Clockwork Universe

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Clockwork Universe Page 15

by Seanen McGuire


  The Net was finally ready eight weeks after the Queens had shifted location. The journey to the Gobi by ship, train and mule was arduous, filled with anxiety, not just for me but for all who participated. Tensions grew tight. Tempers were exacerbated.

  Not even photographs prepared us for the sickening yet graceful geometry of the White Queen. It brought home to the emotions with appalling force that we were fighting something not of our world. Some of our people, the most courageous and intelligent force ever assembled, broke into anguished tears at the sight. They were replaced in the airships by anyone who could bring themselves to board. Rob, who was to have gone with me, took another’s place. His carefree wave as the ship lifted its portion of the vast copper net remains with me to this day.

  The fleet rose slowly, steadily advancing, hunters stealthily approaching their prey. Every moment had been plotted by the leading aeronauts of six countries. The Net, fused from thousands of pieces of thin copper wire, glowed like sunlit silk as we approached the huge White Queen. From instant to instant, we expected a counter-attack.

  As gently as if setting a bridal veil on the head of an adored daughter, we draped the Queen with my creation. Then we fled.

  When the flares began, sending immense charges of pure energy to the Red Queen so far away, some of the dirigibles that had taken the North-East side did not get clear in time. Their gas-bags exploded. Yet their fiery sacrifices went all but unseen in the sun-flare of the White Queen administering her own execution.

  The combination of two metals created a power surge that, instead of being sent to the Red Queen and thence to whomever or whatever had sent the machines to Earth, drove inward, destroying delicate mechanisms, frying the ship alive. The ship twisted and groaned in her agony.

  She plummeted into the ground, sending forth a shock-wave that buffeted our ships, shaking us to pieces, sending others to follow the White Queen to destruction. My own vessel suffered in that way. I only drove the bone of my left arm through the skin while others died.

  Reports came eventually that the Red Queen remained steady above the ocean. Salvage operations were discussed almost immediately. But before the effort could begin, the Queen sank late one stormy night. The water where she lies is too deep and cold for any mortal to retrieve it. She may be there still if the corrosion of the salt-water has not eaten her away.

  The White Queen became a scientific anthill. Colleagues have studied it intensively for thirty years and may study it for a hundred more without understanding all they see.

  The cost of Victory came high. Medals for the living; monuments for the rest.

  Honors poured in for me from every nation. I deserved none of it. Had I fought the malaise that dragged us all down, perhaps I would have saved many lives. That thought has haunted me continually, keeping me from enjoying any of the praise I received.

  General Cotman appeared one day. “Why not come work for me? We think electricity has potential.”

  “As a weapon?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, no. I’m returning to Cambridge, to resume my work on alchemical principles.” Since then we have made considerable strides toward unlocking atomic structure which, at least, has little likelihood of becoming a destructive force.

  Mankind began to rebuild what had been destroyed, though it was long before London or Pekin regained their stature. Our parents returned to their lives, their works, their God, faces newly lined but hearts filled with renewed hope. Our younger brothers and sisters soon forgot the bitter and dreadful events of that spring, summer, and fall.

  Many have told the story of those days. At first, they emphasized the heroics, the willing sacrifices. Only one writer dared to tell the truth. His book, We, the Stained, received only a small print-run and even then failed. No one wanted to remember how we’d defeated one enemy but had surrendered to despair. Only now has my brother’s book been recognized as a classic.

  When Rob drank himself to death, I started attending church again at my mother’s request. But I stopped when she passed on. We stained ones do not speak of our pasts, even among ourselves. We recognize each other and pass on without a nod, knowing that memory alone never dies.

  The Wizard of Woodrow Park

  Jean Marie Ward

  It started with a bang. Really. A shiny red, open-chassis aircar struck the curb at the corner of First and Main, and its right front tire exploded.

  Further down the block, in front of the Main Street display windows of Teil’s Dry Goods, a tall, rangy man wearing a leather vest and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves whirled at the sound. He dropped smoothly into a shooter’s crouch. But instead of pulling a gun, he clenched his right fist, and sighted down the length of his arm.

  The gesture activated the controls of the camouflaged, vambrace-style weapons unit attached to Aviann Special Agent Hreaak Meekram’s forearm. Shielded from the early morning glare by the broad brim of his brown felt hat, he scanned the firing display superimposed on his vision. The crosshairs locked on the spot where the driver’s canvas cap met the leather strap of his goggles. The target automatically recalibrated as the roofless aircar juddered over the sidewalk.

  Hreaak yanked his arm back. What was he thinking? His mission was a search-and-rescue, not an assassination. The goal was not killing anybody, especially not a native. Blasted human suit—wearing one always made him edgy.

  At least he wasn’t the only one who reached for his gun. But he was the only one with an invisible weapon, so he was the one getting the fish eye from the other pedestrians. He straightened, stretched his lips in the harmless smile he’d practiced, and pretended not to notice the way a passing matron flicked her skirts out of his personal space.

  The brass air tanks mounted behind the driver’s seat clanked as the right side of the car dropped from the sidewalk to the street. The vehicle wobbled, unbalanced by its ruptured wheel. The driver shimmied the steering rod to compensate. When that didn’t work, he grabbed the horn.

  DAH-dum, it blared. DAH-dum.

  Across the street, a horse harnessed to a delivery van trumpeted in counterpoint. It reared in its traces. Spooked, the aircar driver bucked in his perch. He pulled the steering rod hard to the right. The car veered. The lantern hook on its prow shot toward Hreaak.

  He leapt clear the same instant someone screamed, “Look out!”

  The driver heaved left. The car shook. Squealed. Swerved. The smell of burnt rubber momentarily overwhelmed the reek of aging produce, horse sweat, and dung trapped between the brick and frame buildings of the street. Then the car lurched into its designated traffic lane and rattled up Main with all the grace of a three-legged Farrentak after a four-day bender.

  Hreaak exhaled a long breath. His pulse slowed to what humans considered normal, but aftershocks of adrenaline still sparked along his nerves. Maybe he should’ve shot the moron, or at least disabled the car.

  A short, teenaged girl hopped off Teil’s front step. Hands on her hips, she shouted after the car: “There ought to be a law—no driving until you know how!”

  Hreaak flinched. The girl could’ve given screaming lessons to eagles. All the way across Second Street, the aircar driver hunched defensively. But her voice didn’t startle Hreaak as much as her outfit. Her ruffled gingham blouse was tucked into a pair of khaki twill trousers identical to his own. A ball-shaped leather helmet dangled from one arm.

  That was wrong. According to Kleaax’s Preliminary Lexicon of New Dominion Territories’ Language and Mores, gender roles in the town of Woodrow Park typified the rigid distinctions of an early industrial society. Admittedly, Kleaax’s intel was seventeen years out of date, but it shouldn’t have mattered. Hreaak had completed enough missions among primitive cultures to know their mores simply didn’t change that fast. The women of Kleaax’s New Dominion Territories shouldn’t be wearing trousers for another two generations, much less engaging in activities that required a helmet. The people on the street should’ve been pelting the gir
l with rotten fruit, not encouraging her with shouts of “That’s right!” and “You tell him, Genny!”

  Good thing he’d disabled his automatic surface-to-ship uplink as soon as he landed his stratoflyer. Since arriving in town, he’d seen enough cultural and technological anomalies—aircars in a coal-based society, electric streetlights, industrial-sized P’lod coils—to have every desk jockey in the Aerie calling for military intervention. Hreaak wasn’t about to let that happen, not until he figured out what was going on and how it was connected to the disappearance of Weevirril Kleaax.

  “You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Genny continued at a more conversational volume. “They make us go to school for reading and math. Why not driving?”

  A muffled grunt drew Hreaak’s attention to the sidewalk on the other side of the entrance. A pair of scuffed work boots attached to denim-trousered legs protruded from a collapsed sandwich board advertising Teil’s summer prices.

  “Shiro,” Genny gasped, “are you hurt?”

  “Umm.” The voice was male and surprisingly deep.

  The girl lunged for the sign. Air hissed through her teeth as she strained to lift the metal-framed placards.

  Aviann agents were held to the same strict Allied Planets Consortium non-intervention standards as embedded anthropologists and other scientific observers. But no matter what body you stuffed him in, Hreaak wasn’t a churl.

  “I got this,” he said.

  The deep voice belonged to a boy no older than Genny. Unlike her, Shiro was tall for his age and, from the size of his hands and feet, still growing. He wore a white-collared gray shirt and red suspenders consistent with the images in Kleaax. But in the context of Woodrow Park, his straight black hair, the ochre tint of his complexion, and the shape of his dark brown eyes looked far more alien than the straw-colored hair and craggy features currently attached to Hreaak.

  Yet another anomaly. Kleaax hadn’t mentioned anyone of Shiro’s ancestry in the Territories. The boy had obviously been around long enough for the town to accept him and Genny as a couple. The girl fluttered around him in a classic display of courtship behavior, and passersby only smiled.

  “Is anything broken?” she warbled. “Should I get a doctor?”

  “Genny, I’m fine. Just give me a minute.”

  Despite the differences in their voices, the teenagers shared the same accent. Linguistic analysis confirmed they were born locally. Since it took a generation to integrate immigrant populations into comparable industrial societies, Shiro’s family must have lived in Woodrow Park at least thirty years. Why hadn’t Kleaax mentioned them in his reports?

  Answering that question was worth drawing out the conversation. Hreaak did a quick scan of the boy’s vitals.

  “Nothing’s broken,” he said. His internal translators supplied the appropriate idiom from the Lexicon. He hoped it still applied. “He just had the wind knocked out of him.”

  “Then why isn’t he getting up?” Genny demanded.

  “Because you’re standing too close. I might knock you over by accident.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You’d rather do it on purpose?”

  Hreaak bit back a smile. The kid was embarrassed enough already. But he couldn’t stop his too mobile human lips from twitching as he helped Shiro to his feet.

  Shiro flushed to his ear tips. “Give me a break. I’m still growing into my feet,” he growled. His color deepened. “Sorry. That came out rude. Thanks for your help, mister. The sign weighed more than I thought.”

  He extended his right hand, presumably to be shaken. Kleaax claimed the locals shook hands for everything from greetings to thanks. Hreaak clasped the boy’s callused palm.

  It was a mistake. Hreaak’s weapons unit was virtually indestructible and, like all AP cybernetic interfaces designed for field use, keyed to its host. It couldn’t be disabled without priming the release with a sample of his DNA. Its camouflage field, on the other hand, was a mist of carefully balanced illusion. It was never meant to withstand the enthusiastic pumping of an over-compensating adolescent who didn’t know his own strength.

  The unit’s projected image of tanned forearm buzzed and vanished. Hreaak hoped Genny didn’t scream when she saw the vambrace. The nearest local equivalent was a convict’s shackle.

  “Wow,” Shiro said. Without letting go of Hreaak’s hand, he angled his arm for a better view. “I’ve never seen a prosthetic like this. Feels heavy. What’s it made of? Is there a reason for the de—”

  He stopped mid-word, staring at the cover to the unit’s stunner port. Sweat beaded his hairline. His fear hormones spiked, sharp enough to smell, no additional sensors required.

  Nobody reacted like that to a stunner cap unless they’d seen a stunner in action. The only other person on the planet with that kind of technology was the embedded anthropologist Hreaak had been sent to find. Had Kleaax been forced to use his defense unit, or had he done so voluntarily? Crap. Hreaak might be forced to call in the military now. A flashback to the last “planetary rectification” he’d witnessed dried the spit in his throat.

  Genny pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and groaned dramatically. “Oh, no, not a new prosthetic! I’ll never get my steamcycle lesson now. We’ll be here all day.”

  Shiro jerked his hands away from the device. He hissed, “Genny.”

  Hreaak rubbed his arm. The unit had become such a part of him, he seldom thought about its weight. He asked mildly, “You interested in prosthetics?”

  “Interested?” Genny chortled. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t try to take it apart while it’s still on your arm. Shiro’s nuts for anything mechanical. Has been since he was a kid. Now he’s the youngest assistant engineer in the history of Kleaax Industries. He’s worked on some of their biggest projects ever.”

  “K-K-Kleaax?” Hreaak stuttered. “Weevirril Kleaax? It can’t be!”

  “Only Kleaax in Woodrow Park. Well, unless you count the missus, but May Belle still uses her maiden name for business reasons. Then there’re the kids, but they all kept their father’s name, even though Mr. Kleaax adopted them ages ago.”

  “Genny! Stop!” Shiro grabbed her arm and towed her toward the store. “We’ve got to get inside. Now!”

  Genny started to protest. His expression changed her mind. Hurriedly unlocking the door, she muttered, “What’s going on?”

  “Close the …” The door clicked shut behind them.

  Not that they were in any danger from Hreaak. He was too busy imitating the impact site of an extinction class meteor.

  Weevirril Kleaax, Avinar’s favorite missing anthropologist, was alive and well seventeen years after his last transmission from Woodrow Park. He’d started a manufacturing company, hired engineers, and showed at least one of them his defense unit. Then he started a nest—with humans, no less.

  But that wasn’t enough for Weevirril Kleaax. Oh, no. The misbegotten son of a live-birth lizard did it all under his legal name, a name unique to their home world, Avinar! Every brain cell and enhancement in Hreaak’s skull spluttered with the potential consequences. For this world. For Avinar. For the entire Allied Planets Consortium …

  The bustard must have lost his feathered mind!

  Or else he was laying the groundwork for an insanity defense.

  Either way, he had to be stopped, and the damage reversed. Ideally without military intervention. The humans had done nothing to deserve a planet-wide cataclysm of remotely triggered “natural” disasters. As for Kleaax himself, Hreaak would ensure he never saw the inside of a courtroom. Let the Aerie honor his ashes. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

  Hreaak had to find him before he could kill him. The quickest way would be to tail the boy. The planet lacked any real-time communications system beyond a few telegraph wires. If Shiro wanted to warn his boss, he’d have to go in person. Unfortunately, the range of Hreaak’s internal sensors extended no further than the alley behind the store. Trailing Shiro the organic way would be i
mpossible. The town offered too many places to hide, and despite his enhancements, Hreaak’s vision in the ape suit was no better than human.

  But Genny had given him a better idea. Hreaak lifted his gaze to the stout, mushroom-shaped P’lod coils crowning the hill directly west of town. Anything named Kleaax Industries would need a lot of power. In the absence of a developed power grid, P’lod coils would be the ideal source. His star cruiser’s sensors had noted the presence of manufacturing facilities near the generators. If Kleaax wasn’t there, someone at the power station would know where to find him. It might take a while to locate the right someone. The factories’ main shift wouldn’t begin for the local equivalent of an hour. But it wouldn’t take long.

  A canvas-hooded steamcar with a towering boiler mounted over the rear axle eased to a halt in front of the Second Street Bank. Hreaak considered stealing it for as long as it took the driver to set the brake. By that point a blue-suited policeman had appeared at the intersection and begun directing the non-existent traffic.

  With a mental shrug, Hreaak headed west on Second Street. He doubted Shiro’s steamcycle ran any faster than a horse, and the hill wasn’t far. It wasn’t as if Kleaax possessed any meaningful defenses to prepare. To prevent technological contamination, the Council of Academies limited an embedded anthropologist’s field kit to his library/communications pad, DNA-specific prophylactics and healing agents, and a single, underpowered stunner. The irony wasn’t lost on Hreaak.

  After a dozen blocks the town’s gardens gave way to hillside farms. The day grew hotter as he climbed, and he was glad he’d brought a hat. The slope had been cleared of trees. The planet’s fierce yellow sun hammered the dusty road and the cornfields spreading from its shoulders.

  His march slowed to a walk. Towering, silk-crested stalks hemmed the road, their ranks so vast and dense as to appear limitless. Their sugary perfume crashed into his lizard brain. He forgot the awkwardness of his heavy human limbs, the way his unaccustomed clothes chafed his tender featherless skin and the itchy, gamy sweat collecting under his simulated leather vest.

 

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