by Paton, Chris
“That's enough, Feld,” Schleiermacher leaned around me. Pressing his finger into Feld's chest, he pushed the man back towards his seat. “You know why he is here.”
“But I don't have to like it.” Feld carped back to his seat. The armchair sighed as he slumped into it. I massaged my little finger.
“Well,” Wallendorf looked from Feld to me and then Schleiermacher. “Coffee, I think.”
“Yes, Herr Direktor.” Schleiermacher reached for a small silver bell on the table between the armchairs. “Although I believe Herr Finsch will prefer tea.” He rang the bell.
“Sit next to me, Karl,” Wallendorf gestured at the armchair next to his. I lowered myself into it, timing my landing with Wallendorf's. Wriggling his behind to the back of the chair, he rested his cane against the arm next to mine. Leaning over, Wallendorf beckoned me closer with a crooked finger.
“Don't mind Feld,” he nodded at the engineer glaring at me from across the coffee table. “Jealousy can affect even the best of men, and he has been my best man for longer than you have been in the world, Karl. Be patient with him,” Wallendorf patted my arm as a butler arrived with coffee, tea and sweet pretzels glazed with cinnamon sugar.
Schleiermacher waited until the butler was gone before fetching a wooden chair from a row of three along the wall. He placed it in the space between Feld and I, a buffer to the waves of hostility breaking in my direction. “Shall I serve, Herr Direktor?”
“Yes, Hans,” Wallendorf leaned back in his chair. “I can begin while you pour.”
“Very good, sir,” Schleiermacher handed Wallendorf a china cup of coffee upon a tiny saucer.
“Karl,” Wallendorf took a sip of coffee before resting the cup and saucer on the broad arm of his chair, “You are very welcome, and I am pleased you have agreed to work with us.”
“Thank you, Herr Direktor.” I eyed the cinnamon pretzels, arranging my tea on one arm of the chair and making room for a plate of pretzels on the other. It had been a long morning.
“This is, of course, a secret meeting, to discuss secret work.” Wallendorf pointed at Feld. “Franz has been chief engineer, bringing my designs and those of my son, Ludwig, to life. Well,” Wallendorf paused, “almost to life.”
“I told you, it is but a matter of time,” Feld tapped his thick index finger on the leather arm of his chair.
“Herr Direktor,” Schleiermacher glared at Feld. “Your lack of respect is as troubling to me as your lack of progress, Feld.”
“Oh stuff it, Schleiermacher,” the capillaries webbing Feld's cheeks flamed red above his beard. “You have wanted me off this project ever since he dreamed it up.” Feld jabbed his finger in Wallendorf's direction. “Now you see your chance.”
I focused on sipping my tea, the bitter taste suggested the butler was not used to serving anything other than coffee. The pretzels, however, were particularly good. I licked at the cinnamon sugar in the corners of my lips, using my plate to shield me from the heat emanating from the engineer.
“Gentlemen,” Wallendorf tapped his cane against the wooden leg of the armchair. “I will have order in this room.”
“Of course, Herr Direktor,” Schleiermacher dipped his head. Removing his hat, he ran his hand through his hair. He turned to Feld. “I am prepared to be courteous. I am equally prepared to call for Fräulein Achterberg, if necessary.”
“That vicious whelp?” I watched as the colour in Feld's cheeks paled ever so slightly. “Can't do your own dirty work, eh, Schleiermacher?”
“It's not that I can't, Feld,” Schleiermacher reached for his coffee. The chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “I just find it more amusing to see grown men tossed into the air by a girl.” He sipped his coffee.
Feld fell silent as I finished the last bite of pretzel. Wiping my lips with my fingers, I avoided his eyes, turning instead to Wallendorf as he resumed talking.
“As I was saying,” Wallendorf rested his cane across his thin knees. “The emissary project has reached a pivotal point in development. Something I am quite keen to move beyond, to overcome as quickly as possible.”
“We do have a deadline, Herr Wallendorf.”
“Yes, yes, Hans,” Wallendorf waved his hand. “As my assistant says, Karl, we are victims of our own success. That fellow at the ministry,” he frowned. “What was his name, Hans?”
“Herr Bremen.”
“That's right. He is most insistent, and considering the amount of money the ministry has injected into the project, well,” Wallendorf shrugged. “We cannot afford any more delays.”
“You can't rush such complicated engineering,” Feld glanced at Schleiermacher, “Herr Direktor. I have told you that. Automation on this scale has never been done before.”
“Automation?” I leaned forward. The cinnamon pretzels forgotten, I was interested now.
“Automation, yes.” I caught the glitter of excitement in Wallendorf's eyes as he gripped his cane. “Although I prefer the term animation, myself. By all accounts, Karl, we have built a metal monster. Franz, here, has been largely instrumental in building that monster – the first of many.” Wallendorf rolled the cane back and forth along his thighs. “But monster is such a cruel word for such an innocent thing.” He turned to me. “I want you to animate my boy, Karl. I want you to breathe life into his brass body and make him move, make him dance...”
“Dancing is out of the question, Herr Direktor,” Feld shook his head.
“If it can't dance, it can't fight,” Schleiermacher's cup chinked against the saucer as he placed it on the table. “The ministry wants the emissary to be able to defend itself. I think you should make it dance if you can, Herr Finsch.”
Smoothing my hand over the lodestones in my pocket, I was acutely aware that all the men in the room were staring at me. “I shall have to see it first. The monster, I mean.”
“And so you shall,” Wallendorf buoyed to his feet faster than I would have thought possible. “Come, Karl. It is time for you to meet my boy.”
Chapter 4
Caught up in the excitement of a new project, I had forgotten that my chaperone, Seffi Achterberg, was meticulously planning my death. Had I been less preoccupied, I might have spent more time wondering about that. As it was, I was quite distracted by the thought of passing the guards and entering the tent of the emissary. Despite Feld's objections and his objectionable behaviour, the project had piqued my interest, and my own research within the field of animation and magnetic waves did seem, to me at least, to be a viable means of reaching the so far unobtainable goal of bringing the emissary, whatever it was, to life. I followed Wallendorf and Schleiermacher inside.
Straining and squinting my eyes, I searched the interior space of the tent, recognising a neat workbench and a row of tools as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Feld brushed past me. I caught the whiff of his breath as he cursed me to the very pit of some special hell reserved for upstarts and imposters. He struck a match, casting the shadows out of our bodies as he lit an oil lamp on the bench. Schleiermacher leaned against one of the four scaffold pillars supporting the tent, watching me as Feld took hold of a thin hawser line and pulled.
The rope creaked through a pulley suspended from a crossbeam high above us. I felt Wallendorf shift beside me. Pointing with the tip of his cane, he directed my attention to the heavy oilcloth draped over the obelisk behind the workbench. I watched as Feld inched the coverings up into the tent loft.
“First the cloven feet,” Wallendorf whispered. “Note the positioning of the toes. I admit, this was Ludwig's contribution. You must meet my son, he has been quite instrumental in the shaping of the emissary. Ah,” he rested his cane on the floor and leaned on it. “The hips and joints. These presented us with quite a challenge, but we have succeeded in creating a most agile creature.”
Creature was not the word I would have used to describe the massive mechanoid unveiling before me. Monster was indeed a more appropriate description. The pulley creaked with every tug of the rope. A
lready, the hips of the monster were at the level of my head. I tilted my neck, the hairs on my skin pricking my shirt collar as I tensed. The oilcloth slid up and over the monster's massive rotund belly.
“The globus tank,” Wallendorf urged me forwards, a single step. “Again, I should love to take credit for every single part of my boy, but it was the designers of the mammoth walkers who must have the credit for the heart of the emissary.”
“The heart?” I leaned my head further back to watch the emissary unfold as Feld continued to draw the oilcloth into the loft.
“Yes, the heart. Without the globus tank,” Wallendorf explained, “the emissary would be nothing more than a glorified steam engine, wrought in the image of man. Totally impracticable. But the double tanks and internal boiler give the emissary the necessary range to complete its task.” Wallendorf turned to Schleiermacher. “How far, Hans?”
“Four hundred kilometres.” Schleiermacher turned as a guard entered the tent and whispered something in his ear before leaving, the soft pad of his feet lost in the creak of the pulley.
“Quite a feat, eh?” Wallendorf chuckled. “Ah, now we come to it. The reason you are here, Karl.”
Curling around the shoulders, the oilcloth shrank with soft flaps against the brass plates of the emissary. Pinched around a brass cylinder, the oilcloth continued its journey upwards to reveal a cross-hatched face angled downwards, slack and lifeless.
“That, Karl,” Wallendorf pushed me forwards, “is why you are here.”
Feld tied off the line with three figure eights and a half hitch around a wooden cleat bolted to the scaffold pillar furthest from me. He grumbled past me on his way to the sturdy trestle tables to my right. I ignored him and stared at the emissary's head.
“It's smaller than I imagined.” I took another step toward the emissary, reaching out with my palm and pressing it flat upon the monster's thighs. “The head, I mean.”
“The original head was housed inside a deep-sea diving helmet – oversized, of course,” Schleiermacher joined me in front of the emissary. He kicked at the toes of the massive feet. “The feet were twice the size and three times the weight in order to compensate. We had to rethink the design. Another stumbling block.”
I walked around the emissary, plucking at the bolts with my fingers, smoothing my palms over the creaseless metal surface. Stopping beneath the globus tank on the emissary's left side, I turned to look at Wallendorf. “Where are its arms?”
“Ah, yes,” Wallendorf lifted his cane and pointed to the trestle tables lining the wall of the tent. “Franz, do you care to explain?”
Feld hid a stream of curses beneath the snap of cloth as he unwrapped two great limbs with a whipping motion. Bundling each oilcloth in his arms, he dumped them on the floor before turning to glare at me.
“The arms get in the way. I had them removed to give you,” he jabbed his finger in my direction, “more access to the head.”
“Thank you, Franz.” Wallendorf leaned on his cane as Feld excused himself from the tent. “What do you think, Karl? Can you activate my boy?”
“Well,” I paused for a moment, staring up at the emissary's head. The scale of the emissary was bigger than anything I had ever attempted or dreamed of tackling before. The hairs on my arm prickled and I rapped my knuckles on the emissary's metal body, a quick succession of beats to match those of my heart. “It is...”
“Bigger than anything you have previously worked on? Yes,” Wallendorf nodded. “We know. However, it was your clockwork arachnids that attracted our attention.”
“My spiders. You know about them?”
“Herr Finsch,” Schleiermacher shook his head. “The Direktor financed that little project.”
“I see. Then you know it failed.”
“It failed, Karl, because you ran out of time,” Wallendorf joined me at the emissary's side. Tapping the silver tip of his cane against the globus tank, he pointed at the emissary's head. “You are not the first student to fall foul of Professor Hyperion's jealous streak. As soon as he saw you were making progress, the kind that would expose him as your inferior, he changed the submission date for your work. Isn't that right, Hans?”
“Yes, Herr Direktor.” Schleiermacher walked to the folds of the tent hiding the entrance. “And it is for that very reason, among others, that we really need to quit Herr Finsch of all association with the University as soon as possible. Come, it is time to arrange your death.”
“His death?” Wallendorf frowned. “That’s a little drastic, isn't it?”
“Yes, Herr Direktor.”
“Is that Seffi Achterberg's doing, Hans?”
“At Herr Finsch's request, yes it is.”
“I have warned you about her, Hans,” Wallendorf tapped his cane on the floor. “The machinations she conjures in her brain, well, they are almost as fierce as her wilding ways. Do you know, Hans, she has sent more workers to the doctor with broken limbs...”
“Than we have had industrial injuries. Yes, Herr Direktor, I know. She holds the same standards for the training of our chaperones as Wallendorf's does for the quality of its machinery. You should be proud, Herr Direktor. Her reputation is unrivalled.”
“You care for her far more than you should, Hans.” Wallendorf shook his head. “It will be your undoing.”
“And mine alone, Herr Direktor. Seffi is my responsibility. I found her. I trained her.” Schleiermacher nodded. “I trust her.”
“She scares me, Hans.” Wallendorf fell silent. Turning to me, his lips twitched beneath his whiskers as he forced a smile. “I urge you to be careful around Seffi Achterberg, Karl.”
“I will, Herr Direktor.” Glancing at Schleiermacher, I wondered just how careful I should be.
Wallendorf looked up at the emissary, his eyes glistened. “Well, enough of that. Tell me about your spiders.”
“Herr Direktor.” The chain securing Schleiermacher's fob watch to his pocket glittered in the soft glow of the oil lamp as he pulled it from his pocket.
“Just a moment, Hans,” Wallendorf leaned in closer to me. “The spiders, Karl.”
“I made just the one.”
“Yes.”
“Using smaller versions of these,” I pulled the lodestones from my pocket, the magnetite consumed the light. “I was able to create enough charge from a simple mechanical field generator, to generate a magnetic wave between the stones. Increasing the charge, and by switching the field forwards and backwards with two levers, I moved the spider across the floor, repulsing and attracting it alternately.”
“To what distance?” Wallendorf gripped my arm.
“Ah,” I lowered my head, staring at the lodestones in my palms. The cores of black magnetite, dark and fathomless, absorbing my thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. “Only a few feet, I am afraid, Herr Direktor.”
“A few feet? Did you hear that, Hans?”
“Yes, Herr Direktor.”
“As I said, a small scale. Far less impressive when...” I paused, frowning as Wallendorf clapped his hands, jigging his wizened frame across the floor to Schleiermacher.
“A few feet, Hans. Amazing.” He turned to face me, the sparkle in his eyes dancing inside the tears rolling down his cheeks. “The most we have ever achieved is a few inches, and I am sure that was done with string, hidden from view.” Wallendorf laughed. “A few feet indeed.”
“And now, Herr Direktor,” Schleiermacher pressed his watch inside his pocket. “I really must insist.”
“Of course,” Wallendorf took a step backwards. Beckoning me over, he tucked his cane under one arm and held out his hands. “I would like to look at these while you are gone.”
“Yes,” I gripped the lodestones. “But I will need both of them if I am to animate the emissary.”
“Both?” Wallendorf laughed again. “If they work, Karl, we will need hundreds.”
Slipping the lodestones into Wallendorf's palms I was reminded of the worker fashioning sockets by the sackful.
�
��Fascinating,” Wallendorf held the lodestones closer to the lamp. Moving them back and forth, he tugged at the light. “The globus tank might be the heart of the emissary, but I have here, in my hands, its very brain.” Closing long, thin fingers around the lodestones, Wallendorf nodded. “It is time for you to go, Karl. I don't know the details, I am not even sure I want to, but I look forward to our working together on your return.”
“Thank you, Herr Direktor.” I dipped my head once and followed Schleiermacher out of the tent, pausing as a guard let the tarpaulin fall for another glimpse of the emissary towering above its creator.
“Come, Herr Finsch,” Schleiermacher gripped my elbow and steered me to a side door between the workspaces of what I would soon come to know as the emissary bay. “Seffi has sent word that she is waiting outside.”
The Frankfurt sky had darkened since I first entered the factory. Following Schleiermacher to the steamcarriage, the light rain spitting and hissing on the surface of the boiler, I watched as Seffi leaped from the driver's bench to land lightly on the ground, her steel-capped boots exchanged for soft black slippers. Wearing a cloak that seemed to mimic the form, shape and colour of the clouds in the night sky, Seffi merged with the night.
“You are late.” Seffi walked towards me. Pulling a second cloak from a grey leather satchel, she draped it around my shoulders, fastening it at the neck before tugging the hood up and over my head. I pinched the barbed material between my fingers and thumb. “It is called a tempest cloak,” Seffi dragged me by the arm towards the carriage. Schleiermacher opened the door. “It is worth more than the entire contents of your sorry lodgings, where I have had the misfortune to spend most of the afternoon and evening.”
I paused at the carriage step, clasping my hand over my nose.
“Just get in, Herr Finsch,” Schleiermacher let go of the door to push me inside the carriage.