by Неизвестный
Eustace had tried to persuade her to bring him along but there was no space on the steam horse and she wanted to waste no time in locating Dr Cottier. She found the hotel. At this time of day the streets were quiet, the night people plying their trade only when the sun went down.
She left the steam horse in the narrow alleyway that separated the hotel from the neighbouring buildings. She had no worries about it getting stolen; only a few people in London knew how to operate one effectively and all of them were part of her household.
Inside she was greeted by an old man with an enormous ear horn who told her that Dr Cottier was still in residence.
She arranged for him to be called down to the dining room, where she ordered a pot of tea. It was steaming hot as he came down the stairs, looking bewildered, coat slightly askew in his haste. She saw him speak to the old man who gestured towards her.
She rose. “Dr Edward Cottier?”
“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “I understand you are looking for me?”
“Please sit down, Dr Cottier. I need to speak with you urgently.”
“I believe you have me at a disadvantage, ma’am,” he said as he sat down opposite her.
“My name is Helena Morrow. I believe you knew my brother Jeremy.”
Cottier’s bushy eyebrows shot up his face, nearly disappearing under a mane of curly hair. He was genuinely surprised to see her. Somewhat sheepishly, he adjusted his jacket. “I apologize for the mess. I was packing to leave tomorrow on the first train.”
Thank God she had caught him. “Dr Cottier, you were going to meet my brother.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, accepting the cup of tea she offered him. “He wanted to meet me to discuss my work. We'd been corresponding for a few weeks, Jeremy and I. He was very excited about the work I was doing.”
“And what was that, exactly?”
“The soul,” he said. “Specifically, the soul as a real, measurable force. My research has shown that the soul is just another kind of energy and our bodies are merely nature’s way of conducting that energy into movement and life. Do you understand?”
She searched for an analogy. “We are trains and the soul is the fire and steam that drive us?”
“Exactly!” He beamed at her. “Exactly that. I believe this energy can be transferred, harnessed into other practical applications. Perhaps it can be stored somewhere, to be used in the case of grave illness. Should we find a way to convert electricity in the streets into the same kind of electricity that is the soul, we may never need to sleep again.”
She considered that. She wasn’t sure how valid Cottier’s theory was; she freely admitted that the biological sciences weren’t her forte. She liked dirigibles. They were so much more straightforward. “Do you know what Jeremy wanted to show you?”
He shook his head. “He would not say but he wanted my input on whatever it was.”
“But do you know what it is about?”
“Jeremy contacted me at first to discuss my research but he seemed particularly interested in the process of transferring and harnessing the soul. He asked me how he could store the soul but I told him I was not an engineer. I suggested something with a gauge, similar to a pressure gauge on a steam pipe, that would indicate the soul was indeed stored inside.”
“What about something that could move? Like a wind-up toy.”
His thick, bushy eyebrows knitted together. “Perhaps, but that is far more complicated than anything I proposed.”
“My brother worked with automatons,” she explained.
“Most of them were basically wind-up toys.”
“That would certainly work,” Cottier said. “But I believe it would take a large amount of energy to move something that isn’t alive. We have no way of measuring how much soul each person has and whether or not they can spare any.”
“How well did my brother know your work?”
“Intimately. The only people who know my research better than he did are my assistants and myself.”
“What if he found a way to transfer the soul and store it in something? Instead of a gauge, actual movement.”
Cottier’s eyes widened in surprise and his teacup clattered back into its saucer. “An automaton?”
She nodded. “A fully autonomous, active automaton that could move on its own, limited only by the scope of its build – directed, ultimately, by the soul and wishes of its creator.”
“That would be ... I can’t ...” He searched for words.
“That would be revolutionary! It would completely change the world as we know it. A small automaton would be somewhat trivial, but yes, the proof of the concept would exist.”
“Not a small one,” she said. “A human-sized automaton.”
He boggled at her, mouth agape.
“I’m not saying he actually did this, Dr Cottier. He built something that might be capable of it. I don’t know if he succeeded.”
“May I see this automaton?” he asked hesitantly. “I understand this is perhaps not the best time but I may be able to determine how he planned to do this. And, if I may be so forward, I may be able to understand how or why it cost Jeremy his life.”
The grief seized her in her chest again and for a moment she found it difficult to breathe. “Of course. Come later today and I’ll make sure you get to see everything in Jeremy’s workshop.”
She scribbled her address on the edge of a newspaper with a pencil he hastily handed to her. He bade her farewell, now noticeably more excited than he had been.
She rode back to the house more sedately than before. Now, at least, she had some answers. Cottier would help her and maybe she would have some closure. Arriving home, Helena left the steam horse in the mews behind the house. The stable boys would extinguish the coals and put the contraption back with the normal horses.
She went up the steps to the door and threw it open, intending to tell Eustace everything. “Eus–– who the hell are you?”
That was to the figure who stepped out from the drawing room. She had never seen him before and she took a surprised step backward when he raised his gun.
“Please go into the morning room, Miss Morrow. Now.” His tone brokered no resistance from her.
She kept both her hands up to show that she wasn’t a threat and walked slowly as he directed, keeping an eye on the man as much as possible.
Inside the morning room were half a dozen more men, also dressed in black. All of them wore sacks over their heads, only their eyes and mouths showing through slits. Not all of them were armed but there was an air of menace about them.
Then Helena saw Eustace. She gave a cry as she rushed to his side. He was laid out on the sofa, breathing but unconscious. There was a massive bump on the side of his head. She gently checked to see if there was blood, but her fingers remained thankfully dry.
“What did you do to him?” she yelled at them.
“He resisted,” the man with the gun said as another man stepped forward.
“An unfortunate necessity. I apologize for this, Miss Morrow. Your servants are in the cellar, unharmed.”
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Give us all the abominations that your brother worked on and we will leave you in peace.”
She didn’t think before responding. “No!”
The man’s eyes narrowed under his hemp mask. “No?”
“His work is genius, not an abomination. Who are you? Pious? Darwinists?”
“Irrelevant,” he said.
“Not to me,” she said. “I demand to know what you want with Jeremy’s work.”
“Destroy it,” the man hissed. “He should not have been meddling with automatons! It was not his right to decide what lives and what does not!”
Darwinists. She curled her lip in disgust. “His works belong to the world. I won’t let you destroy them.”
“Fine,” he spat. To his men, he said, “All of you. Upstairs. Finish the job.”
“What about the big one?” one of
them asked.
“We brought sledgehammers this time for a reason,” their leader replied.
The man nodded and left the room, a few of the others following behind him taking the sledgehammers that had been placed next to the door.
“No!” Helena lunged forward, but the man with the gun swung it back at her.
“I do not wish to hurt you, Miss Morrow,” he said. “We have no quarrel with you or your work with dirigibles.”
Her blood ran cold. She couldn’t let them destroy Jeremy’s work but she couldn’t do anything without risking her life or Eustace’s. She felt helpless. It was a feeling she quickly hated.
There was a commotion down the hallway. Alarmed, the ringleader poked his head outside the door. He immediately jerked back with a cry, flinging the door open in his alarm as he fell to the ground. Helena heard shouting and the crash of broken wood and glass.
“What the hell!” the ringleader roared. They became aware of a thundering rhythm as more alarmed shouts and gunshots rang out in the corridor.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Whatever it was, it was getting louder. There was the odd ping of a bullet as it ricocheted off metal. The room became a cacophony of voices and panic. Taking advantage of the confusion, Helena ducked behind the sofa and tipped it over. It hit the ground with a loud thud, and Eustace with it, but a bruised side was much better than being shot by accident.
Helena peered over the top of the couch as the thunk finally reached the room.
It was Jeremy’s automaton, the suit of armour. It towered over everyone. It was also wider than the door so it took the door frame with it as it entered.
It stopped, giant head swivelling slowly to examine everyone in the room: from Helena to the alarmed Darwinists huddling in the corner.
“Abomination!” the ringleader yelled, taking a shot at it. The bullet pinged harmlessly away. Emboldened by their leader, the Darwinists charged forward, attempting to storm the knight. Some of them tried to stab it but only broke their knives. The yelling abruptly changed to surprised cries of pain as the automation swept its heavy metal arm through the air, sending some of them flying across the room. Helena ducked behind the sofa as she heard the window glass shatter and wood splinter.
Either the rest had fled, been knocked unconscious or were dead, but eventually it was only the ringleader left. The automaton had him cornered, walking towards him with slow, steady footsteps that she could feel through the floor.
“Abomination!” the ringleader yelled again, as if that would ward off the metal knight. “Folly of human vanity! You shouldn’t exist! You shouldn’t – argh!”
The automaton’s arm shot up like a piston, grabbing him by the throat. Its giant metal hand pinned him to the wall, tightening around his throat in a superhuman grip. His feet dangled off the ground.
Helena peered over the top of the sofa again. The man was beginning to turn blue and his struggles were becoming less frantic.
“Jeremy!” she yelled. “Stop it!”
The head swivelled to face her, expression blank.
“Stop it,” she said fiercely. “Jeremy, stop. Don’t kill him. You're above that. Let him go.”
The knight stared blankly at her.
“I know you’re in there,” she said urgently. “I talked to Cottier. I know what you were trying to do. I don’t know how much of you was in the machine before you died, but I think you’re in there, somewhere. And if you really are in there, prove it to me. Let him go.”
The man was almost entirely blue now. His struggles were weak and half-hearted.
Then, using the voice that all big sisters possess, she ordered, “Jeremy Thomas Morrow, you let him go right now.”
Its hand released the man’s throat. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Helena cautiously approached the knight. “Nod if it’s you, Jeremy.” With difficulty, it nodded. Helena felt the tears before she realized she was crying. She rushed forward, enveloping him in a big hug. He was cold and metal, but Jeremy was inside. She knew it.
The knight stood still and mute, as if unsure what to do, but she didn’t care. Her brother was alive – maybe not in body, but in spirit.
She heard the creaking before she realized what it was doing. Its stiff metal arms rose up to her, coming to a stop around her shoulders. With difficulty, it bent its elbows, and she felt the metal touch her back. The knight’s armour hadn’t been made to move its joints that way, nor had it been intended to move more than a few feet in one direction.
Soon Cottier would arrive and the police would come. She would have to explain why there were dead men in her house. There would be hours of questions and statements and dealing with the press and the Academy.
But right now Helena didn’t care. She hugged the cold metal fiercely, afraid to let go. She didn’t care about the thousands of things she would have to do in the next few hours or the questions she would have to answer.
Her brother was alive. Not in the flesh, but a ghost of him, a part of him, alive. That was all that mattered.
And that was fine by her.
Viki Chua is a mild-mannered university student doing her BA in Kicking Ass and Taking Names, but give her a pen and a flat surface and she can do anything.
Colours
by Yuen Xiang Hao
Where fly the colours, there stand the Guard.
While the Guard stands, Ferra lives.
And the gods will not let Ferra fall.
Incantation on insignia of the Praetorian Guard
(translated from old tongue)
Now
The swan-neck’s hammer comes back with a heavy, ratcheting click, the sound deadened by the heavy air of the box canyon, still as an open grave and twice as foul.
It is the last step of a ritual that Corso has performed times beyond count:
Slot a percussion cap into the firing hollow and let the hammer down gently. Extract a cartridge from the pouch at your belt. Bite the end open, tasting the intense burst of salt on your tongue as stray powder trickles across it. Pour the powder down the barrel, reverse the cartridge, drop the bullet end in and tear off the paper.
Use the rod to push the skirted bullet down, the plug and lubricant of the ball gripping the lands and grooves of the weapon and making it twist through the quarter turn of rifling that makes the Fantomas a precision weapon of death at a distance. Bring the weapon to your shoulder in concert with your compatriots to left and right. Pull the hammer back ... and suddenly the battalion is one, fiery death held under restraint until the order comes to fire into the distance.
Do it over and over until time blurs and the universe compresses into load-and-fire and Lorentz’s Laws of Power dictate that, as long as your training and discipline let you fire twice as fast as your enemy and you hold the line against their charging columns and your squares against their mounted soldiers, there is nothing and nobody that can stand against your battalion. This has been true for a hundred years, the steadfast discipline of Ferra’s conscripted regiments the single force that has kept the country safe, pinned by fate at the confluence of the trade routes of its three larger neighbours at the place where once they warred and fought in perpetual deadlock.
But today is different, as it has been ever since the Battle of Comolo and the fall of the Royal Legion.
Corso feels the uncertainty to his left and right, the psychic feelers time and experience grant to the old sergeant-major telling him that his soldiers are thinking the same thing, over and over, a silent chorus of despair buried deep behind their façade of defiance.
The hundred years are over.
Because the three-way war between Ferra’s neighbours has come to an abrupt end in smoke and hellfire. Only Turok is left, and it is coming for Ferra, and it brings the dragon engine with it.
“Steady, boys.” Normally Corso would be behind the triple line relaying orders, pushing stragglers into position, punishing those who try to reduce the shock of the recoil by letting their charge trickle
through their fingers to the ground as they pour – the hundred and one disciplinary actions that forge a battalion into a weapon designed to inflict the will of their officers onto the enemy. But today there is no more need for discipline because there is no more hope, and the only thing left to them is to die on their feet instead of on their knees.
This will be their last fight. Their officers were the first to be picked off in the rout. The ragged line strung across the throat of the box canyon is all that is left of the First of Foot, a division reduced in a single day to a pitiful half-battalion.
They have no flag to rally about, no colours to fight under, and Corso can see how that is breaking morale, and so he has placed himself in the centre of the line as a poor substitute for the colours to steady it, leading by example as best he can.
Besides, if he is lucky, he will die quickly.
Corso watches as the dragon and its attendants approach; watches the smoke from the furnaces in the belly of the beast pour up into the scorching sky. They do not hurry; there is no need for hurry, not when your prey is pinned on three sides by canyon walls, funnelled into a convenient killing box, and you have the one weapon that can defeat discipline.
He feels the fear rippling down the line, the fear, not of death but of cowardice, a fear of fear itself and of going to the afterlife with one’s wounds in one’s back instead of the front and being called to account there.
He feels the fear. But he also feels the stubborn pride that his men are drawing up from the wellsprings of their souls to fight it. One man starts to sing, an old marching song in a language nobody speaks any more but everyone in the regiments knows, a song of the darkness closing in. A song of rebellion against the fate that you cannot run from but you can choose – should choose – to fight till the day you die. One by one the song is picked up by every voice until the canyon echoes with the slow lamentation that stirs the blood.