While I was engaged in trying to locate another less conspicuous entrance, Deering studied the mesa. After several moments, he cried out, pointing. I turned my own glasses to the mesa and immediately saw what had caused his excitement; a machine much like DeGear’s Seraph was perched on the wind-swept top.
As we watched, a group of uniformed men turned the machine toward the northern end of the mesa. Then it began to move toward the precipice, gathering speed. When it was within ten yards or so of the cliff’s edge, its great wings unfurled and it bobbed upward.
And flew.
It rose from the lip of the mesa into the air, the faint sound of its propellers wafting back to us like the purr of a contented cat. It circled over the valley at about 300 feet or so from the ground. The wings did not move much, only taking an almost leisurely flap now and again or angling into a turn.
There were two men aboard the vessel. All that could be seen of them was their helmeted heads and shoulders. I could make out no features. One wore a metal helm that glinted in the sunlight.
How long the ship flew, I couldn’t say, but we watched enthralled until its riders brought it to earth once more, shuddering, bouncing, teetering, but not crashing. It came to a rough stop, its wings folding as it slowed. When it had ceased to move, its attendants scurried to secure it.
I let out an involuntary sigh and lowered my glasses, barely able to believe what I’d just seen. It seemed our mysterious Professor had indeed invented a practical airship.
“There, Cranfeldt,” Deering said to me, “see if this is your Professor DeGear.”
I raised my glasses again and trained them on the machine. Its driver stepped from beneath the canopy of fabric that had held it impossibly aloft and removed his bonnet. It was, indeed, the man I knew as Professor Jack DeGear.
“Is that also your Darius Green?”
“The features are similar, but...I’d’ve said Green was older than this man.” He cut off abruptly. “Damn. I think we’ve been spotted.”
I pulled the glasses down and followed his gaze to the road that led out of the fenced valley. Troops on horseback were moving out at a brisk pace. We removed ourselves from the bluff and returned to Eagle Pass post haste. From there we caught the first train back to San Antonio.
We relaxed only when the train had pulled out of the station without incident. We saw neither hide nor hair of the cavalry.
“What does it all mean?” Deering asked.
“The Army is experimenting with heavier-than-air machines, apparently. The tactical advantage of such craft is obvious: under the right conditions they could drop ordnance without being seen. They don’t present as big a target as the average balloon, they’re many times faster, and therefore less likely to be knocked out of the sky by conventional means.”
“Provided they can stay aloft for any length of time.”
“Yes. And if a marksman should by some fortune strike one, it would not be punctured.”
“But so much secrecy. Why? Do they fear that other countries will try to duplicate their efforts?”
“A good guess, sir,” said a new voice. “And also that nosy reporters will fly these secrets from the mastheads of their sensation-hungry newspapers.”
We looked up to find ourselves captive to the steady gaze of Captain Reddy. He was in full uniform, right down to the yellow buckskin gloves. He slid into the seat next to Deering and kitty-corner to me.
“What did you see this afternoon?” he asked.
“You know what we saw. I saw the so-called Seraph of the Air. Deering saw the same ship outside Topeka. Only this time, we saw it fly.”
Reddy looked down at his gloved hands and nodded. “And you intend to publish your revelations, do you?”
“Is there some reason we should not?” my colleague asked. “So you have a practical flying machine — sooner or later that will become known.”
“Too soon if you make national headlines of it.”
I glanced at Deering and sighed. “I see. Would you be willing to answer some of the questions we still have?”
“Only if I can do so without compromise.”
“Understood. Green, DeGear, and Wilson — the same man?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“The same airship?”
“The same design. Improved over time. This was the most successful flight to date.”
“Then the Professor is neither a trickster nor a madman.”
Reddy shrugged. “The machines fly.”
“Which makes them — and their inventor — of great military significance.”
“Indeed.”
“Like the Monitor and the Hunley?”
The Captain smiled wryly. “I was trying fob you off, Mr. Cranfeldt. He had given you a fiction — I merely exploited it. And perhaps I exaggerate to declare him sane. A man would have to be a bit mad to focus so completely on the impossible that he made it merely improbable.”
“And the trail of hints he left — contacting Sheriff Baylor and putting him onto Acres, sending me after Darius Green. Is that all just part of his madness, then?”
Reddy shook his head. “John Darius Wilson — his real name — is a genius. A man of radical ideas and singular focus. If he were in private practice as an inventor and engineer, he would most likely be both famous and wealthy. As it is, he has done what no man has done before and can tell no one. I believe he simply does not want posterity to regard him as a charlatan.”
I nodded, and Deering said: “We certainly don’t regard him as such.”
“I’ll tell him that. He’ll appreciate it. May I count on your discretion, gentlemen?”
“Have we a choice?”
His wry smile didn’t falter, but his eyes were like steel bearings. “You always have a choice.”
This was the end of our journey, then. We sat atop the truth, but were now obliged to ignore it.
Stephen Deering returned with me to San Francisco since his career in Topeka was through. Andrew Sawyer was pleased to have him. By mid-summer I thought of the Professor and his improbable machine only to wonder if I would have occasion to see it used in battle. If the Professor had dropped clues on any other eager reporters, I never heard of it.
So, on one of my evening visits to Sunnyside House, I was surprised to have a man slide onto the stool next to me and say: “You gave up.”
I swallowed my beer too quickly, coughed, and glanced up into the face of our Flying Professor. He was dressed in a long coat and wore a large, floppy hat and driving gloves.
“Well, Dr. DeGear!” I said. “Or would that be Dr. Green, or perhaps Dr. Wilson?”
“So, you got that far.”
“Reddy didn’t tell you?”
“Reddy told me only that my attempts to communicate with ‘outsiders’ were neither effective nor appreciated.”
“Why do you do it?” I asked him. “Reddy has it that you want someone to recognize your achievements.”
“My achievements? I’m uncertain that I’ve achieved anything.”
“You invented a flying machine,” I reminded him.
“Not I. Not even Darius Green or J.D. Wilson. And yet, we all invented it.”
“What does that mean? You are Green and Wilson both. If you didn’t invent it, who did?”
“The man who designed the power plant and propulsion system for the CSS Hunley.”
“You’re making no sense, DeGear. The man who worked on the Hunley was an adult when the War began. You —”
“I was a powder monkey aboard the submersible. I was thirteen...when I died by drowning. At least that is what they told me when they revived me. Oddly, my memories were those of an adult inventor of mechanical devices.”
I felt cold to the roots of my soul. “A soul transfer? Yes, I’ve read the Shelley book and heard the rumors about the author and her husband having immigrated to Galveston. The one is fiction — the other myth.”
“Three months ago you believed the Seraph was myth.”
<
br /> “And I suppose that when you died at Fort Riley, they simply went out and found you another drowning victim?”
“When I crashed the Seraph at Fort Riley, there was no drowning victim for me. But the army doesn’t aim all their effort at one target. They made use of the science of Dr. Polidori, but they were already well-acquainted with the work of Ada Lovelace as well.”
The chill dug deeper. “Ada Lovelace? She was an inventor of machines. Automatons. Surely you don’t mean —”
He glanced over his shoulder at the door of the tavern, which had just opened to admit a trio of men, one of which was the ubiquitous Captain Reddy. He turned back to me, mouth twisting. “You asked who invented my flying machine. Perhaps the question you should ask, Mr. Cranfeldt, is who invented me? And why?”
Captain Reddy was directly behind us now, the two taller men flanking him on either side. “Professor, I really must insist that you return to the Presidio.”
“Yes, of course.”
The Professor’s voice was dry and flat. His back to the cavalrymen, he tugged at one of his kid gloves, exposing the back of his left hand. My gaze fell on a complex assembly of gleaming, jointed metal rods. He flexed his fingers and the rods moved. Pulling the glove back into place, DeGear/Green/Wilson slid from his stool and took a step toward the tavern door.
As I sat, stunned — struggling with his revelation, he turned back to afford me a last look. “Science, Mr. Cranfeldt, will change the nature of war...and warriors.”
He left the tavern, flanked by his guardians.
Captain Reddy stayed behind for a moment to speak to me. He was dressed in civilian clothes tonight, but that did not disguise the cavalry in him. “What did he say to you, Mr. Cranfeldt?”
“He...hinted that he is an automaton...with a soul. Something that is not only an affront to God, but also illegal in this country except under the most dire of circumstances.”
“I assure you, losing the services of our good Professor would be extremely dire. War is dire. But that’s irrelevant, as Dr. DeGear’s story is entirely fictional. He is a fragile man, for all his genius.”
I nodded. “Oh, yes, of course. Brilliant but unstable.”
Reddy regarded me steadily for a moment, then said: “There’s more than a little truth to that, Mr. Cranfeldt. I spend a good deal of my time protecting Jack DeGear from himself.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
He shrugged. “Believe what you will, sir. Now, I’ll bid you good evening and apologize for the Professor’s persistence.” He touched the brim of his hat and turned to go.
“I am inclined to believe him, Captain.”
He sighed deeply, his eyes roaming the floor at his feet. At last he stepped back toward me and met my gaze. “Ensouling an automaton is, as you note, illegal. Countess Lovelace’s science is off limits even to those who were once expert in its application. Do you accuse the US military of illegal activity?”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. “I understand the need for secrecy,” I said at last.
“Do you understand how many lives are sacrificed when this country goes to war, Mr. Cranfeldt? Have you seen the cemeteries filled with our dead? The march of crosses? Do you think it immoral to seek a means of ending that?”
An army of DeGears? An air corps of automatons? “But he has a soul,” I whispered.
“Would you want a corps of warriors without souls, Mr. Cranfeldt? In my opinion, that would be immoral. Now, if you will excuse me, I must get the Professor back to the Presidio.” Again, he touched the brim of his hat and made his way across the barroom floor and out into the night.
I fell back on habit, attempting to catalogue this newest information with all the previous facts and fantasies Stephen Deering and I had collected. It fit too well. I could almost see the air corps of flying machines piloted by fighting machines. Men that could not die...nor truly live. Where was morality in that equation?
I started to order another beer, then amended my request. Rum was required for this line of thought. Were I drunk enough, I might wrap my mind around the Professor’s claims and the Captain’s insinuations, but not now. Not sober.
I thought of my friend, Stephen Deering. Was he, I wondered, as my thoughts blurred comfortingly, ready for another crusade?
New Lives
Nancy Jane Moore
Abigail Hancock held her breath as she removed the small silk sack from the tubing and carefully slit it open. Inside she found the cells had grown to form a spiral with a large rounded shape at its outer edge. It was virtually the same shape and size as the embryo she had taken from a mouse that was about seven days pregnant, but she had grown this one from fertilized mouse ovum in the little sack.
“Richard,” she called to the man working at his own laboratory table on the other side of the basement room. “I think we have done it.”
Richard hurried across the room and examined the embryo. “It appears to be developing normally. Maybe we have the right mixture of food this time. We might even get a mouse by the last one.” He indicated the row of sacks, each set up in the same way as the one Abby had opened. They planned to open one per day, to see the progression.
“Even if we do not, we know we are right: embryos can be grown in an artificial environment. It is simply a matter of finding the right sustenance for nurturing them. And if we can do it with mice...”
“We will be able to do it with human beings,” Richard said. He took hold of her slender white hands with his dark brown ones, then leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “You are a genius, Abby.”
“We are geniuses,” she corrected. “This is our work. Never forget that, no matter how many people credit it only to me.”
He kissed her forehead again.
From upstairs they heard a loud knocking at the door. “Who can that be?” Abby asked. She walked over to the wash basin and used the pitcher to pour water over her hands.
Richard bounded up the stairs two at a time. There was no one else to answer the door; Abby kept no servants, except a woman who came in twice weekly to do heavy cleaning and laundry. A fresh round of knocking came as he exited the basement.
Abby followed him at a more leisurely pace, drying her hands on her apron. As she entered the foyer, she could see several men in uniform standing on the stoop. Richard was holding the front door open.
“Miss Hancock,” he said, acting the servant, “There are some policemen here to see you.”
When Mary Somerville stood up to speak, the rustle of teacups and murmur of conversation stopped. The nine other women in the richly appointed drawing room knew they had not been invited simply to have tea.
Jane Freemantle sat alone, as she often did at these gatherings. She had spoken with most of the other women earlier, had paid her respects to Mrs. Somerville and to Mrs. Marcet, the oldest of the group, and had engaged in a lively discussion of mathematics with Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace, a woman about her own age. But while Jane corresponded with most of these women about natural philosophy and other subjects, and knew them socially through her guardian, the Hon. Elizabeth Freemantle, she also knew they were made uncomfortable by the dark colour of her skin and her indigenous American birth.
Jane’s people were dead, and she would have had no place of any kind in the world had not Elizabeth taken her in. Elizabeth had provided her not just with a home, but with a life of intellectual rigor, one she deeply enjoyed, but the price of that life was to always be the other, to never quite fit into any society. Sometimes this angered her, sometimes it merely made her sad.
Jane preferred to conduct most of her intercourse with the women here and the other natural philosophers of the time by letter, where the differences between them were not so obvious. But Mrs. Somerville had been most insistent about her presence. “This is a matter of some urgency, and we have need of all the intelligent women we can muster. And we may have need of your other skills as well.” Clearly the matter was of some urgency, since Mrs
. Somerville had returned to London by airship from her current home in Italy to conduct this meeting.
And, indeed, it appeared that Mrs. Somerville had invited every significant woman of science living near enough to London to be able to make such a trip on short notice. Caroline Herschel was not there, of course; she was living in Hanover these days and too elderly to risk an airship trip. But she was the only notable not in attendance.
Despite being in her sixties, Mrs. Somerville conveyed the vigour of a much younger woman. Jane had first been presented to her at the ceremony in 1835 in which Mrs. Somerville had been made a special member of the Royal Astronomical Society with Miss Herschel — the first women so honoured. It had been immediately obvious to Jane that Mrs. Somerville was a natural leader, a woman to be reckoned with, much like her own guardian. In a more equitable world, Mrs. Somerville would be in charge of the Astronomical Society instead of merely being admitted — in a condescending manner — to its meetings.
Of course, in a more equitable world, Jane would still be Tcax, living with her people in the bayou near New Orleans. And had the world been truly fair, perhaps Tcax could have studied the physics and mathematics that gave Jane’s life meaning while still maintaining her place among her people.
But the world had never been fair.
All of the women in the smaller drawing room of Mrs. Somerville’s London home sat quietly now, waiting to hear what had brought them together.
“I am sorry to inform you that our American colleague, Miss Abigail Hancock, has been arrested.”
The room erupted into shocked murmurs. Jane corresponded regularly with Miss Hancock, and she thought most of the other women in the room did so as well. Her knowledge of the biological sciences was particularly respected; her late father had been a doctor and had taught her to be his assistant. A spinster of middle years, she made her living writing popular books on scientific subjects, work similar to that done by Jane Marcet.
“But why?” asked the Countess, speaking for them all.
The Shadow Conspiracy II Page 24