The Steam Mole

by Dave Freer

  By predawn they’d crossed miles of plain and returned to a channel with a cloak of small trees and shrubs. The rain farther east, where they had literally waded in the flood, had not made it here, but the water had. It was being devoured by the thirsty soil just about as fast as it flowed, which was not very fast. Still, there was a shallow stream of brown water for Jack to fill the bucket and bathe his feet.

  “When a big wet comes, she’ll get miles wide. We’re a bit early in the season, but if that happen, they ain’t gunna track nothing. They be lucky if half their railway don’t wash away. Them Westralian bastards do a better job with water. They got the whole thing underground on the highest ground,” said Lampy, working on making a fire.

  He’d used the knife Jack had taken from the fireman to cut a wedge into some old, soft, dead wood, and line it with something rather like the paperbark he’d wrapped Jack’s feet in. He whittled a blade out of a second, much harder piece of wood, and sawed furiously in the wedge until eventually the bark began to smoke. The smoldering bark he put under a pile of dry grass he’d prepared, and Lampy gently blew that into catching fire. It didn’t look particularly hard, but Jack Calland wasn’t fooled. He knew he’d probably try for a week and fail, and he said as much.

  Lampy grinned. “It don’t work as fast as a match, though. My uncle made me learn. Now we go cook this perente.”

  A perente proved to be the big, ugly, mottled, three-foot-long lizard that Lampy had tied over his shoulder. It tasted a bit like chicken.

  “Better than prison bread,” said Jack, exhausted. “What now?”

  “I go cut me a couple of spears, use the fire to harden them up a bit, and we put it out, move away from it in case som’thing smell it, and then we sleep.” He yawned.

  Jack yawned, too. It was infectious. “Will you show me how to make a spear, too?” asked Jack. It was no answer to a rifle, but in absence of that, he’d take whatever he could.

  Lampy laughed. “They chuck you out of Westralia if you show up with a spear, and maybe some throwing sticks, eh. They don’t like whitefellers gettin’ too friendly with the blackfellers.”

  “Their loss. I’d be hungry by their rules.”

  He was so tired that he barely managed to help Lampy. The boy was tougher than he was. Jack went to sleep, knowing this was the first time he’d done so as a free man for more than three years. And maybe…maybe he’d really get to see his wife and daughter again, if in truth they were in Westralia. He’d learned not to believe the stories Duke Malcolm’s men told him. But there had to have been a reason for shipping him off to Australia.

  Duke Malcolm had been watching the reports out of Australia quite intently. He wanted to know just how effective they’d been in bottling up the nitrate problem that had so upset his brother Albert. Last he’d heard the woman was in a coma, and the Westralian scientific establishment had made no headway at all with her notes. Their experimental pressure vessel had reached a hundred and twenty atmospheres and they’d had no results. Well, so much for that. What a waste of effort it had been. She was probably dead by now, and all that effort and money had been wasted chasing her. But the duke carried his grudges well. It would serve as a grim warning to other traitorous scum if she were dead. Then there was the military venture in Queensland. The Empire was of course involved in half a dozen such exercises on different scales across the globe, though few had the financial pay-off potential of this one, or would have quite such a painful impact on an upstart nation. They’d really angered him with the Calland affair. Safe havens on what had once been a part of the British Empire sent a bad message.

  The head of the Australia desk brought the report up himself. That was never a good sign. The weekly digest wasn’t due for another two days. Duke Malcolm looked at the report on his desk. Tapped his teeth with a new ivory cigarette holder. It wasn’t as good as the old one, but it also held a hidden, poisoned blade. “Tell me the worst. Save me reading it and sending for you.”

  “We’ve had something of a problem in Ceduna, Your Grace. Griffiths got himself caught, along with Dr. Foster.”

  “I see. To what extent has our network been compromised? It shouldn’t be too bad. Griffiths was sent in especially to handle Foster. A good agent.”

  “We’re not too sure how much he gave away, if anything. If our informant is correct he shot Foster to prevent him from talking, but was badly wounded himself. We have a second string of agents…but they’re finding things quite hot. The Marconi transmissions were tracked. The Westralians are quite technologically adept in some areas, and our men are being hunted rather hard right now…because of a bit of miscommunication.”

  “Tell me about this ‘miscommunication,’” said Duke Malcolm evenly. He prided himself on his self-control.

  “Well, it concerned the honey trap for the child. The Calland girl. You wanted her used as lever, so the father was sent to Queensland. The message included a written letter from him, and it all took a little time.”

  “Hardly applicable now that the woman is dead,” said the duke, losing interest. Revenge was sweet, but best when accompanied by reward.

  “Er…She appears to have recovered somewhat, Your Grace.”

  “What? That idiot Foster was supposed to make sure she did not recover.”

  “He was caught and killed, Your Grace,” said the major.

  “Not that it matters. The process didn’t work after all. And those Rebel Australians are supposed to have a scientific edge, or so my brother informs me.”

  “In other fields, Your Grace. Their Chemistry is quite weak. Professor Henderson is a chemist…well, he’s the sort you promote to politics to get rid of.” The major flushed. “Outside of the Empire of course.”

  “Of course,” said Duke Malcolm, marking this man down for an unpleasant and short future. Disrespect for power was not an attitude he needed. “So what you’re telling me is that she’s recovered and succeeded? That’s not going to be good news for Prince Albert?”

  “We don’t actually know. The Westralians appear to have thrown a real blanket of secrecy over it all.”

  “I see. So we need to go ahead with the plan to take the girl as a hostage. Start acting on this.”

  The officer was silent.

  Eventually, the duke lost patience. “What is it, man?”

  “That side is a mess, Your Grace. You see, you gave orders…You told me Jack Calland was no longer a prisoner of value. He’s been sent to the railway. And…and as I said there was a miscommunication. The message and our offer have already been given to the girl.”

  “Get this Jack Calland back. If the mother is involved, she’s shrewd enough to want proof that he’s alive, and he’s too valuable for the railway. Is the girl willing? Or has that gone awry, too?”

  “The girl is missing, Your Grace. And they’re blaming us.”

  Something about the way he said that raised alarm bells in Duke Malcolm’s mind. “And have we got her?”

  The major shook his head. “We don’t think so. The…situation in Ceduna is fairly volatile right now. Our agent sending the Marconi message may have been caught. He stopped at that point. But he did say counterintelligence agents were searching all the metal cargoes going out.”

  “Interesting times. Anything else untoward happening in the Australian Dominions?”

  The major looked relieved to be able to shake his head. “There’s the usual ferment, Your Grace. But I think we’re on top of that.”

  “Good. Let me know if you have more news out of Ceduna. And get this Calland sent to Sydney. I gather it has a healthier climate.”

  The officer saluted, clicked his heels smartly, and left. Eventually Duke Malcolm got up from his desk, still not having looked at the dossier, and stared out of his grimy window at the waters of the Pall Mall Canal. The windows had only been cleaned yesterday, but thanks to the humidity of the canals of London, and the city’s heavy use of coal, they just didn’t stay that way.

  There was a timid kno
ck at the door. Malcolm turned. It was his secretary. She never came into the office itself. He had an excellent voice-communicator system and steam canister delivery to her office. “Your Grace…His Majesty’s comptroller called…er. You are late. It’s…The meeting is not in my diary.”

  “He’s got his days wrong, again,” said the duke with a sigh. “I am due to see him tomorrow, as you have diarized. But one does not tell the King he is wrong, Miss Farthing. Call the comptroller and say I am en route. I will take my personal watercraft.”

  It was worrying. The King’s drinking habits seemed to be making him more prone to these lapses, thought the duke as he waved a salute at the guard on the water door to St. James. At the private quay under the roof, a young lieutenant was already at the wheel of the armored skid boat, checking gauges, and two engineers hastily poured primer into the twin Rolls-Royce Whittles. His efficient secretary had obviously called ahead.

  As the turbojet-powered boat scythed through the waters of Pall Mall Canal, sending more ordinary vessels scurrying out of its way with its siren, its wake surging over the raised walkways, Malcolm wondered if, for the sake of the Empire, the time had not come for Ernest to die.

  Margot had had to.

  The trouble was, the succession did not offer any real improvement. Albert was, Duke Malcolm admitted, not easy to control, and unlike Ernest, he would actually keep trying to run the Empire. His other half-brother would channel everything into the Navy and probably into war. Duke Malcolm had nothing against war. But only wars the Empire could win without crippling her. He was fourth in line for the throne himself, since Margot’s unfortunate death, but the idea of being the sovereign had no appeal. He only did what he did so that the Empire could endure.

  The King had plainly been drinking already, and it was barely eleven o’clock. “Ah, Malcolm. You’re late.”

  The duke bowed. “My apologies, Your Majesty. A mechanical problem with one of my engines. I had to proceed at quarter speed.”

  It was a successful gambit. The King loved fast craft nearly as much as he loved being a leader of fashion. He bored the duke with a largely wrong and incomprehensible diatribe about the Hahn-Bentley triple jet and forgot his peevishness. He almost forgot his reason for the confidential meeting he’d called for, too.

  That would have suited Duke Malcolm well. The palace leaked information, despite the counterintelligence effort focused there. But a chance remark brought it all back. “Bang! Lost one of the engines off the transom. But the triple jet didn’t veer more than fifteen degrees! Sank old Monmoth’s tub, but that’s what you get for nearly beating your king. Had you lost one of your Whittles it’d have spun you around and sent you back like one those Australian whatchamacallits…boomerangs. And speaking of Australia, that’s what I wanted to ask you about. I was talking to Field Marshal Viscount Von Belstad at the Pavilion the other day. The subject of gold mines we’d lost control over came up. That one in Queensland. Sheba.”

  Duke Malcolm knew now where the leak was and that he had been powerless to stop it. No need to mention that the target was not actually a gold mine. “It’s an ongoing process, Your Imperial Majesty.” No one referred to the King as “Ernest.” At least not in his presence. Not even his brothers or his surviving sister.

  “Yes, but it would be useful to be able to say to the Royal Council that we’ve got a major new revenue stream coming on board.” The King looked a little uncomfortable, not a natural expression for the supreme commander of British Imperial Power, of the Empire on which the sun never set. “Thing is, they’ve been a bit sticky lately. Money.” He shook his head. “A monarch has expenses. So when do we expect this to go ahead? Von Belstad said it was one of your pet projects. Excellent idea!”

  The duke hedged as best as he could. He tried to reinforce the need for secrecy, and left feeling, if possible, even more that the Empire needed a new head. One less capable of wasting a vast fortune. How Ernest got through it was a mystery. Well, not a mystery, when you considered the seven new palaces, three royal yachts, racing boats, importing a herd of oryx for his newest hunting estate and…Duke Malcolm sighed. It was a long list. Not crippling for an empire of the size and wealth of the British Empire…but there were three places to put every one of the pennies that would come from that mine. The empire produced riches, which, in part, flowed to Great Britain. But the cost of keeping that empire was growing like some insatiable monster. The more money there was, the more it needed.

  If Ernest knew the name of the target, then sooner or later, spies would too. And several foreign nations—the Russians, or the blasted French—would delight in passing it on to the Australian rebels and their upstart Republic. He’d love to crush it, but they really couldn’t spare troops from India right now. And Australia was large, and inhospitable. Not a place the Empire wanted an extended campaign.

  When the skid boat roared him back to St. James, and he returned to his office, he found the major in charge of the Australia desk waiting. “Bad news I’m afraid, Your Grace,” he said, cutting to the chase immediately. “I sent off an urgent Marconi message about Jack Calland as soon as I got back to my office. I’ve just got a reply from the commander of the forward camp of Operation Solomon in Queensland. Calland has escaped along with about forty other prisoners. There’s a massive manhunt underway. I immediately sent orders that he was to be taken alive.”

  Duke Malcolm slammed his fist onto the desk, sending the brass message capsule flying. “Forty prisoners? Can’t they do anything right?”

  The major looked uncomfortable. “Well, it is possible they didn’t escape together, Your Grace. Best if I read you the transcript of the reply, Your Grace. It…gets worse.”

  “Continue.”

  The major read, “‘There was a mass breakout by forty-two leg-ironed prisoners who had been sent to repair a culvert, including this prisoner. In the process, guards were killed and a locomotive wrecked. All the prisoners at the scene scattered, most having broken their shackles. Trackers and troops and teams of dogs have been dispatched, and there is a massive manhunt in progress across very hot terrain, hampered by rainstorms. According to standing orders the instruction was given to shoot on sight. The search is dispersed over a wide area, and the troops searching for the escapees are widely scattered and heading for the coastal forests. Messengers have been dispatched, but it is unlikely they will reach all of the troops before they find the escapees.’”

  “I trust he has taken disciplinary measures against the guard commander,” said the duke. “Well. Instruct him that I have taken a personal interest and wish to be informed about the success or failure to capture either the other prisoners or Calland. What is our current timeline on that project, Major Simmer?”

  The major looked relieved. “They’re working on the final section of rail and the off-loading ramps. Three more days. The colonel of the Dragoons said this breakout couldn’t have come at a worse time for the work. They’ve got guards out hunting instead of supervising.”

  “Not likely to alert the Westralians, are they?”

  “I thought of that, Your Grace. The colonel says the prisoners appear to have fled east, rather than toward Westralia. It’s harsher desert to the west. A lot of open plains and very little water.”

  The next morning Linda got to Dr. Calland’s bungalow in time to have an early breakfast with her. It was plain that Clara’s mother missed her daughter badly. And Linda had found that her new interest had given her a whole new position in her father’s life, and it thoroughly confused her stepmother. Her father had talked for several hours…to her, mostly about the chemistry of fertilizers. A month ago she would have looked blankly at him and found something else that she needed to do. But now…well, she’d had a window into that world. And it was a world where she saw Dr. Calland getting a type of respect that Linda had now decided she wanted. It…it was different. She was used to seeing men open doors and stand up for women and girls. It was the respect caused by discovering that they were m
eeting with a better mind that was different and interesting. Some of them, like that smelly old professor plainly hated it.

  And it had so obviously suddenly dawned on her father that his daughter might also be able to do the kind of thing Dr. Calland did. She’d never realized he wanted that in his child. He’d obviously never realized that, just because she wasn’t a boy…he was talking about extra mathematics and deploring the state of education…and was very willing to see her spend more time with Dr. Calland.

  They were drinking tea when Captain Malkis arrived. Linda wondered if Clara had ever realized that the captain was in love with her mother, and that Dr. Calland seemed totally unaware of it. Linda rather liked him. He always looked, without the obvious effort that Nicky put into it, dapper and smart. It wasn’t so much the clothes he wore as his manner.

  “I have interesting news, Dr. Calland,” said Captain Malkis. “Two important developments. The first is that I have, I believe, a confirmed sighting of your daughter. From Mandynonga station, on the day she was reported missing. That station is the railhead for the northern line of their underground ‘termite ways.’ I’ve telegraphed messages to the station master at Alice Springs, which is where the line branches. We’ve had no reply so far.”

  Mary Calland worked it out just after Linda did. “You mean…instead of falling in with this plot to kidnap her, my daughter has gone on a one-woman expedition to save her father?” She shook her head ruefully. “My daughter. I think once we’ve found her, I will have to kill her for the worry she’s put us through. So, you were right, Linda. Clara was planning to go to Queensland, not with whoever baited this trap, but alone. Now we just have to catch up with her. I wonder how far she’s got.”