by Phil Foglio
Agatha ducked under the pipe and examined the soup, which smelled incredible. It was a rich chicken soup, filled with an array of finely sliced vegetables, several of which Agatha was unfamiliar with. A bowl of thick yellow spätzle noodles was handed to her by Sleipnir. Agatha took her cue from the others and spooned a ladle full into her soup.
The children were wiping down their clanks and congratulating each other. The girl with the bowl-dispenser clank was still snuffling a bit, but had rallied.
“That was pretty amazing,” Agatha said. “Does that sort of thing happen at every meal?”
“Are you joking?” DuMedd muttered sottovoce, “We’d be dead in a week.” He twitched a thumb and Agatha noticed several small holes in one of the walls. “You’re lucky you missed last Monday’s Swedish meatballs.”
Agatha thoughtfully turned back to her meal. The soup itself was tangy and delicious and Agatha found that she had emptied half her bowl before she looked up. “You were hungry,” Sleipnir allowed, and poured Agatha a large glass of a thick, white liquid from a broad-based pitcher. Agatha sniffed it and a brief taste confirmed that it was tangy, like buttermilk, but sweet.
“That’s called lassi,” Sleipnir said as she lowered her own half-emptied glass. “It’s a fermented milk drink that Theo brought.”
Further down the table, DuMedd waved a hand in acknowledgement. “Everyone’s expected to provide a few dishes from their homeland. Makes for a nice bit of variety,” he explained.
Agatha found herself chewing a spicy vegetable that required the rest of her lassi to quench. She demurely wiped her lips with the heavy linen napkin from her lap. “You know, I’m quite fond of the Heterodyne Boys stories, but I’ve never heard that one with the dragon before.”
Theo grinned and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “I just made it up. You liked it?” He had a deep voice that made Agatha’s ears tingle.
Agatha nodded. “My favorite story is The Heterodyne Boys and the Race to the West Pole.”
A short young man with a noble prow of a nose spoke up. “You have an ear for the truth. That one really happened.” He became aware of the rest of the group looking at him. “Well, mostly,” he added defensively.
Agatha cocked an eyebrow at him. “Right.”
“No, no! It is true! My father built the Mechanical Camel!”
Agatha blinked. “Your father is—?”
The young man drew himself up proudly. “The Iron Sheik. Yes. And I am his son, Zâmî Yahyâ Ahmad ibn Sulimân al-Sinâjî.” He smiled. “But you may call me ‘Z.’”
Agatha sat back in her chair and regarded him with wide eyes. “Golly. I’m not used to thinking of the Heterodyne Boys and the people in the stories as… as real people.”
Zâmî shrugged. “As real as you or I.”
At this point, a large dish of various cheeses began to make the rounds. None of them looked familiar, and Sleipnir made a few helpful suggestions. Most of them were delicious, but one of them caused Agatha to choke, as she was convinced that she was eating someone’s unwashed foot. The others at the table, who had been watching her surreptitiously, snorted in laughter at her expression. “Give it up, O’Hara,” said Sun Ming, a slim Asian girl seated next to DuMedd. “No one else but you likes that stuff.”
Sleipnir morosely took the remaining chunk of the offending cheese off of Agatha’s plate. “You are all heathens, who wouldn’t know the ambrosia of the gods from a cod’s head and I pity you all, sure enough.” She popped it in her mouth and chewed.
Agatha found herself laughing with the rest. While the circumstances behind her being here were alarming, she found that she enjoyed the company of these people more than she had ever enjoyed the company of the students at the college.
A thought struck her and she looked around. Between the older and younger children, they occupied just two of the vast tables in the common area. There were easily another twenty of these, all unoccupied, except for a cluster of the servants who sat near the younger children, keeping an eye on them while they supped on their own bowls of soup. “I can’t help but notice that there aren’t a lot of students here,” Agatha observed. A few of the others nodded.
“You came at a quiet time,” DuMedd explained. “The Baron insists that those with lands that need planting in the spring should help oversee the process personally, and actually assist if they’re old enough.”
A tall young man with wildly disheveled hair who’d been introduced as Nicodeamus Yurkofsky chimed in. “He says that it gives them a better appreciation of where their power comes from and who’s actually keeping them fed.”
Agatha thought about some of the members of Royalty that she had seen come through the Tyrant’s labs throughout the years. “I’ll bet they love that,” she said carefully.
“It’s the older generation that gets all horrified,” DuMedd said with a laugh. “The kids look forward to it all year long. That and the harvest. The fact that it scandalizes their parents? That’s usually seen as a bonus.”
Agatha looked around at them. “So what about your families?”
DuMedd’s face got sober. “I don’t have any family.” Agatha started to stammer an apology, but he waved it aside. “You couldn’t know. My parents died fighting air pirates about twelve years ago.”
“Really? Were they Sparks?”
“Yes. My father was more into the theoretical stuff, but my mother was Demonica Mongfish.”
The Mongfish name was one that was mentioned prominently in any history of the Spark. From their citadel in Novaya Zemlya, they had periodically terrorized the surrounding area. The latest, Lucifer Mongfish had been a perennial opponent to the Heterodyne Boys, so much so that, eventually, one of his three daughters, Lucrezia Mongfish, actually married Bill Heterodyne. After that, everyone pretty much agreed that fighting in public would be unseemly. Holiday get-togethers, however, were a different matter, and by mutual agreement, every event was held at a different location to reduce the collateral damage.
Most of the others had similar stories. Sleipnir concluded, “There’s also a few of the others who are still here, but they’re on duty, like your roommate, Zulenna. You’ll meet her later.”
“Zulenna. That’s a pretty name. Is she nice?” The others looked at each other.
“Um… no, not really,” Sleipnir admitted. “There’s a reason why she’s without a roommate at the moment.”
Suddenly they became aware of raised voices from the children’s table. “No—that’s not how they worked!”
“Oh, like you’d know!”
“I know enough to do basic research on biomechanics!”
“The only thing that’s basic around here is your grasp of the theories behind mechanical forces!”
“Oooh! You take that back!”
Agatha found this discussion a bit disconcerting, partly because it was delivered by a pair of twelve-year-olds, and partly because it sounded exactly like an argument she’d heard last week in the teacher’s lounge at the University.
“Make me, stupid head!”
“Ooh! I’m telling!”
Yep. Exactly.
Theo reached in and pulled the two apart. “Now what is this all about?”
A small, wiry boy sporting a large pair of goggles spoke up. “The bugs—”
The other boy, the freckled redhead with a small silver clock set into his forehead, interrupted. “Duh—Slaver wasps.”
“Get wound. You can’t just suck them out of people like in Theo’s story, can you?”
Theo nodded somberly. “That’s correct, Itto. Nothing can cure a revenant.”
“But the story said—”
“Stories are for fun. Do not mistake them for facts.”
Another child spoke up. “My father said that the wasps came out of machines.”
“That is correct. They’re called Hive Engines.”
A little girl piped up. “Oh that. We saw one of those.”
“What?” Sleipnir exclaimed. “Where
?”
“We were playing on the dirigible deck and the footmen said we had to go. But we hid and we saw them unloading this big thing they called a Hive Engine.” She pointed towards Agatha. “They unloaded her too. She and her booooyyfriend were on stretchers.”
Everyone looked at Agatha expectantly. She nodded. “There was a Hive Engine in Dr. Beetle’s lab. I guess they brought it here.”
Zâmî looked upset. “A Hive Engine? In the middle of a town? What was this Dr. Beetle thinking?”
One of the black-clad servants suddenly appeared at his elbow. “Such talk is not for younger ears. Off with you.” To the obvious disappointment of the younger children, the older group moved off down the hall.
“I… I don’t know what he was thinking,” Agatha admitted. “About anything.”
Sleipnir broke in, “What is the Baron thinking bringing it here?”
Nicodeamus proclaimed, “The Baron can handle anything.”
The others looked at him. He shrugged. “Mostly.”
Meanwhile Theo had gotten a faraway look in his eyes. “So— Where would this Hive Engine be, do you think?”
Sleipnir looked at him askance. “The Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab would be my guess. Why?”
“Well… I’ve never seen a Hive Engine, now have I?”
Sleipnir wheeled around and prodded his chest with a finger. “You want to go sneaking into one of the Baron’s labs? Even after what happened to you the last time?”
Theo looked at her blankly. “Well… Yeah.”
Sleipnir did a quick jig. “Sweet! Let’s go!”
“What exactly did happen to you the last time?” Agatha asked.
“Oh never you mind that, Agatha,” said Sleipnir. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”
“Plus,” pointed out Nicodeamus, “she’s the only one who knows what this thing looks like.”
Agatha felt a sudden tug at her skirt. Looking down, she saw Itto standing defiantly. “I want to come too,” he announced.
Theo shook his head. “Forget it, Itto. You’re too young. Von Pinn would kill me.”
“I won’t tell her!”
“No! You stay here.”
With that the group moved off. Agatha’s last view of Itto was of the youngster sullenly kicking a table leg. Once around the corner, she hurried to catch up to Sleipnir. “You can’t tell me that we can just waltz into one of the Baron’s labs.”
Sleipnir winked. “You’d be surprised. Most of the labs aren’t that well guarded.”
Zâmî nodded. “The Baron is most careful about who gets onto the Castle in the first place.”
“And getting off is even harder,” Nicodeamus added.
“Besides,” Theo pointed out, “we’re not going to walk in through the front door. There’s lots of ways—” He was interrupted by Agatha, who had stopped dead and put a finger to her lips. The others stopped and, a second later, a small figure slipped around the corner they had just turned and ran straight into Agatha’s waiting hands.
“ITTO!” Frantically the boy tried to break free from Agatha. Theo’s hand descended onto his shoulder. “You were told not to come.”
Agatha looked slightly relieved. “I’ll just take him back—”
Sleipnir shook her head. “Oh no, he’s coming with us now.”
Itto punched the air. “Yes!”
“BUT—”Sleipnir continued to the boy, “if you get infected by a Slaver wasp, we’ll have to kill you.”
Itto’s eyes got huge behind his goggles. “What?”
Sleipnir looked sad. “Sure, and I’d hate to do it. So whatever you do, don’t open your mouth. Understand?”
Itto nodded frantically and clapped a hand over his mouth.
They moved off in silence, twisting and turning through corridors until Theo stopped before an unobtrusive door. Reaching into his vest, he pulled out a large bunch of keys. He flipped through them, selected one and delicately probed the lock. A quick twist, a muffled thunk, and the door swung open. With a flourish, he bowed them into a small antechamber lined with maintenance lockers. Against the far wall was a metal ladder that ascended into the darkness. He lightly grasped the ladder to feel for the vibrations that would indicate that it was in use, and felt nothing. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to the others, his face serious. “This is an access ladder to one of the lighting maintenance platforms. Once we get up there, move slowly and gently, they’re not made to take a lot of extra weight.” He looked directly at Itto. “And above all, keep quiet.”
From behind his hand, Itto grunted an acknowledgement.
When Agatha’s turn came, she stepped onto the ladder, and with a sigh of resignation, began climbing. Eventually she joined the others on a small metal platform dominated by an enormous arc-light. The air was sweltering, as the great light put out heat like a furnace, and the platform shivered unnervingly whenever anyone stepped too heavily. It looked out upon a large cavernous room, lined with workbenches and machinery. Agatha noticed however that there were also racks of weapons to hand, as well as excessive amounts of fire fighting equipment, medical supplies and large mobile barriers. Also standing about the room were some of the large creatures that Agatha had seen in the corridor. The domes that occupied the place where their heads should have been gleamed under the arc-lights.
Sleipnir noticed the direction of Agatha’s gaze. “Those are Radioheads,” she whispered. “The Baron acquired them from some madlad he had to put down in Albania a few years ago. He figured if he could build fighters without brains, they wouldn’t get scared or feel pain or worry about dyin’. The Baron doesn’t use them off the Castle, because they creep people out too much.”
“But… If they don’t have a brain, how can they do anything?” Sleipnir directed Agatha’s attention to a group of uniformed women that were on a small balcony on another wall of the vast chamber. All of the women were lined up, peering at the room below them. They seemed relaxed, and Agatha could hear their voices as they idly chatted amongst themselves. A flash of reflection made Agatha realize that each of them was wearing a small glass dome atop their heads as well.
Sleipnir continued, “Each one of them controls a Radiohead. Like a puppeteer, except it’s permanent.”
Agatha shivered. “Those poor girls.”
“Don’t feel sorry for them. The Baron’s offered to free them from the connection, but not one of them took him up on it. They’re happy the way things are.”
Agatha blinked. She was spared having to reply by Theo touching her arm. “Agatha, is that the Hive Engine?” He whispered. She followed his finger and was startled to see that the device was almost directly below them. Within its thick glass shell, the now familiar disturbing shapes slowly roiled in the thick green liquid.
“Yes, that’s it.” A trio of figures emerged from a doorway and approached the sphere. “Isn’t that the Baron?”
Everyone else froze. “Yes it is,” whispered Theo in a strangled voice. “Now shhhh!”
On the floor below, the Baron walked around the vast sphere, examining it closely. Following him were two of his oldest assistants, Dr. Vg and Mr. Rovainen. Vg was a tall, whipcord-sleek Asian of indeterminate sex. Mr. Rovainen was a short, shambling figure who was swathed in thick bandages, goggles and a voluminous coat. The bits of him that were exposed, glistened with a soft nacreous sheen. Mr. Rovainen had not shaken hands with anyone in years.
Klaus stopped and faced them. “So. Your preliminary analysis?”
Mr. Rovainen spoke in a wet, buzzing voice. “It is definitely the work of the Other, Herr Baron.” He slowly rubbed his bandaged hands together. “A viable Hive Engine—after all this time. Fascinating.”
Vg broke in angrily. “No, terrifying! I strongly recommend we put it on a fast ship and drop it into the nearest volcano. There is nothing we can learn that is worth the risk presented by having this thing aboard the Castle.”
Klaus raised an eyebrow. “Really. Then you can already tell me whether this device is ind
eed eighteen years old or brand new.”
Shocked, the two scientists glanced at each other and then wheeled about to stare anew at the slumbering engine. Mr. Rovainen coughed wetly. “My apologies, Herr Baron. Not yet.”
On the platform, the students were straining to hear what was being said. “It’s smaller than I thought,” Theo murmured.
“What are they saying?” Nicodeamus muttered.
“What if the Slaver wasps escape?” whimpered Itto.
“Then all we have to do is run faster than you,” Sleipnir replied.
Looking slightly ill, Itto backed away from the edge of the platform. Suddenly he noticed a pale lump on an adjoining ledge. The lump rippled. Itto felt his throat close in terror. The lump moaned softly and extended a pale protuberance. Itto backed up
until he ran into Sleipnir.
“Wa… wa…” he moaned.
“Itto? What is it?” The lump reared itself upwards and a pair of gleaming eyes opened.
“WHAAAAASSSPP!” Itto screamed and scrambled over the others, throwing them into confusion. The large white cat that had been slumbering on the platform bolted off into the darkness. Suddenly there was a loud CRACK! and the platform began to move. It tipped forward sharply. Agatha grabbed for the wall and snagged an exposed ring bolt. Her arms twinged as the platform stopped with a jerk, but suddenly everyone screamed as they felt the floor begin to buckle. With a groan, and a snapping of restraining bolts, the great arc-light swayed forward, flared, went out, and with a slow twist, pulled free from its restraints and fell over the side.