by Jean Rabe
He envisioned Mathilda dutifully following, a few steps behind as if she were some sort of Indian servant. Quick strides brought Somerset to the base of the ramp twenty feet underground. The sound of the orchestra above was drowned out by moans of pleasure from ahead that gave Somerset pause. He knew, as a gentleman and scholar of natural science, that he ought to retreat. The passion he overheard could be only the result of a husband with his wife.
But how? Charles Kendall was confined to a wheelchair that seemed propelled by some mysterious source, perhaps a small steam engine or more likely a new type of battery.
Hating himself, Somerset sidled forward to peer around a doorjamb into a spacious, well-lit laboratory. His eyes went wide at the sight of a comely maid, her skirts hiked high to reveal naked thighs. She perched on the edge of a black-topped laboratory table, propped up on her hands and her feet on the edge of the table. Her face was a mask of stark pleasure. Charles Kendall’s head was thrust between her spread legs.
Somerset’s hands balled into fists. Lord Kendall was a philanderer, having his way with the hired help while ignoring his own wife.
The thought of Mathilda struck him like a hammer blow. He stepped back, his heart threatening to explode in his chest. Pressing against the wall, he struggled with the moral dilemma of informing her. He had only seen her for the first time that evening and yet it had been love at first sight. Somerset had never experienced such a powerful feeling before, yet recognized it for what it was. He would lay down his life for Mathilda.
He started back into the laboratory where the maid was giving voice to even more intense passions, all generated by the man in the wheelchair.
Somerset stopped when movement seen out of the corner of his eye froze him. Coming down the corridor, a tiny smile curving her bow-lips, was the object of his infatuation.
Not infatuation, love!
He motioned her away, not sure what to do. She came on, her steps short and precise, unhurried, inexorable.
“Please, no!” He dared not call out loudly, but his words carried.
“I am glad to see you once more, David.”
He stepped to block her view of her husband and the maid. Whether through tardiness or some unconscious desire, he failed. Mathilda looked past him to the amorous scene inside the laboratory. Somerset grabbed her shoulders and propelled her away.
“I cannot believe he treats you in such a scandalous fashion,” he said, emotion causing his voice to crack. “Let me take you away from this, my darling Mathilda. I know it is sudden, but my feelings for you are true. Tell me you share my affection. Say you do!”
“I do,” Mathilda said softly. Her eyes remained dry, but she did not look away from where Lord Kendall and the maid continued to wrestle about in their ardor.
“He is a cad. You must admit it. You see how he . . .” Somerset could not continue to torment the lovely woman. The evidence of her husband’s faithlessness was manifest.
“I see. She is new. Not like the one before.”
“Before?”
“He seeks to replace me. I do not want that.”
Somerset impulsively grabbed her hand and pulled. Her flesh was cool and for a moment she was nonresponsive. Then she allowed him to tug her along the corridor, away from the laboratory where the maid cried out in one last convulsive spasm of pleasure. Immediately thereafter came curious sounds that drew Somerset back.
“No, don’t,” warned Mathilda. “He is chaining her down.”
“What!” Somerset could not believe his ears. “The bastard!” He stared hard at Mathilda in disbelief. “Has he done this to you?”
“He has only chained me to his work table. Never has he done all else he has to Yvette.”
“Yvette is the maid?”
Mathilda nodded slowly. This decided Somerset. He had felt pangs of guilt stealing away the wife of another man, subverting her affection for her husband, but no more.
“Come with me. My zeppelin is not far away, at the corner of the estate. We can leave, go away, fly to the other side of the world where no one can ever find us. We can go to Australia and find a lawyer to file for a divorce.”
“Your zeppelin is on the grounds? Oh, no.” Mathilda put one slender-fingered hand over her mouth in horror.
“The Good Queen Vickie is a staunch airship. He will not be able to stop us once we launch.”
“The grounds are outfitted with diabolical weapons Charles invented. For the crown, of course, but he tests them here.”
“I’ve flown through aerial barrage and even fought off air pirates along the Moroccan coast. My zeppelin is an aerial dreadnought. Do not fear on this score.”
“His weapons are advanced. Charles is so very clever with his mechanisms and rays.” Mathilda looked back over her shoulder when they reached the foot of the ramp leading up to the ballroom. “Yvette . . .”
“She must endure his perfidy, just as you have. It is vital to escape him. He is a madman! How dare he insult and humiliate a woman such as you?”
“I was here first,” Mathilda said. “He has no right to replace me with . . . with her.”
Somerset tugged harder and got the woman walking at her steady, imperturbable pace. She would not be rushed. They reached the top of the ramp, and then retraced their way to the ballroom. Many of the guests had already departed, but not the colonel who had accosted Somerset earlier. The officer spotted the pair and immediately made his way through the remaining dancers, a stormcloud of anger turning his face florid.
“How do we get to the south lawn?” he asked. “I would avoid that gentleman.”
“Colonel Sanderson? He is Charles’ friend and often tests the weapons invented below.” Mathilda turned back in the direction of the doorway leading to the underground laboratory.
Somerset interposed himself between her and the hurrying Colonel Sanderson, then used his full weight to move Mathilda away. The shock of what she had seen slowed her. He had to admire her courage to this point, seeing her husband’s infidelity and accepting a stranger’s succor.
If only she would accept his love. From the way she looked at him, he thought it would not be long before her passion matched his own.
“There,” she said. “We can go out onto the veranda, around the grounds and find where your airship is grounded.”
“I say, stop there. Stop, you blighter! Unhand Lady Kendall!”
The colonel ran now, his highly polished knee-high boots reflecting light. The click-click of his heels drew near as Somerset herded Mathilda ahead of him through the French doors onto the quiet veranda. Barely had they stepped outside when the officer overtook them.
“Unhand her, you bloody git,” he exclaimed.
Somerset turned, took in the situation instantly, and acted. The colonel reached for his ceremonial sword but drew it only a few inches, stopped by a sharp, hard right uppercut to the chin. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell backward, at attention, his hand still gripping the hilt of his dress sword.
“This way,” Mathilda said, slipping lithely over the low stone railing to the ground. She began walking in her unswerving fashion. “I hear it.”
Somerset strained but could hear nothing but the music from inside. Some gay laughter echoed out, but less now than before. When the colonel was discovered or came to from his thrashing, all hell would be out for lunch.
He hurried to catch up with Mathilda. The wind blowing across the damp lawn was chilly, but when he put his arm around her shoulders to hold her close and keep her warm, he found her delightfully unaffected by the wet breeze. As they rounded the corner of the mansion, he heard the low hum of the idling engines aboard his airship. Along with the low hum he heard a louder clanking.
“Here, climb aboard,” he urged, handing her up into the gondola to his pilot, Zellick. When she stepped onto the folding stairs, the zeppelin tilted slightly under her added weight. Somerset wasted no time following her. He kicked away the steps, not wanting to take the time to pull them inside.
“We goin’ for a midnight ride, Skipper?”
“Mr. Zellick, prepare to launch immediately.” His pilot caught the tension in his voice.
“Might be a problem,” came the warning from the back of the gondola.
“What is it, Cochran?” he asked querulously. Somerset wanted to get aloft quickly. He saw strange black mounds at the corners of the mansion he could not explain. On the lawn itself were other devices, with protuberances that might be barrels. It never paid to jump to conclusions, but both the colonel and Mathilda had said Lord Kendall used the grounds as a test range. Escaping from air pirates or even the small arms fire from the ground in Africa had turned him wary. The hydrogen in the bags was not easily set afire thanks to special baffles he had installed. A bullet would cause leakage but not necessarily an explosion.
But a tracer round? The Good Queen Vickie would explode like the sun coming up over the Sahara. One instant it would be dark, the next there would be dazzling brightness.
“His name’s Corrigan,” the pilot said. Then he frowned. “Or might be Cadigan. He never gives me the same name twice.”
“He just came aboard a few days back,” Somerset quickly explained to Mathilda, who stood looking at the engineer curiously.
“He is missing an eye,” she said.
“But he is a wizard with the electromagnets,” Max Zellick said.
“I know electricity,” the engineer said, adjusting his eyepatch and studying Mathilda closely to the point that Somerset considered tossing the man overboard, expert engineer or not. “And I know mechanical things. We got problems with the reduction gears. Stripped off a few cogs along the way.”
“We can repair later,” Somerset said. “Launch now.”
“You aren’t hearing me,” Corrigan called out, over the revving engines. “We try to launch and the gears will end up curls of brass.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Somerset said. “Now, launch now!” The colonel had been discovered and brought back to his senses. His bull-throated roar assembled lesser officers and brought them racing toward the zeppelin.
“David, look. We must avoid those,” Mathilda said, pointing. The dark lumps mounted on the corners of the mansion were not gargoyle decorations—he had not dared hope that was all they would be. Cannons with curious twisting barrels were revealed.“Never seen the like,” Zellick said, “but I don’t think they mean anything but harm to us.” He continued to apply power to the engines. The motors hummed, but the grinding of gears grew louder.
From the rear of the compartment came Corrigan’s cry, “They’re done for! We lost the main gear that controls the rudder!”
“We’ll rise directly in front of that thing if we can’t use the rudder,” Zellick warned.
The cannons began to glow with a blue light. The crackling discharge at the tip of one of the barrels warned of a searing bolt that would ignite the Good Queen Vickie like a moth fluttering into a gas lamp’s flame. The officers fell back at the sight of another cannon powering up.
“Release her and you will be allowed to leave,” the colonel called.
But Somerset looked to the roof and the electric cannon. Outlined by the constant discharge was a man in a wheelchair. No matter what Colonel Sanderson promised, Lord Kendall would use his weapon to destroy the zeppelin.
“He would not dare fire if you are aboard,” Somerset said to Mathilda.
Still calm, she contradicted him. “Charles is a man who treasures his possessions above all else. He will never permit me to leave. Rather, he would see me destroyed first.”
Somerset realized the truth. Lord Kendall would demolish the zeppelin with Mathilda aboard so he could continue his illicit frolicking with the maid unhindered by a wife.
“We can fight.” Somerset was thrown into the woman as the zeppelin lurched. The sound of tearing metal told him that the reduction gear had failed catastrophically. He didn’t need Corrigan’s verification.
“We can break out the rifles, Skipper,” Zellick said dubiously. He looked from Somerset to Mathilda and back. “If you think it’s worth it.”
“It is. I will give my life for hers!”
“You willin’ to give the crew’s, too?” The pilot stared at him, waiting for an answer.
“Everyone off who wants,” Somerset said. “The lesser weight will allow the Good Queen Vickie to lift faster, and we might avoid the weapon. If I have to pilot her, by God, I will!” To gainsay him, the cannon on the mansion roof fired, sending a coruscating blast above the zeppelin. If they had risen straight up, the craft and all aboard would have been killed. And without the proper gear he could not maneuver past the cannon.
“I love you,” Mathilda said softly. “I did not realize it was possible.”
Somerset swept her into his arms and kissed her. She responded, just a little.
Their eyes met. A tiny smile came to her lips.
“I do love you. I’ve never loved Charles, though he told me to. That is why he built Yvette, to remedy this flaw.”
“Built?” Somerset stared at her. “What do you—”
New lighting ripped closer to the zeppelin. Somerset threw open a window and leaned out to assess their danger. If Lord Kendall succeeded in lowering the muzzle elevation any more, he would surely destroy them.
Somerset turned back to Mathilda, only to find her gone. He raced to the entry and looked out onto the dark grounds of the estate, thinking she had darted away to surrender and save him by sacrificing herself. But she was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a loud exclamation followed by vitriolic cursing from the engine room.
He ran the length of the gondola and flung open the door to see what Corrigan did to the woman.
Mathilda looked at him, a loving smile on her lips. Her fancy ball gown had been ripped open. He surged forward to throttle the engineer, and then saw Corrigan half buried in the gear box at the stern. Mathilda reached down and completed the destruction of her fine dress and exposed bare white flesh. He cried out as her fingers curled into claws and she ripped open her belly.
Gleaming brass gears turned silently on jeweled bearings in her abdomen. Stainless steel wheels spun and copper wires wound about in tight bundles like sinews. Mathilda grasped one unit in her gut and yanked hard. It popped free.
“Here,” she said in a voice lacking control, modulation, the dulcet tones he expected from her sweet lips. She handed the gear assembly to Corrigan, who took it, still swearing a blue streak.
“What do I do?” he asked. He spoke not to Mathilda but Somerset.
Before Somerset could tell him to replace it in the woman’s belly, she screeched out, “Save the airship. Save David.” Mathilda turned and tried to lift her hand but it flopped about, uncontrolled. “Charles is expert with gears and automata.”
“You?” Somerset stared, too shocked to say more.
“Yvette replaces me. She responds more like a human.” The screech of metal tearing against metal caused him to clap his hands to his ears. “Use my sacrifice. Save David,” she ordered the engineer.
Corrigan tore apart the geared mechanism and yanked out a steel wheel before discarding the rest of the useless unit. He dived back into the guts of the zeppelin’s reduction gear box. In seconds a whir sounded and the airship quivered like a thoroughbred in the starting gate, ready for the race.
“Got maneuvering back,” came Zellick’s cry from the prow.
Somerset slid across the floor and caught Mathilda up in his arms. Her eyes were glassy now and her face had gone flaccid. He lifted her into his arms. She was far heavier than he expected, but then she was not human. Yet he thought of her as more human than Lord Kendall ever could be. He carried her forward and gently laid her on his bunk.
“My love, I will see that your . . . your gear is replaced. You will be good as new. Better!” Her blue eyes fixed on him and she nodded.
The zeppelin suddenly veered to the side, sideslipping as the rudder spun them away from Lord Kendall’s electric cannon
blast. Somerset pressed her down into the bunk as she tried to rise and said, “Stay. You’ll be safe here,” then rushed forward to join his pilot.
The zeppelin surged, prow up and the rudder swinging about in perfect response to Zellick’s expert handling. The airship soared high above the Kendall estate and away, but Somerset saw their real danger.
Zellick cursed as the cockpit of the zeppelin began glowing a blue-white.
“The cannon. The ray has locked on us!” the pilot cried.
Somerset sprang forward but was pushed aside powerfully. Mathilda had risen from the bunk and interposed herself between him and the energy beam. He grabbed her shoulders to save his beloved, but the metal under her flesh seared his hands. He recoiled, then fell to his knees as Zellick applied still more power to the zeppelin’s motors.
Somerset cried out as he saw the flesh burn from Mathilda, leaving behind a metal skeleton that welded itself to the deck. Then the ray extinguished her form entirely in a smoldering ruin; incongruously, her head remained intact. Somerset grabbed it and held it. Her lips moved, although her eyes stayed closed. Then he dropped the head as the superheated metal burned his palms past human endurance. It bounced once and tumbled out the still-open cockpit door, tumbling a thousand feet to the ground.
He did not think he was deluding himself when he heard clearly Mathilda’s last words: “I love you, David.”
“We’re above the estate and out of range. Where to, Skipper?” Zellick asked.
He took a deep breath and said, “Steer the Darling Matty across the Channel. We have worn out our welcome in England.” He looked at the estate far below. Dozens of rays swept the sky seeking to destroy him. Revenge would be his. One day. One day he would make Charles Kendall pay for killing Mathilda. But not today.
“Glad to leave it behind,” Zellick said. “That’s a cold, wet, inhospitable land.”
David Somerset spread out a chart and began plotting a course to Italy. There were always treasure maps to be found in the Vatican catacombs, and he was anxious to leave Charles Kendall and his unholy contraptions far behind, even if he could never forget the man’s greatest creation.
