Ghosts of Engines Past (47 page)

Authors: Sean McMullen

Louise scrambled off the flight bench as I twisted valves to kill the tank and boiler flames, then I vented the pressurized fuel. Only now did I allow myself to admit that we had a major triumph on our hands. The Aeronaute had proved itself.

I now glanced around, expecting to see the six police closing in, hoping to get another hug from Louise before we were arrested. Instead I saw dozens, hundreds of police in uniforms dripping with gilt, silver and braid holding back thousands of cheering onlookers. What had been a Victoriana reenactment crowd only moments before had become a horde dressed in burgundy, brown and black leather and silk, with a gleaming starscape of silver buttons and chains. Every woman's waist was laced tightly, and every man had a top hat and a cane with a silver handle. Enormous cylinders like submarines encrusted with metal lace, latticework and gantries floated in the sky above us, and metal humanoid figures at least fifty feet high loomed behind the crowds, with camera crews standing on observation platforms where the heads should have been.

A few people were allowed past the police, people in top hats wearing dark blue calf coats encrusted with gold braid, and holding jeweled metal rods capped with woven copper wire and trailing coiled cables that ran to gleaming brass backpacks covered in filigree. They were all calling out to us as they hurried over.

“Baroness Penderan, that was a brilliant reenactment.”

“Masterful landing, baroness.”

“Ladyship, were there any bad moments?”

Louise, a Baroness in her own right? Like everything else, this was clearly wrong. She was the daughter of a knight, but that was as far as it went. I glanced in the direction of the manor house. A new wing had been added, built mainly out of brass lattice and slabs of turquoise glass, all surmounted by green domes and fringed with silver lace.

“The king and queen are watching, be so good as to wave to them,” said a woman wearing a golden helmet upon which crouched a winged lion. She also wore a violet cloak over gilt plate armour inlaid with vines, leaves and flowers, and inset with garnets. Suddenly a word caught up with me. King? Until a few minutes ago, Britain did not have a king as well as a queen.

We turned in the direction that the guardswoman indicated. At the edge of the lawn was a carriage of gilt, silver and scarlet. There was a steam engine at one end, polished until its parts gleamed like mirrors. It was tended by a man in a black ankle coat and top hat... and goggles. Flanking it were guards, all wearing gilt armor and holding weapons that were mainly brass coils and bronze tubes mounted on rosewood stocks, apparently powered by spheres that glowed with a silvery light. There were steps at the middle of the carriage, and at the rear was an open cabin with a tiled roof fringed with gold tassels. Within the cabin was a couple dressed in matching white shirts with puffed sleeves, brown leather waistcoats and goggles, presumably in honour of Louise. They were waving to us. Louise and I waved back.

By now my mind was urging me to run away and hide, but I had the good sense to distract myself by draining the Aeronaute's fuel from the hot tank and releasing the steam. Cameras like brass lanterns on articulated tentacles stretched over the shoulders of the newscasters from their ornate backpacks to follow what I was doing, but I did my best to ignore them. I seemed to be known to everyone, and was probably in charge of the engine.

“Doctor Chandler, how did the quadricycle engine bear up?” someone asked, and several people thrust their metallically organic microphones at me.

Doctor? Try as I might I could not remember doing a PhD, yet that is not the sort of thing one easily forgets.

“The engine's performance was as flawless as her ladyship's flying,” I responded.

Giles arrived, and I discovered that he was now Sir Giles. Ignoring me, he began to tell the phalanx of surreal cameras and microphones about how good his restoration of the 1852 airframe had been.

I found a leaflet on the grass, dropped by some onlooker. It explained that the Aeronaute had first flown in 1852, with Lucy Penderan at the controls. It had changed history. Once the principle of a steam powered heavier than air machine had been proved, dozens, hundreds, then thousands of progressively larger steam aircraft had been built. They had established air mail services, carried the first commercial airline passengers, and dropped bombs during the Crimean War.

Now we are being herded together in front of the Aeronaute: Louise, Giles, myself, James and the restoration team. Palace flunkeys are breathlessly briefing us about what we should and should not do when we are presented to the royal couple. After that, there will be a celebration, no doubt, and as a fellow celebrity I shall be able to speak with Louise. What to say? Perhaps it will be:
You know, it's probably all the excitement, but ever since you landed, I can't remember getting my PhD. Do you remember being made a baroness?
I am afraid to ask her, but ask her I shall.

If she just laughs, well I can cope with having a psychosis, it's very Goth. What a strange delusion I had, living in a dream world in which Victorian style gave way to fantasies like Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Minimalism.

However, if she looks very fearful and asks to speak with me later, in private, then... then all along, back in our timestream, the Aeronaute had been the key to a different history, waiting for someone to turn it. If that history has become real, then Louise and I are the only people who remember one hundred and fifty years that never were.

I rather hope that she doesn't laugh.

CREDITS AND AWARDS

EIGHT MILES — Analog, September 2012 (Hugo Award finalist, Year's Best SF 2011)

THE CONSTANT PAST — Dreaming Again, ed. Dann (Harper Collins, 2008)

THE SPIRAL BRIAR
—
F&SF, April/May 2009

THE ART OF THE DRAGON — F&SF, Aug/sep 2009

VOICE OF STEEL — sf.com, Aug 2002 (Winner, Nova Fantastyka Award; BSFA award nominee)

THE PHAROAH'S AIRSHIP — Omega, July/August 1986 (Winner, Omega award)

TOWER OF WINGS — Analog, Dec 2001 (Winner, Analog award)

SVYATAGOR — Andromeda Spaceways #3, 2002

DRAGON BLACK — Pandora, Feb 2007 (prequel to Souls in the Great Machine)

NINETY THOUSAND HORSES — Analog, January/February 2012 (Winner, Analog Readers Award)

ELECTRICA — F&SF, March/April 2012

STEAMGOTHIC — Interzone, July/August 2012 (Best SF of the Year 30)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Sean McMullen, author of the acclaimed cyberpunk/steampunk Greatwinter Trilogy, is one of Australia’s top Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. Winning over a dozen awards (including multiple Analog Readers Awards and a Hugo Award finalist), his work is a mixture of romance, invention and adventure, populated by strange and dynamic characters. The settings for Sean’s work range from the Roman Empire, through Medieval Europe, to cities of the distant future. He is a musician, medievalist, star gazer, karate instructor, felineophile, and IT manager.

More books from Sean McMullen are available at:
http://ReAnimus.com/store/?author=Sean McMullen

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