Worse than her imagination! Knowing that captivity was only a heartbeat away, she swerved hard down an alleyway, so hard that the pursuing mechs, carrying hundreds of pounds more than she, missed the turn and crashed into the wall of a large warehouse bordering the alley. They caromed into each other, giving her a few precious seconds of leeway.
She stood up on the pedals, pumping with all her might. She dashed across a trafficked road, followed by quick turns down several dark alleys, one after another. Gradually, she realized that it had been several minutes since she had heard the pounding footfalls of the pursuers.
And none too soon. Her burst of adrenaline-fueled energy had dissipated, and overwhelming fatigue had taken its place. Her frenzied mind concocted brown-cloaked forms in every doorway, steel hands reaching out to trip and grip.
Her legs burned, her heart pounded as if it would burst from her chest, and her breath came in ragged gasps. But she pushed harder than she would have ever believed possible, putting what she felt certain was more distance between her and her pursuers.
Suddenly she was out of the alley between warehouses, and hurtled onto a dock that jutted out into the Thames. The wheels of her bicycle rattled and thumped along the weather-beaten and uneven planks. The dock was lined on either side with freight barges. Maybe there was a way off the dock, other than the way she came? She pedaled to the end, fifty yards out into the quickly flowing river that passed almost silently, like a great serpent slithering in the gloaming.
No, there was no other exit from the dock. Just more barges, their freight hoists swinging over their capacious decks like a forest of wintry trees, their fingers combing the approaching night. She had barely ridden the bicycle in a tight u-turn back toward the bank when she heard a low, throaty chuckle and the tread of steel feet on the boards of the dock.
“She thought she was so clever!” said one of the pursuing Enforcers.
“Aye, Jack!” agreed the other. “Thought she lost us, she did! But we knows the docks, we does.”
The one called Jack laughed, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “Pedaled her way straight into a trap from which there hain’t no escape, didn’t she, Bill? Come along, little girl!” he called to her. “No sense making it any harder on yourself. We got you now. Come along peaceful-like and Doctor Malieux will see you’re reunited with your father straightaway.”
“Yeah!” agreed Bill. “Tell the doctor what he needs to know, and we can all get home to bed before the sun comes up. Leastways, we can . . .” He laughed cruelly, pleased with his own wit.
Pauline pedaled in circles on the end of the dock, casting around for any means of escape. Desperate, she hit on a dangerous plan. Back up the dock toward the Enforcers she pedaled, enjoying for the briefest of moments the consternation on their cruel faces. Then, swerving as hard as she could, praying that she would complete the turn before she ran out of dock and rode over the side, she turned back toward the river, standing on the pedals and pumping with all her might.
Jack and Bill recovered from their surprise and ran after her, quickly closing the gap as all three accelerated. Faster and faster, the barges on either side flew by. The end of the dock approached at a rapid clip, but Pauline’s pace did not slacken.
As she hit the timber at the end of the dock, she leaped upward with all her might. The bicycle pitched end-over-end into the water, and Pauline flew through the air, landing hard and tumbling onto an unmoored barge that lay with its stern toward the dock, some twenty feet out into the river and eight feet below.
She scrambled to her feet and looked behind her in time to see the two Enforcers, their momentum far too great to stop before hurtling off the dock. They hit the timber at the end and leaped desperately, flying through the air toward her.
She had hoped that the heavy steel Enforcers would be unwilling to make the leap, or that they would fall short, between the dock and the barge. She ran toward the bow, watching over her shoulder. Her hopes were dashed. The Enforcers cleared the gap with room to spare and landed, if not lightly and nimbly, then at least balanced in their peculiar, mechanical way.
The mechs separated and advanced, leaving no possibility for her to dodge around them. They came slowly, cautiously, planting each step as if waiting for the deck of the river barge to heave on a rolling sea. Pauline backed further and further toward the bow, more and more frantic for some sort of plan.
As she watched, from slots in the forearms of the taller mech, long, razor-sharp bayonets sprang open. “You know, Bill,” he said conversationally to his companion, “I don’t recall nothing in the orders about not having a little fun with her before we takes her back.”
The shorter Enforcer snorted. “Jack, you’re just sorry you been refitted below the waist and can’t have fun with her the way you liked to before they put you in the madhouse.” He ground his mechanical hips at Pauline and flicked his fleshy tongue.
“Too right!” responded Jack. “She would have squealed so much better! But this will be fun enough for all of that.” His laugh became a high-pitched giggle.
There was the distinctive sound of the pump action of a shotgun chambering a round as a long barrel dropped forward from Bill’s chest, leveling itself at Pauline like a pointing finger. “I’ll hold her still for you. Just don’t cut her so deep she bleeds to death before the doctor has his chance with her. And don’t even think of taking no bits of her as souvenirs. Mayhap if you’re lucky, he’ll let us have her when he’s done.”
They loomed toward her. She backed away until she felt her back press into the gunwale near the prow. With nowhere else left to retreat, she scrambled up onto it and turned to face them.
“You may tell Malieux that I will never help him. I would rather throw myself into the river. Go ahead and shoot me. But you will never . . . never . . . get the chance to touch me.”
To her surprise, the Enforcers stopped stock still. At last, Bill cleared his throat and ordered, “Now, step down from there! You might think you could swim to the shore, but with all them long petticoats and skirt on, and boots and whatnot, you’ll flounder. Go straight to the bottom, you will.”
“I would rather flounder than help Malieux make more monstrosities like you!” she spat. “I would rather die than feel your filthy hands on me!” But her mind raced. Could she swim to the shore? She had never been a strong swimmer. Could she dive beneath the swiftly flowing Thames before they could shoot her or grab her? Might she surface far enough downstream to be beyond their reach?
The bathing costumes of proper English young ladies certainly didn’t allow for any actual swimming, so the only experience she had in the water was splashing about at a beach in the south of France. But as heavy as those Enforcers were, there was no way they could dive in after her, could they? So diving in was her only alternative, wasn’t it? Gritting her teeth, she began to unbutton the waist of her long heavy skirt.
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Spiegel,” came a low, pleasant Cockney voice from nowhere—and everywhere. It seemed to vibrate from the very gunwale beneath her feet. The Enforcers spun around, looking for the source of the voice. “Gentlemen, I don’t believe the lady is comfortable with your company any longer. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to disembark.”
There was a loud squealing groan as the beam of a heavy loading crane swung hard across the deck, catching Bill flat across the chest, sending him flying backward over the gunwale into the dark waters of the Thames. He landed with a great heavy splash and sank immediately, with scarcely a bubble.
Jack had no sooner turned to run than the boom swung back even harder, fetching him a glancing blow which sent him skidding down the deck. He scrambled to his feet with surprising speed for such a behemoth, and nearly avoided the next swing of the crane. But the massive steel hook that dangled from the end of the arm caught him in the metal back as he fled, piercing him and lifting him high in the air.
So hard was the crane swinging that his metal shoulder and arm tore away, s
ending him cartwheeling through the air up and onto the dock. In a shot, he was up and running, leaving his left arm and shoulder still dangling from the crane, a thin stream of hydraulic fluid splattering onto the deck.
“Crickey!” said the voice. “Did you hear that awful noise? Me crane needs greasing. Da’, did you ‘ear tha’?”
A hatch on the deck of the barge flipped back, and a bent figure emerged, carrying a bucket of grease. “Comin’!” He proceeded to the base of the mast where it disappeared through the deck. He gave a few practiced swipes with a small grease mop and said, “Now try it. I’ll go below and grease the gears. And it looks like there’s some hydraulic fluid to clean up. Frightful mess.”
The boom swung back and forth a few degrees, its grizzly load still dangling from the hook, the squealing groan now cured. “Ah! Much better!” came the low voice again. “Much better! Thank you, Da’!”
The old man touched his forelock to Pauline, tottered back the way he’d come, and disappeared below, slamming the hatch behind him.
She turned in circles, peering closely into the gloom, trying to make out her benefactor.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” she said, “you have the advantage of me. Thank you so much for your kind assistance. Where are you, and how do you know my name? Have we been introduced?”
The low, pleasant voice chuckled. “I’m afraid we have not yet been properly introduced. I rather think that is about to happen.”
There was a sudden whir of a thousand wings from above. Pauline looked up and watched, wide-eyed, as a glittering, swirling ball of metallic blue wings descended to the deck in front of her. Almost instantaneously, as if a switch had been thrown, the swallows scattered in all directions, and Lakshmi, daughter of the Maharajah of Golkonda, walked gracefully toward her goddaughter as if her transport were the most natural thing in the world.
ToC
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
—As You Like It, Act II Scene VII, by William Shakespeare
Chapter Thirteen
All the Workshop’s a Stage
Pauline, totally nonplussed, could only stand and gape as Lakshmi walked up and took her hands, looked deeply into her eyes, and embraced her.
With a catch in her voice, Lakshmi murmured, “Oh, my darling girl! How like your blessed mother you have become. You are her very image.”
She pulled back, but kept her hands. “Oh!” she exclaimed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Forgive me. You know who I am, yes? I haven’t seen you since you were six years old.”
Pauline nodded through her own tears. Somehow, in a way that she couldn’t begin to explain, this woman’s embrace, total stranger that she was, was the complete embodiment of her own mother’s love. Lakshmi enfolded her again, and this time Pauline clung to her fiercely, both feeling keenly the loss of her mother and vastly comforted by her godmother’s arms.
“I so wished that word of your mother’s passing had reached me sooner,” Lakshmi said. “I wish I could have come to you then.”
“It was very sudden,” the girl murmured. “Even by airship, you couldn’t have gotten here before the funeral.” She chuckled a little. “If you had even bothered with an airship.” They drew back from each other and smiled tenderly. “It is lovely to see you now, my mother’s dearest friend, even if the circumstances are so—”
They were interrupted by the low voice. “Your Majesty, the Friends report more Enforcers comin’ this way. With the one-armed blighter so in love with his knives—knife,” he corrected himself. “I took one of them away from ’im.”
Lakshmi sighed. “Very well then, Captain. Whenever you’re ready, we can cast off and stand out into midstream.”
Without further ado, no shouted orders, no dockhands casting off, the smokestack belched, the deck vibrated to the turning of unseen screws, and the barge slipped away from the dock.
Lakshmi turned toward the wheelhouse, pulling her young friend behind her. “Let us be comfortable. We’ve much to discuss.”
“That would be well indeed,” answered Pauline. “I am anxious to meet my kind benefactor.”
Lakshmi smiled. “Allow me to introduce you: Miss Pauline Spiegel of Knightsbridge, may I present Captain Bert Becham of Millbank?”
“So very pleased to meet you, Miss Spiegel. Honored beyond words, I am.”
Pauline turned again, looking about for the source of the kind voice. “And I you, Captain. But why hide yourself? I would love to shake your hand and thank you properly.”
Captain Becham laughed his low and pleasant laugh. “You stand on me decks, Miss. You saw me ’ands escort the Enforcers over the side. Me feet propel us through the water. I am the barge.”
Pauline was silent only for a moment. “Of course you are. How silly of me. Please excuse my rudeness, but this has been a day of firsts for me. Today was my first sight of an actual living, breathing mechanical. And he wound up attacking us. And I met my first micromech—a large, blue-green cricket.”
“My dear Friend, Cobweb,” confirmed Lakshmi.
“And now on the same evening, I meet my first . . . what? Surely you wouldn’t call yourself a mechanical, like Shaka, the Enforcers, and the Musketeers.”
“No, not like Shaka and the Enforcers,” Becham chuckled. “You can think of me as a ‘mega-mechanical.’ We call ourselves ‘megamechs.’ ”
“If it is not too personal and bold of me, how did you come to be refitted in such a grand way?”
“Your blessed mother and father, Miss Spiegel. And Queen Lakshmi. Fifteen years ago, when I was ten years old, I fell off a high dock onto the very deck you walk on tonight. Me da’, Big Bert—that’s ’im you met just a few minutes ago—ran with me in his arms all the way across the bridge to St. Thomas’s Hospital. Me neck was broken. No feelin’ or movement in me arms or legs. I didn’t die, but the doctors said it was a very near thing. They told me da’ I wouldn’t never walk nor move me arms again.
“But when Da’ was in the Royal Navy, he met some of the mech lads coming home from Africa. He knew that there were some’at else for me ’sides spendin’ the rest of me life in a wheeled chair.”
The deck hatch slapped back and Big Bert climbed up. “Why don’t I tell the story? Since I was there and all.”
“As you wish, Da’,” Bertie answered.
“First thing you need to know,” Big Bert began, patting the gunwale, “is that even though this boy has got way too big for his britches, ’e’s still me Bertie. Still me boy. Before the accident, we was never apart a day—’e was with me on the barge from sunup ’til sundown. When ’e fell, I thought I’d die for grief.
“So after the fall, I went up to Bethnal Green, where the mechs was gathering even then. Found a pub called the Oil Can. Some kind gentleman there, a mech hisself, anvil for a chest and huge hammer for a right hand—quite in his cups ’e was, or ’e wouldn’t have spoke so bold—steered me clear of Doctor Malieux. Said Malieux would experiment on me boy like a rat in a cage. So I keeps asking around, real quiet-like, and everyone said that the Artificers to the Queen was the right people to see. Your mam and da’, Miss.
“So one day, we goes down the river and ties up at Chelsea. I puts me boy in his wheeled chair and we takes a walk. All the way up to Knightsbridge, we goes. Your mam was so kind! She sets down with Bertie and talks with ’im in the kindest way, askin’ ’is ’opes an’ dreams, what ’e wanted to be when ’e grew to a man. Ain’t that right, Bertie?”
There was a moment of silence and the barge answered, “Aye, Da’. She talked to me like nobody else, like me thoughts mattered, not like an invisible, crippled nothing in a wheeled chair. We talked for hours. What did I like, ‘ow did I want to spend me days . . . I told ‘er I wanted nothing more than to be on the water all me days with me da’.”
Big Bert continued. “Then she sa
t us down, very solemn-like, and told us we must be very sure, that there would be no goin’ back, and no guarantees that Bertie would even make it through the operation. She sent us home to think.”
“Hermione and Ernst contacted me,” Lakshmi told Pauline, “asking me to come. That’s the last time you and I saw each other, if you remember. You should have just been learning your letters, but were already reading Ovid aloud. In English, of course,” she smiled. “The Latin didn’t come until later. Do you remember reciting for me from Metamorphoses?”
“I don’t,” laughed Pauline. “But then, I used to recite at the drop of a hat. I wasn’t like most children who must be cajoled to recite. They had a hard time shutting me up.”
Lakshmi smiled and went on. “They had called me in because of the delicate nerve and brain surgery that would have to be done. At that time, the procedures were brand new. Only Malieux and I had even attempted them. This was far more complex than replacing a missing limb with a clockwork prosthetic. In essence, we were replacing a missing body.
“We all sat down—Big Bert, Bertie, your parents, and I—and discussed all the ins and outs, to make sure they understood the risks.”
“But we was already decided,” Big Bert said. “Doctors all said tha’ little boys in chairs, what could not run and jump and play, did not last long. Sooner than later, ’is lungs would give out and pneumonia would carry ’im away.
“Two months later, your mam and da’ sent a message round, and we went down the river to Chelsea again, barge shined up like a new penny. Met ’em at the Royal Brompton Hospital.”
“I don’t remember nothin’ at all, for a couple of days,” put in Bertie. “And then it took some weeks, and banging pretty hard into a few docks, for me to get used to controlling meself. But ’ere I am.”
“So you see how it is, Miss,” said Big Bert, “that we are Doctor Lakshmi’s Friends for life. And that we remembers your mam and da’ so fondly, and why we was so sorry to hear about your mam a few years ago. And now, today, your da’.”
A Midsummer Night's Steampunk Page 14