by John Eubank
“And this,” Angelica continued, holding up a sugar-dusted pastry that looked like a cross between a donut and a pancake, “is the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten. Poffer-what?”
Cobee laughed. “Pofferjee.”
“Right. You’re lucky I got a second sack, or I wouldn’t be sharing!”
“That’s Will,” Cobee told Rachel.
“I’m Frog,” said a large, strong boy with tan skin. About Will’s age, he had large brown eyes spaced extremely far apart, a flat face, and an incredibly wide mouth. “My real name’s Hoondarus Naaktegboren, but you’ll never remember. Zo Will, call me Frog. Everyone does.”
Will shook hands and tried not to wince, as they were giving his real name and not the one his Tante Stefana had said to use. “Hi, Frog. Nice to meet you.”
“These are his sisters,” Cobee said, seeming to remember, “Giselle and Angie-bee.”
At least his sister was going by her nickname, Will thought. Though it was technically true and necessary for their safety, Will found it hard to not to correct him. He noticed Angelica had choked on a pofferjee, coughing while Rachel patted her back, and he guessed that had stopped her from blurting out the truth.
“Mm, smoked eel,” Frog gushed, taking one from a sack and munching noisily. “You should try it! Just make sure to chew the bones before swallowing.”
The others politely tried not to make faces, and Frog seemed unconcerned that no one else would take any.
“More for me, then,” he said, merrily chewing.
“Here’s Jack and Jill,” Cobee said as a boy and girl about his age walked up.
“Jack Waterford,” he said with an English accent, shaking Will’s hand. His brown hair had been cut short, but bits of it stuck out here and there like a windy ocean surface. “Cobee, you know my sister uses her middle name.”
“Sorry. She’s really Kate. I just can’t help saying Jack and Jill.”
“They’ve got siblings named Hansel and Gretel,” Sully chimed in, trying to maintain a straight face.
“They do not!” Rachel said. “Stop teasing.”
Jack laughed. “It’s all right. At least we weren’t named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Since Dee’s a girl’s name, it’s clear which one I’d be stuck with!”
Jack’s fraternal twin, Kate Waterford, was tall and thin, with a pleasant face, alabaster skin, and long, dark hair that went here and there in thick tufts, with no apparent regard for gravity. On seeing Will, her cheeks turned several shades of red. She managed to squeak “hi” and looked down, causing her face to vanish behind a tumble of cascading locks.
“I’m Will,” he said. Again, he felt the urge to add “Steemjammer,” but Frog crunched the head off a smoked eel, which distracted him. “Nice to meet you.”
“What a marvelous accent,” Jack said, unaware of his discomfiture. “Where it’s from? Sorry if that’s rude. Kate says I shouldn’t ask personal questions, but sometimes I can’t help myself.”
It was hard to tell how Kate felt or if she even looked at them, for her face remained quite hidden. Will stumbled over an answer.
“Well, it’s hard to explain,” Will said truthfully. “We grew up in a remote area near a large lake.”
It felt good, Will realized, to have said something truthful. Even better, he’d managed not to disclose anything damaging.
“We’re from New London, or were,” Jack said ruefully, as if a disagreeable memory had clouded his otherwise happy disposition. “Well, not really in the city. More on the edge, but we had to move here.”
“Yes, things got unpleasant,” a muffled voice agreed, and it took Will a moment to realize this had been Kate.
“I take it by the way you’re looking around,” Jack told Will, “you’re not acquainted with Steemball.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Frog said, licking his oily fingertips clean. “Everyone’s a fan!”
“Not my grandmother,” Jack contested. “She lived in a cottage way out in the hills and had no interest it at all. Said sports were a foolish waste of time.”
Frog frowned, stretching his already broad mouth to a width that didn’t seem humanly possible. Giselle had to clench her teeth to keep from laughing.
“I hate to admit,” Will said cautiously, “that I’ve heard of the game but have little idea what it is. For starters - well, where’s the ball?”
Cobee blinked. So did Sully, and his mass of frizzled hair flopped down over his face.
“What are we sitting here for?” Frog boomed. “Verhoor ons toonen hen!” Let’s show them!
***
Sully’d already lit a fire under the boiler to run tests, so the contraption was steamed up and ready to roll. Cobee drove, with Sully and Kate taking turns as the co-driver, and the rest stood, holding onto something.
The steemtrap had no roof or side plates, it rattled badly, and thin streams of vapor hissed out poorly soldered pipe joints. A steel shaft slowly extended from one of the peculiar, weapon-like things mounted on the front, and a prune-faced kid walking past made his peculiar wrinkles even stronger with a scowl.
“No steam to fighting systems in here,” he shouted fussily. “You know the rules.”
“It’s just loose,” Jack retorted, “not steamed.”
“Well, tighten it up.”
“Tighten your mouth,” Frog quipped.
They exchanged jeers, and the steemtrap slowly moved on, with Cobee promising it could go much faster. Rules, he explained, forced them to keep the speed at a crawl in the workshop. Soon they entered a wide, dark ramp going down to a long tunnel, and they accelerated.
“We’re going under the street,” Cobee said. “You know that park you saw earlier? It’s got a secret.”
The ramp angled up, and they came out into bright sunshine in the large park they’d seen before. From afar they hadn’t noticed it, but there were rough gouges in the dirt and trees.
“This is the Steemball Field,” Cobee said. “Zo, in a match, the teams come out and look for the ball.”
“Teams of steemtraps,” Giselle asked, “like this one?”
“No,” Sully laughed. “Professional traps.”
“Ours isn’t finished,” Cobee said defensively. “Anyway, a one ton bronze ball is hidden in the park.”
“One ton?” Angelica asked.
“Ya. Well, they lighten it for certain matches, like the youth league, but regulation’s a full ton. The teams go out to search and spar a little. When the ball’s found, then the real fighting starts.”
“Between steemtraps? Like with rams?”
“Sure, or crushers, which are hydraulic rams that shoot out like fists.”
“Also pokers and hackers,” Jack added. “Pokers jab like a chisel. Hackers are saw blades and screwdrivers, that sort of stuff. They try to disassemble the rival trap.”
Angelica made a face. “That doesn’t sound safe!”
Jack grinned. “Of course it isn’t.”
“There’s armor and all sorts of protective backups,” Rachel comforted. “Very few crew members actually die.”
“You can always pop a white flag,” Frog added, “if you think your trap’s had enough. That disqualifies your vehicle for the rest of the match, of course, but no one else is allowed to attack you.”
“How do you win?” Giselle asked.
“That’s what ball carriers are for,” Cobee said brightly. “They pick up the ball with a crane, and whoever gets it back to their base scores. The ball’s replaced, and so it goes until time runs out.”
“Or a team has all its traps disabled,” Rachel added, “and they lose.”
“Right. In a tie, first team that scored wins.”
“Unless it’s French rules,” Frog added, “and then the first team to score wins. They like short matches.”
Cobee let Frog take the controls, and he opened the throttle. The steemtrap rumbled surprisingly fast over the grassy ground.
“Zo, what do you think?” Rachel asked.
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“Great so far,” Will answered offhandedly, “except you need to fix those leaks, your steam seems a little wet, and these pipe bends rob performance. With a straight line, you’d get – oh, let’s see.” He took a moment to run the numbers in his head. “Almost eleven percent more power. You know, basic fluid mechanics.”
The others – except Angelica and Giselle - stared in shock. Turning so none of them could see, Cobee made a face, warning Will to stop, but it was too late.
“Who do you think you are?” Frog accused. “Gerardus Steemjammer?”
Will laughed nervously, fearing he’d insulted their work and not understanding their true reaction. “Who says I know what I’m talking about?” This was true enough, as he’d only estimated, and he remembered something his cousin had said, adding: “Don’t be so easily fooled!”
The others laughed, except for Frog, who held out until at last a very wide smile broke across his face, and he shook out a chuckle.
“Well, I love your steemtrap!” Angelica told Rachel. “Would they let me work on it?”
“Work? Sure. I just wish they’d let me drive it. They keep saying ‘next week.’” Rachel turned to Cobee. “Shouldn’t we obliterate something for them?”
“I see a practice dummy,” Kate said, peering out a view port, “or what’s left of one.”
Ahead some bits of shredded plank and sheet metal sat on the ground. Though someone had worked it over, its one remaining side tempted them.
“Target in sight,” Frog said, steering.
Kate opened a valve. “Building pressure.”
“Crush!” Jack chanted, and the other joined in. “Crush! Crush! Crush!”
“You’ve actually got a crusher?” Angelica asked Rachel.
“It’s the only attack system working,” she explained.
The steemtrap slowed and stopped anticlimactically in front of the practice dummy.
“We have to stop to attack,” Cobee said, “in junior matches, or someone could get hurt.”
“Pressure’s up!” Kate called.
“Steam out!” Frog cried, tugging a handle.
WHOOSH! A violent jerk shook the steemtrap, almost knocking them off their feet. The crusher – a fist shaped piece of wood on a metal rod – flew out in a gush of vapor. It missed the dummy, flying far through the air and bouncing on the dirt.
“Falen,” Sully groaned in Dutch. Fail.
“Blast!” Jack said. “Restrainer broke.”
“Really not goot,” Frog muttered. “It’s only supposed to go so far and retract. If this were a match, that’d disqualify our whole team.”
A dismal cloud seemed to hang over the trap.
“Oh, is that the ball?” Giselle said, pointing.
Not far away, a scuffed bronze ball sat under a bush. It was almost three feet in diameter.
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“Smaller than I’d imagined,” she commented. “I guess bronze really is that dense. I see a circle on it.”
“It’s a cap,” Cobee explained. “There are three, and they unscrew them to add or remove weights.”
“They just leave the ball out?” Angelica asked.
“So we can practice finding it, yeah,” Frog said.
“Isn’t it valuable?”
“Oh, ya,” Cobee said, “but the park is walled and watched. Also, it’s not like someone’s going to put a one ton ball in their pocket and sneak off. It’s safe.”
***
Happy to have the failed crusher off their minds, they got out to examine the ball, but Will held Cobee back.
“I didn’t mean to insult everyone,” he said worriedly, referring to his comments about their workmanship. “I think your steemtrap’s – what’s the word? Gaaf!”
“It wasn’t that,” Cobee said. “You scared them.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“None of us know fluid mechanics, and you were doing them in your head. That’s zonderlink!” Freaky.
“Huh? Even Angelica knows the formulas. She’s actually faster than me.”
“Verdoor! Thank the Maker she didn’t open her mouth!”
“Oh!” Finally Will understood. “People might guess who I am because – they really haven’t learned this stuff?”
Cobee let out a huff of air. “Don’t you get it? It’s hard.”
“If you say so.”
His cousin shook his head and then grinned. “You really are your father’s son. Just keep it quiet, all this amazing stuff you know, or ya, the others will figure out your secret.”
Nodding – but still confused about how the mastery of some simple equations could be so startling - Will moved to a more delicate matter.
“Speaking of my dad,” he said, “shouldn’t we try harder to find him? We haven’t gotten close to that junk room to see if he left clues. I know everyone’s crazy about Steemball, but it’s just a game.”
“Just a game?” Cobee exclaimed. “Haven’t you been listening?”
“Yeah. You fight over a bronze ball.”
“Our family thinks it’s so important that we popularized it.”
“We didn’t invent it?”
“No, the Axworthies did, long ago, and you’ll always see one of them as head referee. Anyway, we’ve always supported it - not that anyone with the Steemjammer name plays, at least not in tournaments, which wouldn’t be fair. Your grandfather, Ricardus, was a huge supporter. Can’t you see why we always got behind Steemball?”
Challenged, Will mulled it over.
“Oh,” he said. “Steemtraps for the game could be used in war. This way, lots of people are trained and ready.” His eyes opened wide as he realized something else. “This steemtrap would just fit through a verltgaat!”
Cobee grinned. “Now you’re catching on.”
“It’s a steam-powered tank!”
“Steam power stank?”
“Tank – an Old Earth word I have to remember not to say. It’s an armored fighting vehicle. Take off the crusher, add real weapons, and we could invade Beverkenfort.”
“Crushers are real weapons. The ones we use are weakened for the game. Set them to full power and boom!” He slapped his fist into his open hand. “Shadovecht gets smashed into scrap metal.
“We’ve built an armada of traps – good ones that actually work, right under the Razzies’ noses. They’re so dense they think they’re just for the game.”
That got Will’s blood flowing. Finally, after hearing about Rasmussen attacks and the need to hide from them, someone had a plan to strike back. But his hopes quickly fell as he realized there was a major problem.
“All right,” he said, “I was wrong. Steemball is important, but Cobee, if we don’t find my dad and stop the Raz from opening their own world holes, none of this matters.”
Cobee understood, and they spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the place where they’d first come through a world hole. The Museum was truly vast, however, and the storage rooms their cousin found, though large and filled with old steam powered contraptions, were not right.
The more they searched, the more Will got a sinking feeling something was wrong. His side began to ache again, and the plan to convert steemtraps armed with crushers and pokers into war wagons to take back Beverkenfort also had problems. The enemy had a weapon that caused fear, and only a few people could overcome it, like his grandfather apparently had. What good would an army of steemtraps be if all the drivers were overwhelmed by terror, unable to think clearly?
Even worse, toward the end of the day, they finally located the large storage room. Angelica ran to the boiler, hoping against hope that a verltgaat would be open or her father would be waiting for them with a big grin on his face. But they had no such luck. They spent close to an hour combing through old locomotives, steam powered mining machines, cranes and dusty boxes but found nothing of interest.
On the cable car ride back to Tante Klazee’s, Will was exhausted. The amazing scenery that had been so fasc
inating that morning went ignored, because he had so much to worry about. His side still ached, though not like it had when Alfonz told him he was close to dying and required a remedy. He figured he needed more of that awful, tar-like glop, and he’d be okay. With that fear under control, other questions spun through his mind.
Where was his father? What had he been looking for that was so important, this thing that the Rasmussens also wanted? Did Bram suspect them, or had he fallen for Cobee’s story that they’d been joking about their name? They hadn’t seen Bram the rest of the day, so maybe they could, as Tante Stefana had suggested, hide in plain sight.
So much had happened so fast. At least he had a good feeling about his father’s younger sister, a woman who until that morning he’d never known existed. Would Tante Stefana figure out what he’d done wrong and get them to safety? Unable to keep his eyes open anymore, he curled up in his seat and fell fast asleep.
Chapter 18
turning a corner
Opening his eyes, Will had a strong sense that he was in danger, though he couldn’t say precisely why. He found himself in the sub-basement in Beverkenhaas, which should have been a wonderful thing, only it didn’t look right. Sticky-looking strands hung from the ceiling, and an eerie green glow came from the walls.
Taking a few steps, he froze with fright. In the center, several large, white-faced Shadovecht worked on a verltgaat machine. Bigger than the one he’d fought, these creatures wielded delicate tools instead of weapons and were fed by rubber tubes that ran to huge glass vats of foul, greenish brown liquid. The carousel section spun insanely fast, spurting clouds of noxious-smelling vapor and seeming to howl in pain from the sound of scraping metal.
The lump of Tracium pulsed in and out of existence in the air. Will shuddered with horror, realizing how close they were to making it work. Even worse, he stood there with no place to hide. All the monsters had to do was turn, and they’d see him.
“Will.”
He had to get out of there. Someone called to him, but he couldn’t tell who or what. Something grabbed him. He tried to run but found his legs wouldn’t move.