. For all I know, I’d awaken to find myself attending my own funeral, by Jove!”
    Krishnamurthy handed him a glass, well filled with spirit. “Here you are. Get that into you. It will make you feel much better.” He offered another to Swinburne.
    â€œHurrah!” the poet cheered. “I shall soon climb aboard the sobriety wagon, and so must savour this while I may.”
    Burton noticed that Raghavendra, Gooch, and Krishnamurthy were all watching Swinburne and Trounce with expressions of unmistakable fondness. He, too, had received glances that suggested he was well known to them and well regarded.
    It amazed him to discover that he returned the affection. Where the emotion had come from, how or why it had arisen, these questions he couldn’t answer, but he knew for certain that these people were his colleagues and his friends. Trounce, whom he’d met just this afternoon, he trusted implicitly and liked tremendously. For Gooch and Krishnamurthy—Lawless, too—he had complete respect and admiration. As for Raghavendra, she appeared to generate an additional degree of fondness, a depth of friendship that had comforted him considerably after the death of his fiancée—
    Fiancée? What the hell am I thinking? I’m married! And Isabel is alive!
    He tried to conjure into his mind an image of his wife’s face. Instead, he saw her heat-blurred figure standing by a bonfire. Despondency descended upon him. He didn’t understand it at all, and the heavy emotion didn’t lighten when Raghavendra stepped over and placed a hand on his arm, again as if she knew exactly his inner turmoil.
    â€œThere is a certain degree of disorientation that accompanies a journey through time,” she said softly, “which is not made any easier by our dealing with many disparate histories. Be aware that, as with the foreign memories, much of what you feel belongs not to you but to other Burtons, who have had different experiences to your own.”
    â€œMy wife is