Asher's Invention

by Coleen Kwan

  Someone was working late.

  She knew it was none of her business. She knew it was wrong of her. But she did it anyway. She pulled on the plush flannel dressing gown and the richly embroidered slippers that had been thoughtfully provided, and tiptoed into the pitch-black corridor outside her room. Feeling her way downstairs, she unbolted a side door and exited the house.

  Within seconds, the wet lawns soaked her flimsy slippers and the hem of her dressing gown. The mist wrapped its wraithlike fingers around her, as if trying to hold her back. Shivering, she pushed on until she reached the building at the end of the garden. Rough-hewn wood prickled her palms as she found the door. Faint banging noises emanated from inside, and a bar of light marked the gap beneath the door.

  Knowing she was inviting trouble yet unable to stem her curiosity, she opened the door an inch and fitted her eye to the crack. Just as she’d first surmised, the building housed Asher’s workshop. She spied him immediately, wielding a small blowtorch as he bent over a cluttered workbench. The expression of utter concentration on his face gripped her attention. For once he seemed just like the dynamic young man she had known, absorbed in his task to the exclusion of everything else. He’d brought this fervid energy to her father’s workshop, and from the very beginning she’d been entranced. Not just by his enthusiasm, but also by his intelligence, his focus, his principles. And his swoon-worthy looks.

  She had always thought herself too pragmatic to fall in love, but suddenly she’d fallen victim to all the symptoms. Heart palpitations, palsied hands, lack of appetite and a tendency to daydream over his sublime beauty—to her he resembled a magnificent Greek statue of Hermes—had seized her like an attack of ague. She had loved him unreservedly, and though time had crusted over that wound, it had not healed it.

  A sudden breeze eddied past her ankles and swirled into the building. The flame on Asher’s blowtorch wavered. He lifted his head and locked eyes with Minerva. In an instant, his face darkened.

  “Stop skulking in the shadows and show yourself.” He glowered at her from his bench.

  Feeling gauche, she entered the workshop properly and shut the door behind her. “Please excuse me for disturbing you. I couldn’t sleep—”

  “So you thought you’d do a bit of spying on me?”

  She puffed out her cheeks. “Must you always think the worst of me?”

  “All I have is past history to guide me.”

  “History is seldom unbiased.”

  “I should have said ‘facts,’ then. Those are undisputed.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Your offer of assistance grows less generous with each aspersion you pile on me. Surely we can reach some sort of cease-fire between us?”

  At this, he had the grace to study his boots for some moments, and when he finally looked at her, the initial hostility had faded from his expression.

  “Touché. You’re right. If I’m to help you, then I can’t rake up the past at every opportunity.” He turned down his blowtorch and gave her the faintest of smiles. “From now on, consider our past differences set aside. At least for the moment.”

  His smile, the first she’d seen on this visit, and muted though it was, reached far into her and tugged at her vital organs, squeezing the breath from her lungs and leaving her witless.

  “G-good,” she stammered.

  As he continued to study her, she grew conscious of her dishabille. Her loose hair streamed down her back, and she was clad only in her flimsy night things. Abashed, she hugged the collar of her dressing gown closer to her neck.

  He cleared his throat. “You must be cold. You should return to your bed.”

  The prospect of her bed held no appeal, unless… Mercilessly she slew that train of thought. Entertaining notions of Asher in her bed would profit no one.

  “In our new spirit of cooperation, might I not watch what you’re doing just for a few minutes?”

  He frowned and ran his fingers through his long dark hair, and she thought he would refuse her, but instead he nodded. “Why don’t you take a seat near the fire?”

  He pointed toward the cast-iron heater crouched in the corner. As she took a stool next to the heater, she inspected the spacious, well-equipped workshop. Shelves running the length of all four walls were packed with supplies. She recognized many of the machines—there were machines for grinding, turning, cutting and milling—but some remained intriguing mysteries.

  “You didn’t tell me this replica would take so long to build.” From her vantage point, she could see more clearly what he’d been working on. A cube of brass about a foot long and high sat on the workbench, surrounded by a collection of magnets and coils. “Is that the correct size?”

  “That’s the size I’d calculated would be large enough to deliver ten horsepower of energy.”

  Ten horsepower for a thousand years. An almost endless supply of free energy. The stuff of legends. Asher had told her everything about his vision. While at Oxford, he’d studied the papers of Fordor, the first man to stumble across the existence of the aethersphere, the mysterious fabled substance dubbed the fifth element by the ancient Greeks. Using Fordor’s findings, Asher had made an astonishing discovery. When a circle of promethium magnets was correctly and precisely placed, their combined magnetic fields unlocked the power of the aethersphere in the form of an electromagnetic current, which could then be harnessed through a series of copper coils. The theory worked perfectly in miniature form, but not in any scaled-up version.

  “Father attempted only half that power yet never succeeded,” Minerva said. “He became almost demented with every failure.”

  “Aether science defies everything we know. It requires a completely new way of thinking.”

  “You seem to have a lot of work still to do.”

  Asher picked up a rivet and rolled it between his fingers. “It will be ready in time, I guarantee.”

  May I help? The question burnt the tip of her tongue. Often, when he’d been her father’s apprentice, she had asked him that exact question. She was no scientist, but she came from a line of engineers, and her father had taught her his skills from the time she was young. Later on, she’d managed to kit out her own workshop on the top floor of the Lambkins’ Manchester home. She didn’t pursue grandiose discoveries, but toiled away at more prosaic projects. Her clients weren’t wealthy industrialists or investors, but the poor and the maimed who came to her missing arms or legs, some injured on the battlefield, but most mutilated in the countless mills and factories. Using metal, rubber and fabric, she fashioned new limbs, each tailored to her client’s requirements. Asher had appreciated her manual dexterity with tools, and after his initial skepticism, he’d allowed her to assist him, until it had become second nature for her to sit beside him at his workbench.

  But now that old camaraderie had long disappeared, and she had to content herself with craning her neck to get a better view of what he was doing.

  “I’ve been experimenting on a new power source for Cerberus,” Asher said. “Most automata like him are steam powered using standard combustion, but that involves a cumbersome engine. My idea is to use hydrogen peroxide, which, when combined with a catalyst, will burn and produce steam.” He held up a tiny glass tube. “This contains enough hydrogen peroxide to fuel Cerberus for several hours. I intend inserting a similar fuel source into my replica millennium machine—” he rapped his knuckles on the empty brass box, “—which will hopefully keep the pistons running long enough for us to rescue your father.”

  Several questions popped into Minerva’s head, but she remained silent.

  “What? No objections?” He lifted a mocking eyebrow. “Not even one?”

  She wriggled on her seat. “I suppose I should point out I just saw Cerberus explode in a puff of smoke earlier today.”

  “A keen observation. Yes, the hydrogen perox
ide has a tendency to corrode certain components over time. A problem for Cerberus, but not for our purposes. My main problem is concealing the glass vial so it isn’t immediately apparent.”

  He relit his blowtorch and bent to his task once more. Despite the heater, the workshop was chilly and draughty. The little carriage clock on a nearby shelf showed the time was well past two in the morning, which meant Asher had been at his task for many hours, ever since he’d risen from the dinner table. The extent of his sacrifice hit her with full force. He didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to stay up all night, slaving away in the cold, and all for a man who’d cheated him so severely.

  A lesser man wouldn’t even have received her. But Asher was a gentleman born and bred, the son of a dean, the grandson of a peer. Once she’d cast herself on his mercy, she suddenly realized, he’d no option but to offer his assistance. She sucked her cheeks in consternation. What presumption she had shown, arriving on his doorstep and asking for his help. He was only doing this because it was ingrained in his character and upbringing, not because of any lingering softness toward her. She should remember that and act accordingly.

  She skittered off her stool. “Thank you for showing me your work, but I think I’ll retire now.”

  He glanced up in surprise before politeness masked his face. “Of course. You must be cold and tired, sitting there. Good night, Minerva.”

  “Good night.”

  She fled the workshop and ran back to her room, where she lay awake for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  At noon the next day they departed London not by train, but by Asher’s private airship. Minerva had never been in an airship before. Upon arriving at the docking green in Holland Park, she viewed the tethered flying machine with some trepidation but marched on board as if she were an old hand. Airship travel was becoming popular among the wealthy, and surely the rich wouldn’t endanger their lives, she told herself. And besides, Asher had said he would pilot the dirigible himself, and she knew how competent he was with machinery.

  “I must warn you, the flight won’t be the most comfortable,” Asher said as he ushered her into the cabin. He looked the part in his leather overcoat, wool-trimmed aviator’s helmet, silk scarf, and a pair of brass goggles strapped around his neck, whereas she had only her stained traveling dress and her trusty cloak. “This is a Phantom Zephyr Mark II dirigible, built for speed and maneuverability, not pleasure flying. As you can see, there’s not much room in here.”

  The glass-enclosed cabin was indeed on the cozy side. A polished walnut console took up the front, housing a bank of instruments and a great many levers, which left only enough space for a couple of padded leather couches and one little table. Outside the cabin was a small wooden viewing deck, and behind that, a metal enclosure which surrounded the steam engine and propeller. A vast rubber balloon loomed overhead, lashed to the cabin by many lengths of thick rope.

  Minerva settled herself on one of the couches and watched as Asher pumped gas into the balloon. The dirigible swayed and bumped as it rose ponderously in the air. When they had risen several feet, Asher leaned over the edge and yelled at the docking hand to release the tether. There was a jolt, and the airship began to shoot upwards with gathering speed. Her head reeled. They were airborne, pulling away from the earth!

  She gripped the railing as she peered through the glass. The docking green shrunk rapidly to a dot, followed by the rest of the park, and suddenly there was just a dizzying patchwork of fields below her, and all around her an enormous sky filled with gray clouds. Dear heaven, where had the earth disappeared to? Would she ever see it again? She leaned back, squeezed her eyes shut and held onto the couch for dear life, although what good the couch could do her was unfathomable.

  “Minerva, my— Have you no confidence in me?” Asher’s voice broke through her alarm.

  Shamefaced, she peeled her eyes open to find him studying her with frank amusement. “My head understands perfectly the principles of airship travel,” she confessed. “But my entire nervous system tells me otherwise.”

  “I’ve flown this dirigible for hundreds of hours in all sorts of conditions and lived to tell the tale. Only once have I had to crash-land this ship, and that was in a severe tropical thunderstorm.”

  At that she couldn’t help glancing apprehensively at the leaden skies around them.

  “There’s rain forecast, but no thunderstorms,” he quickly added. “Trust me, Minerva. I’ll get you to Manchester in one piece.”

  “How much farther do we rise?” She gulped as her stomach did another queasy tumble.

  Asher drew out a round instrument attached to his fob chain. “Not much farther, according to my wind gauge. We’re searching for the upper atmosphere’s polar streams. They’re the fastest currents, but only the nimblest airships can sail them, like mine.”

  “How long will the journey take?”

  “About two hours.” Still observing his gauge, he rose to his feet. “We’ve almost reached the correct altitude. Time to start the engine.”

  He disappeared out of the cabin, and a short while later she heard the steam engine rumble to life. The propeller attached to the stern sputtered and began to whir, and the dirigible shot ahead at a surprising speed. Asher returned to the cabin and seated himself in front of the instruments. For the next ten minutes, he flicked switches, tapped gauges and shifted levers like an accomplished organist. In between, he used a piece of chamois leather to rub the instruments and console until everything shone. Minerva observed him, noting how completely in his element he seemed.

  “You treat your dirigible like some people treat their favorite horse,” she remarked with a small smile.

  He paused in his polishing. “She’s served me as faithfully as any horse could.”

  “Is this the same dirigible you used in Ireland?”

  He nodded. “I needed an airship that could fly at low altitude and was also quick to respond. I spent weeks flying over the potato fields, distributing my little organisms, hoping the winds would disperse them across the crops and not over the bogs. Fortunately it worked.”

  “I read all about it in the newspapers. Such an ingenious method, but where did you find your organism in the first place?”

  “During my travels in Peru I met a biologist. He told me how the local farmers combated potato blight by encouraging another micro-organism that feeds off the blight to grow. I collected samples of this organism, and from there it was a matter of producing it in sufficient quantity to have a widespread effect. I have to admit, my experiment was a gamble, but it paid off.”

  “Is that where you went? To Peru?” Often she’d wondered where he had gone and what he had done. Whom he had met.

  “Among other places.” A shuttered expression came over his face.

  “Oh?” He didn’t respond to her prompting, so she added, “Peru sounds so exotic. What was it like?”

  “Different.” He returned to cleaning his already-pristine instruments, indicating all too clearly he had no intention of regaling her with tales of his travels.

  She moistened her lips and tried a different tack. “Your father must be happy to have you back in England. And he must be so pleased about your efforts in Ireland, too.”

  He gave a grunt of sardonic laughter. “The pater would only be truly happy if I were to join the clergy. As for killing potato blight, he’s not sure if I’m doing the Lord’s work or the devil’s.”

  “But surely he must be proud of you?”

  “He’s mistrusted all scientists ever since Charles Darwin started publishing his theories. In his opinion, saving a few Irish Catholics is no reason to change his views.”

  The acerbic note in his voice warned her she’d touched a nerve, and she wished she hadn’t brought up the subject. Asher’s father was Dean of Crampton, and his two older brothers were bo
th clergymen. One was a vicar, the other a missionary in Africa, and Asher had been expected to follow in their footsteps. But he’d refused to be ordained, turning his back on family tradition, and it appeared that family hadn’t yet totally forgiven him.

  “Then why didn’t you accept the knighthood offered to you?”

  His head jolted up. “A knighthood! I couldn’t think of anything worse. Can you see me strutting through the London clubs like some damned peacock, calling myself Sir Asher Quigley?” He rubbed a gauge so furiously, she feared the glass might crack. “Doffing my cap, and bowing and scraping in front of the queen. No, thank you. Mister has served me well enough so far, and I see no need to trade that title for another. Knights belong in fairy tales. They’re a thing of the past.”

  “Well really, there’s no need to sound like an anarchist. After all, your own grandfather is a peer of the realm.”

  “The dear fellow had no choice in the matter, whereas I do.”

  “I’d no idea you had such strong views on the matter.”

  “Science and technology are advancing at a rapid pace,” Asher continued, his expression still heated. “Change is everywhere. Yet social attitudes remain stuck in the last century. It can’t continue without some great upheaval in the near future. I’m merely doing my part to hasten the process.”

  Is that why you proposed to me? The heinous question sprung into her head from nowhere and refused to go away. Had that been his way of striking a blow for social progress? By becoming engaged to a girl far below him in station? He’d told her he loved her, but perhaps he’d been more enamored with her lack of pedigree. She studied the zealous set of his jaw and felt her chagrin rise.

  Asher spoke. “You disagree with me?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You have a very disagreeable expression on your face.”

  Disagreeable! Oh, pistols. “You’re no picture of agreeableness yourself,” she retorted.

  His brow grew thunderous. “Well duck and gammon, Minerva! I can assure you there’s nothing agreeable about a knighthood.”