Brilliant Devices

chapter 25



“Nine, where are the girls?” Claire snapped.

But the automaton remained maddeningly blank and silent, and she resisted the urge to clap a hand to her forehead in chagrin. Of course Alice had designed them to follow orders only. They had no ability to give information. They didn’t even have mouths.

“And where are our prisoners?” Andrew said aloud. “The girls would not have moved them elsewhere, would they?”

“How? And where? We passed through the crew quarters on the way.”

“The engine gondola at the stern?” Then he shook his head. “Never mind. That would be nonsensical.”

“The only logical conclusion is that your prisoners have made off with your little friends,” the count said, heroically resisting the urge to examine the automatons. Instead, he contented himself with, “Are these the work of Fraulein Alice? And they can give no information?”

“No.” Fear had formed a hard ball in her stomach, and Claire was very much afraid she was going to be sick. “We must find the girls at once.”

“And I must return to the Margrethe.” He tugged on one of the sleeves of his dinner jacket, and it came away in his hand. “The crew will be on the point of despair—or worse.”

“Your disappearance and eventual death are meant to provoke an international incident,” Claire told him. “Meriwether-Astor is behind it.”

“Ja, of such I am well aware. The hood they put over my head did not impair my hearing in the slightest.”

“So we have our proof after all,” Andrew said. “The count himself will corroborate what you have to say when you tell the Dunsmuirs, and the crew of the Margrethe can take Meriwether-Astor into custody and return him to Edmonton.”

“Andrew, they cannot. Remember? The Margrethe is grounded.”

“Was sagen Sie?” Von Zeppelin made for the gangway with only the slightest hitch in his stride. Then, when he saw the mighty fuselage of his flagship wilted and flapping, he let out a cry. “I must return— Lady Claire, who is this who comes?”

She crowded behind him on the gangway and leaped to the ground. The night wind caught at her skirts and sent them belling oe$ze="+0ut to the side, the air frigid on her stockinged legs.

Snow’s comin’, whispered the voice of Polgarth the poultryman in the back of her memory.

The Mopsies were running full tilt across the airfield, Tigg right behind them, loaded down with—good heavens, he carried her valise in one hand and the twins’ in the other. Lizzie carried a hatbox by its cord, swinging in the wind of her going, and containing something somewhat heavier than a hat, by the look of it.

“Lady!” Tigg shouted. “You gots to get out o’ here quick!”

“What has happened?”

“I’ll be keelhauled if they catch me.” He dropped the valises and flung himself upon Claire with such force she staggered. His arms went around her in a ferocious hug. “I don’t want to leave you, Lady. Wot’ll I do?”

Good heavens. Why should he be forced to leave her? But there was only one answer to the question that was obviously uppermost in his mind. “Your duty lies aboard Lady Lucy, my dear one. That is—if the Dunsmuirs still consider us friends?”

“That’s the trouble, Lady. That Meriwether bloke ’as ’em over a barrel good and proper.” He looked up. “Izzat the count?”

“Indeed,” said that gentleman.

“Cor,” Tigg said on a breath of disbelief. “You ent dead?”

Claire put her hands upon his shoulders and gave them a gentle shake to return the boy’s attention to her. “Tigg, tell me what has happened.”

“The Dunsmuirs are under ’ouse arrest and can’t leave Lady Lucy. T’Mopsies and me snuck out through the ceilings and down into the cargo bay, an’ out through the loading doors. That Meriwether-Astor cove ’as took over. These cargo ships, they were full of ’is Texicans and Colonials, not proper crews at all. And sir—” He looked up at the count. “—if you ent dead now, you will be shortly. You gots to get out. I c’n commandeer one o’ them mining engines an’ we c’n go to the Esquimaux village. They c’n ’ide you.”

“Can’t,” Maggie said. “The village flew away.”

Panting from his lengthy speech, Tigg stared at her. “Are you off yer ’ead, Mags?”

“Their ’ouses was ships,” Lizzie said. “Lifted not ’alf an hour past. We saw ’em.”

Claire straightened and passed an arm about Tigg’s shoulders. He was trembling, and not from the cold. From fear, she had no doubt—fear for the people he loved.

“What of Captain Hollys and the crew?”

“Outnumbered an’ confined to quarters. Lady, I know it’s me duty, but must I go back?”

She hugged him close, then looked into his eyes. “What are your own feelings?”

“I dunno wot to do. I want to ’elp. But I also want to come wiv you an’ leave this place be’ind for good. I ’ate it ’ere.”

He was not the only one. “A year from now, what will you wish you had done?”

Her hand slipped away as he turned slightly to gaze at Lady Lucy’s fuselage, barely visible beyond the sadly listing Margrethe.

“I s’pose I’d wish I’d’ve ’elped, ’specially if some ’arm comes to our Willie. I’m the only crewman got free.”

“I suppose the marauders relieved the crews of all their weapons?”

Tigg nodded. “First thing.”

“And the air rifles in the ceiling cabinets were confiscated by Ned Mose back in Resolution. I imagine Captain Hollys would be glad of a few weapons smuggled in to them, would he not?”

“Claire, are you mad?” Andrew demanded. “You would send a child back into danger, loaded down with guns?”

“I ent a child,” Tigg retorted with spirit. “I’m nearly fourteen, and I got a duty to ’elp.”

Her gaze met Tigg’s, and in his brown eyes she saw the hardening of resolve. She nodded briskly. “We shall conceal as many upon your person as we can, and once we are clear, you must board and assist your captain in retaking the Lady Lucy for our friends.”

“Clear?” Andrew repeated. “What do you propose?”

She lifted her chin. “I have stolen a coach and a scientist. It cannot be any more difficult to steal an airship.”

*



“You cannot mean to steal Meriwether-Astor’s ship.” Andrew’s eyes practically stood out on stalks.

“Of course not. After Tigg has what he needs, I mean to steal the one with all the guns on it.” She looked up at the fuselage above their heads, which only looked ragged and poorly maintained. But under the torn exterior they had observed a sleek substructure that meant business. “I mean to steal this one.”

But time, it seemed, had run out.

In the distance, a large group of men issued from between the mining offices and the outlying buildings, shouting the alarm and streaming past the now deserted mine gates.

“Oh dear,” Claire said. “It appears someone has noticed the prisoners are missing. Tigg, inside, quickly. We must get you armed before we are seen.”

“We do not have time to open crates,” Count von Zeppelin said. “And it is imperative that I return to my ship immediately.”ely

“Sir, you can’t!” Tigg told him. “They’ll shoot you on sight.”

“Better an honorable death trying to reach my crew than a dishonorable one hiding with women and children.”

“I doubt the Baroness would see it that way,” Claire said with some asperity.

“Lady, we got Alan and Bob and Joe’s guns over ’ere. And that cove wot were smokin’ earlier—we got ’is, too.”

Claire had barely made sense of these astonishing facts when the Mopsies dashed over to the pile of luggage sitting under Meriwether-Astor’s ship. They flung some clothes aside and pulled five pistols and a smaller, more portable version of Mr. Gatling’s repeating cannon out of a trunk.

“Maggie, pray tell, what did you do with our prisoners?” She saw now that the pile of luggage was in somewhat more disarray than it had been.

“We locked ’em in these big trunks, Lady. The automatons stuffed ’em in, and we sat on ’em and shut the lids.”

Andrew let out a startled exclamation that might have been a laugh. Then he turned to the count. “I should not complain about being left with the women and children, if I were you, sir. You might find yourself set upon by mechanicals and locked in a lady’s trunk for your pains.”

The count had lost his spectacles at some point during the course of the evening, but his manner of looking at the Mopsies as they armed Tigg with speedy efficiency reminded Claire of someone looking over his lenses, as if unable to believe the evidence of the naked eye.

Then he raised his gaze to the Margrethe and the muscles flexed in his jaw, forcibly holding back either action or words. “If I knew how to reverse our situation, I would,” he growled at last.

A contingent of men poured down the Lady Lucy’s gangway. The two groups conferred for a moment, and then split off into several smaller groups.

“They are going to search,” Andrew said. “Tigg, now is your chance, while there are fewer men aboard.”

“Goodbye, Lady,” Tigg said, turning to her. His voice cracked.

“We shall meet again, my brave darling,” she told him with a fierce hug that drove the lumps of the arms concealed on his person into her chest. “At the very least, you shall have a pigeon from me each week, and—and I expect good penmanship in the replies you return.” The lump in her throat choked off the last word.

“Goodbye, old man.” Andrew shook his hand. “Thank you for all your assistance in the past.”

By now Tigg was too close to tears to speak. He gave each of the Mopsies a rough hug, saluted the count, and vanished into the shadows with the suddenness of a boy who cannot take any more, and must flee—or break down.

It felt as though he had taken a piece take any mor of Claire’s heart with him. She had suffered the loss of her father, of her home, and of all she had held dear … and none of it felt as though a vital organ had been torn from her chest, leaving the ache of emptiness behind.

“I cannot bear it,” she whispered, and attempted to take a fortifying breath.

She must bear it. She must get the Mopsies and the count through the next hour in one piece.

The hour after that, she could collapse in a heap and cry her heart out.

“Come quickly,” she said. “We must lift now, while they are distracted by the search.”

She and the Mopsies ran up the gangway into the navigation gondola, where the automatons were standing exactly as they had left them. Let them stay there. They had done their part, and done it surprisingly well. They all owed Alice’s genius a debt. But as soon as she could, she would find somewhere to leave them so that she would no longer have to look upon those blank, soulless faces.

She turned to find Andrew and the count bent together over the tiller and the panels of gauges. “How long until we are ready to lift?”

Out of the gondola window, shadows moved and darted and lamps danced in the middle distance as the search grew more intense the more frustrated the searchers became. They did not have much time. At some point the men would turn their attention to the luggage pile, and then the fat would well and truly be in the fire.

Andrew conferred with the count in a low voice, and Claire felt a needle of impatience at being thus ignored. “Well?”

“Claire, we have a problem. We cannot fly this ship.”

“What do you mean? An engine is an engine, and you flew the Stalwart Lass on our journey to Edmonton.”

“Yes, but the Lass is a much smaller ship. And its engine was a part of the navigation gondola.”

“So?” She did not like this. Not one bit. And not the least of it was the dawning dismay in Andrew’s face.

“This ship must be crewed by at least a dozen men. The engine gondola is so far astern that the two cannot communicate except by mechanical means.”

“And there does not seem to be a means of communication,” the count put in. “The controls are here, but they do not respond. Surely they did not send messengers astern every time they needed more steam or a change of course?”

Of course they did not.

“What is that?” She pointed above their heads, at what appeared to be tubing wrapped in copper wire. The two ends of it hung down, shredded as if they had been cut with a sharp knife or a pair of pliers.

“Um. Lady?”

She turned. “Lizzie, if you must find the powder room, it will be in the crew’s quarters. I do not have time to take you.”

“It ent that, Lady. It’s about that ’ose there.”

“And that one.” Maggie pointed to a similar hose that snaked along the ceiling, heading in the direction of the stern. “And that one across there, too.”

All of them had been cut.

“Girls, what is it?” Had Alan and his friends sabotaged their own ship?

“I’m—I’m afraid we done it.” Lizzie took Maggie’s hand and they huddled close, as if they expected someone to toss them down the gangway and they were determined to go together.

“You did—what?” Andrew said, so shocked his voice had hardly any sound. “You cut the lines that carry the signals from this gondola to that of the engine?”

“We thought we was ’elpin’,” Lizzie wailed, on the point of tears.

“We didn’t know the Lady were planning to nick this ship,” Maggie said, her voice thick with horror. “After we stashed them blokes, we came back ’ere and did a nip and tuck before we went and found Tigg.”

“Didn’t know what them cables were, only that it might slow ’em down should they try to chase us.”

The count let out a cry of frustration and even Andrew clutched his head as if it were about to explode. The tears overflowed Lizzie’s eyes and streaked her dirty face.

“We’re awful sorry, Lady. We thought we was doin’ right.”

The count turned away with a string of Prussian epithets that had no business in the hearing of young ladies. “I shall have to return to my ship,” he got out at last, in English. “Perhaps there is room for negotiation.”

“Certainly—negotiations will net you the choice of a pistol, or a long fall from an airship in flight,” Claire snapped. She pulled the twins into her arms, and Lizzie sobbed against her heart. “It is all right, darlings. So we cannot communicate from one end of the ship to the other. We shall simply have to come up with an alternative, even if it means using you two as messengers, as the count suggested.”

“Impossible,” Andrew said.

What business did he have making the girls feel worse than they already did? Claire lost her temper.

“I am aboard a disabled ship in the company of two of the finest engineers the world has ever seen,” she said with barely concealed impatience. “Do not stand there telling me it is impossible. Do something!”