“Thf nrfff?” Jeremiah spluttered through the impromptu gag. “Wll eyhh nffr—”
“Warned you about those taunts,” Patrick chuckled, as Ryder escorted Bannerman out. Patrick craned his head, and Jeremiah followed his gaze to the copper egg sitting beneath the central shaft and its spinning Zodiac machine. He said, “That egg looks Foreign; I’m guessing that’s the contraband he was trying to smuggle. But all the rest of it—what do you think his game is?”
“Noth surr,” Jeremiah muttered, glaring at her uncle—though she had, through a risky but simple ploy, diverted their attention away from her. Now, her uncle’s right-hand man was briefly gone, and her uncle distracted attending the staggering array of equipment attached to the copper egg-shaped vessel beneath the spinning ring. Jeremiah spotted a magnetometer, a spectrometer, a barometer, a pyrometer, and more, all hooked into a complex instrument that looked like a difference engine woven through a telegraph exchange. “Thaff equifment loofs liff an arograff exfloded.”
“It is an aerograph,” Patrick whispered, cocking his head at wires leading to the shimmering dial of a spectroscope opposite them in the room. “But I doubt Lord Christopherson is taking a call—unless it’s from space. This one looks modified to feed all those instruments into that spectroscope viewer. Whatever’s going to happen in that egg, he wants a close watch.”
“Hee’s goinf tuh seeze confrol of teh Incurfion,” Jeremiah said, staring with sudden insight at a second ring of equipment below the spinning Zodiac wheel: heavy power cables feeding a circle of thick glass tubes, each filled with glowing electrodes. They were Crookes discharge tubes, crude but powerful energy weapons—and they were all pointing inward, at the kettle. “Uff korss. Hee’s noff summonfing teh monfers fuh teh monfers shake. Hee wanfs tuh sfeel theer teffnology.”
“That . . . is his method,” Patrick whispered. “Oh, fuck.”
At the curse, Lord Christopherson glared back over his shoulder.
“Language, please, Lieutenant Harbinger. The repeal of the Comstock Act has not done any good for American manners . . . but, as usual, my niece is correct,” he said, as Ryder hurried back into the room and took his place. Lord Christopherson checked his watch, then raised his hand to a massive tripole knife switch. “Enjoy the show. I’ll forgive you if you don’t applaud.”
Suddenly, golden light blazed down the central shaft into the waiting kettle, thunder crackling in its wake, and the twelve vessels embedded into the spinning ring tipped inwards, one by one, their spouts pouring hot gold into the top of the egg-shaped vessel following the path of the golden beam of skyfire. Outside, wind howled, lightning flashed, and hail fell; inside, steam hissed, heat flared, and footmen scattered, but Christopherson and Ryder stood their ground, watching through dark goggles the rising showers of sparks streaming out of the pulsing copper egg.
Jeremiah was transfixed. Heat waves shimmered off the egg as it filled with blazing liquid, and then it, too, started to glow. The shower of sparks surged and weaved in strange patterns, and the egg’s filigree lit with fire. On the spectroscope, within the projected diagram of the kettle, a glowing spot appeared; at first featureless, then it stirred, then it curdled into intricate lumps . . . and one of the largest lumps began to pulse, rhythmically, like a heart.
Oh, God. The egg wasn’t just egg-shaped, it was a literal egg, with a thing now alive inside.
Suddenly, over the sparking, over the hum of the machine, strange music emanated from the egg: odd, unearthly tones that echoed through the whole room. The music rose, rhythmically tied to the beating of that glowing heart, swelling until it seemed to resonate off Jeremiah’s very bones . . . and she got the disturbing impression that the faceless copper egg was somehow looking at her.
“Point four . . . one half . . . point six,” Ryder cried over the rising din. Christopherson was shouting some incantation, but if his increasing scowl was any gauge, his words were not having the desired effect. The egg cracked once, twice, three times, new cracks appearing next to the old—and then a thin sliver of copper between the cracks detached and began waving around like a spindly insectoid limb. “Point nine—it’s incarnating! Now!”
Lord Christopherson lowered the switch in a shower of sparks, and all the Crookes tubes discharged their glowing energies onto the cracking central kettle. Light flared, aetheric fire coursed through the disc of the Zodiac, the central beam of the shaft was cut off, and the glowing copper egg slipped loose from its housing and fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
“Readings!” Christopherson said, whipping off his goggles to inspect the egg, stepping forwards cautiously as the disc spun down. Jeremiah’s heart pounded in her chest: had this strange mix of magic and technology actually worked? Her uncle said, “Readings, man!”
“It’s alive,” Ryder said, and Jeremiah felt a creepy feeling ripple down her spine: for the first time, she had witnessed the beginning of an Incursion. Ryder turned the cranks on the spectroscope to run through different gauges. “The larva is . . . alive, fully incarnate, but stunned!”
“Cage it,” Lord Christopherson said, waving to waiting footmen as the disc slowed and, outside, the winds and hail subsided. Men in grey striped slacks and white pressed shirts stepped forwards, carrying tongs and hoops of iron more suited to a forge or prison than their formal dress. In moments they righted the egg, clamped it within bands of iron, like a form-fitting cage, and hoisted it between a pair of poles so four men could shoulder it.
“Fantastic,” Christopherson murmured, inspecting the glowing copper egg rattling within its iron cage. From the way the light rippled across its surface, Jeremiah could no longer convince herself the egg was glowing from mere heat. “Everything’s going to plan.”
The Zodiac disc above their heads finally slowed to a stop . . . and then at last Jeremiah could hear a resonant humming and deep droning, far in the distance but quickly growing closer, as if a vast set of thermionic engines, powering an equally vast set of turbines, was rapidly approaching.
“Efryfing foing to flan, infeed,” Jeremiah said, smiling as best she could around her gag.
“Oh, hell,” Ryder said. “That’s the Prince Edward.”
Christopherson snarled. “Birmingham!”
“Took them long enough. Lord Birmingham must have been hung up getting permission to enter Newfoundland airspace,” Patrick said, smiling as well. “Dame Alice must be going soft. It’s not like her to let an Expedition get hung up on details—”
“Noff whenf she canff bulldothze a pathf,” Jeremiah said.
Lord Christopherson gritted his teeth, then abruptly smiled. “You’re right, little Mya,” he said, grinning more broadly as she spluttered through her gag. “I did want commentary, but I’m afraid I can’t stay to hear it. Post your review to the Standard, would you?”
“Fuff you,” she choked out round the gag as Christopherson left the lab.
“Mya,” Patrick said, chuckling.
“Anf you,” she said, glaring over her shoulder at him. Then she stiffened. They were tied in front of the very same round glass window they had failed to swing through, giving them not only a full view of the lab, but of the airship hangar beyond . . . strangely empty, except at the far end, where she could see footmen loading equipment into that giant diving bell machine.
Her uncle had not lied. He had wanted an audience. Not just for the opening ceremonies, but for the main act. And while Patrick nattered on that Lord Christopherson had no airship in which to escape, her uncle was having his footmen load the great spherical machine, carting crates up its gangplank just like it was a vehicle.
Jeremiah looked around desperately and in seconds found what she needed. “Forry, Fafrick,” she said—and jerked her chair to the side, kicking her feet out. Patrick choked, but the tip of her boot connected with a cracked pane of glass and it shattered.
Now she start
ed to choke as Patrick writhed, but still, a long, jagged piece of glass fell against her left boot. Scissoring her feet flipped the shard between her ankles; writhing her boots lined the shard up with the knot. She clenched both feet together, then slammed them down.
Thank God, the glass did not sever an artery, just the rope. Making a bet, she mumbled, “Kiff yorff feef baff!” Patrick kicked his feet back, giving her slack, and Jeremiah shoved forwards till she choked, then flopped back—and the noose loosened a tad. As she’d guessed, it was a slipknot.
Thrashing, Jeremiah repeated the process, working the noose forwards, digging down at it with her jaw, till at last she got the rope under her jutted chin. Praising its sharpness, she lifted it up, almost losing the rope—but caught it by pinning the noose between her raised knee and chin.
Painfully, she ground her face against her knee, working the noose up her face to her jutting nose. Cursing its sharpness, she twisted sideways until the rope just slipped over its tip—then nosed up at the noose, thrashing in stages until the slipknot slipped over the top of her head.
Tipping forwards to stand on her feet, she flailed her hands, then whirled to inspect Patrick’s chair for reference. Finding a weak point, she leapt backwards at an angle, landing all her weight on her chair’s left hind leg. The chair splintered, wrenching her shoulder—but her left arm was free.
Jeremiah stood and whirled completely around, smashing the back and right arm against the infernal Zodiac machine. The chair went to pieces, half its bits still tied to her with loosening rope—but she’d jarred the Zodiac’s vessels and screamed in pain as golden fluid splashed on her.
“Ahh!” Jeremiah cried, batting at her face. “Burns—”
“Jeremiah,” Patrick yelled, squirming to get free. “Help me—”
“No time!” she screamed, bolting back into the laboratory. “Uncle!”
Grimacing in pain and rage, Jeremiah ran full tilt down the length of the laboratory, two chair arms tied to her forearms like makeshift tonfas. At the far end Lord Christopherson, striding into a freight elevator, looked back at her scream—and his blue eyes flickered with fear. Footmen turned and fired, raining aetheric blasts down on her, some splintering the wood still tied to her upraised arms and the rest dissipating harmlessly against her Faraday vest.
Three footmen ducked behind some equipment for cover, but she screamed and threw herself bodily into the wall of machinery, tumbling it all down on them. As she stumbled free another footman drew a bead on her, then fell back as she brained him with a beaker.
Ryder slammed the expanding gate of the elevator shut with a clang, but Jeremiah hurled herself upon the gate, arms reaching through its vertical diamonds to seize Lord Christopherson by his peaked lapels.
“Wollstonecraft may now mean traitor,” Jeremiah snarled, drawing the larger man against the harlequins of the grating, “but Willstone means relentless!”
Ryder threw the switch and the elevator descended. Jeremiah planted her feet and pulled, lifting her uncle against the grate, bowing it upward and outward even as the elevator sank. His eyes widened, his feet left the floor, the grating squealed and buckled—but did not yield and continued to drag her hands inexorably closer to the floor. At the last moment, two arms wrapped around her waist and pulled, and Lord Christopherson’s lapels ripped free in her hands as she and Patrick fell back into a heap.
———
The last thing she saw before her arse hit the floor was her uncle smiling.
6.
The Clockwork Time Machine
“JEREMIAH,” PATRICK said, gasping. “Have you lost your faculties?”
“I had him,” she said, staring at the scraps of cloth. “I almost had him!”
“You almost lost your hands!” Patrick said, shaking her shoulders. She tried to shrug him off and hop to her feet, but her legs unexpectedly slipped out from under her, and she fell back against him. He caught her wrists. “What good would you be to the Queen without these?”
“What good am I with them?” she asked. Jeremiah started shivering, and she let him draw up her hands, his dark, reassuring fingers warming her pale, trembling ones. She hissed in pain, first at her wrists, then at the burns on her cheek. “Dame Alice will only care that I lost him.”
“You absorbed a lot of blasts. No wonder you can barely stand,” Patrick said, rubbing her hands, then shoulders. He clucked at the ropes still binding her and pulled out his boot knife. “Dame Alice will care that you’ve become reckless. And thanks, for leaving me there—”
“There wasn’t time,” she said, as he cut the chair arm away. “Seconds untying you—”
“Would have cost you only the nothing you gained without me.” Jeremiah stood and started to retort, then swayed, and Patrick steadied her. “Easy now,” he said. “Give yourself a second—or I could run off and leave you, but I think as long as you can walk we’re better fighting together.”
Jeremiah lowered her head, then winced, touching her neck where gold fluid had splashed. If that great diving bell was a vehicle, they had to stop her uncle from escaping in it—but her hand was still trembling. She drew calming breaths, trying to will the aetheric static out of her muscles.
“Sorry,” she said, again grimacing, this time with pain and shame. “You’re right.”
“Enough recriminations,” Patrick said, rubbing her shoulders again, and Jeremiah drew deep breaths, trying to steady herself. “I’ll bet,” Patrick said thoughtfully, “that diving bell is a vehicle. If you’re up for it, before he rolls away—I say let’s go get him.”
Jeremiah stood straight, looked back at him, and grinned. “Yes, let’s.”
They tumbled down the stairs to the loading dock, each carrying a crossbolt from one of the footmen she’d felled. The elevator, of course, was empty, but so was most of the rest of the level: Christopherson and his footmen were gone, and the dock had been ransacked.
“No guards?” Patrick asked, as they cleared their corners.
“They’re evacuating,” Jeremiah said. “In a hurry, it looks like.”
In their haste Christopherson’s footmen had left scattered notes, broken equipment, odd bits of kit, and even a workbench filled with strange, half-disassembled contraptions, each a dense spherical array of brass gears and silver tubes that was a cross between a motor, a clock, and an astrolabe. Almost all were missing parts, but one or two looked nearly intact.
“What are you up to, Uncle?” Jeremiah muttered, arrested by the strange contraptions. She’d seen things like them before and soon marked them: the cookpot-sized devices were miniatures of the giant diving bell at the end of the hangar. Jeremiah didn’t know what that meant, but it left her very worried. The Peerage still hadn’t released the full manifest of what Lord Christopherson had stolen from the Arsenal of Madness, claiming terrible secrets were at risk—and so the Victoriana Defense League had uncovered only part of his plans. Who knew what tricks he had up his sleeve? “These gadgets look like modern research, not moldy artifacts—”
“Leave those for our computer to figure out,” Patrick cried, throwing his shoulder against the locked inner hangar doors. He found and kicked open a service door, then tumbled back as thermionic blasts rained in through it. “They’re making for the far end of the hangar in a cart!”
Jeremiah stepped to the door’s edge, then flinched from another blast. “We need cover!”
“We need speed,” Patrick responded, casting about desperately. He looked down, saw tracks, and followed them back to an electric autocart, hopping on and pulling the cord to spin up its dynamo. “Mya! Come on! They’re getting away!”
“Get that thing started,” Jeremiah cried, overturning a chemist’s table in an avalanche of broken glass. Straining, she lugged the thick table towards him and the autocart. “And latch the deadman’s switch, because once I’m aboard I plan to
kill you for murdering my name.”
“Promises, promises,” Patrick said, jerking the cord once more and at last getting a spin out of the rotor, which roared to life. Jeremiah lifted the heavy table atop the front of the autocart, then hopped up behind him. He grinned and put his hand on the lever. “Hang on to your hat, Mya.”
“You only think it’s funny because you think I’m kidding about the killing.”
Patrick threw the lever, the motor engaged, and in a squealing shower of sparks the autocart shot out the inner hangar door, bursting it off its hinges. Halfway down the hangar, his now-tattered tailcoat flapping, Lord Christopherson rode on another electrocart behind a wall of footmen.
“Their weight has slowed them!” Jeremiah cried. Lord Christopherson’s cart had a huge lead on them in the race to that vast diving bell, but laden with him, a half-dozen footmen—and that great brass egg in its cage—its thermionic dynamo was struggling. “We’re gaining!”
“You’ll catch him yet,” Patrick said, picking off a footman with a well-aimed shot. He ducked down as they returned fire, crossbolt blasts thudding into the heavy surface of the table. Jeremiah popped up and fired this time, nailing a footman of her own. “Good one!”
“I saw Christopherson’s eyes,” Jeremiah said, slipping down. “He’s mine!”
A massive droning rattled the hangar’s glass ceiling as the Prince Edward shimmered into visibility overhead. Even through the fogged windows, the huge prow of the great rigid airship loomed over them, thermionic engines crackling and fans roaring as it slowed to a stop.
Jeremiah grinned viciously as footmen scattered beneath it; then her joy turned to horror as she saw lightning sparkling in the nacelle beneath the vast airshark’s port fin—charge building up within the huge barrel of one of its portside blast cannons, pointed straight at them.
Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine Page 5