Authors: Kin Law
Tall buildings hid the sea itself, but Mordemere’s atelier was visible all throughout the city. It served as a guidepost; where it dipped behind a spire or outcropping, there were always the cables, pipes and aqueducts converging on it like some massive web.
Nearer at hand, the greasy, cabled walls were plastered with missing person’s posters. Hargreaves recoiled, making Rosa look again. None of the posters featured the same person twice.
Soon, the rhythmic clicking of Mr. Moore’s cane stopped. Rosa, with the Inspector in tow, found themselves at yet another cleft between the sheer cliffs of pipework and soot. This time they stood before a squat old brick warehouse. Here, Jonah Moore halted, stooping to touch a plaque in the door before moving on.
Swiftly, Rosa Marija followed, while Hargreaves used the observant helmswoman as sort of a visual relay; the Inspector read the plaque, while Rosa Marija kept an eye on the trotting Moore, and they both kept an eye on each other.
“This used to be one of the old nationalized carriage companies,” Hargreaves said as she caught up. “Mostly making lorries, busses and trolleys before Mordemere bought out everything here under special administrative permit. I read about the workers fighting the change, but put together they didn’t have a fifth of the leverage or coin the alchemist did.”
“What was so bad about turning out dirigibles instead of lorries?” Rosa mused laconically. She was busy choosing their next cover from Moore, though the elderly chap didn’t seem keen on turning any way but the way he was going.
“Most of the old Leyland workers were facing termination. Mordemere preferred to bring in fresh young workers at a fraction of the cost.”
“Sounds like there’s more than one reason to bring some piracy into Mordemere’s private kingdom,” Rosa Marija sneered joyfully.
Evidently, Moore was not done with the tour. Now the strange trio was passing an area of increased activity. Everywhere things whistled and groaned the lark cry of stressed metal. Dense heads of steam built up and frothed out of windows squirreled high between groves of machinery. Where openings cropped up, the shadows of bent forms could be seen laboring at tiny parts or moving silhouettes of things more at home at the top of a beanstalk. People were sprawled in the streets, some begging for change, others simply begging.
They were passing a set of dense double doors when Rosa suddenly cried out.
“Hargreaves, down!”
And suddenly the Inspector was thrown back into her days as a fresh constabulary, for the air was thick with the sound of gunfire.
“Even though nothing too illegal is going on, you seem to be sweating bullets,” Elric Blair was observing casually.
“I will have you know, this coat is damnably hot,” Clemens answered irritably. He tugged at his collar, normally dashingly loose, now indecorously open. Not only was the service tunnel they were traversing hot and wet with steam, it was also narrow, forcing their breath back at them.
After abandoning th
eir reading room as dutiful law-breaking investigators, Blair found Clemens’ knack for destruction refreshingly useful. The pirate captain had sniffed, literally sniffed the air, before making a beeline towards a nondescript brown door.
When kicked down, the passage beyond led underneath the building, where it seemed Valima Mordemere had an elaborate system of tunnels beneath Leyland.
One of the myriad cables snaking through was a private telegraph wire, which Clemens had immediately become convinced would lead to an information hub of some kind where, quote, “Mordemere hides the Category Three salty wet stuff.” Blair assumed it was some cross-cultural euphemism, owing to the air pirate’s mercurial affectation for colorful language. Still, Elric agreed: the wire did look suspicious, what with thousands already trailing from the church tower above. The Captain was sweating, flapping his coat and grimacing.
“Tak
e your coat off,” Blair said, as they finally exited the tiny service passage and emerged into a sturdy, cavernous tunnel, good steel and clockworked ventilation shafts spaced every few meters. There was also some kind of track at the bottom. It was too small for a train, but a cart or trolley might comfortably glide along it.
“The coat makes me look cool,” Clemens answered. “And the newest periodicals say our natural pheromones are more attractive to women than expensive cologne.”
“I wasn’t aware dirigible pirates had access to academic papers!” Blair exclaimed, as it seemed safe to do so. There was enough vacant room in the tunnel for the two men to walk with arms spread open and not touch each other or the walls, if they so chose.
“It’s important to have true, reliable information if one is about to steal the latest batch of picture-house reels for early release.”
“What I meant was-“ Blair began, but Clemens filled in the awkward gap with a comforting acknowledgement.
“Generally, pirates don’t read. There are lots of folks who don’t do Italian, or read Cyrillic, but most everybody has some English, or Condensed Chinese, depending on the bit of
sky they hunt in. There are those of us who fell into the profession because we couldn’t cut it in the rank and file. Then there are those of us who simply cannot be filed. There’s a difference,” Clemens informed conversationally.
Blair felt he had been run over by a horse even higher than his was, but also a little curious. Before this whole adventure, he had assumed all air pirates, especially Albion Clemens, were scoundrels of the highest order. Strangely, and not for the first time, he found himself in the company of an unorthodox intellectual.
“And yourself? How did Albion Clemens become the Manchu Marauder?”
Clemens evaded elegantly by pretending to trip over a rail. The silence was heavier than pig iron, so deep underground. He eventually had to acquiesce.
“I grew up with the real Manchu Marauder, but Captain Sam kicked me off his boat when I turned eighteen. Said it was the way it was done in America. I pointed out we were in the Australian outback at the time, and besides I had never been American, but he insisted it was the spirit of the thing.”
“And you became a productive member of society, thus ending the legend forever,” Blair finished in jest. Clemens gave him a look that set them both grinning.
“Piracy came later, but I was back on an airship in a heartbeat. “
“
I found out Captain Sam had taught me too well. People seemed slower, when they are stuck in one place. An airship opens you up to more things, more ways of living, more people than you would ever guess are out there. Once you know, the itch doesn’t let you go easily. Here we go,” Clemens grunted, kicking at a riveted, brassy door. It was one of many along the tunnel, but here the mysterious telegraph wire threaded through a port in the doorframe.
Something about the story nagged at Blair’s keen paperman’s instincts. There were gaps in the five greats: How had Clemens reached an airship port, or any civilization, if he had been left in the infamous outback? Why had Captain Samuel left his adopted son in the middle of nowhere? Had he done like the lions of Africa, shoving their young over the cliff so they could become strong through the climb back? But before Blair could ask, Clemens was already opening the brass doors.
“Well butter my biscuits,” Clemens said, stepping through the door.
“Brilliant!” Blair echoed.
The shine was almost too bright.
As the two pulled the door free from its frame, a golden aura blasted through as if emitted by the lost city of Shangri-La.
It was arclight, pure and simple, from everyday Teslaic lighting, but what the light was reflecting off struck the child in both men’s testosterone-filled hearts.
Before them lay dozens of shining, beautifully painted, chrome-detailed, antique steam carriages.
“Real racing fenders!”
“An 1890’s vintage Fjord Eleanor!”
It was a veritable smorgasbord of delectable candy-red racers, chocolate-brown roadsters, and gleaming white engines lined up in a profusion of neat, shimmering rows.
There were ancient, well-maintained Fjords from the first days of line assembly, custom-fitted thoroughbreds culled from the Americas and Deutschland, rare one-offs and drifters from Nippon sitting in all their impractical glory.
“Why would you ladies be sitting here all by your lonesome?” Clemens declared unabashedly. He strolled over to stroke his target, the ‘97 Eleanor, with obvious enthusiasm, nearly tripping over something on the floor.
Blair strode forward towards a white ’86 Panther. The carriages were sleek and low, with immaculate paintwork and bursting with deliciously decadent devices. A quick peek at the gauges showed each one watered and fueled, needing only the requisite starter ember to push her sophisticated engine mechanics into gear.
Eventually, the boys got their knickers round the right way and began to look around. The underground chamber, while well lit, seemed deserted, and quite large, some twenty or so car spaces from end to end. There seemed to be no information hub here.
The telegraph wire ran along to the opposite end of the room, where there was a terminal for contacting the church above.
“This must be Mordemere’s private garage,” Clemens remarked. “Only he could afford such extravagance.”
Clemens climbed into the narrow bucket seat in the Eleanor and began to pump the sparker, to get the engine going, but stopped when he realized there was nowhere to go. The vehicles were parked bumper to shining bumper.
The door they had entered seemed to be a man-sized service hatchway. There was no other door, leaving a bit of a mystery.
How were these beautiful vehicles gathered here if there was no egress to drive through? Had they been disassembled and rebuilt here, to live the rest of their lives as Mordemere’s museum pieces?
Meanwhile, Blair walked over to one wall, where a large rectangular portal was cut a little ways over his head. A lonely stepladder led up into empty space. Naturally, he investigated this direction and in a moment discovered a series of gantries mounted into the ceiling, but no pulleys, wire or other equipment for raising or lowering a vehicle. Climbing onto the stepladder, he discovered a panel of switches.
“Captain Clemens,” Blair said. “Watch your step. There seems to be a raised divot demarking a sort of rectangle round each vehicle.”
Albion joined Blair on the ladder, and together they examined the panel. It seemed there were a series of toggles, and then a pair of flip-style numerical indicator dials.
“Very industrial-romance,” Clemens remarked.
“Almost like something out of a Philip K. novel. I always thought his work could use some chase scenes, like ‘Velocity,’ you know, the one with the bus.”
“I enjoyed the picture adaptation recently. The director really chose the best parts of a rather divergent work,” Blair answered. “And speaking of pictures
, I believe those are the prop Koopers from ‘The Roman Heist.’ But never mind, let us tinker…”
Twiddling the number dials, Blair selected two random numbers, ratcheting the flipping tabs into place with satisfyingly clicks, and tripped a promising-looking toggle.
At once, a heretofore unseen device shot along the gantry like a hound after a rabbit, abruptly gliding across the ceiling as the entire frame slid along what seemed to be very thin rails.
The device was compact, rather round, and was connected to a line of cables quite like the ones Blair had seen aboard the
‘Berry
.
“Quite a machine,” Blair admired openly. “But what does it do?”
“Like any other machine. Either a benefit or a hazard; if they’re a benefit, they’re not my problem,” Clemens quoted, fancying himself the role of Theckard.
Blair had to admit, watching the sliding gantry brought to mind the sophisticated anachronism of the picture. ‘
Arclit Lambs’ had been about a society with advanced industrialization, and a remarkably retarded moral code. Blair wondered how others would judge their Steam Age; he wondered how he might do so himself.
The gantry was indeed like any other machine. Having arrived at a preset point, it now hovered, as if unsure whether to be a hazard or a benefit.
The rounded bottom of the device now hung over one of the many carriages, a rather fetching late ‘90s Ultra Eight, once called the Chapman Eight, striped British Green.
“Well? Do something else!” Clemens said impatiently. Blair flipped another toggle, this time a rather large, imposing one.
At once, the Chapman Eight shot up and detonated against the gantry with a spectacular bang, showering the room with shrapnel.
The air wasn’t filled with sizzling shot, Hargreaves soon discovered. It was, however, filled with pinging, irregular sounds quite a lot like gunfire, and something a lot more terrifying: the unreserved bellowing of grown men screaming in pain.
“Someone needs help!” Hargreaves shouted, and took off.
“But Moore went that way!” Rosa cried in dismay. When Hargreaves looked back, the helmswoman was following, a weather eye on the elderly Jonah Moore until he disappeared behind another soaring warehouse.
Hargreaves discovered all too
soon where the rattling sounds were coming from. A knot of people cowered just outside a heavy loading door, and the wall facing it was pitted with holes. The sight was obvious for subjects who had grown up around steam engines of Victoria’s reign: a boiler had blown, and instead of rupturing in a spectacular cloud of metal and mist, it had simply fired its rivets outward like bullets.