The Forever Engine - eARC

by Frank Chadwick

  “You speak German as well,” he said after a moment.

  “Spanish and French, too. I’ve got an ear for languages.”

  He gestured out toward the bodies.

  “And that? You didn’t learn that as a translator, I’ll warrant.”

  “I got carried away.”

  “Bloody hell, I should say so! Like some sort of whirling dervish, to hear those Marines tell it.”

  “Yeah, I know what it looks like, but I’m no super-warrior from the future. I’m a guy pushing middle age who did three tours in Afghanistan, went to school on army money, and made a pretty good life for myself. My passion is history, not homicide, and all I really want is to go back home.”

  He looked at me and he wasn’t buying it, but it was the truth, sort of the truth—a simplified, sanitized version of the truth, but that was good enough for me right then.

  “How did I learn to swing a pipe like that? It had nothing to do with the army. As an historian, I got interested in ancient fighting techniques, and I studied kendo. You’ve heard of it?”

  He shook his head. He’d probably never heard of karate or kung fu, either.

  “It’s Japanese fencing with long two-handed swords, although we use a shinai—a bamboo stick—and practice in padded armor. I just went on autopilot and started cracking people’s skulls.”

  “Autopilot,” he repeated. I started to explain, but he waved me to silence.

  “Very well, I suppose you may be useful for something. I’ll at least need a German translator I can rely on. Right now I have to sort through Thomson’s papers, see if there’s any hint of a detailed plan there. You’d better come along in case any of them are in German.”

  I got painfully to my feet and started to follow him back into the hotel.

  How much faith did I have in Gordon to pull this off? Absolutely none. Hopefully he could get me close enough that I could accomplish . . . what? What did I expect to find at the end of this road? A doorway back to my own time? That for starters, but it wasn’t enough. Tesla might be the only guy who could figure this out, but how inclined to help was he going to be? I’d have to come up with some leverage, a bargaining position, some way to make him willing to help me or a way to force his hand.

  That might mean preventing this expedition from killing or capturing him, which could be interesting.

  And Thomson—somehow I had to get him out of this in one piece. I owed him too much to just walk away, although . . . if I was going to have to scrub this whole world anyway to save my own—this was getting very complicated.

  “I suppose,” Gordon said almost to himself, “the first thing we need is some tea.”

  Two hours later, Gordon and I had Thomson’s papers and maps spread all over the table in his room, trying to figure out what resources we had and whether he’d actually come up with any sort of plan.

  “What I don’t understand is how they knew where we were staying. For that matter, how did they know we were even in Munich?” Gordon asked.

  “Lousy security in London is my bet.” I could have mentioned that Thomson had let slip to Tesla that Munich was our destination, but figured the old Scotsman had enough troubles right now.

  Gordon tossed aside the folder of news clippings he had been looking through and shook his head.

  “I’m more inclined to think that French tart had something to do with it.”

  “The charming Mademoiselle Courbiere? It’s possible, I suppose, but not likely. This was a very elaborate operation, with people in place on the ground and the zeppelin in position to extract them. I don’t think it was thrown together in a day. They knew we were coming in advance and had at least a couple days to get ready.”

  “And how did they know where we were staying?”

  “That’s the easy part: a guy on the ground watching to see where we went from the Fliegerplatz.”

  Gordon thought it through for a while, frowning the whole time, but he ended up nodding reluctantly.

  “Very well, the information probably came from London, not Mademoiselle Courbiere.”

  “I am grateful for your confidence, Capitaine Gordon,” Gabrielle said from the wardroom’s doorway, and Gordon jumped in surprise. The events of the morning had pushed last night’s dream out of my mind, but seeing her standing there brought it all flooding back.

  “How long have you been here?” he demanded

  “I arrived just this moment. The concierge showed me the way. You are injured, Monsieur Fargo. How serious it is?”

  “I’ll be okay. Tesla has Professor Thomson.”

  “Oui. This I hear. The expedition, it is done?”

  “Is that all you care about?” Gordon asked, anger in his voice.

  “Non,” she answered. “But about that, it is my duty to care. Yours as well, oui?” She spoke without resentment, as if answering a question about the weather.

  “The expedition is not done,” I said. “Captain Gordon is now in command.”

  Her eyebrows rose slightly in reaction, but then she nodded.

  “Of course. Our agreement, it is still good?”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Gordon answered.

  Gabrielle shrugged and started to leave.

  “Wait,” I said hastily. She stopped, and both of them turned to look at me.

  “It’s your call, Gordon, but you can see what we have here to work with. Unless the Bavarians can loan us a battalion of flying monkeys with death rays, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  Despite the tension of the moment, Gordon smiled.

  “Flying monkeys with death rays? I don’t think that very likely, so under the circumstances—yes, Mademoiselle Courbiere, I will be pleased to honor the agreement made between you and Dr. Thomson. We will be most grateful for any assistance you can provide in finding and apprehending Tesla.”

  He even made a little bow.

  NINETEEN

  October 7, 1888, Munich, Bavaria

  I’d taken a real beating in front of the hotel, and I didn’t understand how much until the next morning. We’d moved back over to Intrepid for security, and I shared a stateroom with Gordon. Fortunately he took the upper bunk. When I woke, I couldn’t sit up in bed. I had to roll over onto my stomach, flop my legs off the bed onto the deck, push myself upright on my knees, and then stand up using the headboard for support. I felt as if I wore weights on my arms and legs, every joint was full of acid, and a couple key muscles just weren’t present for duty. Unfortunately, calling in sick wasn’t an option. My head was clear, so at least there was probably no brain damage.

  My morning run was out, and I’d have liked another hour of sleep, but Harding had planned a service for the crew members of Intrepid who had been killed the previous day and in the first fight with the zeppelin. I wanted to attend. Gordon and I walked over together in silence, each with our own thoughts, under steel-gray skies that smelled of rain.

  Gordon had come up with a plan yesterday which had the virtue of simplicity and directness but took those qualities to a dangerous extreme, in my opinion. Maybe he was trying to prove he wasn’t the coward so many people thought he was. Fine, but he could do that on his own time. This put the whole mission at risk. More to the point for me, if Tesla was the key to getting me back to my own world, I didn’t think shooting our way into his stronghold with a thousand Turkish infantry was the approach most likely to gain his cooperation. What would work with a megalomaniac who sent drugged-up fanatics and wind-up spiders across Europe to murder people who pissed him off was another question.

  My problems weren’t Gordon’s, of course, nor were they Lord Chillingham’s or the British crown’s. As far as they were concerned, I was baggage and bait—annoying baggage and bait in Gordon’s view. Any suggestions I made to him were likely to send him in the opposite direction, but we would meet with the Bavarians again after the funeral service. Hopefully somebody at the meeting would do my dirty work for me.

  I’d been to two Bri
tish military funerals in Afghanistan. This one was the largest, at least in terms of casualties: eighteen of them. That was a big hole knocked in a crew of only two hundred.

  The bodies were sewn into white sacks made of sail canvas. They must have carried the canvas just for that purpose—Intrepid didn’t mount sails. There weren’t enough Union Jacks to cover all the bodies, so some were covered with white naval ensigns and some by simple bedsheets. All the covers—flags and sheets alike—were wrapped around the body bags and tucked under them to keep them from blowing off in the damp breeze. The bags were lined up in two rows of eight and then two others out front. That would be Lieutenant Longchamps and Ensign Conroy, the two officer casualties, leading the formation.

  A company of Bavarian soldiers stood to one side of the arrayed bodies, the crew of Intrepid to the other, and an assortment of civilian workers from the Fliegerplatz made a ragged crescent between them, forming the bottom of a box protecting the silent dead. A line of Bavarian horse-drawn artillery caissons waited behind them to take the bodies to the military cemetery. Three Bavarian drummers, their drums muffled, provided the only music. An enclosed carriage arrived, and two passengers joined the officers of Intrepid: Gabrielle Courbiere and a tall, stout man dressed in black, complete with a black silk scarf over his face.

  Harding stood before the company and began with the opening prayer.

  “Loving God, you alone are the source of life. May your life-giving Spirit flow through us, and fill us with compassion, one for another. In our sorrow give us the calm of your peace. Kindle our hope, and let our grief give way to joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  The incongruity, the palpable unreality of the moment, washed over me like a cold wave. The South had won the Civil War, the Royal Navy had flying ironclads, there were colonies on Mars, but the Book of Common Prayer hadn’t changed. What were the odds? But there was nothing unreal about the eighteen silent white sausages lying on the dark green grass of the landing ground.

  We again met in Intrepid’s chart room, a more somber group this time, the cause made obvious by Thomson’s absence. His place was taken by a young officer in the light blue uniform of the Bavarian Army, complete with dueling scar on his cheek and spiked helmet held under his arm.

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Too many damned meetings. It was time to get on with it, to just saddle up and go after these guys. That’s not how it worked here. That’s not how it worked anywhere except the movies. If it wasn’t a meeting with the Bavarian police and army, it was tea with the Afghan village elders to see what they thought we should do next, not because we gave a shit what they thought, but because it made them feel better, for a while, to think we might.

  “Captain Harding, what is Intrepid’s status?” Gordon asked.

  “Short-handed but ready for action. Those blasted clockwork spiders killed one of my officers—young Conroy—and fourteen crewmen. I have six more still incapacitated, but there’s no additional damage to her machinery.

  “My position has been rendered somewhat complicated by other developments, however. As I am sure you all understand, the safety of the Royal Family is our paramount consideration. It should be obvious we have taken on board a special passenger. This afternoon we will lift off with a heading toward the British Isles.”

  “You will be returning to England?” Gordon asked.

  “I did not say that,” Harding answered. “What is important is that we be seen to leave with a heading toward England.”

  “Elvis has left the building,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me blankly.

  “Renfrew has already left Munich,” I explained. “This is a diversion. Who was that dressed up like him at the funeral?”

  “Very good, Mr. Fargo,” Harding said. “It was one of our black gang. He was the only one in the crew large enough to be convincing. A closed car was added to the morning train to Frankfurt.”

  “He was on that?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” Harding said. “I don’t know, to be honest. What I do know is that I also received coded orders this morning via cable through our consulate here, instructing me, once our diversionary demonstration is complete, to support your mission, which of course we will. The entire crew is anxious to strike back at those villains—cowardly bastards, leaving their dirty business to machines.”

  “What are your rules of engagement?” I asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What limits are placed on your actions?”

  “Ah, yes. I am not to hazard my vessel beyond what I believe necessary to support the mission, a pretty way of saying if things go wrong it’s my head on the chopping block. Well, so be it. More importantly I am under no circumstances to provoke hostilities with a foreign power. In this case that means I cannot enter Serbia, Rumania, or Bulgaria. I can send a small Marine landing party with you, but not in uniform. We do have permission to enter Austro-Hungarian and Turkish territory, however, and have promises of cooperation from those governments.”

  I had mixed feelings about that. Clearing things with the Austrians and Turks was probably necessary, but a lot of people knew a lot of stuff about this “secret” mission.

  “This changes things, I suppose,” Gordon said, “although I am not sure exactly how. Can we still count on your cooperation, Inspector Wolfenbach?”

  The corpulent policeman bobbed his head, making his jowls quiver.

  “Berlin says help, so ja, I assign three of my policemen to help. But after the attack yesterday I receive new instructions—from the Prinz-regent himself. Now we are joined by Leutnant von Schtecker and twenty volunteers from the Bayerisch Garde Schützenkorps, all gut soldaten, excellent shots, and all with some English.”

  The Bavarian army officer clicked his heels and did a little bow in Gabrielle’s direction.

  “We travel in civilian clothes, of course,” the young lieutenant explained. “We say it is a hunting trip to Macedonia. Our rifles will be in the baggage until we need them.”

  “This attack stirred things up?” I asked.

  “They ruin Oktoberfest,” the lieutenant answered, the outrage plain in his voice. “Since the first festival was held we have only interrupted it twice, both times for war. Now a third time? Very well, war it shall be.”

  Something to remember if I ever wanted to conquer the world: don’t get between the Bavarians and a good party.

  Gordon unrolled Intrepid’s chart of Serbia and pointed to the mountains along its southwest frontier with Turkish Bosnia and Montenegro.

  “We are happy to have you, Leftenant. The plan was to have Inspector Wolfenbach direct the Hochflieger Ost to make an unscheduled landing somewhere south of Belgrade and drop us off. Now the attack here has caused the zeppelin line to postpone the departure of the Hochflieger from Berlin for several days. Perhaps that is to our advantage.”

  “With Thomson in his hands, how can a delay be good?” Harding asked.

  “If Tesla knows all the rest, he may know of the arrangements with the zeppelin line as well,” Gordon said. “If he already expects the attack to come from the Hochflieger, its delay gives us the ability to attack by a different route, by surprise. We’ll have to move quickly, though. The potential for surprise will last only until the next actual passage of the Hochflieger.

  “Inspector Wolfenbach, if you would post armed guards on the hotel where we were staying, it will help convince any prying eyes that Mr. Fargo and I are still there, waiting for the arrival of the Hochflieger.”

  “Ja, sehr gut,” Wolfenbach answered.

  “Captain Harding, I’d like Intrepid to take the entire party to the Austrian military base at Ujvidék, south of Budapest on the Serbian frontier. From there we will take off after dusk and make a high-speed run to the southwest, follow the Turkish side of the frontier all the way down to”—he leaned over the map to read the name—“Višegràd. That’s approximately one hundred miles, so we should be able to make it there in four hou
rs from Ujvidék. Does that sound correct?”

  Harding leaned over and studied the map, did a quick measurement using map calipers.

  “Now that we’ve got the portside drive shaft straightened and two airscrews mounted, we can make twenty knots again. If we stay well above the mountains, yes, we can make it in four hours. Landing would be tricky except we should be able to descend into the valley of the Drina River here. Let me think. We can make Ujvidék from here in a little under a day. If we leave this afternoon and run through the night, we arrive tomorrow afternoon. That means making the approach run tomorrow night. It’s a new moon, so the only light we’ll have coming down will be starlight. If this overcast continues we’ll have to use floodlights for landing, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Yes, four hours there and perhaps half an hour to find your village and land you.”

  “Good. You drop us off along with Leftenant von Schtecker’s men and as many Marines as you can spare. You make full speed back to Ujvidék. I’d like you back on your tie-down pad by dawn,” Gordon finished.

  Harding straightened up and nodded again.

  “Yes, with no one the wiser as to where we’ve been. Confusion to the enemy. Good show. And you?”

  “The armed party will remain hidden,” Gordon said, “and we’ll need supplies and field gear—tents, rations for a week, that sort of thing. Leftenant von Schtecker, can you arrange for that?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann,” the Bavarian officer answered.

  “Good. While you establish our camp in the hills, Fargo and I will contact the Turkish authorities. Mr. Fargo will serve as my translator.”

  “You speak Turkish?” Harding asked.

  “Turkmen,” I answered. “Close enough.”

  It wasn’t all that close in my own time because in the early twentieth century the Turks had reformed their language, gotten rid of all the Farsi and Arabic borrow words which Turkmen still had. The two languages were actually closer in this world, at least in theory. I figured I could get by.