We had to do something before the other creatures escaped. The creature crashed backwards into the stone wall, pushing itself back upright and swinging a huge claw downward toward where Liza stood only moments ago. She managed to twist away from the attack unscathed, and retaliated again with her wrench as Dale positioned himself directly under the thing's outstretched arm. A quarter-second of aim, and then a sick thud as the razor-sharp bolt slammed into the creature's ribcage just under the shoulder. It reeled, and began to fall backward.
As its huge frame slammed into the ground, the fractured ice on the other creature cracked loudly. Finish it, get out, I thought, and my knife found a place to sink in at the base of the creature's neck.
It gurgled a cry, and little flecks of burning liquid sprayed from its mouth as it writhed and thrashed.
"Now, go, let's get out!" I yelled, and before the creature had even stopped twitching, all of us fled, tearing out of the room and slamming shut the huge door behind us. Dale had seized the partially-immolated jacket sleeve that once belonged to Luke and dragged what would come in one piece.
Luke, or what was left of Luke, was charred black and crumbling like so much charcoal. I gritted my teeth. Victoria, much braver than the rest of us, calmly wrapped up his remains in a white sack, and carefully slipped them into one of the loot bags we'd managed to bring back.
On the other side of the door, what sounded like a huge balloon popping broke the silence. Seconds later, the sound of boiling water. One beast broke free. Then another one. Then another. Their guttural calls and screeches were terrifyingly close, but so far away too. The thick door that separated us from them effectively put a world's space between us, and thank the Lady for that.
Silence. Then, with a sigh, Victoria tightened her gloves.
"I have an idea."
*****
Back upstairs, the remaining crew we'd left to tend to the ship were becoming more and more uneasy. Tremors, loud booms, slow shaking of the ground, and the always-there threat of the ice caving in above them did not make for a restful time. As we burst back out the doors to meet them again, things got only more tense.
Dale explained.
"Monsters, yes, that is what I said. They breathe fire and they have claws that can melt stone. Likeliest, they are impervious to fire themselves. There are at least three more down there, possibly up to five. Captain Strallahan thinks we can use one of them to get the Nephele out of here safely."
He tugged on his jacket collar nervously. "We'll need the pieces of that fire-gun that the Eyes were using, and we'll need the emergency balloon ready to inflate with hot air. There's enough scrap parts in this place to build a cage, a conductive cage. We need one about ten feet tall at least. Connect it to the gun, and mount the gun up on the balcony up there, third floor. Then..."
He continued on. In order for this to work, we'd need a bit of time, and a lot of luck.
I shook my head a bit, and walked back inside the main foyer to help bring out the spoils we gathered. I sighed at the doll by the door.
All this way, and what we have found so far is a bunch of tools and small stuff, probably not worth the trouble, and some fire-breathing heat-nightmares that were definitely more trouble than they were worth. Likely, the "good stuff" was hidden away in some vault somewhere. I idly kicked at the track in which the second doll at the door was stuck. It tried to slide forward, clanked into the bent portion of the rail, and stopped again, slumping over so I could see the phonograph on its back.
Phonograph.
I wondered about that disk from the brain box...
The machine had finished processing the disk, and a hard, black, shiny copy of it lay available for taking. I picked it up and, not really too fond of the idea of being any further down underground, walked back to the front door.
The disk fit perfectly into the player on the doll's back. I took a second to find the spring mechanism, and wound it up tightly. Almost reluctant to play it, I set the needle down. The sound that came out was the voice of an old man, at first, interspersed with that of a young lady. The man's voice was far off, but the lady's voice was clear as day, as if the record were inside her throat.
"Can you hear me?" the man said.
"Yes."
"Can you feel?"
"Yes."
"Who are you?"
"I do not know."
"You are my creation, my perfect work, the culmination of all my research. You are Diana, my precious doll house."
"Am I?"
"I will make a perfect world for you. Everyone will know the joy of having a Diana."
"Diana... This house is Diana, the Doll-House."
The disk spun in the player, an eerie silence emerging from the horn. The words that started to pour from it sounded both hurried and calm, fearful and confident. It wasn't bereft of emotion, no, far from it; it contained all the emotions at once, mixed together in a complicated dance.
"He has brought the end of the world. They have become too much for him. This house can feel the heat, the hatred that emanates from them. He cannot control them forever. They have escaped. There are many. They are deep now. He cannot stop them. He can only delay. His greatest work has saved and doomed us all. This house is the last barrier between the world and those monsters. This house will protect the world. This house will protect the world. This house will protect the world. This house..."
I shuddered, feeling as though I was intruding on a private relationship by listening to these words. The man spoke to the house at length, detailing his obsession with having a house that could feel, that could care for its inhabitants.
"I have made many dolls with parts of humans in them, but you are the first to use a brain." Those were the last words on the record. The player shut off automatically.
*****
Not possible, no way. He was mad. I hurriedly dug out that notebook I'd found, the Results Log book. Surely this would be in there? I opened to the first page.
"Test 1, November 8, 251st Year of the Crown. The brain I acquired was fresh from a young lady who died this afternoon. Preservation is progressing swimmingly. I have mapped nearly half of the nerve system out of it. It responds to mild electric current.
"Test 2, November 9, 251st Year of the Crown. I have begun to make the connections between the nerves of the brain stem and the wiring of the house. Unlike the others I have created, this one's organic content is the main focus of the doll, and must be pristine. Here follows technical specifications of Diana, the Perfect Doll-House."
Wrightworth, what were you doing? Your house, your HOUSE, was aware? And you stole a human brain to try to make your house have a consciousness? What kind of monster were you?
The entry went on. "The perfect doll, she will have the capability to think, to feel. She will be aware of all the things that happen within her. She will be beautiful, and she will never need maintenance because she will maintain herself. What beauty is this place, my perfect doll house." Sketches of the exterior of the house filled the next few pages. Inside the house, all the wiring and tubes and pipes were lined in schematic. The very carpet design was hand-drawn. And everything led to this central table in the workshop, the table which had the most work done.
I could see him, bent over this brain, connecting little copper lines with an impeccable hand to the nerves that came from it. I could hear him speaking to it, speaking like it was his daughter and he was teaching it about the world. I could feel the house shudder the first time the control system was connected to the brain, feel her testing out her own limits and capabilities.
I watched her help him to create his works, lowering the tools he needed and lighting only the rooms where he was. I watched her grow despondent when he began his work on the machine down there, his obsession with it growing and his attention he showered on her lessening.
She tried to impress him, to keep his affection. He would withdraw into his study, the one room she could not feel, for hours, days, and then burst out on
ly to feverishly return to work on that device.
The house never knew that he was creating a perfect world for her. He was creating a device that would make the world feel like a home to her. If the whole world was fertile and green forever, then she, too, would be happy forever with him.
The record continued spinning, soft white noise accentuating the silence that surrounded it. If the house had eyes, it would have been crying.
I tore myself away. No matter what this place was, we had to escape. I called to Liza. "That thing ready yet?"
"An' no mistakin'! Ye give me th'word an' this little prize'll light up the night, Cap!" She rolled out from under the weapon, covered in little bits of metal shavings and grease. I grinned, and then focused back on Dale and Victoria.
"Victoria, you're sure this thing will work?"
She grimaced. "The only person who is sure of anything in life is the fool," she said.
"Will it work, or not?" I barked back. Dale stood up, having finished the last splice of the wiring needed to connect it to the weapon's core.
"If the creatures work like we think they do, then yes, it should work." Victoria gave a half-smirk. "Surely."
Now, it was up to him and Martha. He gripped the pickaxe in his hand tightly, watched Martha heft a thick oar. "Let's go monster hunting," she said.
*****
Back down to the basement, Martha and I crept silently. The door to the chamber was still intact, thank the Lady, and as I cracked it open and peered inside, I saw just what I wanted to see.
No creatures were in the room. All the remaining five were gone, and the room itself sat in a shallow puddle of cold water. The device in the middle of the room stood still, the boiler obviously not lit any more. I shouldered the pickaxe and we slipped inside.
Martha and I stood on either side of the entry to the stone tunnel. I gestured inside, and then held up three fingers, then two, then one. Martha took a great breath and yelled as loud as she could into the tunnel.
"HEY YOU FAT UGLY MONSTERS COME AND GET US HEY-OH HALLA-DAY!"
I leaned around the corner and tossed a little lit firecracker inside, and the smoke it produced began to fill the smooth tunnel. Only a few seconds later, we heard clack-sizzle-rumbling start to come toward us in the tunnel, the grunt-like calls of the creature closing in on us. Perfect. Now to not get killed in the process of bringing it upstairs.
The creature burst from the tunnel, but we were waiting. One great blow with the oar and the pickaxe got its attention fully, and the chase began. It was by the grace of the Lady that only one of them came after us. Up, up the stairs. Up and through the foyer, staying just close enough to prevent it from spitting but just far enough to be out of reach of its claws. Run, captain. Don't trip, don't fall. The front doors swung open just as we reached them, and as the light from outside dazzled the eyes of the creature, the two of us threw ourselves to either side. It stumbled outside after us, and before it had time to adjust to the light, it fell full-tilt into the conductive cage, scavenged from the remains of a certain automaton with whom Liza had taken issue in the past.
Liza was waiting, her hand on the makeshift switch that attached the cage to the ship. The cage snapped shut (and Liza grinned), and the all-too-familiar smell of ozone began to fill the air. The creature roared, its claws beginning to heat up, and it seized the bars.
"Tha'll be th'end of ye," said Liza.
The device she and Victoria cooked up was brilliant. Victoria surmised that the only way to garner so much heat in one place was to run a strong electric current through a highly resistive material. That must have meant that the creature generated a huge amount of charge somehow. Regardless of how it was done, it ran through the thing's claws, which had to be some kind of conductive, at least.
Liza then took that information and coupled it with the knowledge that Wrightworth used these creatures to power his device. If he could do it, then so could we. Her way of working it would be less elegant, certainly, but with the time she had, I think she did a stellar job.
As the creature's claws closed around the metallic bars, the charge it tried to build flowed directly into the Nephele's static tubes, up through a second set of cable, and into the weapon core we took from the pieces of the heat gun that the Eyes had so graciously handed to us after we crushed their ship.
The static tubes further drew the energy out of the creature, who seemed to be growing weaker and weaker. The heat-core up on the balcony began to buzz and whir. Everything seemed to be going perfectly.
Then the trapdoor on the stairs burst open. Three more of the beasts lumbered out, their eyes blazing, heading directly toward us! Had the one we captured somehow called them?
"Keep them from breakin' th'connection!" shouted Liza. "Just a few more seconds!"
We had no choice but to stand and fight. I turned, heaved the pickaxe up, and hurled it toward the closest approaching creature, watching it rotate once in the air before burying itself in the thing's shoulder. It roared, tore it from its body, and tossed it aside, hot blood spraying from the wound.
We were not prepared for this.
The ship, only a few meters away, seemed to beg us not to light it aflame. And still the creatures closed in. I could smell the chemicals mixing in the throat of the one I had injured, see it getting ready to spit. In a desperate attempt, I dashed forward, sliding my knife out of its sheath, and plunged it into the creature's leg. As if it hadn't even felt it, I watched it raise up its arm, claws not quite yet white hot but certainly on their way. I felt the impact in my chest, felt it lift me off my feet.
There's a sensation particular to being in free-flight, which feels like your stomach is up in your chest and your blood stops moving for a moment. Compound that sensation with a strong one of burning and a stronger one of broken ribs, and you might be close to what I was feeling at that moment. I was only knocked back a few meters, but that was plenty enough to inform me of the real and present danger of being trampled, or eaten, or immolated, all in the same second. I tumbled on the ground for a moment, but managed to roll back to my feet.
A bit wobbly, I turned back to Liza. "Can we light this thing up yet?" I managed.
"Jus' a bit more... and... NOW!" she cried. In the second that she cried it, the crew all rushed back to the ship, clambering into portholes and up ladders. I hurried as best I could toward a rope ladder, tangled my arms into it.
All sound was dulled for a moment as the massive charge from the static tubes was let into the power core of the heat-gun. It was a long shot, but with no limiters on it, we hoped it would generate a blast of heat big enough to burrow out of the ice. It did this perfectly, destroying both the balcony on which it rested and part of the wall from which it protruded. The blast was blinding, and wild. The beasts were even stunned by its brilliance. Everyone had taken cover under something to avoid the blast of hot air that was generated by the core, and at the moment the emergency balloon inflated, riding the current up through the hole that the core burst through the ice.
From outside, it must have looked like someone had angered a god, as from the mountain of solid ice a massive white blast opened a gaping chasm like unto one that would ferry you into the underworld. Thousands of gallons of water rained down on the ground, washing into the house and taking the creatures, all debris, and the front doors inside with it. Great clouds of steam, searing hot, dissipated into the frigid air.
And from that chasm, the Nephele rose straight up at a great speed, riding the currents of hot and cold air rushing to equalise. My crew was safe, we had escaped the ice, and everyone survived.
Well, except for one.
I looked over the side of the deck, back down into the hole from which we just escaped. The basement would flood, most likely, and with any luck those creatures would die without food. The sky was clear, and there were no other ships in sight.
We made it. The crew gathered themselves, tending to wounds and making twice-sure of all the riggings and the like.
>
"Ladies and gentlemen," I began. "I think we need a break. Let's hold a vigil in a few hours, but for now, just make sure you are still alive."
*****
The closest thing we had to a priest on board was Martha, who had stayed in a convent for a few years when she was younger. We sprinkled Luke's ashes into the winds while she recited a song to the Presence of Earth, and for a few minutes, everyone was silent.
That evening, floating lazily in the sky, as we took dinner, we sorted through the things we managed to get. Some of the items we took could be reverse-engineered, some sold straight, and some used for our own purposes, but there was no big haul item, like I had seriously expected. This job hadn't paid off the way we thought it would.
Victoria sat at a table with all the documents, Liza sitting across from her. Liza looked for blueprints and schematics, and Victoria for personal papers. When she came to me with a journal, her face grim, I wasn't really looking forward to reading what it said.
The Nephele Ship: The Trilogy Collection (A Steampunk Adventure) Page 7