The Steam Mole (16 page)

“Interesting times. Anything else untoward happening in the Australian Dominions?”

The major looked relieved to be able to shake his head. “There's the usual ferment, Your Grace. But I think we're on top of that.”

“Good. Let me know if you have more news out of Ceduna. And get this Calland sent to Sydney. I gather it has a healthier climate.”

The officer saluted, clicked his heels smartly, and left. Eventually Duke Malcolm got up from his desk, still not having looked at the dossier, and stared out of his grimy window at the waters of the Pall Mall Canal. The windows had only been cleaned yesterday, but thanks to the humidity of the canals of London, and the city's heavy use of coal, they just didn't stay that way.

There was a timid knock at the door. Malcolm turned. It was his secretary. She never came into the office itself. He had an excellent voice-communicator system and steam canister delivery to her office. “Your Grace…His Majesty's comptroller called…er. You are late. It's…The meeting is not in my diary.”

“He's got his days wrong, again,” said the duke with a sigh. “I am due to see him tomorrow, as you have diarized. But one does not tell the King he is wrong, Miss Farthing. Call the comptroller and say I am en route. I will take my personal watercraft.”

It was worrying. The King's drinking habits seemed to be making him more prone to these lapses, thought the duke as he waved a salute at the guard on the water door to St. James. At the private quay under the roof, a young lieutenant was already at the wheel of the armored skid boat, checking gauges, and two engineers hastily poured primer into the twin Rolls-Royce Whittles. His efficient secretary had obviously called ahead.

As the turbojet-powered boat scythed through the waters of Pall Mall Canal, sending more ordinary vessels scurrying out of its way with its siren, its wake surging over the raised walkways, Malcolm wondered if, for the sake of the Empire, the time had not come for Ernest to die.

Margot had had to.

The trouble was, the succession did not offer any real improvement. Albert was, Duke Malcolm admitted, not easy to control, and unlike Ernest, he would actually keep trying to run the Empire. His other half-brother would channel everything into the Navy and probably into war. Duke Malcolm had nothing against war. But only wars the Empire could win without crippling her. He was fourth in line for the throne himself, since Margot's unfortunate death, but the idea of being the sovereign had no appeal. He only did what he did so that the Empire could endure.

The King had plainly been drinking already, and it was barely eleven o'clock. “Ah, Malcolm. You're late.”

The duke bowed. “My apologies, Your Majesty. A mechanical problem with one of my engines. I had to proceed at quarter speed.”

It was a successful gambit. The King loved fast craft nearly as much as he loved being a leader of fashion. He bored the duke with a largely wrong and incomprehensible diatribe about the Hahn-Bentley triple jet and forgot his peevishness. He almost forgot his reason for the confidential meeting he'd called for, too.

That would have suited Duke Malcolm well. The palace leaked information, despite the counterintelligence effort focused there. But a chance remark brought it all back. “Bang! Lost one of the engines off the transom. But the triple jet didn't veer more than fifteen degrees! Sank old Monmoth's tub, but that's what you get for nearly beating your king. Had you lost one of your Whittles it'd have spun you around and sent you back like one those Australian whatchamacallits…boomerangs. And speaking of Australia, that's what I wanted to ask you about. I was talking to Field Marshal Viscount Von
Belstad at the Pavilion the other day. The subject of gold mines we'd lost control over came up. That one in Queensland. Sheba.”

Duke Malcolm knew now where the leak was and that he had been powerless to stop it. No need to mention that the target was not actually a gold mine. “It's an ongoing process, Your Imperial Majesty.” No one referred to the King as “Ernest.” At least not in his presence. Not even his brothers or his surviving sister.

“Yes, but it would be useful to be able to say to the Royal Council that we've got a major new revenue stream coming on board.” The King looked a little uncomfortable, not a natural expression for the supreme commander of British Imperial Power, of the Empire on which the sun never set. “Thing is, they've been a bit sticky lately. Money.” He shook his head. “A monarch has expenses. So when do we expect this to go ahead? Von Belstad said it was one of your pet projects. Excellent idea!”

The duke hedged as best as he could. He tried to reinforce the need for secrecy, and left feeling, if possible, even more that the Empire needed a new head. One less capable of wasting a vast fortune. How Ernest got through it was a mystery. Well, not a mystery, when you considered the seven new palaces, three royal yachts, racing boats, importing a herd of oryx for his newest hunting estate and…Duke Malcolm sighed. It was a long list. Not crippling for an empire of the size and wealth of the British Empire…but there were three places to put every one of the pennies that would come from that mine. The empire produced riches, which, in part, flowed to Great Britain. But the cost of keeping that empire was growing like some insatiable monster. The more money there was, the more it needed.

If Ernest knew the name of the target, then sooner or later, spies would too. And several foreign nations—the Russians, or the blasted French—would delight in passing it on to the Australian rebels and their upstart Republic. He'd love to crush it, but they really couldn't spare troops from India right now. And Australia was large, and inhospitable. Not a place the Empire wanted an extended campaign.

When the skid boat roared him back to St. James, and he returned to his office, he found the major in charge of the Australia desk waiting. “Bad news I'm afraid, Your Grace,” he said, cutting to the chase immediately. “I sent off an urgent Marconi message about Jack Calland as soon as I got back to my office. I've just got a reply from the commander of the forward camp of Operation Solomon in Queensland. Calland has escaped along with about forty other prisoners. There's a massive manhunt underway. I immediately sent orders that he was to be taken alive.”

Duke Malcolm slammed his fist onto the desk, sending the brass message capsule flying. “Forty prisoners? Can't they do anything right?”

The major looked uncomfortable. “Well, it is possible they didn't escape together, Your Grace. Best if I read you the transcript of the reply, Your Grace. It…gets worse.”

“Continue.”

The major read, “‘There was a mass breakout by forty-two leg-ironed prisoners who had been sent to repair a culvert, including this prisoner. In the process, guards were killed and a locomotive wrecked. All the prisoners at the scene scattered, most having broken their shackles. Trackers and troops and teams of dogs have been dispatched, and there is a massive manhunt in progress across very hot terrain, hampered by rainstorms. According to standing orders the instruction was given to shoot on sight. The search is dispersed over a wide area, and the troops searching for the escapees are widely scattered and heading for the coastal forests. Messengers have been dispatched, but it is unlikely they will reach all of the troops before they find the escapees.'”

“I trust he has taken disciplinary measures against the guard commander,” said the duke. “Well. Instruct him that I have taken a personal interest and wish to be informed about the success or failure to capture either the other prisoners or Calland. What is our current timeline on that project, Major Simmer?”

The major looked relieved. “They're working on the final section of rail and the off-loading ramps. Three more days. The colonel of the Dragoons said this breakout couldn't have come at a worse time for the work. They've got guards out hunting instead of supervising.”

“Not likely to alert the Westralians, are they?”

“I thought of that, Your Grace. The colonel says the prisoners appear to have fled east, rather than toward Westralia. It's harsher desert to the west. A lot of open plains and very little water.”

The next morning Linda got to Dr. Calland's bungalow in time to have an early breakfast with her. It was plain that Clara's mother missed her daughter badly. And Linda had found that her new interest had given her a whole new position in her father's life, and it thoroughly confused her stepmother. Her father had talked for several hours…to her, mostly about the chemistry of fertilizers. A month ago she would have looked blankly at him and found something else that she needed to do. But now…well, she'd had a window into that world. And it was a world where she saw Dr. Calland getting a type of respect that Linda had now decided she wanted. It…it was different. She was used to seeing men open doors and stand up for women and girls. It was the respect caused by discovering that they were meeting with a better mind that was different and interesting. Some of them, like that smelly old professor plainly hated it.

And it had so obviously suddenly dawned on her father that his daughter might also be able to do the kind of thing Dr. Calland did. She'd never realized he wanted that in his child. He'd obviously never realized that, just because she wasn't a boy…he was talking about extra mathematics and deploring the state of education…and was very willing to see her spend more time with Dr. Calland.

They were drinking tea when Captain Malkis arrived. Linda wondered if Clara had ever realized that the captain was in love with her mother, and that Dr. Calland seemed totally unaware of it. Linda rather liked him. He always looked, without the obvious effort that
Nicky put into it, dapper and smart. It wasn't so much the clothes he wore as his manner.

“I have interesting news, Dr. Calland,” said Captain Malkis. “Two important developments. The first is that I have, I believe, a confirmed sighting of your daughter. From Mandynonga station, on the day she was reported missing. That station is the railhead for the northern line of their underground ‘termite ways.' I've telegraphed messages to the station master at Alice Springs, which is where the line branches. We've had no reply so far.”

Mary Calland worked it out just after Linda did. “You mean…instead of falling in with this plot to kidnap her, my daughter has gone on a one-woman expedition to save her father?” She shook her head ruefully. “My daughter. I think once we've found her, I will have to kill her for the worry she's put us through. So, you were right, Linda. Clara was planning to go to Queensland, not with whoever baited this trap, but alone. Now we just have to catch up with her. I wonder how far she's got.”

Captain Malkis stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Well, the second part of my discoveries may provide a clue. I have had my lieutenants buying up the contracts of the
Cuttlefish
crew, as per your instructions, and contacting them where possible. Mostly, at least, they've been reachable by telegraph. We have nineteen of the crew back here, most of the others on their way. We've now been successful in buying all the contracts…bar one.”

Clara's mother closed her eyes. “Tim Barnabas.”

It didn't take Linda a second to join the dots. More the dots between what Clara
hadn't
said about her Tim, than what she had.

“Correct, ma'am,” said Malkis. “He's at Dajarra Power Station, working on the steam mole there. And, yes, that is accessed via the northern line, via Alice Springs. It's part of the new line they're building. The final station in the current push south…and yes, it would have been in Queensland before the melt. It is within two
hundred and fifty miles of the location your husband was supposed to have been at when he wrote that letter.”

“Clara…I don't think she has a particularly good grasp of just how far two hundred and fifty miles might be, especially across the desert. Her…her own travels beyond a mile or two have all been by train, or airship, or submarine."

“The desert is considered to be our barrier between the British Empire and Westralia, Dr. Calland,” said Linda. “I've never been there, of course. But I have been told it's very bleak. They can't cross it. There is no transport of any sort going that way.”

Dr. Calland sighed. “I don't think ‘can't' is a word my daughter understands.”

“It's a family failing, ma'am,” said Captain Malkis, with just a hint of a smile.

“True,” admitted Dr. Calland. “And she got a double dose of it. Jack was worse than I am, by far. Well, I suppose we now need to get to this Dajarra place.”

“It's a two-day trip on their underground cable-train, ma'am, and there isn't another departure scheduled until tomorrow. Look, Lieutenant Ambrose said there was something very, very odd about the behavior of the Discovery North Rail Company. They were ‘business as usual' until he said just whose contract he wished to buy. The clerk looked it up…and went to consult his superior. That individual came back and said that contract was not for sale, goodbye. Ambrose reported this to me immediately, and I went around to their offices with him, in the hope of reasoning with them.” Captain Malkis grimaced. “We were actually forcefully ejected from the premises and threatened with police action if we came back. I have sent a message to Maxwell Darlington to enlist his help with this matter.”

Linda's father arrived a few minutes later, accompanied by another man in the uniform of the local police, with added gold braid and the green slouch hat with its dingo badge. “Colonel Matthew Clifford. Westralian Mounted Police,” said Max, introducing him.

“Are we in trouble with the WMP already?” asked Captain Malkis mildly. “I did specifically tell Lieutenant Ambrose he wasn't to take the crew to the offices of that railroad company.”

Her father smiled. “I brought Clifford around to try to avoid you doing that.”

“You might have no choice,” said the policeman wryly. “See, they don't have to sell you the contract. It's not normally an issue, but if a company wants to be difficult, they can.” He scratched his head. “But we can work around it, sir. I can draft the boy into the force. We're still technically at war with the British Empire, and the state may demand the surrender of a contract, for the contract valuation. I'd be willing to do so. I might tell you that we could have problems with this crowd. Their general manager, Rainor, thinks he's a law unto himself. He's got a lot of money and rides roughshod through the law, and lets his lawyers clean up the mess. He's got a lot of influence here, even within the WMP. People have relatives working for the company, and he's a vindictive piece of work.”

“I see,” said the captain. “Kidnapping is a crime here, isn't it?”

“Of young women?” said Colonel Clifford. “My word, yes. We'll hang someone for that. And that'll be because we couldn't keep them alive in jail or out of it.”

“And dealing with spies?” asked Dr. Calland.

“That comes under the heading of treason,” said Colonel Clifford. “You could get twenty years breaking rocks in Alice for that.”

“So, Colonel, how do you feel about drafting
several
of my crew?” asked the captain. “On a temporary basis, of course, and seconding them to this investigation?”

The colonel smiled. “A three-month drafting? Easily done, but the pay is terrible.”

“I don't think we need to worry about that,” said Dr. Calland. “I will match their earnings, of course. But it will save them calling on the police for help. Captain, if you would find, say, ten of your men that you consider suitable, and meet with Colonel Clifford to do the
necessary paperwork, I think we could meet at the offices of this company at…should we say ten o'clock? Linda, you could show me where they have their offices? Do you know where they are?”

Linda nodded, hoping her father thought those were just ladylike blushes. Nicky worked there. She was still getting used to the fact that Clara's mother simply made decisions. Neither her mother—from what she remembered—nor her stepmother ever directly told anyone what to do. Dr. Calland did exactly that in her laboratory, and she wasn't that much different out of it.

They took a jarvey down to the offices of the Discovery North Railroad Company, so really, Linda's direction-finding skills were not needed. Linda noticed two familiar-looking men in telephone corporation uniforms up a ladder against the side of the building. One of them was definitely a submariner. She recognized him as having been with the captain that morning.

“I thought they were joining the police?”

Dr. Calland shook her head. “Submariners! One thing I've learned about them, Linda, is that they seem to be selected to be both audaciously daring and preventatively cautious at the same time. They're cutting the telephone line, I would guess. I think we should carefully not notice what the top-mast men are up to. Hold your parasol in the way, so that we can truthfully say we didn't see what they were doing.”

The captain arrived with several men, and bowed to them. “If you'd like to follow Lieutenant Ambrose, special constable of the Westralian Mounted Police, we have deployed men at the other exit too. Let's see what answers we can get.” There was steel in his voice.

They followed. Knowing that something was about to happen, Linda could see men quietly converging on the door. She wondered if anyone who didn't know would notice.

The railroad office was, for Ceduna, an impressive place, with fake marble colonnades and a doorman. Well, it had always impressed Linda, especially the doorman.

The doorman took one look at Lieutenant Ambrose and grabbed him by the arm—to find himself seized from the sides and behind by three more of the
Cuttlefish
's crew and propelled away from the door. Ambrose took a letter out of his pocket and held it under the doorman's nose. “This is my appointment to the Westralian Mounted Police. I haven't had time to collect my uniform. Do you want time inside what they call ‘stir' around here, for assaulting a police officer?”

The doorman looked at the lieutenant, then left and right at the solid submariners. “Er. No, sir. I was given orders that I wasn't to let you back in, sir. Just obeying orders, sir.”

“Your orders, I'm sure, do not permit you to assault a police officer. Who gave you these orders?”

“Uh, Mr. Adam Manuel, sir. He's, he's…the assistant to the boss.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” said the lieutenant pleasantly. He gestured to the men who had somehow just drifted closer. “Right, boys, move in, and fan out. Keep them peeled.”

Linda had never found an excuse to actually go into the front office of the railroad company. She was surprised to see her Nicky behind the large slab of Tasmanian oak, gaping at her, blood draining from his face. The other clerk didn't seem shocked, just irritated. “What's going on here?” he asked frostily as Linda, the captain, and Dr. Calland followed the
Cuttlefish
crew up the front desk. Two of the crewmen calmly lifted the barrier and walked through to the other side of the desk, flanking him. Her Nicky edged toward the door, only to find a third crewman was there already, shaking his head.

“We're from the Westralian Mounted Police,” said Lieutenant Ambrose, plainly enjoying himself very much. He slapped a piece of paper on the desk. “We have here a drafting order for one Barnabas, Timothy. We need his contract surrender dealt with…now.”

The clerk stuck his finger in his collar. “I will go and call my supervisor, sir.”

“We'll accompany you,” said the lieutenant. “And before you even think of arguing, we're investigating both kidnapping and possible treason. I am sure you're eager to help.”

They all walked through, and Nicky was swept along with them. He seemed to be avoiding looking at her.

“I don't know anything about it,” said the clerk, nervously. “Orders from Mr. Manuel…when I couldn't find the contract in our files, I asked him what to do. He said I was to get rid of you immediately, sir. He gave orders to the doormen about keeping you out. He's going to be very angry about it.”

That idea plainly terrified both the clerk, and, by the way he was sweating, Nicky. Linda wondered if she ought to help him. She was about to say something when Dr. Calland spoke in the sort of tone that could cut glass. “It sounds like this Mr. Manuel has some explaining to do,” she said. “If those explanations are good enough, he may end up not being hanged.” She could sound quite terrifying, thought Linda.

She obviously did so to the clerk, who nodded as if his head were on springs, but said nothing. Nicky coughed. “I'm sure you don't need me,” he said, his voice a little high-pitched. “I…I am just a junior clerk. I know nothing about it.” But before he could escape he was pushed with the rest into a plushly carpeted office containing a large brass and mahogany desk…and a startled, flush-faced, bald little man with a big nose, who looked more like a crow who'd fallen into a pot of red paint than someone to be terrified of.

Still, he did his best to try. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” he demanded, staring at the mob pushing into his office. Or being pushed, in the case of the clerk and Nicky. Then he plainly recognized the captain and Lieutenant Ambrose. “I thought I warned you…I will have the police…”