Steemjammer: Through the Verltgaat

by John Eubank

  “A little tricky? Kint, I still struggle with such things!”

  “Incalculus is actually hard. It might seem easy because nothing can be equal, but it’s the way they aren’t equal that’s important. Dad was just starting to explain.”

  Klazee set down her cup. “I’ll see if I can find a tutor, then. One we can vertroowen.” Trust. “Talk about sewing, kint, so I don’t get a headache. I bet you’re as good as your moyder.”

  The little girl smiled. “Not even! We made plaid cloth with the steam powered loom. She said the pattern was her family’s special sign, so others would recognize them by sight. There’s a big room upstairs where she made all our clothes, but I only hemmed or just watched.”

  Klazee smiled. “I still have a scarf and some mittens she made for my birthday, years ago. They’re very warm.”

  “Will doesn’t like making clothes. He helped making shoes, though. Why doesn’t he like making clothes?”

  “Not everyone’s good at it.”

  “But he’s good at everything – well, except shoes. The ones he makes fit but are very ugly.”

  They shared a laugh. Angelica told how Will had tried to make his trousers longer. Instead, they’d ended up becoming shorts. With her father’s help, she created a new pair of long pants for him.

  “Maybe he isn’t good at clothes,” she admitted. “Is it because he’s a boy?”

  “Some boys make wonderful tailors,” Klazee said. “Sometimes people have to do what they’re good at and let others do the same. If everyone was bad at making clothing and blankets, we’d be naked and shivering.”

  Angelica smiled, but a bothersome issue came to mind.

  “My friend, Brie, said there was something wrong with our clothes, and my mom - because she didn’t have a job. She told me her mom worked in an office, and that was how people had to do it.”

  “Your mother has a job, kint,” Klazee said. “She runs the household and keeps you clothed and fed, and what about her studies and experiments? I remember how determined she was to solve some of the great problems, like what really holds up the sky? What causes the wind? And how did Beverkenverlt even get made?”

  Angelica experienced a moment of confusion, because if her mother really did all that, she’d kept it hidden.

  “If we’d been here instead of Ohio,” she asked, “would my mom have had a job like Tante Stefana’s? At the Steem Museum?”

  “Perhaps. Or a college. I used to work, in another city, and I had children. We were happy.”

  “Brie says we’re poor. She says it’s because my dad never had a ‘real job’ and my mom stayed at home.”

  “Were you poor?”

  “No. But why did she say that?”

  Klazee sat back, deep in thought. She realized that her little grand-niece had been deeply bothered by this for some time.

  “I don’t know this Brie person,” she said, “but it seems to me that she was more interested in telling you how she thought things should be, rather than learning what made you and your family happy.”

  Angelica thought this over and nodded.

  “Is she bad?” she asked.

  Klazee laughed. “Hemel noyn!” Heavens, no! “She’s a typical little girl. She ran into someone who’s different, and she decided to try holding herself over you.”

  “But why?”

  “Surely you’ve seen chickens fighting over de pekoerde.”

  “Huh?”

  “The ‘pecking order.’ They ruffle their feathers and make a terrible noise, pecking at each other until one backs down. Then, another squabble starts, and another. That’s how they find which is the number one bird, and number two, and so on.”

  “But we’re not birds. Do you mean Brie’s no smarter than a chicken?”

  Klazee guffawed.

  “No, leef,” the old lady said, still chuckling, “though it may seem so.”

  “What if it hurts my feelings?” Angelica said.

  “Some don’t care.”

  “Like Rasmussens?”

  Klazee nodded. “But in this girl’s case, I bet she’s just insecure. Let’s hope she learns better soon. Here, take a look at this.”

  She walked Angelica into her sewing room and showed her a stitching machine powered by a belt drive that came down from a hole in the ceiling, along with an automatic spinner and loom. Stacks of cloth lay everywhere, and a shelf held dozens of books with clothing patterns. Klazee also had a favorite chair by a window, where she liked to sew by hand.

  “Ever make a quilt?” she asked. “A lot of little squares sewn into a big, comfy blanket?”

  “Mom was going to show me,” Angelica said, fighting back sadness because she’d said that the day she’d vanished.

  “Let’s get started. See all these squares I’ve saved? How should we make it? What pattern? What colors?”

  She began laying out squares of cloth from a box onto a table, so Angelica could study them and move them around. The little girl’s eyes lit up as wild colors and strange patterns were arranged before her, each brighter and more dazzling than the one before.

  “The red and blue?” Klazee asked. “What about these oranges? Oh, I love this bright purple, but it’s so difficult to match.”

  Interested, Angelica began lining up squares, and in a few minutes she had a nicely balanced pattern laid out, dominated by blue, her favorite color. Klazee told her it looked lovely and handed her a needle to thread while she demonstrated how to stuff the sections with soft, puffy feathers called goose down.

  It didn’t take long for Angelica’s head to start nodding. After doing her first little square, she could barely keep her eyes open. Klazee took her by the hand and led her down the hall to the bedroom she was using.

  Giselle slept in the bed by the window. Angelica petted Velocitus, the baby tortoise her cousin had accidentally brought here in her pocket, which now lived in a dirt-bottomed glass bowl on a shelf. She got into her bed, under a beautiful green and silver quilt Klazee had made many years earlier, and in moments fell fast asleep.

  “Moyna zweenking wel,” Klazee said to herself softly. My turn now.

  But she feared, as tired as she was, it would be some time before she’d get to sleep. She knew what the Rasmussens had done to people, especially recently, when they hadn’t had to fear Steemjammer scrutiny. Why, she wondered, had Gerardus ever allowed that horrible, venomous family to come here?

  “De molen gaat neet om met wind dee voorbe is,” she spoke softly, an Old Earth quote she’d learned as a little girl: The windmill doesn’t worry about the breeze that’s gone by.

  What was done is done. She put on a nightgown, blew out her lamp, and climbed into her puffy, four-poster bed.

  “Somehow let Wilhelmus be all right,” she prayed. “Please, let him come back to us unharmed.”

  ***

  Late that night in the high tower on Texel Island, keys crunched, and a polished wooden door swung open. Clyve Harrow stepped inside his well-furnished office but froze as he heard the soft crack of a lighting match.

  “Who’s there?” he challenged.

  An oil lamp was lit on his desk, and the first thing his eyes caught was a thick, bone-white forelock: Bram, sitting in his chair. Before he could react he heard a thump. The boy’s muscular bodyguard shut the door behind him and blocked it.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Clyve growled.

  “My exact question for you, Cousin Clyve,” Bram said nastily. “What do you mean interrogating my captive without me?”

  “How dare you break into my office!” He glared at the bodyguard. “What’s he doing here?”

  Bram took his time before answering. “Lockwood has many talents.” The big man smiled, and the young Rasmussen decided not to add that he was good at opening things. Let Clyve wonder how they’d broken in. “My father trusts him completely. Shouldn’t you?”

  Unsettled, Clyve took a few nervous steps away from the hulking man.

  “It’s very late,�
� he chided. “Your father would want you in bed.”

  “Don’t think you can take that tone with me,” Bram countered. “I know you discovered that he isn’t Will Steemjammer. Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

  Clyve’s eyes lit up with alarm, but he maintained self-control. “You’re just guessing.”

  Bram beamed triumphantly. “Really? Glass Dragon always works. If it was Hendrelmus’ son, you’d have rushed to ask me how to present the ‘wonderful news’ to my father. Your real motivation would have been to steal as much credit as possible for yourself.”

  It unnerved Clyve that the boy could read him so well. A nasty chuckle came from Lockwood, who hovered at his back. Did they plan on murdering him?

  “I only mean to serve,” he stammered, “your father and the good of the family.”

  “Whatever,” Bram said dismissively. “So, he’s some random sleeb, Will Stevens. You killed him?”

  Clyve stiffened slightly but otherwise remained in control. “Yes. His brain is put with the next shipment, to be conditioned and placed in a Shadovecht.”

  “Liar. I spoke with the medical staff, and no one’s been told to harvest a brain tonight.”

  “Let’s see you jaw your way out of that,” Lockwood said menacingly.

  “I’m in charge of this facility-” Clyve started.

  “I found him,” Bram interrupted, “and I ordered my man to bring him in at great personal risk. I’m the one who knew it was poison, and I pushed you into saving him for interrogation when you wanted to let him die.”

  Clyve stammered, unable to reply.

  “Well?” Bram pressed. “Do you deny it?”

  “No,” Clyve surrendered. “You’re quite right, Master Bram. You saw the situation correctly. All credit goes to you, of course.”

  “From now on, I make decisions on this matter.”

  The young man glared with an unyielding intensity, as if to dare Clyve to challenge him. He didn’t.

  “Tell me everything,” Bram continued. “I’m questioning your assistant next, so you’d better be completely truthful. Disappoint me again, Clyve, and a letter goes to my father accusing you of treason.”

  Chapter 29

  together we triumph

  Slowly rising into consciousness, Will became aware that he lay in dark room with only a sliver of pale light coming under a door. It was unsettling, he thought, to keep waking up not knowing where he was or what was about to happen. At least he could see and think clearly again.

  He heard none of the eerie, muted bell tones and found that he wore his old clothes – and badly needed a bath. Still alive, he reflected, but he’d been locked in a musty cell on a lumpy old cot: still a prisoner.

  Then, he remembered the control panel drawing and thrust his hand into his pocket, which was empty. Of course, they’d taken it. Would they guess his identity? Did they already know, and were they just toying with him?

  ***

  “Congratulations,” said a crisp but not particularly cheerful voice.

  Startled, Will woke up. He’d drifted back to sleep and hadn’t heard the cell door swing open or Bram step in.

  “Welcome to the Rasmussen Protectorate,” the youth said, catching Will completely off guard.

  No friendly handshake was offered, and his words had sounded like an order, a mandate delivered to an inferior.

  “Huh?” Will said, getting up gingerly because of stiff muscles.

  “We know all about you now,” Bram said. “You spilled. Of course you had to, with all the chemicals he pumped into your bloodstream.”

  “What?” Will thought, about to panic. He remembered managing to just hide his identity.

  “You’re a sneak thief, and a pretty good one,” Bram said with an appreciative smile. “You found a secret room in the Steem Museum.”

  “Oh,” Will said, inwardly relieved and remembering how Clyve, by making assumptions, had come to that conclusion.

  “What were you doing, playing around with Shadovecht?”

  At first Will had no idea how to reply but felt he had to answer quickly. To his amazement, a story popped into his head, and he found himself saying: “I didn’t think it could hurt me. There had to be something good inside giving it all that power.”

  “Trying to steal Incendium from a Shadovecht?” Bram snorted. “Stupid, Stevens. Bold, I’ll give you that, but really stupid. You would’ve burned yourself to a crisp – and half the museum, too!”

  The thought made him cackle.

  “Seemed worth the risk,” Will said, trying to play along. “Even a little bit’s worth a fortune.”

  “To a fatherless beggar like you,” Bram sneered. “Let’s get something clear: I saved your life. You owe me, Stevens. You owe me a lot.”

  Will wasn’t given a chance to respond. Bram was telling him how it was.

  “You’d better not let me down,” he added with an edge.

  “What do you mean?” Will asked.

  “You snooped around Steemjammer property and got into one of their secret spots. Good. You stole from them. Good. But if you try that against my family?”

  My brain will be in a jar, Will almost said but stopped himself. Did they have any sense of the things he’d overheard while paralyzed?

  “Bad?” he guessed, figuring he should say something.

  “No, Stevens,” Bram scowled. “‘Bad’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. You don’t want to find out. Ever.”

  Will still felt like he was missing something.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Bram said.

  “No.”

  “You’ve been taken into the Rasmussen Protectorate.”

  The words hit Will like a hammer blow to the face.

  “I see you’re properly awed,” Bram smiled, mistaking his reaction, “but don’t let it go to your head. You’re a Gray, the lowest rank. If you screw up, we take it away. People at the bottom who get demoted don’t get second chances. Catch my drift?”

  Will nodded solemnly.

  “Get dressed,” Bram ordered. “Go eat.” Something about that made him grin in a peculiar way. “I’ll find you later.”

  ***

  Getting dressed meant putting on a pair of drab gray overalls over his normal clothing. A muted, dull clanking began somewhere in the building complex above, and after seven times, it stopped. Seven in the morning, Will guessed. That was a Rasmussen clock.

  The cell door had been left open. Finding a large corridor nearby, he followed other similarly dressed people to a large, poorly lit dining hall that had gray stone walls lined with stark, red and black banners in English and Dutch. “TOGETHER WE TRIUMPH,” one read. “PROTECTION FOR ALL” and “STRENGTH FROM UNITY” were printed on others. Another had a large eye on it, with the slogan “REPORT ALL SUSPICIONS.”

  Someone shoved a stamped metal tray into his hands, and he found himself in a food line. A fat lady ladled steaming gray porridge into a section, while a short man plopped down greasy hash, not caring that it mixed with the other food. At a counter there was sliced bread and what appeared to be tea.

  Following the others, Will sat on a long bench. They ate silently, while at the far end of the room, a woman in a nicely tailored black dress appeared at a high podium. Above her, a hatch clanked open in the ceiling, bathing her with reflected sunlight. She had her red hair pulled back tightly, while a narrow, wispy white forelock hung down to the level of her eyebrows.

  Another minor Rasmussen, Will guessed, thinking how strange it was that their forelock’s volume seemed to denote their family importance. Bram’s was the fullest he’d seen.

  “Our gift,” she said in a piercing, resonant voice, “your peace. As you eat the food that we freely provide, reflect on the many that aren’t having any breakfast today. Or lunch. Or dinner. Are you thankful?”

  “We thank the Provider,” they murmured in unison.

  While she spoke about the joys of knowing one would always be fed, Will hesitantly tasted the p
orridge, which was bland and starchy. The tea smelled odd - nothing like Giselle’s - so he put it down, unsipped. Taking a bite of bread, he found it chewy but edible.

  A strange odor came off the hash. “Mystery meat,” he remembered how kids in Ohio described cafeteria food at school. He only ate the bread.

  “Freedom,” the lady persuaded, “is why our ancestors came to this world. Are you still free? Obviously not.

  “Freedom is what has been stolen from you, stolen by certain greedy families that only take and never share, not in any real way. Is freedom wasting your life slaving in their mines? Building their machines? Is freedom getting old and finding you can’t keep a roof over your head? True Freedom is what the Rasmussen Protectorate offers.”

  A banner reading “TRUE FREEDOM” unfurled behind her.

  “True Freedom,” she said, “is three meals a day and a warm place to sleep. True Freedom is never having to worry if your choices will bring you ruin. It’s freedom from the chaos of not belonging. True Freedom comes from trusting leadership and opening your mind to guidance. Are you grateful?”

  “We thank the Provider,” they chanted.

  She rambled on, repeating key phrases, and then she waved her fist. Everyone joined her in the gesture and shouted slogans as prompted. Alarmed, Will waved his fist and pretended to yell when they did, so no one would suspect him. He was glad when she finished and left.

  As the others stood and lined up by a square opening in the wall to hand in their empty trays, he followed. Through the opening he could see into another dining hall much like this one, only not as dark. For those higher in rank, he guessed. People there wore white, red or black overalls. A few wore other kinds of work clothing.

  A short man in a wrinkled black lab coat stared at Will with surprise. He had long, stringy thin hair and oily skin. Will felt sure he’d seen his face. The man nervously dumped his tray and left.