The Steampunk Trilogy

by Paul Di Filippo

  “I should say not,” averred Crookes.

  “I must consult my maps in the cabin. Certainly such a large geographical feature as this green desert will appear, even if only as a bit of Summerland incognita. In any case, there is no need to worry. Once Princess Pink Cloud senses our location telepathically, she will materialize here and conduct us by astral means to the Castle of Cochineal, where we shall sit in colloquy with Aristotle and Socrates, Chaucer and Shakespeare, among innumerable other spiritual luminaries.”

  Davis turned hopefully to Madame Selavy. “Can you establish contact with the Princess, my dear Hrose?”

  Madame Selavy rolled her eyes back in her head and strained her facial ligatures, as if attempting to pass not ideoplasm, but a kidney stone.

  “The cosmic telegraph is full of noise. I am overwhelmed by the nearness of so many spirits—”

  Emily was about to ask what spirits? when her brother spoke.

  “Has anyone noticed the sun?”

  Everyone gazed now askance at the bloated orange orb, poised a mere degree or two above the horizon. For a full five minutes they regarded it, during which time it moved not a whit.

  A tear pricking her cheek, Emily ended the silence. “The Dusk kept dropping—dropping—still. No Dew upon the Grass—but only on my Forehead stopped—and wandered in my Face. I know this Light. ’Tis Dying I am doing—but I am not afraid to know.”

  “’Tis dying you’ve done,” contradicted Crookes. “This is something quite other.”

  With that, Crookes, making an obvious effort to shake off his stunned ennui, moved decisively toward the hold where the ostriches could be heard plaintively calling.

  “Austin, Henry—come help me manage the birds on their treadmills. We must recharge the Voltaic piles in case a speedy departure becomes necessary. Mister Davis—I suggest you and Madame concentrate on establishing our whereabouts and that of any of Summerland’s putative inhabitants. As for our two bards, you may continue to churn out your amusing little lays until further orders.”

  The party split up into its various factions, leaving Walt and Emily alone at the rail.

  Despite their unforeseen and inexplicable circumstances, Emily felt a growing confidence and ease. Whether it was Walt’s jubilation, which shone now from every ounce of his brawny frame, or Crookes’ captainly aura, or a combination of the two, she could not say. But whatever the source, she found she was not fearful of her fate in this strange place, but rather expectant.

  Upon the point of sharing these sentiments with Walt, Emily espied twin autumn rivulets of tears freshly coursing through his beard.

  “Walt, what troubles you?” said Emily, taking one of his hands in hers.

  “It’s the grass. It speaks to me.”

  “What is it saying.”

  “It claims—it claims to be my father.”

  For a short interval longer, Walt continued to listen to something Emily could not hear. Then, shaking himself, he resumed a less introspective manner.

  “Green tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west! Sun there forever half an hour high! I see you also face to face!” He turned full to Emily. “We have made a crossing greater than any I undertook on Brooklyn Ferry—and I thought those quite supernal! But now we are where time nor place avails not, nor distance either. We are now with the men and women of all generations, past, present and future. This I affirm.”

  At that moment the three men who had gone belowdecks emerged. All wore various degrees of discomfiture, from Crookes’ extreme agitation, to Austin’s disconcerted bewilderment, to Henry Sutton’s sympathetic incomprehension.

  “Captain,” called Walt, “what transpires?”

  Crookes removed a silk handkerchief from his vest pocket and mopped his brow. His face was white as Emily’s favorite wildflower, the Indian Pipe.

  “The piles refuse to take a charge. Everything is perfectly in order. We just can’t generate a current. It’s—it’s as if we’re operating under a new set of natural laws. . . .”

  Emily said, “Does this mean that we’re trapped here, Professor?”

  “I fear so. At least as far as science can help us. Let us see what the psychic half of our team can contribute. . . .”

  Crookes advanced to the bulkhead door that led to the living quarters. There he knocked.

  “Mister Davis! Madame Selavy! Please join us. We have something to tell you.”

  Muffled whispers could be heard from within. The whispers gradually increased in loudness and stridency until they terminated in a plainly voiced “Bâtard!” followed by the sound of a palm connecting solidly with flesh.

  Shortly thereafter emerged Paris’s finest medium and the Seer of Poughkeepsie; the latter bore a florid handprint on his cheek.

  Madame Selavy spoke. “I was in contact with Princess Pink Cloud when an evil entity took possession of me. The vile beast materialized an ideoplastic hand and attacked cher Davis. It was only by the most magnificent efforts that I was able to cast out the intruder and preserve my sanity.”

  Despite their troubles, Crookes smiled. “I see. And what was the Princess able to tell you?”

  “Tout le monde may feel safe. Our appearance here was planned by the spirits. They rerouted our vessel to this green wasteland on purpose. Our earthly souls are not purified enough yet to sustain a tête-à-tête with the spirits in their own domain. Princess Pink Cloud is sorry, but there was no alternative. She had no way of knowing this until we actually arrived. After all, our expedition is un premier. We are therefore instructed to return immediately to the lower spheres and perfect our souls before essaying another trip.”

  “I wish I could comply, Madame, as I believe it’s our soundest course. But unfortunately, our electrical system is dead.”

  “What?!” shrieked Madame Selavy, hurling her bulky self upon Crookes and pummeling his chest with blows. The slim savant bore up admirably under the formidable assault. “You lie, you lie, you slimy dogsbody! We can’t be trapped in this goddamn place! You got us here, you miserable alchemist! Now you’ll damn well get us out!”

  The medium’s storm of blows dribbled to a halt, and she collapsed to the deck in a faint. Walt and Austin helped lift her to a couch.

  “Madame’s accent seems to have been our first fatality,” drily commented Crookes.

  “Plainly another case of possession brought on by the shocking news,” faintly defended Davis. “I assume, by the way, that you were not jesting. . . .”

  “You assume correctly.”

  Walt said, “Perhaps we should sit down to a little sustenance, and plan our next move.”

  “A capital idea.”

  “I’ll set the table,” volunteered Emily, happy to have something useful at last to do.

  Soon the party of six were sitting down to a simple collation, laid out upon a sideboard she recognized from the Evergreens. They ate in a somber silence. Emily noticed for the first time the lack of insect noises. Apparently, the astral prairie was void of cricket or cicada, beetle or fly.

  As they were finishing, Madame Selavy joined them. Making no reference to her outburst, she tucked in heartily to the repast.

  When she had finished, Crookes broached their choices.

  “As I see it, we can simply sit here on our useless vessel until all our supplies are gone and we die of sheer inanition. Or we can set out across the placid wilderness in hopes of finding something or someone who can help us. Does anyone have any other ideas?”

  No one spoke.

  “Very well, then. Let us put it to a vote. Mister Whitman?”

  “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors from their jambs! If we be only one hour from madness and joy, then confine me not!”

  “I take that as a vote to walk. Miss Dickinson?”

  “When Death’s carriage stops, one must enter.
”

  “Another yea. Let us cut this short. Does anyone wish to sit tight? No? So be it. Let us make ready.”

  The decision galvanized all the voyagers, and they sprang into action. The ostriches were lofted from the hold by means of winch and sling. Two of the animals were reserved as mounts for the ladies; the others were quickly burdened with all the supplies. The gangplank was lowered and the haltered birds were driven down it. They were soon joined by the humans, who stepped tentatively onto the alien lawn, but found it to be, as best as they could discern, conventional sod.

  “All that remains is to choose a direction,” said Crookes, compass in hand.

  Walt said, “May I volunteer an encomium from one of my journalistic peers? ‘Go west, young man!’”

  “Any other suggestions? Very well, west it is.”

  With Emily and Madame Selavy riding a demure, albeit somewhat slippery sidesaddle—Emily on Norma, Madame on Zerlina—the expedition set out.

  Some hundred yards from the ship, they paused and turned to bestow one final nostalgic look on the craft.

  “Goodbye, my fancy!” called Walt.

  And with his farewell seeming to float in the air, the travelers resumed their journey into the sunset-canopied green unknown.

  11

  “THE GRASS SO LITTLE HAS TO DO, I WISH I WERE A HAY”

  EMILY HAD ALWAYS loved sunsets. The Housewife sweeping with her many-colored Brooms; golden Leopards in the sky; Ships of purple on Seas of daffodil; a Duchess born of fire; the Footlights of Day’s Theatricals—The gaudy aerial punctuation to the day’s sentence had always seemed to her like one of God’s more inspired authorial decisions.

  But now, after eight hours of travel beneath the subtly varying yet essentially repetitive circus of Summerland’s riotous skies, Emily was convinced that it would not matter to her if she never saw another colored clown-cloud in her life! The mindless spectacle of the skies now wore on her nerves like the continual moaning of an idiot. Emily could tell that the others were experiencing similar sensations.

  Riding beside Emily, Madame Selavy exhibited a downcast apathy relieved only when she chose to cast a malign glare Emily’s way. Leading Emily’s long-necked and feathered mount, Austin shuffled along with eyes fixed on the unchanging turf, as did the Poughkeepsian Seer, who guided Madame’s beast. Crookes and Sutton, each responsible for his own string of pack-ostriches, were plainly preoccupied with their own gloomy thoughts. The only member of the expedition to still exhibit the smallest measure of confidence and vivacity, in fact, was Walt.

  The Paumanok Singer had soon assumed the role of pointman for the walkers. Striding out a few yards ahead of the others, he had made the opening hours of their journey pass cheerfully with a recitation of some of his inspirational poems.

  “Me imperturbe! Standing at ease in Nature, aplomb in the midst of irrational things, imbued as they are, passive, receptive, silent as they. O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do!”

  Walt would turn and bow comically upon the close of each verse, making a broad sweep with his hat in hand, and the others would stop and clap—urged on loudest by Emily—giving the ostriches a chance to crop at the infinite expanse of fodder, which they appeared to find congenial.

  This monotous greensward had quickly become as wearisome as the skies. If only there were just one simple Dandelion amid this infinite Alas, to proclaim that the sepulture was o’er!

  But flowers there were none.

  When the birds had browsed sufficiently, the humans would resume their walk at a moderate pace, having agreed without speaking that there was no point in hurrying and wearing themselves out.

  After the first several hours, they halted for a longer rest. Standing on Walt’s shoulders, Henry Sutton was just able to descry the masts of the Thanatopsis, apparently unchanged. Victuals were consumed, as well as refreshing draughts of their bottled water.

  “This simple beverage,” observed the ever-rational Crookes, “which we never gave a thought to from day to day back in Amherst, now puts an upper limit on our survival. Unless we encounter a new source of water, we shall all expire painfully from thirst long before our food runs out.”

  “A death almost as cruel as my unborn children suffered,” chimed in Austin. “If only we could contact the poor lost babes, I’m sure they would be able to help us. Madame—can’t you give it another go?”

  The seeress appeared to have regained her Paris tones. “Of course I am willing to try, cher Austin. Come, let us form the circle of power.”

  Seated on the soft living carpet, they all joined hands. Madame Selavy closed her eyes and began her invocation. “Zelator, Sothis, Ullikummi—open the gates! Although we are unworthy, grant us audience!”

  The air was heavy with expectation. But despite Madame’s energetic grunts—which served to signal her earnest efforts—their hopes remained unfulfilled.

  “Well, it didn’t hurt to try,” said Crookes after the circle had been broken and they were all standing again. “But it’s beginning to look as if there are actually no spirits here to respond to our pleas. I’m starting to suspect that this place is merely another mundane world, perhaps orbiting a different star from ours, which we have accidentally reached somehow, and hence no spiritual abode.”

  Young Sutton now surprised one and all by breaking his usual self-sufficient silence and interjecting a comment. “Nope, I cain’t agree with you there, Prof. This place is the afterlife, sure as my Paw wore whiskers. But what I want ter ask you is, how we gonna know when we actually die? If we just go ter sleep extra thirsty and wake up dead, what’ud we notice different about the scenery?”

  Crookes laughed heartily and slapped Sutton on the back. “An excellent conundrum, man! Worthy of Thomas Aquinas himself!”

  Walt brushed the crumbs of his meal off his trousers. They landed in the grass and lay there looking, thought Emily, unutterably alien, like boulders in the midst of a parlor. Where were the members of the busy minor Nation which on Earth would have carried them away?

  The burly poet sought to ameliorate the attitude of defeat that hung palpably over the group.

  “Come, my tan-faced children! Follow well in order, for we cannot tarry here! We must march, my darlings! We must bear the brunt of danger, we the youthful sinewy races. All the rest on us depend. We are the pioneers!”

  “More like ‘prisoners,’” countered Crookes. But he too fell into line with a slight smile.

  That brief illusion of hope had not lasted long, however. Footsore slogging soon became the rule of the day. Even Walt had eventually ceased his orations, joining the others in silent dejection.

  For Emily, the most brutal physical aspect of the trip so far had manifested itself as an embarrassing soreness in her posterior. The downy cushion of Norma’s back had soon become a rock-hard seat of torment. Emily had switched to walking for a while, but found herself becoming too fatigued to keep up with the others. Her daily housebound existence had not fitted her for such a trek, and she was forced despite her aching buttocks to resume her mount.

  Now, Crookes raised a hand to call another halt. He took out his pocket-watch and said, “By Amherst time, it is now eight in the evening. I propose we make camp for the, ahem, ‘night,’ and set out again at ‘dawn.’ Agreed? Fine. Let’s get the tents set up, men.”

  The ostriches, temporarily freed of their burdens, were hobbled to graze. Three tents were broken out of the rest of the equipment, and unfolded onto the lawn.

  “Austin, Davis and myself,” said Crookes, “shall share one lodge. Walt and Hen will make a pair. And the ladies will have their own shelter. Now, let’s get our encampment in order. Although the sky does not seem to threaten rain, this lawn must be watered somehow, sometime.”

  Nothing could have been less welcome to Emily tha
n the prospect of spending a night side by side with the disagreeable and, she had realized from prolonged proximity, the noticeably garlicky Madame Selavy. Yet there seemed no alternative, or at least she was too tired to think of one.

  Emily watched the men drive stakes into the lawn and rig ropes. After a few minutes, a sudden breeze—the first to make itself felt in Summerland—caused her to turn.

  What she saw left her Lungs Stirless, their Cunning Cells incapable of even a Pantomime breath.

  Less than a dozen feet away from the encampment, an oval patch of grass had come alive with motion.

  It was if the soil were a-boil with the activity of a hundred thousand wriggling earthworms. The earth rippled and churned. And the grass itself was not immune from this bewitchment. Every blade seemed possessed of its own will, dancing and intertwining with its neighbors like the tendrils of a squid.

  It seemed forever that Emily watched appalled, though it must have been only seconds. At last, finding her voice, she called out weakly, “Someone—help!”

  In a trice the other members of the party had surrounded her. Emily pointed wordlessly, and they gasped as one.

  For now the grass was cohering! Acquiring shape and solidity, the individual blades were losing their identities, growing and weaving themselves into a seamless fabric.

  And that billiard-table-green fabric, molding itself around an invisible armature or skeleton, soon assumed the luster of green flesh—and the form of a perfect naked male child!

  The transformation of the turf over, he lay there on his back, breathing, with eyes yet closed.

  The babe of the vegetation.

  No one gave utterance to his or her astonishment, till Walt spoke.

  “The prairie grass dividing, its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding. I demand the blades to rise in words, acts, beings, and go with its own gait. . . .”

  As Walt trailed off, the green child opened his eyes and gazed upward with mild wonder at the sky.

  Walt took a step toward the boy.