Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (38 page)

The older man moved aside his laboratory coat to reveal a short, flat-bladed sword, which he drew and presented, the blade on the palm of his hand, to Serizawa. “Take the tant
ō
.”

Akiko looked at him, horrified. “You cannot mean … seppuku?”

“What is going on here?” asked Gideon as Serizawa wearily took the blade.

“I have failed. I must commit seppuku.”

Akiko covered her daughter's ears with her hands. “He means he must disembowel himself. Here, in front of Michi. In front of me.”

“That's effing barbaric,” said Bent. “Can't you just tell him to eff off?”

Serizawa smiled. “I think I can, but I will be banished from Nyu Edo. My wife and child—”

“Your wife and child will follow you to the ends of the Earth!” said Akiko angrily. She took the short blade from Serizawa and flung it away from her into the brush. “There is your answer, Science Officer Morioka. Better we renounce the Californian Meiji and Nyu Edo than this.”

Morioka stared impassively at her. “There is no return from this course of action. You will be disgraced.”

Akiko spat at him. “We left Japan to start a new life here. But we are shackled to the old ways. What is the point? We might as well have stayed.”

Morioka said nothing but turned on his heel and stalked back toward the hangar. Akiko and Serizawa exchanged a glance. “Well,” he said. “I suppose that is that.”

Gideon put up his hands. “Wait. I have no idea what is going on here but … look, who do I see? Who is in charge in Nyu Edo?” He looked desperately at Bent, then Lyle. “This is supposed to be a bloody war, isn't it?” He turned back to Serizawa. “You said this metal man of yours was a defense. A defense against what?”

The alarm wail began to sound again in the deserted town below. Bent tugged Gideon's sleeve until he turned to face him, then he pointed wordlessly down to the harbor.

“Yes,” said Serizawa. “A defense against
that
.”

*   *   *

Against all the odds, she had survived. The first three days had been the worst, her stomach groaning and rumbling with hunger, the muscles in her legs seizing up with the effort of propelling herself forward through the waves, her backbone aching from holding her head above the salty water. Then something had come swimming around, circling her at a distance, closing in, its dark fin slicing through the water, its mouth widening to display rows of pin-sharp teeth.

It didn't last five minutes. Her hunger sated, her dominance of this new, wet world assured, she roared into the sky and pushed on, her claws eventually scrabbling on soft sand, pulling her up to a deserted, tiny island where she collapsed in the surf and slept.

There was no food on the island, but there was a supply of fresh rainwater, pooled in a tiny lagoon fringed with trees. It gave her the impetus to move on, barely hesitating as she waded out until her feet no longer felt the shore and she began to swim again.

Thus her days and nights rolled into one, and she began to forget why she was doing what she was doing. She was ready to succumb to the waves and the predators that circled, warily, around her, when she came upon a bigger island. This one wasn't empty. Tiny figures pointed and swarmed as she clambered up on the rocks, and she remembered. Remembered the ones who had invaded her home, the ones who had stolen that which was most precious.

She fed well, though she sensed these were not the creatures that had raided her nest. No matter, they were enough alike. But her hunger for vengeance was not sated, and she knew that there must be more of the two-legged creatures out there somewhere.

And there were. Dusk was heavy over the calm sea as she sighted the huge bulge of land that stretched, dizzyingly, as far as she could see. She had thought her island and the surrounding iron-gray ocean the extent of the world.

She had been wrong. As the first creatures on their tiny boats beheld her with astonishment then sped for the land, an eerie wail began to sound over the city. It was like the death song of an injured beast.

The feeding would be good in this place, and she would finally have her revenge.

*   *   *

“That's it, isn't it?” said Gideon flatly. “The thing from the island.”

“Unless you're on speaking terms with any other tyrannosaurs, then I'd hazard a guess that it probably is.” Bent nodded, never taking his eyes from the beast that lumbered out of the shallows, threw its enormous, green-scaled head back, and roared, shaking the very hillside they stood upon.

“That is what Jinzouningen was designed for,” said Serizawa bitterly. “There is an island … we know it only as sector thirty-one. It is closer to California but officially in Japanese waters. It is top secret. Impenetrable.”

“Not anymore,” said Bent.

“I'm very much afraid that is our fault,” said Gideon. “We went to this sector thirty-one on a rescue mission. We had no idea…” He looked at Bent. “But can it have followed us? Really?”

“I don't think it's after us specifically, but close,” said Bent. “I didn't tell you because I didn't think much of it at the time, but when we were leaving the island I went to look for the head on the ship—I damn near shat myself when that thing came running out of the trees. Though I suppose that's a little more information than you need. Anyway, I saw old Professor Rubicon skulking around in the engine room, so I thought I'd see what he was up to. He was stashing something by the furnace. I had a quick look after he'd gone, but I thought it was just, you know, scientific samples and all that.”

“What was it, Aloysius?” asked Gideon, wishing he'd get to the point.

“It was an egg, Gideon. What I now reckon was an effing tyrannosaur egg. And Mummy ain't happy, not one bit.”

“Only the Japanese and Californian Meiji officials know the island as sector thirty-one,” said Serizawa, looking down the hillside at the dinosaur with what looked to Gideon to be something that approached admiration. “Children and those who like old tales call it Monster Island.”

“And we have destroyed your only defense,” said Gideon. He felt sick.

“Still,” said Bent. “They've gone and dumped you, haven't they, Serizawa? No skin off your nose what happens to them.”

“But what about my class?” asked Michi, held tightly in her mother's arms. “I don't want it to eat my teacher.”

“She is right, Haruki,” said Akiko. “There are innocent people down there.”

Serizawa nodded. He said to Gideon, “They have banished us, true. But…” He glanced at Lyle, who was staring with a mixture of horror and fascination at the beast loping up and down the harbor in the gathering gloom. “Those in power do many things that the ordinary people would not necessarily countenance.”

Gideon took his point. “Quite. Is there anything we can do…?”

“You have a rather marvelous brass dragon, Smith-san.” Serizawa nodded. “Perhaps…?”

“Maria!” said Gideon. He bent beside her. She seemed unconscious, though the machinery within her still hummed and throbbed.

“She is the pilot?” guessed Serizawa. “She requires a doctor?”

“An effing mechanic, more like.” Bent chuckled. “She's clockwork, you see. Not a real woman.”

Serizawa, with the help of his wife, crouched beside Gideon. “Clockwork? An automaton? How fascinating…”

“There's a bit more to it than that,” sniffed Gideon. “But Mr. Bent is right; I'm not wholly sure what has happened but there appears to be some kind of damage to her internal workings.”

Serizawa smiled. “Then you are incredibly lucky that I am here. I am the finest scientist in the Californian Meiji. Possibly even the whole of America!”

*   *   *

As Gideon began to tell Serizawa all he knew about Maria, Bent sidled over to the young woman. Pretty little thing. He'd always liked 'em a bit exotic. Put him in mind of the folk in Limehouse, London's Chinatown, a little, but different.… The thought sent a familiar tickle to the base of his skull, the one that was like an alarm bell telling him he should be sniffing around this particular thing or that particular thing. Then he remembered his notebook, jammed into his pocket.

“Here, Akiko, is it?” he asked.

She frowned at him then nodded. “That is correct, Bent-san. Can I be of assistance?”

“I reckon you probably can.” He smiled, showing the stumps and gaps in his wide mouth. “Back in New York I took a drawing of a bit of Japanese writing. It awfully puts me in mind of something. Wondered if you could take a look, maybe translate it for me? I must say, your English is effing—I mean, wonderfully, erm, good.”

She inclined her head. “Thank you. We occasionally trade with caravans of wagons from the east; I like to read English books.”

“Oh, I'm something of an author myself,” said Bent, withdrawing his notebook. “You ever get
World Marvels & Wonders
? It's a particularly high-quality publication in London. I write the adventures of our Gideon Smith up for it. He's something of a hero, you see.”

She surveyed the wreckage of the mechanical man and cocked an ear to the roar of the dinosaur that had now begun to nose through the fragile pagoda roofs of the houses nearest the harbor. Someone screamed distantly, and Akiko covered the child's ears with her hands. “I suppose that's a matter of perspective,” she said.

“Yes, well,” said Bent, and jabbed a thumb at Lyle. “Like your hubby said, them as is in charge don't always have people's best interests at heart, even their own. Like your fellow with the sword. I mean to say, I've had some fierce bosses, but I've never been asked to disembowel myself before.” He paused. “Well, there was the time I was told to take my pen and shove it—anyway, that's by the by. This writing I was telling you about…?”

Akiko glanced down at Bent's notebook. “I can see your mistake, Bent-san. It is similar to Japanese, but I believe that is actually a Chinese pictogram.”

Bent frowned. “Chinese? But it was a tattoo on the neck of one of those Japanese assassins—what did Lyle call 'em? Ninjas. On the neck of one of the ninjas that attacked him back in New York…”

Then he realized where he had seen the symbol before, why it was so familiar. It had only been that year, in March or April, when there had been all those murders in Limehouse, over that shipment of opium that had gone missing from the docks. The Chinese criminal gangs, the tongs. This was the mark the toughest of them wore as tattoos, just like the assassin in New York.

The mark of the dragon tong.

“Then he wasn't Japanese at all,” Bent said slowly. He cast a surreptitious glance at Lyle, who was glowering at him. Bent swallowed drily. He needed to speak to Gideon.

*   *   *

“Remarkable,” Serizawa said. “A human brain and a body of clockwork? Truly remarkable.”

“But can you help her?” asked Gideon.

Serizawa shrugged. “I can try. Do you have any tools and instruments?”

“Plenty on the
Skylady III,
and room to work,” said Rowena. She wiped her hands on a rag and put her tools into her bag. “We took a couple of stray bullets in the gondola and near the helium cells. I've been patching the old girl up.” She dropped her voice. “But, Gideon, I really need to speak to you.”

“And me,” said Bent.

Gideon pinched his nose. “Seriously, can this wait?” He turned to Serizawa. “Do what you can. I beg of you. She is very special to me.”

Akiko shook her husband's shoulder. “Haruki. I don't think there will be time. The monster is going berserk. It will destroy Nyu Edo.”

Gideon stood straight. “We will help.” He turned to Rowena, and beyond her to Inez and Chantico, who were hanging back near the 'stat, watching everything with interest. “Are you two up for a little excitement?”

Inez waved her sword. “Yes, Señor Smith. And we have something that might help!”

Rowena said, “Aloysius half blew up one of Pinch's Steamcrawlers. We loaded it up into the hold, and I think Chantico and Inez might have patched it up enough to work.”

Gideon smiled. “Perfect! We'll take the Steamcrawler down to the town and try to hold off the dinosaur while Serizawa works on Maria. If she recovers quickly enough, she can fly Apep down to finish the job.”

Gideon heard a strangled yelp from Bent. The thought of more danger, undoubtedly. Conversely, Gideon felt his heart race at the prospect. It was as if with each new adventure he began to believe, just a little bit more, what they said about him. Perhaps, after all, he really was the Hero of the—

“You have all got to be fucking joking, of course,” said the voice of Edward Lyle. “Pardon my French, ladies.”

Gideon turned to see Bent, wild-eyed and red-faced, floundering against Lyle, who had his arm around the journalist's throat. In his other hand he held a stubby Derringer pistol, which was pointing right at Bent's head.

“I think we all need to calm down and get a bit of perspective here,” said Lyle. “Nobody is going anywhere, is that understood?”

 

28

S
EIZE
THE
D
AY

Before Gideon even knew what he was doing, he had drawn from his belt the pearl-handled revolver that had until recently belonged to Louis Cockayne. He brought it up in a fluid movement until he held it with his arm outstretched, one eye closed and the other sizing up the sweating head of Edward Lyle along the sights.

“I'm not sure what you're doing, Governor,” he said evenly. “But please release Mr. Bent.”

“Just getting your attention, Smith,” said Lyle, but he kept the gun at Bent's head; the journalist held up his hands to show the governor that he wasn't going to make any sudden moves.