I gave Remmy an agonized ‘Seriously?’ look, so she would know I understood how she felt. If I’d been Calvin’s little sister, I’d have hit him with that wrench she carried.
He did have a little bit of a point. She had slightly less curves than me, which is to say none whatsoever, and she wore canvas pants that couldn’t be called tight because they were weighed down by pockets full of tools. Her loose white shirt’s frills were completely ruined with grease stains. Her aviator goggles, leather and brass and almost exactly like mine, hid some of the softness of her face. She did wear either a huge belt or the universe’s only khaki corset around her middle, so that was technically feminine.
There still was no excuse for introducing his sister to a stranger like that. She growled at him, but I stuck out my own hand. “I’m Bad Penny. It’s kind of a title, like Fabulous Mr. Fawkes, except people really do call me that.”
“Ha!” she shouted, grabbing my hand and shaking it. Ice broken!
We turned our backs on the older brother, and I stepped over a few pipes, pistons, or axles (I wasn’t sure) on the floor to examine the guts of the engine. An axle came down from the ceiling, where behind smoked glass a propeller, or maybe a windmill, turned slowly. The propeller glowed so bright that even through the dark glass it hurt to look at, and lit up the whole room. That attached, with a lot of cables and twisty tubes of water, to a device that was mostly a really thin tube containing something that glowed more gently. The open side of the engine connected that mysterious center pillar with what looked like a rusty carburetor and alternator of all things, with the alternator hooked to electrical cables that disappeared into another pipe running out towards the side of the ship. Actually, the carburetor and the central pillar weren’t quite connected. A gap and some silver cap connectors that didn’t attach to anything lay between the two.
And that was as far as I got. This somehow ran a car engine to make electricity, when it was working. Everything else was a mystery.
I knew one other thing. This was mad science tech, running on principles nobody on Earth had discovered yet.
“You keep this thing running?” The girl was younger than me!
She straightened, laid her wrench against her shoulder and declared proudly, “I built it.”
Seconds later, she deflated, leaning forward to look at the gap with me and add in a more confidential tone, “Okay, I assembled the parts, but I’m the one who figured out how to kludge an aetheric rotor together with an alternator.”
Mentally, I crossed my fingers. Oh Mightily Deceased Tesla, please don’t let me sound like an ignorant goober asking this next question. “So what’s wrong with it?”
“This,” she snarled, pinching her nose in disgust. She scooped an object off a rack. It looked kind of like an oversized spark plug, the size of my forearm with a little blue crystal on one end and a marble sized glass ball on the other containing a ball-bearing-sized drop of that glowy stuff. I didn’t know what it did, but I knew the end with the crystal shouldn’t look saggy and half-melted.
Okay, figure it out, Penny. However it worked, it connected the central pillar to the carburetor, which meant it took the power from the pillar and made the carburetor spin.
Hooray! With that knowledge and several years of training, I might be able to help Remmy out.
She went on complaining as if how it all worked was obvious. “Unless you can fix it, we’re going to sit here for a week before my brother gives up his precious flame gun so I can kludge it in as an igniter. We’ll still be hobbled, but at least we’ll get home at a decent speed. Except now he’s seen your spaceship, I bet he thinks you can tow us. He has no concept.” She rolled her eyes in disgust.
Feeling like a heel, I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can help. My superpower doesn’t repair machines; it only makes new ones. We don’t even use this technology back on Earth.”
Her mouth hung open. “You’re seriously from Earth?”
I went straight from feeling embarrassed that I couldn’t help to embarrassed that she was impressed over nothing. I blew the question off with a shrug. “A lot of people are.”
Remmy’s voice squeaked in disbelief. “How fast does that Puppeteer ship go?”
Okay, this I could legitimately be proud of. “Pretty fast. We expected to reach Jupiter in a few more hours.”
Remmy slammed the melted igniter back on the shelf, making a loud clang, then shook her wrench at the ceiling. “At least when we run out of food, we can take your ship back and not starve. My idiot brother’s going to leave my poor baby a scuttled space hulk.” Turning around, she stomped over to the engine, sat on one of the flatter parts of the housing, pulled her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them.
That wasn’t theater. From that glare, I thought she might cry. Calvin must be one stubborn guy.
In a much lower voice, she muttered, “Maybe we can salvage the rotor when we leave.”
I had to do something for her. Could I build another igniter? I stared at the spark plug shaped device. Come on, power!
Zip.
Now I felt helpless. I stared at the taunting gap between two different kinds of engine. Maybe my power could do the same thing?
It looked so inefficient. She had one kind of power, and had to go through two conversions to get electricity. It could be so much easier.
I had it. The picture appeared in my head. I hadn’t drifted off into madness yet, so too much thinking would scare the inspiration off.
Those big vacuum tube things on the walls. “Can you spare one of these?”
Remmy looked up, now confused and quizzical. “Sure.”
I yanked one out, feeling the heat through my gloved hand, but not enough to burn. Twisting the Machine off my wrist, I waved it around until it started moving, then laid it over the tube. “Eat.”
I left the Machine on the rack, chomping down the vacuum tube and growing glass plates. Running around the room, I grabbed a few caps like I’d seen in the central engine, some wires, and the broken igniter. Dumping them in a heap, I let the Machine eat those, too.
Then I… had to stop looking for words, or I would lose this. “Remake the tube, drain it to vacuum, and insert the aetheric fluid,” I told the Machine. Even that was too much attention. I let go, only vaguely watching myself punch holes in caps, thread wires, and order the Machine to make new parts smaller or bigger than the originals.
Done. It was safe to think again. I clasped the now glowing Machine back around my wrist, and held up my invention. It looked like another oversized vacuum tube, with a wire running all the way through it, another wire running partly through, metal caps on the ends with prongs sticking out, and a faint mist filling the bulb.
I jumped when I noticed Remmy standing next to me. She pulled up her goggles and gaped at what I’d made. “That’s aetheric charge input, and alternating current output. It’s a direct converter. There’s no way.”
“We won’t know until we try.”
She nodded, and fished tools out of her pockets. Okay, one looked like a voltmeter, and she fastened the clamps on the electrical end. That made sense. The other looked like a glowing thermometer.
She pressed the thermometer against one of the knobs on the base of my converter. The voltmeter’s dial shot up.
“AAAAAH!” Remmy yelled, throwing her arms up in the air and running around the engine room in a circle. Her superpower must have been not tripping over things, because I’d have broken my neck with all these pipes around.
When she got back to me, she yanked the converter out of my hands and climbed over the engine housing. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll replace the main alternator, and move its igniter back to the maneuvering jet. I want this baby powering the thrust engines. Come help me get this out!”
Her wrench untwisted some bolts, and she kicked another section of engine housing off, revealing an even bigger carburetor. Sure enough, this one had an igniter in place.
She expected me to help her lif
t a car engine? I’d break my back! Fortunately, I had options.
“Minion! Grunt work!”
In a flash, Ray bounded up the stairs. Bowing floridly, he tipped his hat and asked, “What does the Queen of Darkness command?” Having a good-looking boy in black at my beck and call would never grow old.
I pointed at the heavy carburetor. “Help us lift this out of the way.”
“Certainly.” Remmy had just enough time to finish unfastening some bolts before Ray reached down and picked up the carburetor in one hand, like it was a suitcase.
Ha! What were superpowers for, if not showing off?
I was pretty sure I could get the igniter out and move it myself, but as I stepped forward something occurred to me. ‘Pretty sure’ might not be enough. Keeping my tone light, I asked, “Where’s the self-destruct on this thing? I don’t want to hit it by accident.”
Remmy waved her wrench dismissively with one hand, not even looking up from splicing the converter into the electrical wires. “Not a danger. You’d have to turn the main transfer loop around to feed back up into the rotor. You can’t do that by accident.”
…but there was, indeed, a self-destruct. Mad science was truly the same everywhere.
A few minutes later, a breathless Remmy wiped her forehead with her wrist, smearing more grease around. “That device on your wrist is incredible. You used it as a wrench, a screwdriver, you clipped wires with it, you extruded wires with it―it makes parts! Please tell me you have another and I can have it. Please. I’ll trade you my brother. He’s really handsome, and I can get rid of his girlfriend while she sleeps, no problem.”
Hee hee. Regretfully, I shook my head and gave my first and most wonderful invention a loving pat. “Sorry, Remmy. There’s only one Machine.”
She took it well, only pouting a little. “Alright, but we have to test the engines right now. Go get back on your stupid Puppeteer ship. Now!” She gave me a push towards the stairs.
Laughing, Ray and I ran down to the airlock room, where Claire hopped to her feet. She’d been talking to Calvin, apparently. Remmy blurted out, “It’s fixed. It’s going to be incredible. Can I ride on their spaceship long enough to see the contrails?”
Calvin took a couple of seconds to respond. He didn’t quite scowl, but his face got very hard and serious. “I will be dead before I let you board a Puppeteer ship, baby sister. Doesn’t matter if the little lady has it under control.”
Remmy groaned, stomped over, and kicked him in the shins. It couldn’t have been too hard, because despite her heavy boots, he only winced. “Fine!” she shouted, “I’ll go watch the power gauges instead. Let’s get moving!”
“Moving where?”
Remmy opened her mouth to answer my question, only to have her expression of exasperation turn into one of confusion. By the time she tilted her head to look up at her brother, she’d swung back around to exasperation. “Where are we going? No aetheric fluid, no point in going back to Europa.”
Juno laid a hand on Calvin’s shoulder, answering for him. “The Jovians have provided. Bad Penny’s extraordinary talent is the prize they sent us here to find.”
Calvin and Remmy fell silent as Juno’s brilliant white eyes swept over me. I had a strong feeling I was being railroaded. So strong, Archimedes grumbled on my shoulder.
“Translation?” I asked Remmy, who I trusted more than her goofy brother and his even goofier girlfriend.
“You want to help me fix a broken space station?”
“YES.”
emmy’s spaceship had to slow down, match the space station’s speed, and maneuver in tiny little bursts of lightning from its jets until the struts locked magnetically against the huge, flat top. The Red Herring landed like a dove fluttering onto a branch. I felt both smug and guilty about that at the same time. The technology of this space fish was crazy. Crazy!
I rubbed the back of my head. Mild headache. I half-suspected I’d been overusing my power. It had never been pushed as hard as in the last few days. Crossed fingers it wouldn’t conk out on me, especially since I wasn’t sure how I could help in the first place.
Or, you know, my goggles might be on too tight. Loosening them a notch helped.
From a distance, the space station looked like a giant mutant biplane, with two sets of flat-topped double wings sticking out the side and a gigantic helicopter rotor sticking out the top. Up close, it resembled a floating island, a flat stretch of metal the size of a town, dark and empty and dead.
My phone beeped. Remmy’s voice burst out of Vera. “Can you guys hear this?”
Well, they weren’t too far away, and holding still. I pointed Archimedes at the front of the flying saucer and answered good and loud, “Yes.”
A second of silence, and Remmy’s voice came out again. “Never do that again. Hey, I told you it works. A rotor light well focuses the radio signal―”
Calvin Fawkes’ voice cut in. “You’re wasting the Inscrutable Machine’s time, Remington.”
“She’s a mechanic too, isn’t she? Okay, okay! Bad Penny, it’s bare aether out there. You’ve got a spacesuit, right?”
I looked down at Archimedes on my arm. How was I supposed to answer that question?
Ray had an idea first. “They know Morse code. Can we flash a light at them?”
Next to me, Juliet’s voice said, “We quite certainly can. What would you like to say?”
That would have been great, but Juliet had been in bed sleeping for hours. I kind of didn’t want to look, but I did. A pair of red eyes had opened in the wall next to me. They even had expression, eyebrows and tilted eyelids looking up at me quizzically.
Yikes. Just… yikes.
But at the moment, convenient! “Do you know Morse? Ray could give it to you if you don’t.”
“I am educated in more than just the Natural Sciences, Bad Penny,” the wall-Juliet told me reproachfully.
What did they teach young women those days? It was all good for me! “Send: I do.” There really wasn’t anything else to say.
A light flickered on and off over the deck in front of us. It must have been Red Herring’s giant eye that lit up.
Remmy’s voice crackled out of Vera. “Cool. We’ll go take a look at the central collector, then head back to your ship―”
“OUR ship,” Calvin corrected her.
“Ugh. Whatever. We’ll powwow, see if you have any crazy ideas. You’d better, because that fluid is inert and no amount of crank starting will get a rotor that size charging.”
“Send: Roger.” While the lights flashed, I stepped up to the gill slit/airlock. Hoo boy. Here was the hard part. Ray said these things worked, but they did not look inviting.
Appreciating the chance to stall a few more seconds, I called over, “Vera, can you push me around out there, keep me from floating off in zero g?”
She drifted over next to my shoulder. That was a yes in my book!
Here goes, Penny. I scooped a rolled up fleshy red bat thing out of a pouch, unwound it, and held it up to the back of my neck.
Gritting my teeth, I resisted the urge to squeal as it clamped down. Wings writhed and shifted, spreading farther and surrounding my neck like a membranous collar. The blobby body pressed flush to my spine. Inside that mass, something thumped in time to my heartbeat.
I grimaced back at Ray and Claire. They both gave me thumbs up. Only Claire looked worried.
I stepped into the airlock, with Vera touching my shoulder with one tiny hand. The flap behind me closed. The flap in front opened, puffing out air, but Vera’s surprisingly strong touch kept me in place.
Man, it was cold. Uncomfortably cold, but not painfully cold. I’d also been breathing automatically, and while the breath wasn’t reaching my mouth or nose, it felt normal.
“HA! Ha ha ha HA!” Who cared how creepy this was? I was standing around in the void of space, thanks to my custom mad science bio-spacesuit!
I couldn’t hear anything except my own breathing and pulse, but a flick
er of movement showed the bottom hatch of the flying saucer open. Remmy climbed awkwardly down the extendable ladder, holding onto a big toolbox, until her boots hit the metal surface and locked on. Had to be magnets.
Her spacesuit went the opposite direction of mine. It looked like a diving suit, and was padded so fat I was amazed she could move in it.
Move she did, waddling over to the base of the colossal propeller shaft. I pointed, and Vera pushed me over.
Someone had done a number on this thing. All the casing had come off, and a bunch of gears on one side had visibly melted. As Remmy and I bent over the mess, Vera helpfully lit up her head, shining a flashlight beam as Remmy pointed at the ends of a couple of glass tubes. Thumping around to the other side, she pointed at two more tubes. They were kinda like the flowing tubes in her spaceship, but dull grey and as thick as logs.
Setting down her toolbox, she pulled out a little glowing stethoscope thing and touched that to the clamps on the ends of those tubes. Nothing happened, which was probably the point. She shrugged at me, and spread her hands.
All I could do was shake my head. My superpower gave me nothing. At least the headache had gone away.
Prying up one of her feet, she gave a big copper gear a kick, and packed her glowing thermometer away. I winced a bit at the kick. This thing didn’t need to get even more broken. I needn’t have worried, because it had a solid axle and wasn’t hooked into any other gears.
Well, I mean, it wasn’t hooked into any other gears in a physical sense. It was obviously aligned with the next gear up. They just weren’t pushing each other with regular old kinetic energy. I could follow the whole chain right up to the top. Someone had used ordinary gears to transfer some other kind of power. It was a cute arrangement, and actually very simple. Mystery Power fed in from the huge central shaft, and half this engine was the escapements required to keep it under control.
A clever break point at the top had a gear that could be easily detached, allowing the system to be unlinked, or even reversed. Four gears off the central cog started the chain that led to clamps attaching to the fluid cells. I had no idea how those worked, sure, but did I have to?
Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon Page 14