Meeting with the Orphans

As transcribed by Bellatrix S. Bracken from an Edison cylinder found among the surviving effects of Prof. Nareth E. Nishi, probably recorded during the late evening of 25 August:

There are too many things I have never learned of life. Even blind, how does one look into the face of an orphaned child who has just asked whether or not his grandfather was a bad man and not lie? How does one tell the truth, when the boy's grandfather has visited so much grief and horror upon the world? I can not endure much more of this, Father. If I believed in any sort of god, I would swear upon that deity that I have come to the end of my tether. [long pause; static]

Miss Paine and I met with the orphans this evening in the Imperial, Loki Eliot and almost twenty of his fellow urchins. I learned almost nothing, and in truth I'd not expected to. I know that Victor Wunderlich is once again in hiding, and that he did indeed carry one third of the Eliot device to Caledon, but was too frightened to deliver it to Mr. Canning, which likely explains why Canning came to New Babbage. And I know that a notice has been posted on the Imperial Theatre where the orphans live, placed there by a Mr. Sir Edler Reifsnider, announcing that the theatre is closed pending demolition. Someone attached to this affair wishes, I believe, to destroy the evidence writ upon the walls of that place. Loki appealed to me to stop the demolition, but I am a loss as to how I might prevent such a thing. Supposedly, all the late Professor Eliot's effects have passed to this Edler fellow, and I have yet to discern anything illegal at work. I will see the Mayor and ask that he attempt to halt the demolition, and I will try to find alternate lodgings for the orphans, but beyond that [pause] beyond that, I do not know.

Loki asked another thing of me, and I wish that he had not. He told me that I am the only one in New Bababge asking the right questions, and to please not cease my questioning. What is the boy hiding that he can declare such a thing? What does he know that he and his comrades yet keeps to themselves? And how can I proceed with this investigation when I am blind and my mind buckles beneath the weight of so much [pause; loud crackle] Old gods. That is what the letter from Moriarty spoke of, the letter discovered on the back of his painting in the absinthe house. Old gods. How many terrors did Eliot's device unleash upon this unsuspecting world? From what black voids between the worlds have these atrocities come? And if the children knew, if they knew that they ask the aid of a monster [pause] a monster called forth by children to slay their nightmares, a being in back of me who will burn this whole universe to a smoldering husk if it must to be whole again. How can I be both damnation and salvation, Father? [pause] No, I did not expect an answer.