Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Slaughter nodded, but he only half listened to her recollection, searching the crowd for Forgeron. He had no idea what he looked like, so recognition and contact relied upon Forgeron himself. The Chief Inspector also kept a lookout for signs of danger, but in such a riotously happy place peril seemed very distant. An outward lack of menace, however, only made Slaughter more alert, for it was his experience that disaster struck the hardest when it seem least likely.

  Suddenly the shabby man lifted his chin, leaned toward the elegant but dull-faced woman, and whispered something. She blinked and all idiocy vanished from her features. With a surprising grace and no apparent haste, she rose and carried her absinthe away. The man looked straight at Slaughter.

  “Come on,” Slaughter said softly, taking Marie’s arm.

  They approached the shabby man, who had not shifted his gaze from Slaughter since they first locked eyes. When they were close to the table, he gestured to the bench on the other side. Slaughter grimaced slightly, for the seating arrangement put their backs to the entrance, but he had little choice.

  “You are…” Slaughter started to say.

  A young waiter, probably no older than thirteen, with a white apron tucked into the waist of his pants, appeared instantly at their table to take their orders. The man tossed the remainder of his drink and ordered another segir while Marie asked for a small glass of white wine. Slaughter, knowing the futility of trying to get anything decent to drink at a French café, ordered sparkling water, though it offended all his English sensibilities to do so. Almost as soon as the boy left, he returned with their drinks, and Slaughter paid when no one else moved to.

  “You are Forgeron?” Slaughter asked softly.

  The man nodded. “And you are Chief Inspector Slaughter.” His voice was high, and his accent, as he spoke English to them, was French, but it was clear neither French nor English was his primary tongue. He looked to Marie. “And you, Mlle Poulpe.”

  “I was instructed…”

  “Yes, yes,” Forgeron hissed, waving away Slaughter’s words. “I have heard from our masters as well. They are uncaring, are they not? They instruct you to meet a man unknown, in a dangerous part of a city not well known to you, for reasons they do not disclose. As I, too, am called to meet a fish out of water. I did not know the girl would be here, but I know she is the daughter of the octopus.”

  Slaughter scowled darkly. “Are you mad?”

  Forgeron shrugged. “Perhaps. Madness is not such a liability as you might think, and in the circles where I move, like wheels within wheels, it may be something of an asset.” He leaned forward across half the table, motioned for them to do the same. “We live in a mad world, a time when a fiery hand will reach from out the stars and planets shall burn. London, Paris, Syrtis Major, Berlin—ashes.”

  Slaughter wanted to voice some denial of the madman’s grim prophecy, but the whiteness of Forgeron’s eyes moved him to silence. No matter how incomprehensible his words were, they carried sincerity born of experience and knowledge. Slaughter felt Marie grab his arm, slide closer to him.

  “There are ghosts that move in the place where Satan holds sway, where the black Mills grind exceedingly fine,” Forgeron murmured breathlessly, a pained look in his eyes. “All the planets will submit to the hand that holds the fire.”

  Slaughter waited. As an expert interrogator, he knew when to press for answers and when to let a tortured soul unburden itself. Whatever else Forgeron was, he was indeed a tortured soul. In his mad eyes, Slaughter noted the symptoms of dream spice, the potent Venusian drug outlawed in the Empire, but which was commonly used in the underground salons of Paris, distributed by the savage Apache gangs. Usage resulted in euphoria and outré lucid dreams revealing other places and times; overdoses often ended in catatonia or death, but the few who lived often reported the development of strange mental powers and prophetic visions.

  “I move among the Apache,” Forgeron continued. “I am trusted by none, but used by all because I know the hidden ways, the words that are whispered in the darkness.”

  “You are wasting our time.” Slaughter started to stand, but Forgeron grabbed his sleeve, twisting the material with a bony and desperate hand, pulling him back. “All right, then, but get to the point of this meeting. No more blathering. What do you know about the people who killed Professor Poulpe?”

  “There is a hand that reaches out,” Forgeron breathed, the word drifting no farther that their ears. “MEDUSA.”

  “Yes, MEDUSA,” Slaughter urged, his voice even softer.

  “Please, monsieur,” Marie said, reaching across the table to touch the man’s hand, but stopping when he pulled away. “This terrible gang murdered my mother, and now they have done the same to my father. I am all alone in the world. I have nothing left in life but to seek justice for my parents.”

  Forgeron’s brow furrowed. He glanced away, then looked back. “There is no justice in this world, mademoiselle, and perhaps not in the world to come. But there can be revenge. Are you strong enough to seek it?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  Forgeron looked to Slaughter. “And you, M Slaughter, you will walk with her.”

  “I will help Mlle Poulpe any way I can.”

  She looked at Slaughter suddenly and sharply, as if he had said more than his mere words intended.

  “I was set among the Apache by the Sûreté, but since last year I have served many masters,” Forgeron resumed. “I met your father and first heard whispers of MEDUSA. Then I was coerced by your Section 6. I wanted no more of them than I wanted of the Sûreté, but…” He sighed and spread his hands. “What could I do? The dream spice, it is my weakness, you understand.”

  Slaughter nodded.

  “How did you meet my father?” Marie asked.

  Forgeron shrugged. “He was a man who needed things. It is what I do…for the Sûreté, for Section 6, for the Apache chiefs. So why not your father as well? He said he was of MEDUSA, but I already knew, had seen a fiery hand come and touch the planets…in a dream…a vision, you understand.”

  Marie did not quite understand what Forgeron was talking about, being unfamiliar with the Venusian substance. She followed Slaughter’s example. She nodded and remained quiet as Forgeron told his story in the only way his madness would permit.

  “The Professor, yes, Professor Octopus,” Forgeron continued. He uttered a mad little chuckle, but such was the nature of the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes that no one looked his way. “I am sorry. I am so sorry. The Professor, he did not enjoy it either, but he was in need of…things. Yes, things others did not want him to have. He had learned of something, a terrible wrong, and now he wanted to rid himself of his monkey, his…he was hagridden, you understand, but he did not know it until he learned of a monstrous truth.”

  “My mother’s death,” Marie suggested.

  “Yes, it was that, and that was when he told me he needed help to get away, to leave MEDUSA,” Forgeron explained. “I helped him to get to Mars…quietly, secretly, for I knew the people he needed to see, and there he went.”

  “Why did you report none of this to Section 6?”

  Forgeron glared at Slaughter. “Our masters. Yes, I suppose so, but I hold many secrets. This is just one. Ex multa arcana, unum, you understand. I might have told Section 6 about MEDUSA, might have told MEDUSA about the Professor. But I met a person who kept hidden. In secret, I heard whispered words that made my brain burn. I already knew too many secrets, but the shadow gave me the heart of MEDUSA. This person gave me secrets I did not want to hold. I desired freedom from this terrible knowledge, so I contacted our masters, and here we are.”

  Forgeron started to reach inside his shabby black coat, but held back his hand at the last moment. Slaughter’s gaze darted to his coat and saw what he had previously missed, a very slight bulge, all but hidden by the way the man slouched on the bench. He paused.

  “You are here, Slaughter, because I asked Section 6 to send someone to me,” Forgeron said, lu
cidity seeming to drive madness from his eyes. “Shadows are gathering. I want rid of the information I was given, but I fear I was not quick enough. I feel it was given me for the purpose of revelation. I feel watched.”

  “Yes, eyes are everywhere,” Slaughter agreed. “Analytical Machines proliferate, illuminating all the recesses of our lives. It will not be long before our very existence will be nothing more than a punched pasteboard card in the hand of a Machine Clerk.”

  Forgeron nodded, an expression of sadness flitting across his face. “We aide the shadows of our own enslavement, in our own destruction. We ourselves pave the way for MEDUSA.”

  He looked about, then reached inside his coat, and withdrew a thick pasteboard envelope, its fold-over secured by a short length of string wrapped around a kind of flat rivet. He placed it on the table between them and pushed it across, keeping his fingertips on it even when Slaughter tried to take it.

  “You must get this information back to London, Slaughter,” the man insisted. “It will be the last thing I do because of the shadows. The shadows, you understand…” The lucidity that had come into his eyes gave way to the madness that now defined him. “I can feel the flickering shadows gather around…she will be pleased.”

  Shots rang through the café, glass shattered, and patrons yelled in terror. Forgeron looked up and smiled. Slaughter glanced behind them. He saw a black-clad figure at the entrance, a slender woman with short black hair, holding a machine-pistol of strange design. A burst of fire had cleared patrons from her path, and now she aimed in their direction, but he also saw an object flying through the air, something he recognized from a year spent in Special Branch—a fragmentation grenade.

  Slaughter grabbed the envelope, grabbed Marie, and grabbed the table. Just before he pulled the heavy wooden table on top of them, he saw Forgeron struck by a volley of bullets. He slumped against the wall, the madness fleeing from his eyes, followed by the light of his life. He heard the solid thunk of the grenade against the wall, and he yelled for Marie to curl up.

  The grenade detonated. Slaughter felt as if two giant fists had slammed into his ears. He felt, but did not hear, the shrapnel hitting the table above them. A flare of pain told him at least one fragment passed through his calf. He looked to Marie. She looked stunned, her eyes wide and a thin trickle of blood coming from her right ear, but she was alive.

  “We have to get out of here!” he yelled, or thought he yelled, even though it seemed as if his voice were coming from a great distance. “Are you all right?”

  She tried to speak, then nodded vaguely.

  He pushed the table away, but kept it between them and the entrance. She saw what remained of the unfortunate madman and turned away. Slaughter looked over the table, but ducked back down when bullets splintered the wood. He knew they had to escape before the assassin made her way across the panic-stricken room and shot him and Marie at her leisure.

  At the sound of gunfire, he looked up and saw her shooting several of the more bold patrons attempting to stop her. He grabbed Marie’s wrist, yanked her to her feet, and started to drag her toward the kitchen door and the rear entrance beyond.

  He saw the slender woman in black swing the machine pistol in their direction, knew there was no place to hide, and put himself between Marie and the woman. He prepared for the impact of the bullets. A short man in a long coat and wearing a slouch hat, grabbed her arm, thrusting upward, the bullets hitting the ceiling. She struck him a peculiar blow with her free hand. He went down and she aimed the gun at him.

  Just before he and Marie fled into the kitchen, Slaughter saw the death of Inspector Roget. Then they were out the back, running through the dark streets as the night filled with screams, alarm bells and the shrill cries of police whistles.

  He realized he still had the pasteboard envelope in his hand and transferred it to his coat pocket.

  “Come on,” he cried, pulling at Marie, who was just starting to emerge from the shock caused by the attacks.

  “What…what,” she murmured, dazed and confused. “Where are you going?”

  “To London,” he replied. “And you’re coming with me.”

  Chapter 7

  “Easy as she goes, Mr Neumann,” murmured Captain Josiah Wax, master of the aethership Princess of Mars. “Power down the aether-engines and repulsors. Impulse jets only to berth.”

  “Aye, Captain,” First Officer Dennis Neumann replied. “Both systems powering down.” He glanced across the bridge. “Monitor boiler temperatures, Mr Mark, and bring them to minimal settings as we approach our berth.”

  “Aye, sir,” replied Midshipman Lewis Mark. “Reducing levels to seventy-five percent…sixty percent…”

  “Not too swiftly, Midshipman,” Neumann warned. He vented steam, edging the craft closer to the berth assigned by Ceres Port Control. When the steam hit the vacuum of space, it was instantly transformed into glittering crystals, shattering against the struts of the docking area. “Stand by to reverse vents.”

  “Fifty percent,” Mark reported. “Thirty…Twenty…”

  “Reversing impulse vents.”

  “Ten…Zero.”

  “We are stationary, Captain.”

  “Boilers at nominal levels, and maintaining.”

  “Well, Lady Cynthia, we are docked at Ceres Station, and you are officially in the Asteroid Belt,” Wax announced. “You are to report to Stanton Nyles, Station Administrator, and I have been summoned by the Port Master. I’m sure they each have questions.”

  “I’m quite sure they do, Captain.” Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles moved from her position at the rear of the bridge, where she had been out of the way during docking operations, and joined Wax at the curving crystal observation port that occupied most of the bulkhead fore of the helm. “Try to satisfy any curiosity expressed without really giving any information about our mission.”

  “I’ll do my best, M’Lady,” Captain Wax promised.

  “What about your crew, Captain?”

  “I’m giving most of the crew four hours leave on Ceres,” Wax replied. “That is more than enough time for see the sights, such as they are, make their duty-free purchases, and get their last taste of luxury for awhile. As far as babbling, all most of them know is that the ship has been chartered by a rich eccentric for a cruise.”

  Lady Cynthia glanced at the First Officer and Midshipman, who, as bridge crew, knew much more than their dozen shipmates.

  “Mr Neumann will remain aboard,” Captain Wax said. “I need someone in command while I am with the Port Master, and, besides, Mr Neumann is not one to go a-roaming among hawkers and gulls, nor visit dens of iniquity. Isn’t that right, Number One?”

  “Aye, sir,” the First Officer replied. “I prefer to spend my money on books and such tins of food as the cook does not maintain in stores. I’ve already given Mr Mark funds and a list.”

  “And Mr Mark knows how to keep his mouth shut, don’t you, Mr Mark?” Wax continued.

  Midshipman Lewis Mark looked up from his work, appearing so much like a deer caught in the glare of a steamer’s arc-lamp that Lady Cynthia had to make an effort not to laugh. But she did smile.

  “I don’t tell no one nothing.” Then he added: “Sir. Ma’am.”

  Unlike the Captain and First Officer, young Mr Mark was not British, but American, born in New York City and an inhabitant there until his thirteenth year, when he tried to join the Merchant Space Service; unsuccessful in that, he ‘stumbled’ into Captain Wax’s employ, and was glad of it. He’d seen more of the Solar System in two years than he would have in a lifetime aboard one of the big commercial liners, or in his own country’s space navy, which mostly consisted of atmospheric aether-fliers.

  Lady Cynthia nodded, satisfied with matters of security. The only concern left was keeping Mr Nyles from being too curious. She was supremely confident she could fulfill the role of the rich eccentric. After a few minutes with her, the hapless administrator would keep his questions to himself.

 
She looked out the observation port. Ceres was the largest body in the Asteroid Belt, but that was not too great a claim, being less than six hundred miles in circumference. Its horizon was a curving line she could easily traced on the glass with her finger. Around the asteroid was a latticed network of berthing bays, space docks, and storage structures. Transfer pipes snaked upward from the surface of the asteroid, connecting with most structures for the purpose of supplying heat, water and atmosphere. The station on the surface seemed very small for the commercial facility it supported, but Lady Cynthia knew that most of the establishment was beneath the surface, where it drew upon the resources of the icy inner sea below the crust.

  “The last of the crew has signed out for shore leave, sir,” the First Officer reported. “Both Cookie and the Chief Engineer have indicated an early return.”

  “Very good, Mr Neumann,” Captain Wax replied.

  “We had better answer our summonses,” Lady Cynthia said.

  “Right you are, M’Lady,” the white-haired officer agreed. He looked to the Midshipman. “Mr Mark, you might as well go down to the surface with Lady Cynthia.”

  Again, the startled deer look, but his voice managed almost not to crack when he said: “Yes, sir.”

  “You have the bridge, Mr Neumann, take good care of it,” Wax said. “Ensure Cookie lays in extra stores for a protracted journey.”

  “I’ll check his inventory myself.”

  “Try not to be too hard on the chap, will you?” Wax said with a little smile. “Not everyone possesses such a fine palate as you.”

  “Yes, sir, so I’ve noticed,” the First Officer replied, his tone totally devoid of either boasting or sarcasm, which, of course, made the comment seem even more boastful and sarcastic.