A Midsummer Night's Steampunk

by Scott E. Tarbet

  “On the contrary! I have never felt better in my life.” He looked around, a trifle puzzled. “Unfortunately, I don’t know where we are or how we got here.”

  “Of course you don’t. You obviously have a terrible concussion. Now please sit back down and rest. The others will return shortly, and we will get you to a doctor.”

  Instead, Alex jumped to his feet. “Please, my angel, we must return to your home immediately so that I can tell your father of my love for you. We must arrange for our wedding as soon as it can be done.”

  “Alex, please! Sit down and be reasonable. You’re going to have a terrible headache later, which will only be worse if you don’t rest. Besides—you’re in love with Pauline. Remember Pauline? She still loves you. You should be happy.”

  “Pauline is nothing to me now. Who would not change a raven for a dove?”

  “Alex, for the last time, sit down. You’re raving.”

  “My darling, my name is not Alex; it is Waldemar. Waldemar von Hohenzollern, Prince of Prussia. And you shall be my lovely bride, and my princess.”

  Clementine laughed. “And I am not Clementine Hozier—I am the Queen of Sheba. Sit yourself down.”

  He dropped to his knees again and seized her hands. “Tell me that you will be mine!” He bent to kiss her, but she ducked quickly away and jumped to her feet.

  “Now, that is entirely enough of that! Try that again, and you’ll get another blow to the head.”

  He tried to take her in his arms, but again she ducked, and began to walk down the platform. “Sit down and I’ll send someone back for you. Stay away from me.”

  “I cannot. I must follow you all of my days.”

  She pointed at him sternly—“Stay!”—and picked up her pace, which he immediately matched, until she was fleeing full speed in the direction the rest of the Musketeers had taken.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  No sooner had Alex and Clemmie disappeared down the broad stairway to the lower platform, than the lift door ground slowly open and the Musketeers emerged, led by Winston and Pauline. “That was good work, Francis,” Pauline assured Flute. “Of all of us, you kept up with that monster the longest.”

  “But he still got away, Miss!” protested the weaver. “Even through the crowd, that Shaka is blasted fast.”

  “And he didn’t care whom he knocked down,” noted Winston. “But then, it’s rather difficult for a seven-foot-tall, black metal man to be inconspicuous running through Victoria Station. He wasn’t trying to slip quietly away.”

  “Miss Cobweb says he went into a warehouse east of the station,” reported Snug. “Some swallow Friends is watching the place, but hasn’t been able to get in. Only a matter of time, though.”

  Together they hurried down the platform to Berth 32, only to find the walkway empty. “Where in the world could they have gone?” Pauline wondered. “Perhaps she took him to a doctor?”

  “That’s a good sign then, right?” said Winston. “He’s far too large for her to carry, so he had to have been able to walk. We weren’t gone long enough for help to have arrived—must have just missed them.”

  He strode down the walkway, coming to stand over a large open box lying in the shelter of the adjoining airship, near where they had first seen Shaka’s assault on Alex and Pauline. “Here, now! What’s this, then?”

  Pauline hurried over. The box was of polished teak. On its front were three interlocking gears, and in the dim light she could dimly read the inscription: ‘Jubal’. She was very quiet for a moment, running her hands lovingly over the satiny surface.

  “I was afraid of this,” she finally murmured. “What looked like a golden doll was my mother’s crowning achievement: the automaton Jubal she built with Lakshmi. This case is from the Golden Gear, the same type we build for all our best automatons, like the ones for the queen. See the gears on the front? The sign of the Golden Gear. And the nested outline in the velvet to fit the automaton precisely? Inside the case, Jubal is safe from damage.”

  She felt around inside the velvet-lined case. “Unfortunately, the winding key is missing. We must assume Shaka still has it and can continue using Jubal as a weapon.”

  “Was the blue flash from the automaton, then?” asked Winston. Pauline nodded. “And the blighter got clean away, but left the case.” She nodded again. “But what does Jubal do?”

  This time, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I saw from the plans that he is built to discharge a lot of energy when he is fully wound. The charge is routed and magnified through several prisms, including the three large gems at his heart and in his eyes. The gems are controlled and aligned by very precise movements of the clockwork. But what it does to someone looking into those eyes, I cannot tell. We will need to ask my godmother.”

  Winston strode back to the Musketeers. “Right then, lads. We need a guard perimeter around us while we wait for Clemmie and Alex to return, and for Doctor Lakshmi to arrive. I do hope the doctor comes soon with her dirigible, because our defensive position here is very poor. Let us not allow ourselves to be trapped.” He began issuing individual orders. “Flute, there must be a lift other than the passenger lift we came up in—a lift for baggage and freight, at least. Find it. There’s a good lad.” Flute moved rapidly away. “Snug, Snout, find several hawsers, and tie one end to those rails.”

  “Could we take one of the flying machines, sir?” asked Quince.

  “Not unless you know how to fly one, Peter, because I certainly don’t. One of these things requires dozens of trained crew. And this weather would make it especially perilous. We could manage to get ourselves thousands of feet off the ground only to come crashing down, or get blown out to sea.”

  As Winston put his troops in order, Pauline knelt over the teak box. Unseen by the others, she held down the silver gear and rotated the golden one a precise number of clicks clockwise, several clicks back, and several clicks forward again. There was a muffled snick, and a tiny panel in the end of the case sprung open, allowing her to reach into a concealed compartment and remove a small red velvet drawstring bag. She rolled its contents in her fingers through the cloth.

  “Everything all right, there?” Winston called from the platform.

  “Fine!” she answered. She slipped the bag back into its recess, and snapped it shut. “Just admiring my mother’s handiwork.” She rose and dusted her hands. “I’ll just run down to the lower platform and see if I can spot Alex and Clemmie. Do guard the box, won’t you? It’s very precious to me.”

  “Right,” replied Winston. “We’ll guard it well. One could wish your mother had been more forthcoming to you and your father about the automaton and what it does.”

  “Yes, one could wish that. But she had a saying: ‘We women talk too much, but even then, we don’t tell half of what we know.’ ”

  ToC

  And by my word! the bonny bird

  In danger shall not tarry;

  So though the waves are raging white,

  I’ll row you o’er the ferry.

  —Lord Ullin’s Daughter, by Thomas Campbell

  Chapter Twelve

  One For All and All Must Run

  “Officer!” Clemmie called, “would you please speak to this young man? He seems to have received a blow to the head and is delusional.”

  Alex laughed. “Officer, you may disregard this young lady’s request. I have never felt better in my life. I am in love. With this funny, beautiful, intelligent creature. All is right with the world.”

  The bobby left his post near Victoria Station’s ticket kiosk and ambled over, amused to be party to whatever little game these two pleasant lovers were playing at. “Evening, Miss. Sir.” He touched his cap with a smile. “The weather’s a trifle damp for a jolly walk abroad, eh?”

  “Indeed!” Alex replied, a grin splitting his face. “Life could be no lovelier.”

  “Officer,” Clemmie said, with a tone as reasonable as she could muster, “perhaps you would care to inquire as to our identities? I think you w
ould be most interested in the answers. I, for your information, am Miss Clementine Hozier of Knightsbridge. And my companion this evening is . . .”

  The bobby turned to Alex. “Sir?”

  Alex clicked his heels and bowed. “Prince Waldemar Joachim von Preussen Hohenzollern of Prussia and the German Reich, at your service, sir.”

  The bobby smiled indulgently. “Of course, Your Majesty. May I compliment you on your flawless English? One would hardly think you hailed from anywhere other than right here in London.” He turned to Clemmie, rolling his eyes, and turned back. “And how was your journey from Germany this evening, Your Majesty? Did the inclement weather inconvenience you?”

  Alex hesitated.

  “Sir?”

  “Well, you see . . .”

  “His Highness,” Clemmie informed the bobby, “has no idea how he got here.” She smiled meaningfully, eyes wide, finger discretely circling her ear.

  “Is this true, sir?”

  “Well, you see . . .”

  “Right, then. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but do tell me who you really are.”

  “Now see here, my good man! I am exactly who I say I am. I may be a trifle disoriented, but I assure you I am entirely sane. This is no game.”

  “Well then, Your Highness, perhaps you would care to take a little stroll with me? We can get to the bottom of this straightaway. There is someone special I would like you to meet. A very nice doctor just across the river at St. Thomas’s—”

  “Thank you, but please don’t trouble yourself, officer.”

  “No trouble at all, Your Highness, truly. The doctor would be greatly honored to make your acquaintance, I’m sure. And Miss, if you wouldn’t mind coming along with us? I’m sure His Highness would be much more comfortable with a familiar face about.”

  The prospect of more of Clemmie’s company seemed to cheer the befuddled Alex. “Oh, my dear Miss Hozier! It would please me tremendously if you would accompany us,” he exclaimed. “Do say you will. Please.” He strode toward the doors, the officer and Clemmie in his wake, and hailed a coach. “St. Thomas’s Hospital, my good man,” he called up to the driver as the bobby handed Clemmie up.

  A pair of brown-cloaked figures, hats pulled low, stepped from the shadows opposite and hurried down the street after the departing cab, their mechanical gait emphasized by their haste.

  Pauline burst from the doors of the station in time to see the Enforcers hurry away after the rapidly receding coach, which was just passing from sight around the corner onto Victoria Street, heading toward the river.

  Casting about frantically, she spotted a boy dismounting a bicycle at a sweets kiosk and ran to him, digging in her jacket pocket for the first coin she could grab. “Beg pardon! Might I buy your bicycle for a gold sovereign?”

  Without waiting for a response, she pressed the glittering coin into the startled boy’s hand, jumped astride the bicycle, and pedaled off after Alex, Clemmie, the bobby, and the pursuing Enforcers.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  Cobweb chirped an alarm. “Lieutenant Churchill, sir, Miss Cobweb says there is Enforcers coming through the Station on their way here, sir,” Snug informed him.

  “Enforcers? What are Enforcers?”

  “Mech thugs what does Doctor Malieux’s dirty work, if you takes my meaning, sir. Inmates of the madhouse. We calls them the Brown Shirts.”

  “Like the one we just met?”

  “Not so big as that one, sir. That was Shaka. He’s just big, but the Brown Shirts has weapons. Some has firearms built in.”

  “The new face of modern warfare,” muttered Churchill. “Wonderful. Miss Cobweb, any word on the arrival of the good doctor?”

  “No,” reported Snug, translating. “She will be here very soon, but is traveling so much faster than any of her messengers that she will be here before any of them could arrive.”

  Winston paced. “Where can Pauline have got to? And Clemmie and Alex? Blast! If I retreat from this position, they’ll be unprotected and alone. But with armed soldiers advancing on the position, and us unarmed, I don’t have a choice.”

  “They wouldn’t dare use firearms around the dirigibles, would they, sir?” Snug squeaked. “The entire Terminus could go up in flames! There’s enough hydrogen gas around us here to incinerate half of London.”

  Quince shook his massive head. “Not if they was sane, but these is psychopaths, mate. Madmen. There’s those who says Jack the Ripper hisself is one of the murdering idiots locked up at the Bethnal Green madhouse. And that one is stark out of his mind. So there ain’t no relying on what these crazies will or won’t do. And it will only take one of them to snap and pull a trigger to send all of us straight to oblivion.”

  Churchill’s mind was made up. “Right then, lads. We cannot be trapped here and we cannot hope to prevail in a pitched battle. We must split up and retreat before they can cover all our exits. Nick Bottom, Snout—down the service stairs to the bottom of the freight lift. We have to use it for Starveling and Quince. Without cover, they’ll be vulnerable when the lift opens. Be ready with the blowgun for full effect.

  “Starveling, wait twenty seconds to give time for your cover to get to the bottom of the stairs, then get the lift to the ground as quickly as possible. Pull Quince with you. Come out full speed—take the Enforcers by surprise, if by chance they have beaten you there. Quince, keep your anvil between Starveling and any attack, and be ready for hand-to-hammer fighting.

  “Flute, Snug, Cobweb, you’re with me. We’re rappelling over the side down the hawsers. Mind your grip on the wet ropes. It would be a long fall. Everyone rally behind the first steam engine you come to as you head down the tracks toward the river. Go!”

  Their departure was in the nick of time. No sooner had the lift door closed behind Quince than Shaka came thundering down the platform, followed closely by a dozen brown-cloaked Enforcers. They skidded to a stop at the walkway for Berth 32, cursing to find it empty. “You’re sure they came back up here?” Shaka demanded.

  “Saw ’em go back up myself not ten minutes since,” replied an Enforcer at his elbow.

  Shaka spotted the hawsers secured their moorings. He stepped to the edge of the platform and looked eighty feet down into the rail yard. In the failing light, he saw Starveling roll rapidly out of the station and down the access road between the rail lines, towing the brick cart behind him, piled high with Quince, Bottom, and Snout sitting astride Jubal’s teak case. “They’re on the ground! Get down there! After them!”

  From the shelter of a steam locomotive two hundred yards away, Winston could see the massive mech standing at the platform railing high above, and see his angry gestures to his brown-cloaked subordinates. He smiled to himself. So far, so good.

  Within moments, Starveling braked to a stop alongside the locomotive. Churchill spoke to him from the shadows. “Well done, lads! Listen closely, because we only have a minute before they find their way down. I want you to lead them on a merry chase so that those of us on foot have time to get away.

  “Robin, mind you don’t go too fast and lose them. Keep them chasing their tails for half an hour, then get ahead and lose them. Turn on the speed and leave them in the dust. We’ll find a place nearby to hole up while we search for the others. Miss Cobweb or one of the Friends will come for you. Follow any micromech that circles you three times.”

  Starveling accelerated away, guided by Musketeers facing front and back. Within a minute, a dozen Enforcers stampeded past, their iron feet pounding the wet access road to impassable mud, and Winston and his companions slipped away into the growing gloom.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  Pauline realized she was in trouble when she had been pedaling as fast as she could go for nearly a mile and had not made progress overtaking the Enforcers following Alex and Clemmie’s coach. She knew she was in even more trouble when she glanced behind and saw another pair of Enforcers coming along behind her, clearly in pursuit. But no one was gaining on anyone.

  She hadn
’t seen the coach in a while, but from the several turns the Enforcers ahead had made, she was sure that they continued to follow it. From those same turns, she could tell that the coachman was headed for the Lambeth Bridge over the Thames, not the more northerly Westminster Bridge as she had first supposed. The destination had to be St. Thomas’s Hospital, but that left her with over half the distance to cover, with Enforcers ahead and behind.

  Her mind raced faster than her peddling feet. The Enforcers behind her ran on, never tiring, limited only by how tightly wound they had been when they started. Surely they would outlast her paltry efforts—her automatons could usually go several hours between windings, and it was reasonable to assume Malieux’s could as well. To make matters worse, the rain, which had been her ally against the moisture-averse mechs, had stopped completely. The water was draining away, and the Enforcers were detouring around fewer and fewer puddles.

  Without a decent alternative at the ready, she redoubled her strength to catch up to the Enforcers running ahead, and had actually gained a few feet when it occurred to her to wonder just what she would do if she actually caught up to them. Just peddle on by with a smile and a wave? Her only real hope had been to stay with them and see where the coach came to a stop so she could dash in and warn Alex. But somehow she doubted she would be allowed to get away with that.

  The push had cost her some of her dwindling reserves of energy, and despite her terror, exhaustion began to creep in. Her pace slackened perceptibly. Doggedly, she put her head down and pushed with renewed vigor, but when she looked up, the Enforcers had pulled a few feet further away. She didn’t dare to look back to see if that gap had closed at all.

  She imagined a steel fist grasping the back of her jacket, or knocking her into the side of one of the buildings streaming by. She could practically smell the hot lubricating oil and feel the Enforcers’ breath on the back of her neck.

  Finally, her imagination would be appeased no longer, and she peeked back over her shoulder just in time for a reflexive swerve to throw off the diving grab of one of the pursuing mechs.