“Come with me. You can hide at my place,” I said. I walked with my arm around her and could feel her trembling.
At my quarters, I bled the radiators and made us tea. We sat at the table in my parlor. “We’re going to have to get out of the city,” I said. “In a little while, we’ll go out on the street and steal a steam carriage. Escape to the country. I’m sure they need doctors out among the sane.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said and covered my hand resting on the table with her own.
“There’s no reason left here,” I said.
“I meant to remember to tell you this,” she said, taking a sip of tea. “About a week ago, I was summoned out one night on official business of the Republic. My superior sent me word that I was to go to a certain address and treat, using all my skill and by any means necessary, the woman of the house. The note led me to believe that this individual’s well-being was of the utmost importance to the Republic.”
“The President’s wife?” I asked.
“No, the address was down on the waterfront. A bad area and yet they offered me no escort. I was wary of everything that moved and made a noise. Situated in the middle of a street of grimy drinking establishments and houses of prostitution, I found the place. The structure had at one time been a bank. You could tell by the marble columns out front. There were cracks in its dome and weeds poked through everywhere, but there was a light on inside.
“I knocked on the door and it was answered by a young man in a security uniform, cap, badge, pistol at his side. I gave my name and my business. He showed me inside, and pointed down a hallway whose floor, ceiling, and walls were carpeted—a tunnel through a mandala design of flowers on a red background. Dizzy from it, I stepped into a large room where I saw a woman sitting on a divan. She wore a low-cut blue gown and had a tortoise-shell cigarette holder. Her hair was dark and abundant but disheveled. I introduced myself, and she told me to take a seat in a chair near her. I did. She chewed the tip of tortoise shell for a brief period, and then said, ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m the Prisoner Queen.’”
My heart dropped at her words. I wanted to look in Millicent’s eyes to see if I could discern whether she’d contracted the plague in recent days and survived to now be mad, but I didn’t have the courage.
Although I tried to disguise my reaction, she must have felt me tremble slightly, because she immediately said, “Lash, believe me, I know how odd this sounds. I fully expected you not to believe me, but this really happened.” Only then did I look into her face, and she smiled.
“I believe you,” I said, “go on. I want to hear the rest.”
“What it came to,” said Millicent, “was she’d summoned me, not for any illness but to tell me what was about to happen.”
“Why you?” I asked.
“She said she admired earnest people. The Prisoner Queen told me that what we have been considering the most terrible part of the disease, the blending of memory and the imagination, is a good thing. ‘A force of nature,’ was how she put it. There’s disorganization and mayhem now, but apparently the new reality will take hold and the process will be repeated over centuries.”
“Interesting,” I said and slowly slid my hand out from under hers. “You know,” I said, rising, “I have to get a newspaper and read up on what’s been happening. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.” She nodded and took another sip of tea, appearing relaxed for the first time since I’d run into her.
I put on my hat and coat and left the apartment. Out on the street, I ran to the east, down two blocks and a turn south, where earlier that day I’d seen an abandoned steam carriage that had been piloted into a lamp-post. I remembered noticing that there really hadn’t been too much damage done to the vehicle.
The carriage was still there where I’d seen it, and I immediately set to starting it, lighting the pilot, pumping the lever next to the driver’s seat, igniting the gas to heat the tank of water. All of the gauges read near-full, and when the thing actually started up after a fit of coughing that sounded like the bronchitis of the aged, I laughed even though my heart was broken.
I stopped for nothing but kept my foot on the pedal until I’d passed out beyond the city limit. The top was down and I could see the stars and the silhouettes of trees on either side of the road. In struggling to banish the image of Millicent from my mind, I hadn’t at first noticed a cloud of steam issuing from under the hood. I realized the carriage’s collision with the lamp must have cracked the tank or loosened a valve. I drove on, the steam wafting back over the windshield, enveloping my view.
The constant misty shower made me hot. I began to sweat, but I didn’t want to stop, knowing I might not get the carriage moving again. Some miles later, I began to get dizzy, and images flashed through my thoughts like lightning—a stone castle, an island, a garden of poisonous flowers spewing seed. “I’ve got to get out of the steam,” I said aloud to try to revive myself.
“The steam’s not going anywhere,” said the Prisoner Queen from the passenger seat. Her voluminous hair was neatly put up in an ornate headdress and her gown was decorated with gold thread. “Steam’s the new dream,” she said. “Right now I’m inventing a steam-powered space submarine to travel to the stars, a radiator brain whose exhaust is laughing gas, a steam pig that feeds a family of four for two weeks.” She slipped a hand behind my head, and after taking a toke from the tip of the tortoise shell, she leaned over, put her mouth to mine, and showed me the new reality.
_________________
* Please refer to the Mecha-Ostrich’s “A Secret History of Steampunk,” and in particular, the “Notes & Queries” for more insight into this story.
The Unblinking Eye
Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter was born in Liverpool, England. He now lives in Northumberland. Since 1987 he has published over forty books, mostly science fiction novels, and more than a hundred short stories. He has degrees in mathematics, engineering, and business administration. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, President of the British Science Fiction Association, a Vice President of the H. G. Wells Society, and he maintains a website at www.stephen-baxter.com. Of “The Unblinking Eye,” he writes, “We are shaped by the world we inhabit, to a degree we might not fully understand until we meet the alien. What if, for example, the very sky was different?”
UNDER AN EMPTY night sky, the Inca ship stood proud before the old Roman bridge of Londres.
Jenny and Alphonse pressed their way through grimy mobs of Londrais. Both sixteen years old, as night closed in they had slipped away from the dreary ceremonial rehearsals at Saint Paul’s. They couldn’t resist escaping to mingle with the excited Festival crowds.
And of course they had been drawn here, to the Viracocha, the most spectacular sight of all.
Beside the Inca ship’s dazzling lines, even the domes, spires and pylons of the Festival, erected to mark the anniversary of the Frankish Conquest in this year of Our Lord Christus Ra 1966, looked shabby indeed. Her towering hull was made entirely of metal, clinkered in some seamless way that gave it flexibility, and the sails were llama wool, coloured as brilliantly as the Inca fashions that had been the talk of the Paris fashion houses this season.
Jenny Cook was from a family of ship owners, and the very sight excited her. “Looking at her you can believe she has sailed from the other side of the world, even from the south—”
“That’s blasphemy,” Alphonse snapped. But he remembered himself and shrugged. What had been blasphemy a year ago, before the first Inca ships had come sailing north around the west coast of Africa, was common knowledge now, and the old reflexes did not apply.
Jenny said, “Surely on such a craft those sails are only for show, or for trim. There must be some mighty engine buried in her guts—but where are the smoke stacks?”
The prince said gloomily, “Well, you and I are going to have months to find that out, Jenny. And where you see a pretty ship,” he s
aid darkly, “I see a statement of power.” Jenny was to be among the party of friends and tutors who would accompany sixteen-year-old Prince Alphonse during his years-long stay in Cuzco, capital of the Inca. Alphonse had a sense of adventure, even of fun. But as the second son of the Emperor Charlemagne XXXII he saw the world differently from Jenny.
She protested, “Oh, you’re too suspicious, Alphonse. Why, they say there are whole continents out there we know nothing about! Why should the Inca care about the Frankish empire?”
“Perhaps they have conceived an ambition to own us as we own you Anglais.”
Jenny prickled. However she had learned some diplomacy in her time at court. “Well, I can’t agree with you, and that’s that,” she said.
Suddenly a flight of Inca air machines swept over like soaring silver birds, following the line of the river, their lights blazing against the darkling night. The crowds ducked and gasped, some of them crossing themselves in awe. After all, the Viracocha was only a ship, and the empires of Europe had ships. But none of them, not even the Ottomans, had machines that could fly.
“You see?” Alphonse muttered. “What is that but a naked demonstration of Inca might? And I’ll tell you something, those metal birds don’t scare me half as much as other tools I’ve seen. Such as a box that can talk to other boxes a world away—they call it a farspeaker—I don’t pretend to understand how it works, they gave one to my father’s office so I can talk to him from Cuzco. What else have they got that they haven’t shown us...? Well, come on,” he said, plucking her arm. “We’re going to be late for Atahualpa’s ceremony.”
Jenny followed reluctantly.
She watched the flying machines until they had passed out of sight, heading west up the river. When their lights had gone the night sky was revealed, cloudless and moonless, utterly dark, with no planets visible, an infinite emptiness. As if in response the gas lanterns of Londres burned brighter, defiant.
The Inca caravan was drawn up before the face of Saint Paul’s. As grandees passed into the building, attendants fed the llamas that had borne the colourful litters. You never saw the Inca use a wheel; they relied entirely on these haughty, exotic beasts.
Inside the cathedral, Jenny and Alphonse found their places hurriedly.
The procession passed grandly through the cramped candlelit aisles, led by servants who carried the Orb of the Unblinking Eye. These were followed by George Darwin, archbishop of Londres, who chattered nervously to Atahualpa, commander of the Viracocha and emissary of Huayna Capac XIII, Emperor of the Inca. In the long tail of the procession were representatives from all the great empires of Europe: the Danes, the Germans, the Muscovites, even the Ottomans, grandly bejewelled Muslims in this Christian church. They marched to the gentle playing of Galilean lutes, an ensemble supplied by the Germans. It was remarkable to think, Jenny reflected, that if the Inca had come sailing out of the south three hundred years ago, they would have been met by ambassadors from much the same combination of powers. Though there had always been border disputes and even wars, the political map of Europe had changed little since the Ottoman capture of Vienna had marked the westernmost march of Islam.
But the Inca towered over the European nobility. They wore woollen suits dyed scarlet and electric blue, colours brighter than the cathedral’s stained glass. And they all wore face masks as defence against the “herd diseases” they insultingly claimed infested Europe. The effect was to make these imposing figures even more enigmatic, for the only expression you could see was in their black eyes.
Jenny, at Alphonse’s side and mixed in with some of the Inca party, was only a few rows back from Atahualpa and Darwin, and she could clearly hear every word they said.
“My own family has a long association with this old church,” the bishop said. “My ancestor Charles Darwin was a country parson who, dedicated to his theology, rose to become dean here. The Anglais built the first Christian church on this site in the year of Christus Ra 604. After the Conquest the emperors were most generous in endowing this magnificent building in our humble, remote city...”
As the interpreter translated this, Atahualpa murmured some reply in Quechua, and the two of them laughed softly.
One of the Inca party, walking beside Jenny, was a boy about her age. He wore an Inca costume like the rest, but without a face mask. He whispered in passable Frankish, “The emissary’s being a bit rude about your church. He says it’s a sandstone heap he wouldn’t use to stable his llamas.”
“Charming,” Jenny whispered back.
“Well, you haven’t seen his llamas.”
Jenny had to cover her face to keep from giggling. She got a glare from Alphonse, and recovered her composure.
“Sorry,” said the boy. He was dark-skinned, with a mop of short-cut, tightly curled black hair. The spiral tattoo on his left cheek made him look a little severe, until he smiled, showing bright teeth. “My name’s—well, it’s complicated, and the Inca never get it right. You can call me Dreamer.”
“Hello, Dreamer,” she whispered. “I’m Jenny Cook.”
“Pretty name.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “Oh, is it really? You’re not Inca, are you?”
“No, I just travel with them. They like to move us around, their subject peoples. I’m from the South Land…”
But she didn’t know where that was, and the party had paused before the great altar where the emissary and the archbishop were talking again, and Jenny and Dreamer fell silent.
Atahualpa said to Darwin, “I am intrigued by the god of this church. Christus Ra? He is a god who is two gods.”
“In a sense. . . . “ Darwin spoke rapidly of the career of Christ. The Romans had conquered Egypt, but had suffered a sort of reverse religious takeover; their pantheon had seemed flimsy before the power and sheer logic of the Egyptians’ faith in their sun god. The sun was the only point of stability in a sky populated by chaotic planets, mankind’s only defence against the infinite dark. Who could argue against its worship? Centuries after Christ’s execution His cult was adopted as the empire’s official religion, and the bishops and theologians had made a formal identification of Christ with Ra, a unity that had outlasted the empire itself.
Atahualpa expressed mild interest in this. He said the worship of the sun was a global phenomenon. The Inca’s own sun god was called Inti. Perhaps Inti and Christ Ra were mere manifestations of the same primal figure...
The procession moved on.
“‘Cook’,” Dreamer whispered. He was more interested in Jenny than in theology. “That’s a funny sort of name. Not Frankish, is it?”
“I don’t know. I think it has an Anglais root. My family are Anglais, from the north of Grand Bretagne.”
“You must be rich. You’ve got to be either royal or rich to be in this procession, right?”
She smiled. “Rich enough. I’m at court as part of my education. My grandfathers have been in the coal trade since our ancestor founded the business two hundred years ago. He was called James Cook. My father’s called James too. It’s a mucky business but lucrative.”
“I’ll bet. Those Watt engines I see everywhere eat enough coal, don’t they?”
“So what do your family do?”
He said simply, “We serve the Inca.”
The procession reached a chapel dedicated to Isaac Newton, the renowned alchemist and theologian who had developed a conclusive proof of the age of the Earth. Here they prayed to their gods, the Inca prostrating themselves before Inti, and the Christians kneeling to Christ.
And the Inca servants came forward with their Orb of the Unblinking Eye. It was a sphere of some translucent white material, half as tall as a man; the servants carried it in a rope netting, and set it down on a wooden cradle before the statue of Newton himself.
Atahualpa turned and faced the procession. He may have smiled; his face mask creased. He said through his interpreter: “Once it was our practice to plant our temples in the chapels of those we sought to vanquish. No
w I place this gift from my emperor, this symbol of our greatest god, in the finest church in this province.” And, Jenny knew, other Inca parties were handing over similar orbs in all the great capitals of Europe. “Once we would move peoples about, whole populations, to cut them away from their roots, and so control them. Now we welcome the children of your princes and merchants, while leaving our own children in your cities, so that we may each learn the culture and the ways of the other.” He gestured to Alphonse.
The prince bowed, but he muttered through his teeth, “And get hold of a nice set of hostages.”
“Hush,” Jenny murmured.
Atahualpa said, “Let this globe shine for all eternity as a symbol of our friendship, united under the Unblinking Eye of the One Sun.” He clapped his hands.
And the orb lit up, casting a steady pearl-like glow over the grimy statuary of the chapel. The Europeans applauded helplessly.
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Page 6