by John Eubank
“It’s Bram,” Will whispered. “You can stay or come with me. Either way, I’m going.”
Chapter 19
The halls of history
“Stupid diamond,” Marteenus muttered to himself, almost tossing the marquis cut, two carat gem over the side into the Mad River, which flowed below.
High over the Ohio countryside in the small gondola of his dirigible, he sorted through the pile of loot he’d stolen from a big house in the suburbs the night before. Burglary had become so routine he found it boring. Whenever he needed supplies, he drifted silently across the dark sky, searching for likely targets.
Satisfied that a house was empty, he’d land on the roof and tear off shingles. Once he had a hole, he was in. His only real problem was knowing what this maddeningly indecipherable culture thought valuable.
That night he’d set off an alarm – blasted screeching electrical contraption, threatening to blow holes through his eardrums. He’d learned to just plug his ears with paper and continue - that it usually took at least fifteen minutes for someone to come investigate.
He’d stolen a box of silverware, jewelry, some food, and, most important of all, two cans of gasoline from the garage. Taking his time, he’d gone back to the roof and, hanging from the rope ladder, drifted silently away as the first police car, lights flashing idiotically, arrived.
They never look up!
Diamonds are valuable here, he reminded himself, pocketing the gem. In spite of the complete incomprehensibility of paper money, he’d come to understand that the absurd population of this backwards world valued it greatly. At night he could fly unseen into Cleveland and tie off above a 24 hour pawn shop whose unscrupulous one-eyed owner would buy anything, no questions asked.
With the ridiculous rectangles of printed paper, Marteenus could get things he needed, like sensible clothing. His current outfit had been acquired from some sort of military organization with a strange name – the “Salvation Army,” if he remembered correctly. Why excellently tailored outfits should be found on a rack labeled “used marching band uniforms” was beyond him: more of this strange world’s insanity. Money also allowed him to obtain the special tools and materials he needed to keep his airship going.
Gasoline, he had to admit, was a rather clever invention, and he wondered if there was some way to produce it on Beverkenverlt. He used it to power his airship’s boiler – made from a low mass but tough Beverkenverltish alloy – and to keep his gas bag hot and buoyant.
“But what about Hendrelmus?” he asked himself, his mind drifting back to the prime issue. “Did that boy give him the note? He must have, but the man hasn’t put out a white flag.
“But of course he hasn’t surrendered! I knew he wouldn’t, didn’t I? At least not right away, right?”
Yes, he’d worked it all out in his head. If anything, Henry was stubborn - stubborn and dangerous. He shuddered at the prospect of facing him. It had been hard enough going after Deet, but he’d had some luck there, as the man had let him silently drift right up behind him. And Deetricus wasn’t nearly as intense as Hendrelmus.
“Patience,” he soothed himself. It would take at least a few days for Hendrelmus to begin to fear he might really lose his brother. And then, negotiations could start in earnest. The little girl would have been a much better hostage, but Deet was good enough. He knew in the end Henry would do anything to get his brother back.
Perhaps, he thought, he should fly back to the remote cave where he had Deetricus locked away and prod him for information. Outside of some rather blunt and crude curses, he’d gotten nothing from Henry’s younger twin. But with hunger, Marteenus reflected, that might change.
“Yes,” he told himself, changing course southeast towards Kentucky. “That’s what I should do.”
As he pushed the wooden tiller, he remembered something. The day before, when he’d flown near Beverkenhaas to check for a white flag, the place had seemed particularly still. Thin smoke came out the large chimney, but he’d seen no movement. A peculiar notion struck him, that perhaps the house was empty.
“Nonsense,” he told himself, but the gnawing doubt never quite left him.
***
“I thought you said you didn’t want to waste another day here,” Angelica complained.
Unable to talk Will out of pursuing Bram, she and the others had followed him up the stairs and down a wide hallway. Finding an oily rag that had been tossed on the floor, Will was sure they were going the right way, but after a passing several doors and intersections, he began losing confidence.
“This is no waste,” he said quietly, “if we can find him. Bram knows something.”
“What if he sees us?” Cobee said nervously.
Will held up the oily rag. “We confront him with this and accuse him of hurting people.”
“I don’t know if that would be wise,” Giselle said. “It would be better if he didn’t think about us at all.”
“But he’s searching for something ‘hidden in plain sight.’ The more I think about it, we should have been spying on him right from day one.”
“He definitely said that,” Angelica offered, “but it can’t be the same thing Dad’s looking for, could it?”
Will looked around to make sure no one could overhear them. “What if it is? How long’s it been since Beverkenfort fell? Eleven years?”
“Ya,” Cobee said.
“That’s how long they’ve had to search for clues in our stronghold. There’s no telling what they’ve found.”
“Verdoor!” Angelica said. “Bram and Dad really could be looking for the same thing.”
A grim look set upon Will’s face. “That’s why we have to see what he’s up to. He might accidentally lead us to Dad. Or we might figure out what it is they’re looking for and stop the Raz from getting it. Maybe that’s what we need to focus on.”
Angelica frowned. “What? You’d stop looking for Dad? How are we going to find Mom and Onkel Deet without him?”
He looked away, wishing he could lie and tell her what she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t.
“Angie-bee,” he said delicately, “this might be bigger than our parents. We have to keep in mind what’s most important and deal with that, first. That’s the deeper truth that Dad would want us to see, isn’t it?”
She looked away, unable to argue but still unhappy.
He smiled. “I’d never really stop looking for them.”
“But Will,” Giselle said, holding back emotion, “we’re running out of time.”
“Right. Let’s do our best and hope it’s enough. He went through here, by the way. Bram did.”
They’d reached a set of large double doors blocking the hallway, and Will pointed. A faint, oily handprint could just be seen on the polished wood.
***
The double doors opened to the grand entrance of the Halls of History, which featured a medieval gatehouse and towers flanked by steemguns and all sorts of artifacts. They crossed a drawbridge over a water-filled moat and walked past seemingly endless exhibits, each tantalizing and making them want to stay and learn.
One discussed exploration and cartography, especially the controversy over whether Beverkenverlt was a giant, flat disk or a dish that was slightly concave in the center. As they forced themselves to go past, Cobee explained that no one had ever gone to the edge, where presumably the great dome of the sky came down and fused with the ground. Even Steemjammers had failed. Everything seemed to get unstable as one traveled outwards, including verltgaats.
It was even more difficult to pass an exhibit on the “Great Lunar Expedition,” but Will told them he had a gut feeling that Bram hadn’t gone there. The main walkway took them through a section dedicated to the early pioneering days, when people had just moved to B’verlt, and all sorts of strange and hostile creatures posed a near constant threat. That, Will felt certain, is where the young Rasmussen had gone.
Will had to remind himself to stay on the lookout for Bram, but it wa
s hard because the displays were so enticing. If Bram saw them first, that could be disastrous. He peeked cautiously into another large hall that stretched before them but only saw a couple of visitors.
“I promise you,” Cobee whispered, “he isn’t here.”
“What?” Will said.
“For one thing, it’s Saturday. Bram never comes on weekends. He’s too lazy.”
“But I saw his face.”
“Are you sure? It was dim. What if it was someone else, but your mind tricked you because you wanted to see Bram?”
“What about the lady who slipped,” Angelica argued. “And the oily handprint on the door?”
“It’s normal for people spill things without properly cleaning the mess,” Cobee said, “and the Steem Museum’s full of oily handprints. Believe me, when you’ve spent more time here, you’ll learn that cleaning these smears is one of our major chores.”
Will thought this over but wasn’t convinced. “We’ve gone this far. I want to see it through.”
***
“How on earth,” Angelica said moments later, “did they fight a war for thirty years?”
“There was an Eighty Years War, too,” Will said, pointing to another display, “and somehow these wars merged together. This is confusing.”
Will and the others found themselves in an exhibit that dealt with the period from 1568 to 1648 on Old Earth. The hall was filled with old paintings (even a few by that “Rembrandt person,” Giselle noted). Further on, there were large models showing what times were like in Holland and other Low Country provinces in that era, when an audacious and seemingly doomed rebellion broke out against the powerful empire that controlled them.
Will was enchanted by a series of dioramas. Made of painted tin figurines and model buildings, they were housed in large wooden tables covered with glass. Some depicted street riots in old Dutch cities. A mob of angry civilians armed with clubs and farm tools overwhelmed soldiers, priests and administrators, who ran for their lives. People hammered at a statue of a ruler standing on a marble dais labeled “PHILIP II,” while others broke into government buildings and swarmed a big cathedral.
The next set of dioramas showed large sieges and pitched battles. Soldiers wore colorful, baggy pantaloons with large feathers in their helmets. Formations of them stabbed at each other with long spears called pikes, while musketeers traded shots and brass cannons fired at thick, sloping fortress walls.
Further down, large glass cases held scenes of wooden ships with tall masts and white sails engaged in desperate naval battles. A badly damaged man o’ war burned fiercely while frightened sailors dove into the water.
“‘The Sea Beggars resist the Spanish,’” Will read from a plaque. “What’s a Sea Beggar? And why Spain?”
“I don’t see how any of this is going to help,” Giselle protested, lowering her voice because a couple of ladies were strolling through the next gallery.
“There’s nothing here,” Cobee agreed.
“You don’t know that,” Will said. “I want to keep looking.”
“Oh, cool!” Angelica exclaimed, pointing. “I mean gaaf!”
Over a doorway hung a large sign in bronze letters that read “STEEMJAMMER FAMILY HISTORY.” Will’s chest pounded with excitement as he raced through and looked around. For years frustration had built up inside him over the many unanswered questions in their lives. The feeling that he was close to getting some real answers was electrifying.
Dozens of ancient cuckoo clocks from the medieval era hung along a wall, while across the room a working grindstone spun round and round. The room’s centerpiece was a large table holding the model of a graceful half-timber mill set in the German Black Forest, with snow-capped mountains in the distance. A trickle of flowing water turned a waterwheel. Tiny mechanical people, like a toy clock, went back and forth, creating the illusion they were working.
“Dad wasn’t lying,” Angelica said excitedly. “We really are from the Black Forest!”
“Not so loud,” Giselle warned.
“No one’s around.”
“Keep your voice down, anyway.”
“Giselle’s right, and look at this,” Will whispered as he scanned a plaque printed with information. “This says we used to be millers in the Black Forest, in Germany, long ago. Our last name was Müller. Not Steemjammer.”
“What?” Angelica said. “Not Steemjammer?”
“We weren’t normal millers, either. We actually made the mills. And clocks.”
“Then we should be the Cuckoo family!”
They howled with laughter until they noticed a mop-haired mother with three small children staring through a doorway. The woman seemed to be trying to figure out what they found so funny, and when she couldn’t, she and her children left. The Steemjammer kids turned back to the model and remembered to keep their voices down.
“‘In medieval times,’” Giselle read off a plaque, “‘the Müllers made cuckoo clocks and toys for wealthy merchants, the nobility, and even emperors. They also crafted large town clocks, like the famous Magdeburg Glokkenspeel, which featured life-sized mechanical dancing minstrels and jousting knights. People came from miles away to see it until its destruction in 1631, when imperial forces burned the city, killing thousands.’”
“Thousands?” Angelica interrupted, shocked. “Why?”
“Let her finish,” Will whispered.
“‘The family’s main business focused on making mills,’” Giselle continued. “This included waterwheels and all the machinery they powered. Besides grinding grain into flour, these could turn saws, crush ore, pump water, or pound wood into pulp for paper.’”
“You’d make a great tour guide,” Angelica teased.
“I could make you do the reading.”
Something in the other room caught Will’s attention. “I’ll be right back. Stay here, and keep it quiet.”
He went back to the dioramas in the wide hallway and strolled along, straining his ear. Had he really heard Bram laughing? A blackened iron boiler caught his eye. Had this, he wondered, powered the early steam engines Gerardus had made? As he looked for a plaque, a snide voice chilled him to his core.
“Well, well. If it isn’t another Steem-failure.”
Will froze. Trying not to panic, he pushed his brain to see if there was any way to get out of this. No, he realized, he’d been careless and allowed himself to become so caught up in the exhibit that he’d forgotten the real danger. Now he’d been spotted, because there was no question of the person behind that voice: Bram Rasmussen.
Chapter 20
the hemel steen
“Pathetic,” Bram said coldly. “Look at him standing there, hoping that somehow nothing will happen to him.”
Still frozen in place, Will closed his eyes, but after a moment, he managed to calm himself and realize that something was amiss. Bram’s voice didn’t sound like it was directed at him.
“Bet they hang him with a rope,” said another voice, one he didn’t recognize.
“Or burn him alive,” added another.
Will turned his head and realized that the sounds were coming through an open doorway right next to him. Maybe, he told himself, he hadn’t been seen. This was a Steemjammer area, so perhaps Bram had said “Steem-failure” referring to some exhibit, instead.
He pressed his back to the wall and, gathering his nerve, inched to the doorway to peer inside a small, dark room. Bram and his companions, a tall girl and three boys his age, examined a diorama of the old Black Forest mill that was exactly like the one in the other room, except this one was on fire.
At first Will feared they’d actually set the thing ablaze. He almost ran off to get help but he realized the model was encased in glass and was supposed to be burning. In this diorama, the mill had controlled flames coming out of the fireproofed model.
He saw little soldier figurines going here and there, chasing livestock and setting fires. Why, he wondered, was an army attacking the old mill? Were these w
ars really so horrible? His eyes were drawn to an elderly man who’d been injured and seemed to beg for his life. That, he guessed, was what Bram had been so cruelly talking about.
“Nothing here,” said one of the other boys.
“You got that right,” Bram agreed. “Nothing but one failure after the next. Look at them, running away to hide.” He cackled. “That’s how it was at Beverkenfort, when we converted it into Rasmussenfort. Let’s see if Lockwood’s done any good.”
Something about those words chilled Will to his core. Bram hadn’t been there, had he? No, he realized, the young Raz was just talking tough. Steemjammers had fought bravely and only escaped because they had to, but did the Rasmussens really have the audacity to think they could rename it after themselves?
He had to keep his head, he warned himself, and not get emotional. As they filed through a doorway on the other side of the small room, he cautiously followed. For a moment, the model distracted him. A tiny mechanical boy his age came out the burning mill’s back door, looked around, and then led a group of women and children to safety in the woods.
Just like Beverkenfort, he thought grimly. Moving up, he looked through a doorway into another display room. To his surprise, this one featured life-sized mannequins behind a sheet of glass. One was Isaac Newton, who sat with Gerardus Steemjammer in a primitive lab, studying mineral samples. Plaques explained that the “Great Alchemist” had come to visit B’verlt and help classify new elements, though he seemed convinced the entire thing was a dream and later asked to return to Old Earth.
As the mechanical Gerardus removed a piece of Moderacium, allowing a chip of Incendium to glow, Newton almost fell off his chair in shock. It was then that Will noticed Bram and his cronies, who’d gathered around the bodyguard, Lockwood. He knelt at the side of the display, busy at something. Daring to move closer, Will saw that he had slender tools inside a small keyhole in the wall.