Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth

by John Eubank

  He was so angry with himself. How could he have let that craven, weak-minded fool, Marteenus, catch him? Caged like an animal - it was humiliating. At least there was a tiny spring in the back, where he could get cold, clean water to drink.

  He had no idea how much time had passed but guessed it was early Tuesday morning. The handful of nuts he’d had in his pocket had gone quickly, and though he’d managed to catch and eat a few bugs, it wasn’t enough.

  Was Marteenus really there in the dark cave, he wondered, or was his famished mind playing tricks on him? Then, the little man appeared, carrying a lamp and waving a basket of food. He wore a bright green coat with long tails and had kinky, red hair that swirled over his head and shot out about a foot to the left.

  Deet scowled. Though a first cousin, Marteenus Steemjammer Skelthorpe had betrayed the family and gone over to the Rasmussen side. Eleven years ago he’d stolen a verltgaat machines and opened a world hole in the middle of Beverkenfort, the family’s main base, allowing the Raz to come through and conquer it.

  “Cousin Deetricus,” Marteenus said disdainfully, “I’d hoped to find you in a more cooperative mood. Your brother, by the way, seems happy to let you die.”

  “As is proper,” Deet growled. “I deserve worse for letting myself get captured by a zwakzenink like you!” Imbecile.

  Marteenus laughed off the insult. “It doesn’t have to end so grimly for you. Help me access the verltgaat machine, and I’ll set you free. I only want to go home.”

  Deet’s reply was so full of Dutch cursing that Marteenus, in spite of himself, winced.

  “Apparently not,” he said. “You’re looking thin.”

  “Vorden optgezet.” Get stuffed.

  “Oh, I will, thank you.” Marteenus took a huge bite of bread, smacking as he chewed. “Mm, delicious!”

  “May you choke on it!” Deet growled. “I’m not lifting a finger for you.”

  “No matter. I’ll get what I want in the end. Beverkenhaas seems to be empty. Surprised? I think your brother and his family may have had a little mishap. The smoke coming out the top threw me for a bit, but then I remembered automatic wood feeders.

  “That won’t last forever, and when the smoke stops, I’ll be sure no one’s there. Then, I’ll just walk right in, and my eleven-year nightmare ends. The world hole machine will be mine!”

  He smiled, but Deetricus remained stone-faced.

  “Really?” Marteenus goaded. “You have nothing to say to that?”

  “Goot,” Deet huffed.

  “Good?”

  “Go on in. I don’t care. At least I never have to see your rat-spleen of a face again!”

  Marteenus pretended to be hurt, finding the man’s forced bravado amusing, and then grinned snidely.

  “You want me to go in, don’t you?” he said. “Thank you, Deet. You’ve betrayed yourself. I take this to mean the place is trapped. I’ll have to be doubly careful.”

  Deet grunted, but privately, he felt better. He didn’t know of any traps except for a pit, which wasn’t really going to stop anyone. Henry’d been too scared of harming the children to properly secure Beverkenhaas.

  At least, Deet thought, the fear might delay the wicked little man. Marteenus would waste time searching for traps that weren’t there, and maybe Henry would catch him. He wondered what his wife was thinking, also his daughter, nephew and niece. Were they all right?

  “My brother terrifies you,” Deet challenged. “You can’t hide it.”

  “Yes,” Marteenus said, “I admit it freely. I barely escaped your father in the battle. Now Henry’s De Groes Steem Maester.” The Great Steam Master. “I don’t ever want to face him.”

  “When the smoke stops, know that he allowed it. He’ll be waiting for you.”

  Marteenus felt a chill run the length of his back. The mere thought of Hendrelmus charging from the shadows set him quivering.

  His terror reminded him of something: a little item he’d stolen from a house and hidden away for the day he might actually develop the nerve to use it. He opened a chest and began rummaging.

  “I’ve learned something interesting,” Marteenus said, regaining confidence. “You know that peculiar quirk we carry, how any of us born in Beverkenverlt can’t use electric gadgets?”

  He held up a lantern battery for Deet to see. There was a blackened hole in the top from an old explosion.

  “That hurt,” Marteenus continued, rubbing a small white scar on his forehead. “Anyway, my fascinating discovery is that the limitation we have here with electricity doesn’t extend to booskroyt.” Gunpowder.

  He lifted an object out of the chest and held it for Deet to see. Made of chrome-plated steel, the six-shot pistol gleamed ominously in the dim lamp light.

  “In our world, it would just fizzle,” Marteenus said, “but here, it works quite well.”

  He aimed it at his cousin and pulled the trigger. Deet winced, but there only came a sharp click. The hammer had fallen on an empty chamber. Marteenus cackled at his cruel joke while he opened the cylinder and loaded it with six bullets.

  “Think I’m bluffing?” he said.

  BAM! He shot into the back of the cave, and the bullet pinged harmlessly off the rock wall. Aiming the smoking barrel at Deet’s chest, he cocked the hammer.

  “I really ought to,” he said menacingly.

  His finger closed on the trigger, but he merely lowered the hammer and put the pistol in his pocket.

  “No, this is for dear Cousin Henry,” Marteenus sneered. “I wasn’t sure if I could do it earlier - really shoot him. Now I know I can.”

  Deet shook the locked cage door in frustration.

  “No one will find you,” Marteenus said, grinning nastily. “This cave’s on a mountaintop accessible only by airship. Years from now, some mountaineer will stumble upon your bones.

  “They’ll wonder what happened, how someone could have left another human being to slowly starve to death. And they’ll remain ignorant. I’ll be in B’verlt, enjoying my reward. Good bye, Deetricus Steem-failure.”

  Marteenus strolled out of the cave, whistling a jaunty tune. When his back was turned to him, Deet took an object from his pocket and threw it with all his might.

  It was an egg-sized rock he’d managed to loosen from the spring that morning. If he killed Marteenus and then starved to death in the cage, he didn’t care. At least the little monster would be dead, too.

  The rock hit Marteenus squarely on the back of the head with a sickening thud. The little man fell onto the floor of the cave, but he got up, dazed and angry. Gingerly touching the back of his head, a red smear stained his fingertips.

  “That’s all you got?” he sneered. “See? Your so-called goot steem’s drained away and gone. Your time is over, all of you. Think about that while you die.”

  ***

  “This is getting complicated,” the white-haired man, Ron Norman, murmured to himself as he climbed up his mother-in-law’s basement steps.

  It was Tuesday morning. He looked out the window at the peculiar house across the street where the space aliens lived, having disguised themselves as human children with rather bizarre hair. How beings capable of interstellar flight could make such a trivial mistake bothered him, but he thought maybe they were too advanced to notice such small details. Even stranger, they seemed to have gone away. A few days earlier, they’d left a note in his mailbox asking to feed their animals, and he hadn’t seen them since.

  They’d also left him a small, clear gem which the local jeweler in the town of Bellevue, Ohio, said was a diamond of remarkable quality. She’d recommended a jewelry store in Cleveland, so he’d gone there in a rented car. To his astonishment, the man handed him $85,000 cash. Then, he understood what the gem was for: the aliens intended him to use it to cover his expenses. Obviously, they had no idea what chicken scratch and hay cost – that, or they had an awful lot of diamonds.

  Ron thought about the robot attack last Wednesday night. He and his wife, Waverly
, had left their cars parked in the driveway, and afterward, they wouldn’t start. They’d had them towed, but the mechanic hadn’t been able to get them to start, either. Furthermore, the wiring in the house still wouldn’t carry a current, but new, battery-powered appliances he’d recently bought did work.

  At least Waverly had been content to remain exiled in the basement. The aliens had seemed perturbed because she’d called various county agencies to report them, thinking at the time they were truant children. He’d promised the aliens he’d keep her out of sight if they agreed not to destroy the planet. Having just dropped off a sack of things she’d need, he hoped to keep her happy.

  “Ron?” she called up the steps. “It’s so damp down here. Isn’t there something you can do?”

  “They’re delivering a generator today, dear,” he said. “I’ll get a dehumidifier as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  Heading out to the street, he marveled at what he’d just heard. Thank you? It’d been 20 years since she’d been nice to him. The aliens’ beasts, he reflected, must have truly terrified her.

  He knew it wouldn’t last. In a few days she’d convince herself nothing had really happened, that other-worldly creatures hadn’t chased and tried to eat her, and she’d revert to her usual self. The only thing he could do, he realized, was to enjoy it while it lasted.

  Strange, he thought, the fifty-foot smokestack that served as the aliens’ chimney had stopped emitting smoke. It’d been belching black smoke ever since he and his wife had arrived. This seemed somehow ominous to him, though he couldn’t think why.

  “Sir?” a friendly female voice startled him. “I’m glad you’re back. There’s this weird noise.”

  Startled, he glanced around. Pink pickup truck? Who was this tall young woman approaching him?

  “Mr. Norman?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, Jenny!” he said, remembering. “I’m fine, thanks. Please call me Ron.”

  A few days earlier, after reading the aliens’ note, he’d resisted going over there, because not all of their livestock was livestock. They had a pair of fiendish, birdlike other-worldly creatures that were bright purple. The things had chased him and his wife before they narrowly escaped. Even stranger, the note said he had to feed them – of all things – herrings.

  Fearing what the aliens might do if he didn’t obey their instructions, he’d eventually summoned the courage to creep up on the place where the monsters lived – inexplicably shaped like an igloo - and shut the wooden door. As he’d hoped, the aggressive creatures were inside. From their scuffling, he could tell they were trapped. Still feeling overwhelmed, he’d asked a neighbor to drive him into town so he could rent a car and seek out help.

  He knew nothing about livestock. At the feed store he’d spied a notice on the bulletin board: “Farm girl saving up for college, willing to do chores for pay.” He’d borrowed a phone to call her.

  That afternoon Jenny Knox, five-foot-eleven with long pigtails and worn denim overalls, had arrived in a big pickup truck with oversized tires. She said her older brother had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday. He wouldn’t need it, as he’d joined the Marines and gone to the Middle East. She’d hand-painted it hot pink to suit her tastes, while adding American flags and “Semper Fi” decals to honor him.

  To Ron’s relief, she’d taken the job and gone straight to work. It turned out that he hadn’t neglected the animals too badly, that nothing had starved to death. The goats still gave milk, and all the livestock had settled down after some food and soothing words.

  “How’s the cow?” Ron asked.

  “About to drop,” Jenny said.

  His face collapsed in horror. “Drop dead?”

  She covered her mouth to keep from laughing. “About to drop a calf!”

  Ron looked worried. “They drop them?”

  “Yeah. Cows give birth standing, usually. The little calf just drops out, right on the ground.”

  “This is normal?”

  “Basic biology, yeah.”

  “Not my favorite class, as I suppose you can guess.”

  Ron was greatly relieved. If he killed their animals, what would the aliens do? He didn’t want to imagine.

  “I’m pretty clueless about this,” he said with a nervous laugh, hoping to clear his fertile mind of the image of spaceships raining down fire and death. “In first grade, we had a field trip to a dairy farm, and they made me milk a cow.” He shuddered. “That huge, squishy, pink knobby thing – it had wiry hairs coming out of it!”

  The memory of the udder made him wince with disgust.

  “It was horrible,” he continued. “I wouldn’t drink milk until my mom bought the powdered kind from the store. I actually thought it was made in a factory. It was years before I could go back to the regular stuff.”

  He laughed, while Jenny politely tried not to.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess if you don’t grow up around it, farming can seem kind of alien.”

  The word “alien” alarmed Ron, but he decided she’d meant it innocently enough. A loud tapping sound came from the igloo.

  “There!” she said. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, the penguins,” Ron blurted.

  “Penguins?”

  He grimaced, afraid that he’d said too much. The purple alien creatures resembled penguins, but if he let her see them, she’d suspect the truth and might call NASA. Calm down, he told himself.

  “They must be tapping on the door with their, uh, beaks,” he said, “but never ever let them out!”

  Jenny nodded.

  “I have to feed them,” Ron continued. “The owners are very touchy about their pet penguins.”

  “You do seem nervous,” she observed. “Don’t worry. You said not to mess with the igloo, and I haven’t.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket. “We never settled your pay. This is for the first week.”

  He shoved some hundred dollar bills into her hand. Eyes opening wide, she counted them.

  “Two thousand dollars?” she gasped. “I can’t.”

  He looked puzzled. “It’s not enough?”

  “Too much! I’m only working a couple hours a day.” She brought up the calculator function on her cell phone. “That’s almost 143 dollars an hour.”

  With guilt, Ron realized he should pay her more. Who knew what kind of danger he was exposing her to? Still, if she kept the animals alive and the aliens happy, that could save the earth. She’d be a hero. Future generations would name schools after her.

  “These people are rich,” he told her. “Just take it, and make sure all the animals stay healthy.”

  “Except the penguins,” she reminded, buttoning the money in a shirt pocket. “You sure you know how to take care of them?”

  “Oh! Frozen herrings. I bet they’ve thawed!”

  ***

  Jenny Knox watched the short, white-haired man run to the car and struggle with a heavy bucket of icy fish. Patting the $2,000 cash in her pocket, she thought that this was the craziest situation ever. Then, she realized what it had to be: a hidden camera TV show.

  She told herself to remain calm. If she revealed that she was onto the trick, that would surely end her part, and she’d get no more money. Trying not to look for the secret cameras that had to be all over the property, she walked slowly to the barn. If this could keep going until Christmas, she thought, it’d pay for a good chunk of her college education.

  Unnoticed by Jenny or Ron, an oblong gas-bag shaped like an enormous loaf of French bread with a gondola underneath appeared on the horizon. The airship rose above a forested hill about a mile away. As quickly as it had appeared, it turned and sped out of sight.

  ***

  In the heart of New Amsterdam sat a sprawling building complex called the Steem Museum. A gift from the Steemjammer family to the people, the place had been originally set up as a gigantic machine shop, wood shop, and factory open to the community. Ov
er the years, it evolved to be like Old Earth museums - marble fronted on the outside with displays of Beverkenverltish history, science, and art inside – but it also offered much more.

  For most families in this world, the ability to make things – locomobiles, toys, clothing, work-saving devices, or whatever – was all important. Though people did buy items made by others, they tended to be very self-reliant and preferred making their own, if they could. The old Steemjammers had made sure that any person with an idea in their mind and a willingness to work had a place to go where they could make their dreams real. Not only were tools and work spaces provided, free of charge, but a community of experts was on hand to help – plus metal foundries and a storehouse of exotic materials, offered at cost or discounted, when situations merited that.

  Lesser versions of the Steem Museum had been constructed in all the major cities, but none of them topped the one in New Amsterdam for sheer size and completeness. The family had built lecture halls and an auditorium. Apprenticing programs had been added to give job skills to young people, along with classrooms for anyone who had a desire to teach.

  These Museums, however, were mainly vast factories where a free people could attempt to build anything they wanted. No one had to ask permission. For the Steemjammers, that was what created a happy and prosperous society.

  In a main stairwell of the front building, ten-year-old Angelica Steemjammer raced down. She had wavy blonde hair so strongly cowlicked that it stood straight up – at least most of the time. Just then, she went so fast that the breeze of her motion swept her hair back like a sapling in a strong wind.

  “Please, be alive!” she said, bursting out of the stairwell into a large display hall. She hurdled a velvet rope barrier and took a shortcut through an exhibit on the exploration of early Beverkenverlt. Racing past wax mannequins dressed in fur coats, funny breeches, and buckled shoes, she leaped the barrier on the other side and hurried on.

  People dodged out of her way as she sped like a tiny, runaway locomotive, huffing and puffing: “Be alive, be alive, be alive, be alive!”