Brilliant Devices: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices)

by Shelley Adina

  Chalmers let out a breath with as much exasperated noise as a steam engine. “For the last time, you must not—”

  The floor jerked out from under their feet as the great flagship reeled from a sudden blow of massive force. Claire and Alice were flung into one another’s arms, while Jake fell into Chalmers’s back. The dishes slid up one side of their racks and clattered down into place again, while outside the galley, shrieks of terror and the smash and tinkle of glass told Claire that the buffet had not been so carefully engineered for bad weather.

  She had just pushed herself up onto her hands and knees when a second blow struck the ship. It swooped sickeningly, as though all its mooring ropes had failed on one side and it had taken leave of the ground. With a cry, she fell against the cabinet doors. At least she had not far to fall this time.

  “Alice? Are you all right? Jake?” Dear heaven, she had to get over to the Lady Lucy. “We must make certain the Mopsies are all right, and Tigg and Willie. Jake?”

  A groan told her he was conscious, at least. The three of them helped each other struggle to their feet, she and Alice impeded by yards of silk and petticoats that they finally hauled up in their hands so they could find their footing.

  “What was that?” Alice groaned. “An earthquake?”

  “That was no earthquake.” After pulling himself to his feet, Frederick Chalmers tugged his waistcoat into place, looking grim. “That was a pressure wave—or else something happened to the gas bags within the fuselage. There will have been an explosion, and close by, too.”

  Bruised, sore, they tumbled out of the little galley. When they entered the saloon, Claire realized how much luck had been on their side. For the galley had protected them in a way that the large room full of loose objects had not protected the dancers, musicians, and other guests and crew of the Margrethe.

  Chalmers gripped his daughter’s hand. “Are you really all right?”

  “Yes, Pa. I’ll have a big bruise on my behind tomorrow. Not like these other poor folks—where are the count’s medics?”

  But Chalmers was not to be distracted. “You must get von Zeppelin off the ship and out of here. Ten to one this is merely a distraction and he is the real target.”

  “But Pa—”

  “Quick, Alice. There is no time to lose. I’m going out to see what happened.”

  Claire caught Jake’s eye and the boy followed him out without a word, quick as a footpad, weaving in and out of the dazed men and women in formal dress who were making for the gangways, instinctively seeking solid ground. The medics, who were coming through from the crew deck with their bags, began to work on the fallen and injured.

  The Dunsmuirs were on their feet, and appeared to be having strong words about her ladyship’s leaving. Claire wound her way over, stepping over a swath of smashed desserts and three potted palms stretched out on the carpet, their fronds like fingers beseeching aid.

  “Davina, we must see to the children on Lady Lucy immediately,” she said in a tone that made the earl draw himself up in affront.

  “You shall not—”

  “John, I am responsible for the twins and Tigg,” Claire told him firmly. “Davina and I will escort each other. You must see to the safety of your crew and officers here.”

  “But there may be—”

  “Thank you, John. We shall return in half an hour.”

  Davina grasped her hand and the two of them hauled up their trains and dashed helter-skelter for the gangway, leaping over smashed china and fallen chairs, skirting around the medical men bending over their patients, until they gained the ground.

  From there it was only a matter of fifty yards to Lady Lucy … where they could see what had happend. For the force of the blast had pierced the Margrethe’s fuselage, and in the light from the airfield they could see its great gas bags slowly collapsing. Already aeronauts were scrambling in the fixed rigging, closing valves and shouting orders to one another as the ship sagged on the ground.

  If Frederick Chalmers had hoped the count would leave the north under his own steam, that hope was now dashed. From what Claire could see, it would take days to repair the damage—and with weather on its way, did they have that time?

  “Such a noble ship,” Davina said, as though of a friend who had died. “We must do all we can to assist. But first things first.”

  Three of the middies watched anxiously at the windows of Lady Lucy’s gondola, and when Davina waved, their heads disappeared and they appeared moments later, jumping down to hold the gangway steps for her.

  “Were any of you injured?” she asked, pausing on the bottom step.

  “No, your ladyship,” young Colley said. “I can’t say the same of the furniture, nor the collation on the sideboard, neither.”

  “Willie?”

  “Safe, your ladyship,” Tigg responded. “Bumped ’is elbow falling out of bed, is all.”

  “Well done, Mr. Terwilliger. Mr. Yau shall have my commendation for your prompt action this very night.” Davina took the steps two at a time, Claire on her heels.

  Davina ran back to the family’s suite, while Claire dashed down the corridor with Tigg right behind her. “What was it, Lady?” he asked. “Knocked us all to the deck all of a sudden, it did.”

  “It was a pressure wave from an explosion.” She pushed open the Mopsies’ door to find them both on their feet. “Are you all right?”

  “Aye,” Lizzie said. “Wot’s a pressure wave?”

  But Claire did not answer. Instead, she gathered the three of them into her arms, much to Tigg’s embarrassed pleasure. “I am so glad. There were many people injured on the Margrethe—I had terrible visions of what might have happened on a ship so much smaller.”

  “What exploded?” Tigg wanted to know. When he wriggled out of her grasp, Claire released them and stood.

  “I’m sure we shall find out shortly, when Jake comes back. Lizzie appears to have been correct earlier, though … Count von Zeppelin is to be the target of another attack, we suspect by the Meriwether-Astors, and Mr. Chalmers seems to think the explosion is merely a distraction.”

  “Mr. Chalmers?” Maggie sounded puzzled. “Where’d he come from?”

  “He and Alice have made up. Come. Enough talking. Help me out of this ridiculous gown and into my raiding rig. I suspect our night has only begun.”

  *

  Any faint hope Claire might have cherished that the Mopsies would stay on the ship was dashed so quickly it might not have existed.

  Keeping close, they followed her to the family suite, where she opened the door without being invited to do so. “Davina? I’m taking the girls and Tigg to reconnoiter.”

  Her ladyship and Willie cuddled together on a divan that had slid all the way over to the row of portholes on the hull. “You promised John to return in half an hour. See that you do so. Then bring him here if you can, to begin planning for the Margrethe’s repairs. Willie and I are quite all right, and Mr. Andersen and Mr. Yau are aboard should we need assistance.”

  Or protection. Claire could hear the words in her tone, though she did not say them with children present. If any danger to her son were to present itself, Claire had no doubt who would win.

  She nodded and closed the door. “Come along, girls. Tigg, are you armed?”

  “No, Lady. We ent issued a pistol till we been crew for six months.”

  “Then stay close.”

  They had no difficulty discovering from whence the explosion had come; a thick plume of dust and smoke issued out of the open pit as though a volcano had erupted. A crowd twenty men deep clustered at the gates, held back by the Dunsmuirs’ security men who had linked arms across it.

  But even from behind the crowd, the pit was so vast that Claire had no trouble seeing into its depths.

  “Wot ’appened, Lady?” Maggie struggled to see past a large gentleman’s coat. “I can’t see.”

  “It appears that another of those enormous digging engines has been destroyed. That is source of the s
moke—there is nothing left of it but a burning shell and some of its continuous track.”

  But there had been two explosions. What had caused the other? On tiptoe, craning her neck past the shoulder of the large man, she scanned the pit for evidence of another burning engine. Perhaps it was closer to where they stood, and perspective did not allow—

  And then she saw it, deep in the pit, where the funnel narrowed and it appeared tunnels might have been dug. But there were no tunnels now. The lowest level had been blown to bits, and even now, entire sections of the sides of the pit were sliding into the hole that was hundreds of feet deep, filling up whatever excavations had once been there.

  Claire’s knowledge of diamond mining was limited strictly to the brilliants that were its end result, but even she could see that the Firstwater Mine was done for. It would take months of excavation to return it to production. Maybe years.

  “Lady!” Lizzie tugged sharply on her sleeve.

  “What is it? Did someone step on you?”

  “It ent me. It’s Alice’s dad.”

  “Where?” How on earth could she see in this crush?

  But Lizzie, who apparently had grown tired of trying to see around people and had gone out to the fringes to get a better look, was no longer interested in pits and explosions. She dragged Claire over behind a sentry shack and pointed. “Look. That’s ’im, innit?”

  If the crowd in front of them was awestruck in the face of tragedy, the one over by the mine offices was fierce and savage. Struggling in its midst was Frederick Chalmers, his dinner jacket torn nearly off, and alongside him two young men wearing the colorful fur-trimmed coats favored by the Esquimaux.

  “Oh, dear. Come on.”

  “Pa!” came a shriek from across the gravel of the airfield, and Alice shot between two of the buildings to plunge into the crowd, her aquamarine skirts bunched up in both hands as she used elbows and shoulders to get to him. “Take your hands off him, you dadburned varmints! Leave him alone!”

  “Alice, no!” her father roared.

  “Shut up, you!” Reggie Penhaven, his face scarlet in the light of the mining lamps held by nearly half the crowd, threw an elbow that made Chalmers double over, gasping. “We’ve caught you in the act this time and you’re not going to weasel out of it. You and your Esquimaux accomplices!”

  Claire unholstered the lightning rifle and plowed into the crowd right behind Alice. The butt glanced off someone’s head, then between someone else’s shoulder blades, and the way was clear.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded in such frigid Belgravia tones that Lady St. Ives herself would have been proud. “Unhand this man at once.”

  Reggie Penhaven eyed the rifle with more respect that he did Claire herself. “You’d best get back to Lady Lucy, yer ladyship,” he said. “This is Firstwater business, and none of yours.”

  “Since Alice was dancing on Count von Zeppelin’s ship with Mr. Chalmers not half an hour past, and she is with me in the Dunsmuirs’ party, I think it is indeed my business,” she snapped, gazing down her nose as though Penhaven were the most disgusting sort of insect. “It is impossible that he should be your saboteur.”

  “I beg your pardon, but it isn’t. These two men are his accomplices. They set the explosives on his orders, and if he was dancing and leaving them to take the blame, then shame on him and her both.” Penhaven’s eyes blazed. “Now get out of my way, yer ladyship, before you get hurt butting your nose into men’s business.”

  The men holding the struggling Chalmers and the Esquimaux in iron grips surged past her, causing her to stagger back or be trampled.

  And as he passed, Frederick Chalmers shouted, “Find Isobel! You must tell her—” One of his captors cuffed him right across his bad eye, and his instructions were cut off in a yelp of pain.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted. “Lord Dunsmuir is going to hear of this!”

  “Hang ’em! Hang ’em!” the crowd chanted.

  “Oh, dear Lord above,” she moaned. “Mopsies, Tigg, we must fetch Lord Dunsmuir at once. He will see reason.”

  “Lady, they’ll hang ’im before we get halfway across the airfield.” Tigg’s voice squeaked and then hit bottom, his brown eyes wide with fear. “And ’oo’s Isobel? Not that Churchill mort wot makes ’is lordship so angry?”

  Claire couldn’t imagine what on earth Isobel Churchill had to do with Frederick Chalmers. To her knowledge, they’d never even met. The only thing they might have in common would be a regard for the Esquimaux … which was not going to save his life.

  “Lady, I know that man.” Lizzie yanked on Claire’s sleeve so hard she nearly lost her grip on the rifle. “That big one holding onto one of the Esquimaux men. ’Is name’s Alan, and ’e’s wiv that cargo ship where I found that brass shell.”

  Alice fell out of the crowd and clutched Claire like a drowning person. “We have to do something! Did you see that? They’re going to hang him, Claire!”

  “Wait—Alice, no, they’re not—Alice, dear one, stop this at once! You cannot help your father if you fall to pieces now.”

  Tears glazed Alice’s face and the whites of her eyes showed her fear for her father’s safety. She gasped, coughed, and did her manful best to control herself. “Please help,” she begged. “I can’t bear it to only have known him for a single day!”

  “Alice, listen to me. Did you hear what Lizzie just said?”

  “N-no.”

  “The man holding one of the Esquimaux lads was Alan, from the cargo ship. Do you remember seeing him?”

  “Y-yes. He brought Lizzie back. He’s from Santa—” She stopped. “He told us he’s Texican.” Alice’s breathing calmed as her brain began to turn and pick up steam. “I’ll bet you my diamond earrings that those men from the cargo ship—maybe more—set those explosives.”

  “And were the first to turn and point fingers at the Esquimaux, who have no one to defend them.”

  Is that why Chalmers wanted Isobel? To defend the Esquimaux men? But what good would that do? She would have about as much power in this situation as Claire herself.

  Alice took a few steps in the direction of the mining offices, where they could hear the roar of the crowd bouncing between the low-slung buildings. “They won’t hang him, will they?”

  “They need the journalists to do a proper job,” Claire said, thinking fast. “But what they didn’t expect was the damage done by the pressure wave. Half the journalists are probably in sick bay on the Margrethe, and the other half are in that crowd, trying to get closer to the pit.”

  “We have to get him away from them.” Alice’s voice was rising, her hysteria temporarily slipping its reins. “But how?”

  Maggie slipped over to her side and put both arms around her waist in a comforting hug. “Don’t fret, our Alice,” she said. “Maybe they’ll lock ’im in the gents’. Then me and the Lady, we c’n fetch ’im out.” She grinned over her shoulder at Claire. “Can’t we, Lady?”

  Chapter 21

  Claire wasted no time. “We must divide and conquer. Where is Jake?”

  But in the shouting crowd, it was impossible to see more than a heaving mass of angry, fearful and therefore bloodthirsty humanity. One skinny boy doing as she had wordlessly asked—follow and watch—was impossible to make out.

  “Maggie, find him and find out where they are holding Mr. Chalmers. Then meet Alice and Lizzie in the countess’s powder room, at the bottom of the steps in the secret passage.”

  Alice gawked at her as though she had gone mad. “Secret passage?”

  Lizzie clutched Maggie’s hand. “I dunno where the passage is, Lady.”

  “Maggie will show you. I will go to Lord Dunsmuir and fetch him back here to prevent this disaster. You are the backup plan if I fail. We have broken people out of more impossible prisons than this, have we not?”

  “Aye,” Maggie said. “Don’t be long, Lady. I don’t much fancy ’angin’ about underground not knowin’ wot’s goin’ on.”

>   “I won’t. No matter what, I shall fetch you within the hour. Now, run.”

  She took her own advice, weaving through the crowd of frantic diamond miners still shouting and pressing at the gates, until she gained the relative freedom of the airfield. She had promised to return to the earl in half an hour. It must be well past that, but perhaps the earl would not notice in the urgent need of all those people for his guidance and leadership.

  The damaged ship belonged to the count, of course, but she could not remember seeing him in the melee. Which did not bode well. Anxious butterflies began to flutter in her stomach, but she took a deep breath and leaped up the gangway of the Margrethe, trying to ignore them. Perhaps Alice had succeeded in convincing him he was in danger, and he had prudently taken cover.

  One thing at a time. At least the count, she devoutly hoped, was not in imminent danger of being hanged.

  In the salon, the deck of which was now tilted slightly off the horizontal, some semblance of order had been cobbled together. She dodged between people laid out on the carpet with varying degrees of injury. Medics tended to those who had been hurt the worst, which seemed to have been the dancers, knocked out of their turns and thrown several feet. At least those who had been seated or in the orchestra had been closer to the ground, and had not been plucked out of the air in midstep.

  Lord Dunsmuir was nowhere to be seen.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she said to a man with a red band about his sleeve wrapping a bandage around Gloria’s arm with swift, firm movements. “Do you know where I might find Lord Dunsmuir? It is a matter of the greatest urgency.”

  “Nein, fraulein,” the man said. “As you can see, I am busy here.”

  “Looking after me,” Gloria said. “Claire, what a fright. Do you know what happened?”

  “Parties unknown blew up the mine and one of the digging engines,” she said with heroic brevity. “Have you seen Lord Dunsmuir?”

  “Last I saw, he was over there with my father.” Gloria waved a hand in the direction of the corridor that went forward to the bridge. “I’ll come with you. Good heavens, Claire, is that a gun?”