Alice Payne Rides (Alice Payne, 2, Band 2) - Softcover

Heartfield, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250313759 ISBN 13: 9781250313751

Verlag: tor.com, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Alice Payne Rides is the thrilling sequel to Kate Heartfield's Alice Payne Arrives.

After abducting Arthur of Brittany from his own time in 1203, thereby creating the mystery that partly prompted the visit in the first place, Alice and her team discover that they have inadvertently brought the smallpox virus back to 1780 with them.

Searching for a future vaccine, Prudence finds that the various factions in the future time war intend to use the crisis to their own advantage.

Can the team prevent an international pandemic across time, and put history back on its tracks? At least until the next battle in the time war…


Praise for Alice Payne Arrives

"Twisty time wars, highway robbery, 18th century lady scientists, queer joy. How could I not love this? Alice Payne Arrives at a gallop, breathlessly blending historical fiction and SF tropes, then turning them on their heads." —Sarah Pinsker

"Whip smart, and packed with irresistible characters and fast-paced adventure. A playful, pointed, and brilliantly inventive remix of history that unfolds like the most fascinating puzzle box—each new twist and reveal a delight. Counting the days to the sequel." —S.L. Huang

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kate Heartfield's novels include The Valkyrie, The Embroidered Book, and The Chatelaine. She has won the Aurora Award for Best Novel three times. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Locus, Sunburst, and Crawford awards, as well as the Ottawa Book Award, and her journalism has been shortlisted for a National Newspaper Award. Kate's story 'And in the Arcade, Ego' was our feature story for Issue 33, Winter 2022. 'The Investigation Is Sealed' is very loosely inspired by the Westray mine disaster of 1992 and the song about it by the Canadian band Weeping Tile. Kate grew up in Manitoba and now lives in Ottawa. Visit her at kateheartfield.com.

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Alice Payne Rides

By Kate Heartfield, Lee Harris

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2019 Kate Heartfield
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-31375-1

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
CHAPTER ONE: By Which a Hostess's Intentions Are Made Plain, 
CHAPTER TWO: One Woman Too Many, 
CHAPTER THREE: One Woman Too Few, 
CHAPTER FOUR: How She Met Herself, 
CHAPTER FIVE: Being a Short Chapter, with Kissing, 
CHAPTER SIX: In Which Prudence Talks to Her Sister; or Not, 
CHAPTER SEVEN: Concerning Colonel Payne, 
CHAPTER EIGHT: In Which Our Lovers Take Each Other by the Hand, 
CHAPTER NINE: In Which Prudence Lies to the Servants, 
CHAPTER TEN: Where Alice Went Next, 
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Where Prudence Went Next, 
CHAPTER TWELVE: In Which Alice Is Foolhardy, 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: In Which Jane Is Foolhardy, 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Of the Substance of the Horrible Event, 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: On the Fragile History of Grace Zuniga, 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Which Shall Serve as an Introduction to Charles King, 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Black Spot, 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Time Is Short, or, a Scheme Is Hatched, 
CHAPTER NINETEEN: On Captain Auden's Conscience, 
CHAPTER TWENTY: Containing Sundry Curious Events, 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: A Dinner Party and What Comes After, 
The Most Recent Draft of History, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Author, 
BOOKS BY KATE HEARTFIELD, 
Copyright Page, 

CHAPTER 1

By Which a Hostess's Intentions Are Made Plain

1789

Alice Payne's dinner party fractures in the dessert course. She can almost see a fissure split the gleaming walnut of her new table, running between the plate of lemon cakes and the bowl of macaroons and veering catercorner to the custards. The footman (a glorious sensation, to have a footman at Fleance Hall!) pours for each guest, and Alice sees that they have chosen their factions.

Some drink port and talk politics: Alice herself, and Prudence Zuniga, the newest resident of Fleance Hall. Catherine Jenner, the youngest member of the party at twenty-eight years old, who has just come out of her first confinement. And at the far end of the table, next to Jane, Ambrose Duncan, the painter.

Some drink tea and talk science: her beloved Jane, of course. Gertrude Lytton, seventy years old if she's a day, who has recently won a thirty-four-year inheritance lawsuit and can finally claim to own the house in which she lives with Agnes Bell. And Miss Bell, ostensibly Miss Lytton's companion, in much the same way that Jane is ostensibly Alice's companion. And the final tea-drinker is Edward Jenner, country doctor and polymath, married to Catherine.

"But how can we be sure that the king has recovered?" Catherine Jenner asks.

Mr. Duncan seems to assume that the question was directed at him, or at least that his opinion is the most germane.

"We never can be sure, but so long as His Majesty remains able to perform at least some of the functions of his office, all our Whig hopes for democratic reform must be tempered," Mr. Duncan says, and sighs, swirling the port in his glass.

"But what must that mean for the anti-slavery movement?" Mrs. Jenner continues, and all of the white-skinned people at the table very studiously do not look at Prudence Zuniga in that moment. It's a curious development; Alice, whose own mother was enslaved, is used to being the subject of averted gazes. But Prudence, being darker complected than Alice, being a stranger to Hampshire, has spun some invisible social orrery, changing all the angles of the glances.

"Nothing good, I'm afraid," says Prudence, with a little twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Alice's quizzical glance draws nothing more from Prudence, as usual. Prudence will seldom be drawn on the subject of the future. She protests that "the future" does not exist, that there are many possible futures, and that the future whence she came very likely no longer exists. Still, she sometimes gets a knowing look in her eyes that is irritating in the extreme, in combination with her reticence.

* * *

At the same moment as Catherine Jenner asks about the king, her husband Edward Jenner leans toward Jane, and asks, "But how can you be sure that the light itself was the cause of the needle's action?"

"The experiment must be repeated, of course," Jane says, with a slight flush to her cheek that Alice recognizes well. "But I have thought at great length about the affinity that underlies light, and magnetism, and electricity."

"You see some sort of occult connexion?" Miss Lytton asks, eagerly.

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way," says Jane. "But I do think —"

"My mentor always says a man of science should never think, but only do," says Dr. Jenner. "It is only through repeated examinations of the interior workings of the cuckoo, you see, that I was able to gain entrance to the Royal Society, and that only just this year. It takes many years of hard work to get anywhere in science, Miss Hodgson."

Jane sips her tea. "The Royal Society has made it quite clear that I shall not gain entry, Dr. Jenner, no matter how many birds I cut open."

"Of course," he says, slightly flustered. "Well, never mind about them, my dear. I only mean to say that reason must always be handmaiden to observation. I have learned a great deal by observing the simple country people, but if I am to convince the esteemed gentlemen in London of the truth of anything, I must gather evidence. They have yet to be convinced, for example, that a bout of cowpox in childhood can confer immunity to smallpox, but I have seen ..."

"Captain Auden will be heartbroken to have missed this," Prudence whispers, leaning toward Alice so only she will hear, under the din of the two larger simultaneous conversations.

"Ha," Alice whispers back with a smile. "I think all his so-called investigating is a neat excuse. After all, we know he could be here at any time he likes. What is he off investigating today? The Princes in the Tower again?"

"Arthur of Brittany," Prudence says.

"Dr. Jenner, are you on about the cowpox again?" Mr. Duncan says, too loudly, and the table goes silent. Mr. Duncan is florid now, on his fourth glass.

"Forgive me," says Dr. Jenner, inclining his head. "My wife says that once I get in a rut, it would take a Clydesdale team to pull me out."

He says my wife in a way that makes it clear the phrase has all the luster of newness still to him, and he takes her hand.

"It occurs to me that I have not congratulated you on the birth of your son, Jenner," Mr. Duncan continues. "A new subject for your experiments."

"Not if I can help it," Catherine says, with a bright smile.

"A wife is a wonderful thing," Mr. Duncan goes on, as if no one had spoken. "A wonderful thing. The saviour of a man, I always say. Otherwise the passions of men miscarry in the most destructive ways."

"You make the passions of men sound rather horrible, Mr. Duncan," says Alice. She takes a few comfits, like tiny white pearls of rice, from her plate with a silver spoon. The sugared seeds brighten her tongue, benumb it just a little, as the earthy warmth of the caraway spreads through her mouth. She gently works the seeds between two molars, which helps her to say nothing more for the moment. She glances at the two old ladies, who seem likely to destroy Mr. Duncan simply by staring beatifically at him.

"Oh of course, I should not speak of such things to maiden...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: tor.com
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250313759
• ISBN 13: 9781250313751
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland