The Impossible Cube

by Steven Harper

  “The Flying Tortellis would drop something on my head if I put you in the ring,” Dodd said with a grin. “Besides, you’re supposed to be hiding. I was joking about the dead weight. You really do have trouble with British humor, don’t you?”

  “Now, look—”

  “I’ve never visited the Ukrainian Empire,” Alice interrupted. “But if it’s the center of the plague, I should certainly go there with Gavin. Why are you so unhappy, Feng?”

  “They are Cossack barbarians,” Feng spat. “They build and pollute and fight. They care nothing for balance or beauty.”

  “You worry about balance?” Alice asked archly.

  “And the Chinese put them in power,” Gavin said.

  “That doesn’t make them any less barbaric,” Feng shot back.

  “In any case, I want to go there with Gavin,”Alice repeated. She stood the elephant back up and sent it to the side of the ring. “But please explain that remark about power.”

  Feng crossed his arms. “England had an arrangement with China,” he said. “After the Napoleonic Wars ended, it became clear that parts of Europe—the west—and the Ottoman Empire—the east—could unite and become a threat to Britannia and China. Our governments didn’t want that to happen. So we came to an understanding. Britannia took the west and China the east.”

  “I don’t need a history lesson,” Dodd complained. “Will the elephant work for anyone, Miss Michaels, or just you?”

  Alice waved him away. “Anyone, Ringmaster. What do you mean by took, Feng?”

  “Took charge.” Feng was pacing again. “Napoleon’s nephew was supposed to rule France after the old emperor was exiled, but the man died. With no strong ruler, France fell into civil war, and now it is four fragments. Why do you think that was? Prussia is ten tiny kingdoms who never agree. Why is that? Your Calvinists and Lutherans war with each other as well. Why does this happen?”

  “You’re going to tell me the Third Ward keeps everyone off balance.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Up!” Dodd said, gesturing. “Up! Miss Michaels, he isn’t moving.”

  “You have to use your left hand, Ringmaster,” Alice replied absently. “I assume China has a role as well?”

  “China,” Gavin put in, “destabilized the east. Russia and Poland had split Ukraine in half and were draining it dry. The resources gave both countries enough power to make China—and Britain—nervous. Then the clockwork plague hit Ukraine again. For some reason, it created more clockworkers than normal in Kiev. A Cossack captain named Ivan Gonta ended up with a special talent for war machines, and his superior Maksym Zalizniak used Gonta’s inventions to start a revolution.”

  The elephant got up and lumbered around the ring. It picked up speed, steam trailing from its tusks. Dodd waved frantically at it, but it didn’t slow down.

  “Oh! I vaguely remember something about that from a history book, now that you mention specific names,” Alice said. “Gonta and the other clockworkers put together hundreds of war machines and slaughtered thousands of Russians and Poles until they abandoned Ukraine to the Cossacks.”

  “Hello there!” Dodd shouted. “Runaway elephant!”

  “Did you ever stop to wonder where Gonta and Zalizniak found the money and materials to build all those machines?” Feng asked.

  Alice gestured sharply, and the elephant screeched to a halt. “I have the feeling it came from China.”

  “Was that a malfunction?” Dodd asked. “Because I swear I did the exact same thing.”

  Feng nodded. “The emperor chose wisely—the Cossacks are content to defend their borders without expanding them, and they make an excellent wedge between Russia and Poland.”

  “I am your boss, Miss Michaels,” Dodd said.

  “Of course you are,” Gavin murmured.

  “At any rate,” Feng concluded, “the ruling Cassocks are actually crueler to their own people than the Poles or Russians ever were. It’s the nature of the warrior class.”

  “And we’re walking right into them?”

  “Steaming into them,” Dodd said. “We have a train. But I told you not to worry. They love us. Now, show me how to work this damned elephant.”

  Alice gave him a wide smile. “What’s the magic word, Ringmaster? As a hint, I’ll tell you that it isn’t damned.”

  Gavin laughed, and Alice thought it was the most musical thing she had ever heard.

  Later that afternoon, Alice opened the hatchway on the Lady of Liberty in her hiding place at the abandoned stable and climbed belowdecks. The familiar narrow corridor faced with doors greeted her. The creaking space felt eerie and claustrophobic without Gavin here. Alice went past her stateroom all the way down to the end and slid the last door open. Inside was the tiny laboratory Gavin had built into the airship. The entire place was set up for efficiency. Tools hung on the bulkheads, tabletops folded up, tiny drawers kept everything pigeonholed. It even had a tiny forge, which was currently glowing and made the room hot and stuffy. The place was also hung with half a dozen clocks. They ticked madly, their exposed gears whirling. Stuck everywhere were pieces of paper, large and small. Every one of them had the same drawing, one of a three-dimensional wire cube that twisted Alice’s eye. Part of the back passed over the front, or perhaps the front passed under the back. The drawings were done in pencil, charcoal, colored ink, and one medium that looked suspiciously like blood.

  Dr. Clef was standing in the midst of all this with his back to Alice. He seemed to be scratching something in a notebook. Click leaped down from the rim of a porthole and hurried over to her, purring loudly. Alice scooped him up. His skin was cool and smooth.

  “Click,” she said. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

  Dr. Clef turned and pushed his goggles up. “Alice! When did you come back, my dear? I have not seen you in weeks.”

  “Weeks?” Alice stroked Click’s brass back. “Doctor, it’s been only two days.”

  “Oh. Are you sure?” He glanced at the clocks. “How interesting. Did you know that gravity affects a clock?”

  “Er… no.”

  “Look at these.” He pointed at the ones closest to the ceiling. “They are moving at a slightly different rate than the ones down there at the floor. It gets more noticeable when I put them on top of the ship’s envelope. It is because they are farther away from Earth’s gravity.”

  “They look the same to me, Dr. Clef.”

  Dr. Clef shrugged. “They are not.”

  “Are you trying to re-create your Impossible Cube, Doctor?” she asked.

  “With difficulty.” He pointed at a small cable spool on the worktable. It was wound with fat, stiff-looking wire. “I have managed to reforge some of my special alloy using nails and other scraps from the barn, but I do not think I can re-create the Cube itself. And I do miss it.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “It is—was—unique in all time and space.” Dr. Clef sighed. “I am beginning to think it cannot be re-created, for that would violate the basic nature of its uniqueness. But look at what I have learned while I am trying.” He held up a notebook with a number of formulae scribbled in it. “When you measure certain events, you change them. You can, for example, discover how fast a certain piece of… of matter is moving or you can learn its location, but you can’t pin down both. It is very odd.”

  “Ridiculous.” Alice waved her free hand. “There. You can see how fast my hand is moving and you can see exactly where it is.”

  “Nonetheless. It is especially true for things so tiny, they cannot be seen and who move so fast, they cannot be captured.”

  “Then how do you know they exist?”

  “The numbers prove it,” he said, brandishing the notebook again. “It all related to my poor Impossible Cube. I miss it so. The beauty. The symmetry. The way it twisted the universe about itself. Everything about it was perfect.”

  “Perhaps you can still rebuild it.”

  “As I said, I am beginning to think this is not possibl
e. Can you tell me any more about the way it was destroyed?”

  Alice remembered watching Gavin holding the Impossible Cube beneath the Third Ward as he sang a single crystal note that shattered everything around him. Everything but her. Then he dropped the Cube, which fell through every color of the spectrum and vanished in a white flash the moment it touched the floor.

  “Only what I’ve told you already,” she said. “Nothing new. Doctor, the way the Cube twists itself—”

  “It does no such thing,” Dr. Clef interrupted, agitated. “The Cube is a constant. It twists the universe, but since we are in the universe, we think the Cube is twisted.”

  “Of course, of course,” Alice reassured him, though she had no idea what he was talking about. “But I meant that it might be better if you left the Cube alone. Perhaps it isn’t meant to be re-created at all.”

  An odd light came into his eyes. “Do you think so?”

  “Quite.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe I should leave it alone, then. Did you bring back any raspberry jam? I have not had any in quite some time.”

  “Oh!” Alice jolted back to the nonscientific world. “We did bring more food, but no jam, I’m sorry to say. Gavin and Feng are down in the barn. We think we have a way to move the ship, and we’ll need your help.”

  Dr. Clef rubbed his hands together. “A project! I will be pleased to take part.”

  “Madam?” The door to Alice’s stateroom opened and Kemp poked his head into the corridor. “Is that you?”

  “Of course it is, Kemp.”

  “Thank heavens!” He bustled into the corridor. “I’ve been having a dreadful time keeping the little automatons under control, and I finally had to lock them up. We’re completely out of food, and—”

  “Yes, Kemp. You’ve done an admirable job and we couldn’t have survived without you. Now, come down, both of you.”

  Kemp managed to look pleased despite his lack of facial features. “Madam.”

  On deck, they filed past the little generator, which had only recently been switched back on. It contentedly puffed steam and paraffin oil smoke, a shockingly daring woman smoking a cigarette. Above them, ropes creaked and the envelope’s lacy endoskeleton glowed blue, indicating that it was receiving power and lifting the hull. They all climbed down to the barn floor. At the entrance of the barn was Gavin, who had abandoned his black clothes for an ordinary work shirt, brown trousers, and a cloth cap. He looked like a handsome young farmer. With him was Nathan Storm, his own cap barely concealing his sunset hair, and a team of four horses pulling a wagon, which carried a pile of material covered in canvas.

  “What’s this? What’s this?” Dr. Clef asked, and Alice made introductions. Dr. Clef clapped his hands in glee. “The circus! A perfect place to hide ourselves, then. But how will we hide the ship?”

  “With this.” Gavin pulled the canvas off the wagon, revealing a pile of wheels and axles.

  Dr. Clef clapped his hands again. “Of course, of course. I should have seen. Shall we work now?”

  “I told you he would understand quickly,” Gavin said to Nathan, who only lit his pipe. They hauled the Lady out of the barn and tethered her a few feet above the ground so they could set to work. The endoskeleton continued to glow its lacy blue, and Alice felt nervous and exposed, like a fat rabbit on a meadow with hawks cruising overhead, but there was nothing for it.

  “Alice,” Gavin said, “could you bring down your little automatons to assist? And then…”

  She cocked her head. “And then what?”

  “Uh… maybe you could go for a walk? Or just stay out of sight behind the barn. This shouldn’t take long.”

  Her ire escalated. “Because you don’t think I’m qualified to help? How can you possibly think—”

  “No, no.” He held his hands up. “I just don’t think you should see this.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Her voice rose and her metal fist clenched. “I’m too ladylike, is that it?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Uh-oh,” Nathan said.

  “So I’m not a lady, then?” Alice said.

  “What? No! I just… Alice, you’ve never seen a clockworker in a full work fugue before, have you?”

  “And it’s not appropriate to me because I’m a lady.” She folded her arms. “It’s foolish to give up a pair of hands because of some misguided principles. I’m helping, and the sooner we get started, the better.”

  Gavin closed his eyes. “All right. Let’s get started, then.”

  They had to work quickly, before they were spotted and word filtered back to Phipps, wherever she was. Alice was no slouch at mechanical work, but even she was amazed at Gavin and Dr. Clef. They both circled the pile of parts and tools for some time, studying them, with her little automatons hovering and skittering nearby. Kemp and Click also awaited orders. A blank look came over first Gavin’s eyes, then Dr. Clef’s. They dove into the parts with great glee and rushed with them toward the Lady, barking orders to the automatons as they went. Alice followed along, and was startled when Gavin thrust an axle into her hands.

  “Grind these ends smooth,” he boomed. “And be quick about it! Maybe then I can ride you into battle.” Then he turned away and flung a handful of bolts at one of the little whirligigs, who caught them in midair. He didn’t even seem to recognize Alice. At first she felt indignant. Then she felt sickened. She told herself it was the clockwork plague, not him, and when a clockworker entered a fugue, nothing mattered but the work, but she still felt like she’d been slapped.

  “What are you waiting for, girl? The usual offer to tup you for half a sandwich?” Gavin snarled. His eyes were wild and his hair half stood up. Oil streaked his face and hands like blood. “Move!”

  Face flaming, Alice did as she was told, and when she was finished, accepted another snarl from Gavin, this time to tighten bolts. The little automatons flitted and scampered about. He snatched her automatons and spiders one by one, opened them up, and changed their memory wheels around. They squeaked in protest, and Alice bit back a cry of alarm. Dr. Clef worked elsewhere, shouting orders at Kemp and Nathan. Click stayed out of the way. Alice felt as tense as the metal she tightened.

  “Faster!” Gavin bellowed at her. “You’re slow and clumsy. Typical of dog meat.”

  Alice kept her head down, feeling small and stupid and hating herself for it. Gavin had become another person, a sneering stranger, and she didn’t like him. Telling herself that it wasn’t his fault didn’t help much. After being barked at for the fourth time, she began to see why so many clockworkers were forced to build automaton assistants. The only saving grace was that Gavin and Dr. Clef seemed to be working three times as hard as anyone else.

  “Hey!” Gavin dropped the automaton he was altering and dashed over to Dr. Clef, who was frantically reworking a set of wheels. “Those measurements are wrong, you fat idiot. You’re off by a good sixteenth-inch.”

  Dr. Clef’s jowls reddened. “You’re not half the man your mother is, you grease-faced dog. The tracks are clearly—”

  “Did you think I can’t see the obvious?” Gavin barked. “My mind is sharper than any tool you’ll ever touch, and certainly a good deal larger.”

  Dr. Clef picked up a sledgehammer and hefted it with an ease and power that caught Alice off guard. She had forgotten that the clockwork plague enhanced his strength and reflexes just as much as Gavin’s. “We will see how large a tool I have.”

  “Just a moment!” Nathan plucked the hammer from Dr. Clef’s hand. “Over there, Doctor. Does that axle look crooked to you?”

  “And, Gavin,” Alice said, hurrying forward, “I don’t think that automaton is functioning properly.”

  Both clockworkers turned, distracted, and moved fairly quickly to their new tasks. Nathan set the sledgehammer down.

  “Clockworkers don’t work well together in fugue,” he murmured.

  “I can see that,” Alice said.

  “You!” Gavin snapped. “The one with an ass li
ke a bag of laundry! Bring me that box of parts.”

  “Don’t shout back. You just saw how it only makes them worse,” Nathan said quietly. “And don’t take it personally.”

  Alice’s jaw was tight. “I’m trying.”

  In a surprisingly short time the Lady sported three sets of train wheels on her underside, and all the automatons had been modified. Still, the sun was setting, and Alice felt dirty, greasy, and half starved, and the steady stream of invective stuck like pitch to her skin. It would never come off.

  “We’re done,” she called up to Gavin, who was busy carving ivy leaves into a box that he had mounted on the deck. The box had two buttons on it, one red and one green. His hands moved with inhuman speed. “Gavin! We’re done!”

  “Not close, you ignorant filth. Do something useful with your fingers besides twiddle yourself, and bring me a screwdriver.”

  Setting her mouth, Alice strode up the gangplank and grabbed him by the shoulders. He shook her off and snarled at her like a dog. A blob of spittle flew from his mouth and landed warm on the back of her hand. She jumped back, eyes wide at the monstrosity of it.

  “How dare you lay hands on me?” he snarled. “Keep your disgusting hands to—”

  Water doused him from head to foot. It plastered his hair to his scalp and ran off him in rivulets. Gavin gasped and gaped for a long moment. Alice scrambled backward and Nathan set down his bucket.

  “Are you yourself, then?” he asked Gavin mildly.

  There was a long pause. Gavin dropped the tools, and they thudded on the planking. “Are we done? What time is it? Why am I all wet?” His voice was normal, and held none of the sneering tone she’d been hearing all afternoon. She felt so relieved, she was afraid she would half burst into tears, but she was angry, too. Why hadn’t he come out of it when she talked to him?

  “We had to snap you out,” Alice said stiffly. “Thank you, Mr. Storm. We should get moving, before someone spots the ship and gossip spreads.”

  Gavin uselessly mopped at his face with his sopping sleeve. “Did it work? Are we ready? Why won’t anyone answer me?”