Another section of the city passed beneath them, and then the airship passed over a stone wall surrounding another generous section of greenery, in the center of which lay a white mansion surrounded by outbuildings. The airship drifted gently downward to land with a soft bump on the lawn in front of the great house, and a pair of workmen dashed over to secure the ship. Everyone scrambled to disembark, and Glenda led them up the steps into the house.
The interior bustled with activity. Men dressed in business attire, servant livery, and ordinary workaday clothing hurried about on mysterious errands. There were even a number of women, though that shouldn’t have surprised Alice by now. Glenda guided them down a series of corridors, past rooms large and small. Alice and Gavin caught sight of several laboratories and workrooms. An enormous half-constructed automaton stood in one of them, while two men attached sheets of metal to it. Another laboratory sported bubbling beakers and winding copper tubes. A cage in the corner held half a dozen plague zombies who watched Alice with empty eyes as she passed. Yet another room was coated in fog, and a male figure appeared to be frozen in a block of ice. Alice couldn’t keep from staring.
“You’re very busy here,” she said breathlessly.
“They keep us occupied,” Simon replied with a smile.
“Where are we going?” Gavin asked.
“Here.” Glenda knocked once on a closed door, then ushered Gavin and Alice into an office, or perhaps it was a library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held books, maps, scrolls, and strange instruments Alice couldn’t identify. Tall windows looked out over the grounds, and thick Persian rugs covered the floors. The center of the room was dominated by a large desk piled with neat stacks of papers. An odd combination telegraph machine and typewriter occupied one corner. Behind the desk sat a tall woman with black hair pulled into a French twist. She wore a man’s military uniform, crisp and blue, with gold epaulets. It was specially cut to expose her left arm, which was entirely mechanical. Alice noted with a start that it had six fingers. An elaborate brass-rimmed monocle covered the woman’s left eye, and a small sign on her desk read LIEUTENANT SUSAN PHIPPS.
“The ones from our report, Lieutenant,” Glenda said. “Alice Michaels, daughter of Arthur, Baron Michaels, and Gavin Ennock from Boston.”
“Thank you, Glenda,” said Lieutenant Phipps. Her voice was quick and sharp as a pair of scissors. “Excellent work, both of you. Simon, please meet us down in the sound laboratory in ten minutes.”
Glenda and Simon withdrew. Phipps pointed to a pair of wooden chairs across from her desk. “Sit. Please.”
Alice and Gavin sat. Gavin looked solemn but at ease, and Alice supposed that as an airman, he was used to a military chain of command. For her own part, Alice found Lieutenant Phipps more than a little intimidating, and she forced herself to sit with her hands in her lap, though she wanted to twist at her skirt as she had as a child. She tried not to stare at Phipps, this woman who dressed and spoke like a man, and broke so many traditional rules. But of course, she was part of this Third Ward, and the Ward clearly welcomed Ad Hoc women.
Phipps set a packet of papers aside and pulled the telegraph-typewriting machine toward them on its rolling stand. The machine had a recording horn on it. Phipps spun a crank on the side and fed a long scroll of paper into the typewriter’s platen. “I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on and why you’re here, so I’ll come straight to the point. First, I need to hear from you everything that happened at that country house. Don’t leave anything out. Mr. Ennock, you start. I understand you used to play fiddle in Hyde Park.”
Gavin told his story. As he spoke, the machine sprang to life. The typewriter clacked, and Gavin’s words skittered across the scroll. Gavin paused in surprise. Alice leaned forward. Her fingers itched to take the side panels off the machine so she could examine how the insides worked, discover how many memory wheels it took to translate sound into written words. Phipps pressed a switch on the machine and it stopped.
“Ignore the transcription, Mr. Ennock,” she said. “It’s for our records. Continue.”
He did. When he finished, Phipps had Alice tell her story as well. The machine wrote it all down. Phipps tore the scroll off, rolled it up, and put it in a drawer.
“Is that all?” Alice asked. “Are we free to go?”
“One more point.” Phipps steepled her fingers, brass and steel on flesh. “I need you both to listen carefully. The Third Ward is a busy and chronically understaffed organization, and we’re crying for talent. Based on what I’ve learned about the two of you over the last several days, I’m prepared to offer you positions as agents with us. The salary starts at five hundred pounds per annum, and room and board at cost, if you desire it.”
Alice gaped. It was the last thing she’d been expecting to hear. She exchanged a quick glance with Gavin and understood that he felt the same way. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “What exactly does the Third Ward-”
“Did you say five hundred pounds?” Gavin interrupted.
“I did,” answered Phipps. “And before you answer, let me show you what it means to be an agent of the Third Ward.”
She strode for the door without looking behind. Alice and Gavin rushed to catch her up. Phipps marched ahead of them, her bearing straight as a tin soldier’s.
“You’ve probably guessed that I’ve already looked into your backgrounds,” she said. “Both of you are quick, intelligent thinkers, and you have talents we need. And”-she lifted a metal finger before either of them could interrupt-“I’m going to explain what we do as we walk, so listen and look.”
They passed a gymnasium where groups of men and women sparred with fists and feet. “The Third Ward was established during the reign of King George the Fourth by the Duke of Wellington,” Phipps began.
“The Iron Duke,” Alice said.
“Yes, and if you interrupt again, this will take longer,” Phipps admonished. “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, but only just. The French had access to horrifying machines of war created by three clockworkers Napoleon had… persuaded to work for him. Wellington decided then and there that the best thing he could do for England was to gather up these madmen and — women and keep their inventions under control before one of them managed to destroy the country-or the world. He established the Third Ward to do that.”
“His Majesty George the Fourth was amenable to this?” Alice said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but that doesn’t sound like him. King George wasn’t known for-well, he was more of…”
“An insular sybarite? A man who found the contents of his bedchamber more important than the contents of his country? Yes. That was why Wellington kept the Ward a secret. He diverted Crown funds for it and kept it hidden from His Majesty until William the Fourth took the throne in 1830.”
“William was Victoria’s uncle, right?” Gavin said.
Phipps gave him a curt nod. “By then, the tradition of secrecy was well established, so even though the Crown supports the Ward, we don’t officially exist. Too many people would be unhappy if they were aware of what we were doing right under their noses.”
“What are we-you-doing?” Alice asked.
“I told you-we gather clockworkers. We give them a supervised place to work, and we harvest their inventions to serve the Empire. Why do you think England rules most of the known world?”
“And what about China?” Alice couldn’t help asking. Phipps’s snappy tone set her a bit on edge.
“They have their own system for dealing with clockworkers,” Phipps acknowledged. “And it’s why they’ve managed to hold their own against us.”
“The revolt over the Treaty of Nanking,” Gavin said. “And Lord Elgin’s fight with Emperor Xianfeng.”
Phipps looked at him. “Yes. How does a cabin boy from a shipping dirigible know about that?”
“I’m young, but I’m not stupid,” Gavin said airily, and Alice suppressed a smile.
“Quite.” Phipps took them into a small, squar
e room and pulled shut an iron gate. “Other countries look at clockworkers and see a threat. They think of plague zombies carrying disease, and never mind that clockworkers don’t communicate the clockwork plague. And they see terrifying technology, of course. So they shun clockworkers or kill them.”
She turned a crank and flipped a switch on the wall of the room. The floor gave a sharp jerk, and the entire chamber descended. Alice squeaked and grabbed Gavin’s elbow.
“It’s called a lift,” Phipps said. “It’s perfectly safe. One of our clockworkers modified the original design from America. It runs on electricity.”
“Oh,” Alice said. “I’d like to examine it sometime.”
“If you come work for us.” Two floors passed by them, followed by a thick layer of stone.
“Why do clockworker inventions remain so rare?” Gavin asked. “I mean, we saw that giant automaton upstairs, and you mentioned the war machines at Waterloo. Why doesn’t the Crown build more and more of them?”
“We can’t,” Phipps told him. “A few inventions can be re-created, certainly. Babbage engines. Electric lights. Hardened glass. Designs for dirigibles. But the vast majority of clockworker inventions, especially the ones with any sort of power source, are so complicated, so complex, that no one can re-create them. Not even if the clockworker manages to draw extended diagrams.”
“As my aunt has done?” Alice asked.
“Exactly as your aunt has done. That’s one of the reasons why we’re interested in you, Miss Michaels. As far as we know, you’re the only person able to follow a clockworker’s thinking well enough to assemble a clockworker’s inventions. Your cat Click, for example, and that automated valet.”
“But I don’t understand them,” Alice said. “I just assemble them.”
“That’s a singular ability, Miss Michaels. With few exceptions, only a clockworker can create the pieces of advanced technology we need to keep the Empire running, and once something has been created, only a clockworker can maintain or re-create it. Perhaps you can assemble these inventions because your family has been touched by the clockwork plague so often. Or perhaps you’re some sort of clockworker yourself. A demi-clockworker, if you will.”
All the strength drained out of Alice’s body, and the blood left her face. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“Don’t go all fussy,” Phipps growled. “If you were going to die of clockwork plague or infect someone else, you would have done it long ago. I don’t put up with the idea that women are the weaker sex or that females are particularly prone to hysterics, so if you’re going to prove me wrong, do it elsewhere.”
The words stung like a slap, and Alice came to herself. “You may have researched my background, Lieutenant,” she snapped, “but you know nothing of me, so you may keep your comments to yourself, thank you.”
Phipps gave her a curt nod, and Alice wondered if that had been some sort of test. “At any rate, America is starting to see the value of clockworkers, but it remains too deeply divided over slavery and economic issues to make proper use of them. India treats clockworkers as untouchables, of course, and the Africans and Muslims stone them to death. Ever since we’ve colonized these places, the Ward has been able to snatch clockworkers away for our-the Crown’s-use. China, as I said, has its own clockworkers, and we seem to be locked in a constant struggle to stay abreast of them.”
“We invent something; they invent something a bit better; we have to invent something a bit better than that,” Alice said.
“Exactly. Just recently, a Chinese clockworker bred an entire new species of silkworm. It produced thread that could be woven into a lightweight cloth that blends into nearly any surrounding, much like a chameleon. The military implications were staggering.”
“Not to mention what a smuggler could use it for,” Gavin pointed out.
“An airman would think of that,” Phipps said. “Fortunately for us, one of our own clockworkers created a special lens that converts heat-he calls it infrared energy-into visible light. He created several, in fact, and we handed them out to the army, which rendered the chameleon cloth much less useful.” She tapped her own monocle. “They’re also quite nice for seeing in the dark.”
The lift came to a stop, and Phipps slid the iron gate open. A chilly stone corridor greeted them. Electric lights provided a steady glow, though the place smelled of damp.
“What’s this place?” Alice asked.
“The high-powered floor.”
Phipps took them out of the lift, and Alice abruptly realized she was still holding Gavin’s elbow. Her face grew hot and she let go. Gavin didn’t seem to notice, or pretended not to.
“This is where we keep the most powerful clockworkers and their technology,” Phipps said. “This is what our agents live to find-and protect. It’s what holds the British Empire together.”
Alice was expecting even more wonders than she’d seen upstairs, but they only passed a series of side corridors and heavy, closed doors. Behind one of them, however, she heard a muffled explosion and what might have been a scream.
“What’s that?” Gavin asked. He was pointing down a short corridor that ended in a round steel door that looked to be ten or twelve feet in diameter. Flanking it were four guards armed with wicked-looking rifles Alice couldn’t begin to identify. They certainly didn’t fire bullets.
“That’s the Doomsday Vault,” Phipps said. “Sometimes a clockworker will create something so terrifying or dangerous that using it would be unthinkable, even in dire need. We lock all such inventions in the Vault, where no one can touch them. There’s enough power beyond that door to demolish the world a dozen times over.”
“Why not simply destroy such devices?” Alice asked, aghast.
“Believe me, Miss Michaels, we’ve had many discussions about that over the decades. Some devices are too dangerous to destroy. Other devices might turn out to be useful later. Another clockworker might invent a safeguard, for example, that makes the original device highly useful. In the end, Her Majesty decreed that we keep everything, just in case.”
“How do they create these inventions, Lieutenant?” Alice asked. “And how far can they go?”
“That’s the question that gives me nightmares, Miss Michaels. We used to think that clockworkers were bound by the laws of physics, and they could do something only if it were physically possible and they had enough money and the right equipment. But now the clockworkers are discovering that the boundaries of these physical laws are. . porous. I hear them use phrases such as gravity sinkhole and extra-temporal commutation. I think that last term has something to do with traveling in time. I’ve had two-two-clockworkers tell me that matter and energy are the same thing, and another one said he could see entire universes that occupy the same space as this one. I thought he had reached the complete lunatic point in his illness, but then he turned up with three parallel versions of himself, and it was only with great difficulty that we persuaded him to send them back. The world is very lucky that they need extensive and expensive equipment to create their most powerful inventions, or Earth would have been destroyed long ago. They create with great glee and don’t think about the repercussions, which is why the Third Ward has to search them out and bring them here, where we can keep their work in check.”
She took them to a particular door, selected a strange-looking key from a ring on her belt, and tapped it near the lock. The key rang-it was actually a tuning fork.
“C-sharp,” Gavin said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Phipps said. The lock clicked, and she pushed the door open. “This is the sound laboratory, and we need you here, Mr. Ennock.”
“Gavin!” Simon d’Arco rose from a marble worktable. “Glad you arrived. And nice to see you again, Miss Michaels.”
“It’s been only a few minutes, Mr. d’Arco,” Alice said.
“‘Simon,’ please. I said we’re very informal in the Ward.”
“Do you call the lieutenant ‘Susan�
��?” Alice asked, genuinely curious.
“No,” Phipps said.
“And this”-Simon gestured to another man-“is Gabriel Stark, but he prefers to be known as Doctor Clef.”
A shortish, balding man in coveralls, goggles, and a stained white coat looked up from the strange object he was working on. The object appeared to be a wire framework, but it twisted Alice’s eye. The lines of the cube came together… wrong. The more she looked at it, the more the front of the lattice seemed to fade into the back, or maybe the back was coming into the front. The man pushed his goggles onto his high forehead, revealing watery blue eyes set into a round face. “Good day,” he said in the broad, loopy tones of a north German.
“What is that thing?” Alice asked.
“Do you like it?” Dr. Clef said. “It is a cube, and it is quite impossible. Watch this.” He reached for a machine mounted on his desk. A wire led from the machine to the Impossible Cube, and when Dr. Clef spun a crank on the machine, the wires in the cube sparked and glowed blue. As Alice watched, the cube trembled, then rose a good inch above the table.
“It can fly!” Gavin gasped.
“Good heavens!” Alice said. “Is it a magician’s trick?”
“No, no.” Dr. Clef stopped cranking, and the cube dropped back to the table. “It is an alloy of my own design. When the electricity goes through the metal, it ignores gravity a little. It allows the Impossible Cube to do what it must do.”
“And what is that?” Alice asked.
Dr. Clef blinked at her. “How can I know? It is not yet finished.”
“It can fly,” Gavin muttered. “Fly!”
“Doctor Clef is one of our more prolific clockworkers,” Simon told them. “His work is currently at a delicate stage, and he didn’t want to stop, so-”
“Go on, go on.” Dr. Clef made shooing motions with his screwdriver. “Do not mind me. I make no sound.”
“So come in,” Simon said. “The laboratory awaits.”
The sound laboratory was a brightly lit stone room filled with equipment Alice didn’t recognize, some of it small, some of it large, and Alice’s fingers itched to take every piece apart and examine them from the inside. One wall was taken up by a variety of musical instruments-harp, drum, piano, violin, cello, flute, bugle, trumpet, and more. Another wall was filled with bookcases and books. Simon led Gavin to the instrument wall.
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