The Calorium Wars

by Dennis O'Flaherty

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked finally.

  Liam made a face. “I ran into Ubaldo in the Bear Flag Republic.”

  “In California? Really?” Her expression darkened as she remembered. “Did he tell you he kidnapped me? That’s why I’m here.”

  Liam nodded and then grinned. “He’s been punished. That’s a really long story, and I promise to tell you. But first we have get out of here and get back to the East Coast.”

  Becky started to nod, but suddenly some part of her attention woke up and she realized Tikhomirov hadn’t stirred. She dropped to her knees at once and laid a hand on the metal man’s shoulder:

  “Lev Alexandrich? Are you all right?”

  The automaton continued to lie there without moving and a sudden awful intuition came over Becky. She reached out and took hold of him gently, pulling him slowly towards her so that his front was exposed instead of his back. Now it was all too plain to see: one of the massive .45-70 slugs had smashed into his left eye and the only sign that he had once been alive was a slow drool of blood and brain matter running down his metal face and pooling on the pavement. Becky burst into bitter weeping:

  “You poor man. Thank you, thank you!” After a moment she looked up at Liam with a heartbroken expression: “He shielded me, you know? We placed dynamite charges on the brain that controlled the automatons, and when we came out there was so much gunfire that we had to lie there and hope the explosion wouldn’t blow us up. He gave his life for me.”

  Liam pulled her to her feet and held her tight. “I wish there was some way I could thank him—if anything had happened to you I really wouldn’t have wanted to go on.” For another minute or two they just held each other, flooded with relief and gratitude that they were together. Then Liam pulled away a little:

  “We’ve got to get going right now; Chen will tell you all about it. And Custer and Crazy Horse are here, too!”

  There was a shout from the shopping arcade as the others saw that Becky was all right, and the others ran up to hug her and say hello.

  “Some reunion, eh, Miss Fox?” Custer was grinning widely, and Crazy Horse took her hand and kissed it in his best Pushkin/Byron mode.

  “Are you fellows going to stay in Petersburg?” she asked them.

  Crazy Horse nodded: “We’re where we need to be,” he said. “It looks like Yurevskii has deserted his palace, and everybody who was working for him has disappeared into the underbrush. So we’re already talking to Plekhanov about organizing a Grand Congress of the Peoples of the Trans-Mississippi West. With any luck the Russians and whatever Americans are out here and the People can come to a meeting of the minds and set up a government worth living with. And if you can do the same thing back in Washington, maybe we’ll finally get somewhere worth going to.”

  “Mr. McCool!” Plekhanov was calling to them across the Square, approaching with a Japanese officer and a battalion of Japanese Aerial Navy troops who were goose-stepping smartly behind him. As they approached Liam and his companions, they came to an abrupt, precision-drill-team halt, and Plekhanov grinned a little awkwardly at Liam:

  “These people would like to surrender, Mr. McCool, but their officer says they will only surrender to you!”

  “Really?” said Liam dubiously. He turned to look at the officer, and as he did the entire detachment dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves in front of him. The officer’s voice, muffled by his position, floated to Liam:

  “No fire!”

  Liam looked at Chen helplessly and Chen stepped forward and spoke to the prostrate officer in Japanese. After a moment a smile started to quirk his lips and he had to fight to suppress it:

  “Evidently, Mr. McCool, they take you for a devil of some sort, and apparently a rather nasty one.”

  “Huh,” said Liam, nonplussed. “OK, just tell him that I applaud his perspicacity, that I am most certainly the worst kind of devil and if they surrender now nicely and help out with some of the stuff this new Congress will be needing done around here, I promise to forgive them. If not, I will come back instantly with the fire and cook and eat every single one of them. Bones and all!”

  Biting his lip hard, Chen translated all that into Japanese, and after a moment an involuntary chorus of apprehension arose from the prostrate troopers.

  “We will obey to the letter, Mighty Demon, you may count on us.”

  “OK,” said Liam, “now … uh …” he looked around at his friends, all of whom seemed to be equally at a loss. “Right, then! At ease!”

  That seemed to do the trick. The officer got to his feet, bowing. Liam pointed to Plekhanov. “You report to him, all right?”

  More bowing. Liam turned to Crazy Horse and Custer and hugged them both hard.

  “We’re going to miss you,” he said. “Call us on the voicewire and tell us what’s going on, we’ll come through here on the way back to the Bear Flag Republic. Right now, though, we have to finish off this calorium business before there’s a problem, and that means one more stop before New York. Ambrose, are you ready?”

  Chen nodded and pointed to a spot twenty or thirty feet away from where Plekhanov had been watching the Control Station.

  “Miss Fox, perhaps you should stand between Mr. McCool and me.”

  Liam took the ancient katana out of its scabbard and waved to his friends.

  “Dosvidaniia, boys!” he called out.

  Then he raised the sword overhead and swung it down towards the paving stones, and even as the blade met the ground there was an eye-wateringly brilliant flash of light and Liam and his companions were gone.

  Camp Calorium—somewhere in Loudoun County, Virgina

  November 2, 1877

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chiang Lee was enjoying himself. For one thing, that fat idiot Stanton had gone off to Little Russia for some kind of diplomatic haggle with Prince Yurevskii, which meant that Lee could take care of business without putting on a constant dog and pony show for his bankroller. For another, this whole Camp Calorium wheeze was strictly Lee’s own brainchild and the marines and sailors who kept it running treated him pretty much like the Commanding General. Seriously, how bad could that be? If you considered that Lee had started out in life an orphan, grateful for his job as a cook in a Mott Street cathouse, this was a lot like dying and going to Heaven.

  Lee checked himself in the laboratory’s big mirror, spiffing up the set of his bow tie (navy, with white polka dots to accent a custom-made navy shirt with white stripes and a glittering white celluloid collar). Lee smiled complacently at his stylish turnout and then turned to stare out the window, enjoying the twilit peace here at the center of the Camp’s 40,000 square acres. He was a little cross when a knock on the door jogged him out of his reverie.

  “Dr. Lee? Should I bring this in now?”

  It was one of his sailors, with a trolley-load of lead ingots for the smelter.

  “Right over there, Seaman Oppenheimer, next to the conveyor belt. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to have the thorium pellets right away.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Oppenheimer said, snapping him a salute and then rolling the lead away. As the sailor unloaded his trolley, Lee checked the instruments that controlled the temperature of the melted lead.

  “Hm,” Lee muttered, “running too hot.”

  He was just about to reset the temperature when there was a flash of light like a lightning strike and Lee almost passed out, thinking he’d made some mistake and the end had come. But before he could even get his eyes open he heard a familiar—and hated—voice behind him.

  “Lee? What the devil do you think you’re going to do with that lead?”

  Lee had to fight to regain his composure, but he was absolutely damned if he was going to let Ambrose Bloody Chen see him ruffled. After a moment he turned with a smile and gave his trio of visitors a little half-bow.

  “My dear Chen, what a pleasant surprise to see you here—still can’t resist playing the showoff, eh? Nice materializ
ation, and in company with two such famous faces!” He turned and half-bowed to Becky and Liam: “Miss Fox, Mr. McCool.”

  Liam frowned: “How do you know me?”

  Lee laughed: “You must have been out of town lately—your “Wanted” circular is posted everywhere.”

  Seaman Oppenheimer spoke up, eyeing the newcomers suspiciously: “Do you need any help, Doctor Lee? Want me to call the Officer of the Day?”

  “No, thank you, Oppenheimer. But if you don’t mind standing by I’ll be needing you to get some more supplies.”

  Chen’s lips quirked with distaste: “Doctor Lee, is it?”

  “Why not?” Lee said. “I have a friend in Great Neck who does some very artistic work with passports and diplomas and suchlike and he offered to make me a Yale graduate for a very reasonable sum.”

  “Yale?” Chen asked incredulously.

  “It seemed a good idea at the time,” Lee said with a cocky grin. “In any event, as far as I know there is no actual Yale, it’s just something a bunch of wiseacre kids dreamed up to impress the girls.” He gave his tie a superfluous tug and smiled at Chen: “Now, what can I do for you, Ambrose?”

  Liam and Becky could see that Chen was having trouble overcoming an urge to read Lee the riot act, so they stayed silent, but there was a kind of underlying menace to the situation which was putting everybody on edge, something far bigger than the old enmities between Chen and his onetime protégé; finally, Chen mastered himself and got down to business.

  “I have heard a rumor, Chiang, that you convinced Stanton to sponsor a process you came up with for refining calorium. Is this true?”

  Lee jutted out his chin pugnaciously, but a hint of shiftiness in his eyes told Liam that he wasn’t really sure of himself. It was starting to look like Chen had been right to worry.

  “What if it is, old man? It’s none of your business and if I were you I’d sling my hook and go where I was wanted!” Brave words, but this time Lee was definitely sounding like a schoolboy sassing his father.

  Chen’s jaw set and his voice hardened as he answered: “You were my pupil, Chiang. If you had been hard-working and honest you would have brought great credit on me, but now I fear you will bring nothing but shame to your teacher. Tell me at once what this ‘process’ of yours consists of!”

  “I don’t mind if I do,” said Lee, “maybe you’ll realize just how outmoded all your ‘aligning with the Tao’ and all the rest of that junk really are!” Adopting a slightly shaky professorial tone, he lectured his former preceptor: “After all, old man, all you really have to do is melt the lead and add powdered pitchblende to it. I’ve already taken care of that part, and now I’ve added carefully measured amounts of cinnabar and gold.”

  Chen recoiled as if he’d been struck. “Do you realize the risks you’re taking? Do you have any actual idea of what’s involved here?”

  “You bet your tintype I do,” Lee said, finally losing his temper. “What’s involved is you old dinosaurs have lorded it over the rest of us long enough with all your Shaolin Temple la-di-da and all the rest of that magic bushwa. These are modern times, Granddad, wake up! Time is money, hadn’t you heard? We don’t have all day to sit around staring at our navels and getting in tune with the great principle of the universe or whatever it is, we have to hurry up and get in tune with the great principle of getting rich before some other clown beats us to it! There’s nothing wrong with using a little magic, especially if it gives you a leg up on the other fellow, and I’ve certainly used some of what you taught me. But that’s all I need, the rest of it is just a dead weight around my neck!”

  Chen was turning dangerously pale again, but Liam couldn’t tell if it was illness or anger. Either way, it looked like Chen was nearing a crisis of some kind.

  “Do you even remember,” Chen asked, “what the wu xing are, the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water? Before you undertook this supremely dangerous experiment, did you make any attempt to understand the cosmological processes they represent in order to align your plan with the Tao, the energy of the universe?”

  Now Lee turned red with anger, waving his fist at Chen as he spoke: “I remember what I need to and I understand what I need to. And part of what I understand is that you’re just a pathetic, jealous old fool!” He turned to Seaman Oppenheimer: “Oppenheimer, go fetch me the thorium pellets, will you?” The sailor threw a brisk salute and exited.

  Chen swayed, enough that Liam involuntarily moved to steady him. Then he closed his eyes and muttered under his breath in Chinese, but as he did, bands of blue-and-green sparks shot across the room as if someone had draped strings of electric lights from wall to wall. Chen’s eyes shot open and he looked around with shock.

  Lee sneered at him. “That’s right, Ambrose, I did learn something from you. Everywhere in this building and on the surrounding grounds where it seemed like a good idea I set up the magical wards you taught me, and I’ve had time to make them strong enough that you won’t be able to work a single spell to interfere with my experiment. What do you say to that, you moth-eaten antique?”

  “I say goodbye!” Chen said flatly, and grabbing Becky and Liam by the sleeves he dragged them towards the exit:

  “Come on,” he said urgently, “we have to get out of here now!”

  The three of them took off at a run as Lee jeered at them gleefully: “You’d better run, Grandfather Chen—if you don’t, you’ll have to stick around and see your despised dogsbody Chiang Lee become the rich and famous Doctor Chiang Lee, Master of Calorium!”

  Lee’s taunt echoed after them as they burst out through the front door. The twilit sky had already turned to the black-violet tint of early evening, suffused by the mellow light of a full moon, and all the Camp’s personnel seemed to have gone inside somewhere. Chen was looking around desperately:

  “A vehicle,” he said tensely, “horses, bicycles, anything! We must get away from here as fast as we can!”

  “There!” Becky cried, pointing in the direction of a group of outbuildings. “That looks like a steam lorry and it must be picking something up or delivering something, you can see the engine shaking it.”

  “Come on,” shouted Liam, “I can drive one of those.”

  They tore away across the compound and jumped into the vehicle, Liam engaging the gears and swinging around in a circle till he was on the main road leading away from the laboratory.

  A moment later sailors burst out of one of the outbuildings, shouting:

  “HEY! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING WITH THAT?”

  “Hang on tight,” yelled Liam, “I’m going to zig-zag in case they start shooting.”

  A moment later, as if they’d overheard Liam, the sailors started firing at the fleeing van, but between the darkness and Liam’s driving they only got a couple of lucky hits.

  “For goodness’ sake, Liam,” Becky said anxiously as one of the slugs punched through the back and out through the front window, “can’t you get this thing to go faster?”

  “Yes, dear,” Liam said with a grin, stepping on the pedal that fed steam to the turbines, “just don’t blame me if the boiler blows up!”

  For long, tension-stretched minutes they drove through the moonlit night wordlessly, each of them plunged deep into clenched-jaw suspense, wondering desperately what Chen’s experiment might be about to produce while the van went faster and faster, pushed to the extreme of its capacities, the engine shrieking with mechanical stress and the rubber tires screeching and jouncing as they hit unseen obstacles.

  Behind them, the laboratory and its outbuildings and every other sign of human habitation had vanished an aeon or so ago, and they seemed to be lost in a fairytale forest of dark trees, the only light being the road lit by the moon, stretching ahead of them seemingly without end. Then, just when Liam was beginning to wonder if they’d ever get back to civilization, the moonlight showed a big sign lettered in phosphorescent paint that read: “APPROACHING MAIN GATE. SLOW VEHICLES TO 10 MILES PER HOUR!
”

  “Hurrah!” cried Becky jubilantly. “It looks like we finally …”

  Before she could finish she was interrupted by a brilliant, blinding glare like ten thousand lightning bolts striking all at once, followed a split second later by a thunderclap louder than any they had ever heard. An instant later, the ground beneath the vehicle shook with that liquid earthquake feel, continuing to shake violently until a blast of searing wind picked up the lorry and spun it around as if it were a nursery toy, levitating it so that its wheels spun around crazily, screaming as the tires lost all traction, making the vehicle float like a feather and the engine shriek its death wail until the lorry suddenly slammed back to earth with a crash and the engine finally died for good.

  The three of them stared out through the front window, hypnotized for a moment by sheer terror, until Becky broke the spell, pushing Liam’s shoulder hard so that he opened the door and jumped out, followed by Becky and then by Chen. The three of them stood silently, involuntarily drawing together as they watched the mushroom cloud rising slowly, majestically, sucking up bits of debris and smoke as it climbed, its column roiling and billowing with flames and little bolts of lightning, the spreading cap silvered by the moon.

  “I guess we were too late,” Liam said at last.

  “Maybe not,” Becky said, “I imagine they’ll have been pretty well shaken up by that in Washington.”

  Chen nodded slowly, thinking that over. “You may be right at that, Miss Fox,” he said at last. “I expect Lee’s wards end at the gate, why don’t we get going?”

  New York City and Environs

  November 5, 1877

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Atlantic had always been what Liam thought of when he heard the word “ocean,” but now, as he sat on the verandah of the Goodyear mansion wrapped in a borrowed greatcoat and scarf looking at the lowering November skies over Shelter Island and the chop on Little Peconic Bay, like furrows on a field of gray mud, all he could think of was the sparkling blue of Santa Monica Bay.