Mnemo's Memory

by David Versace

  "I've bought us no more than a minute, I'm afraid. Dempsey's men will regroup in moments. What's our position?"

  "We're circling about a mile out from a stone fortress built on the lip of a volcano crater, sir. Cloud cover's thick and light's poor. Forward watch observed some artillery mountings and a docking tower a while back. No ground response yet."

  "No doubt they await a signal from the mutineers," said Edward. "We'll come about and launch an attack from the south. Sound the –"

  Another shudder rippled through the deck. The anchor-guys and the rigging sang out a humming tune. They shared the sailors' instinctive horror of damage to the great silk-and-canvas bags that held them aloft.

  "Sabotage," Edward said.

  His eyes raced over the flicking monitoring instruments until he found one inactive. "Number five intake vent. Clogged it with oakum, I'll warrant."

  "They're mad! If it catches alight -"

  "They're gambling we'll set down immediately." Edward made a snap decision. "Is the docking tower in sight? Then align on it and full ahead, all able engines."

  "Aye, sir, and I pray for loyal ears to hear me. But where are you going?"

  Edward reloaded his pistol and claimed Farmer's sword. "To take back my vessel."

  #

  For all Elizabeth's attention to the tiniest details, the reality of enacting her plans was maddening. Every step seemed to throw up some bothersome wrinkle, like the portcullis grate separating this steam vent from the stronghold's interior. It had not been equal to Mnemo's strength but these small impediments were a growing concern.

  "Was that not rather loud, Mnemo?"

  "Quite deafening, Madam, I'm sorry to say."

  It occurred to her that Edward's battle experience would have been useful in this infiltration. The military mind was always having to compensate for the unexpected. A pity she hadn't factored him into this final phase. It was most unfair, selfish even, to wish him by her side. But there it was.

  A harsh mechanical voice like a grindstone sharpening gears shrieked in the darkness. "Remain where you are, if you please." Elizabeth froze, dismayed at the sight of the guard automaton. Her particular focus was the point of the sabre emerging from the bulbous stump at its wrist.

  "Ah! What a - crude innovation. I hardly think the intimidating effect outweighs the loss of digital utility." In the echoing service tunnel, her voice lacked the intended note of cool dismissal.

  "I don't think intimidation is the sword's primary purpose, Madam." At the sound of Mnemo's voice, the automaton swivelled its head, as if noticing Mnemo for the first time. "May I?"

  "Yes, thank you, Mnemo. Please take care." The sword tip was level with her eye.

  Mnemo trundled forward. The automaton's violet faceplate flashed in warning. It said "Remain where you are if -"

  Mnemo's faceplate split and opened like a warehouse door, spilling a burst of colours. Fuchsia and heliotrope lights played over the guard's head for a fraction of a moment. A sharp smell of scorched oil and an almost inaudible crystalline crack reached Elizabeth. The sword arm quivered and began to straighten with a whining sound. Its point wobbled and drove forward.

  Elizabeth squealed and fell backwards. She dropped into an undignified position. The blade passed overhead, close enough to have impaled a hat. Fortunately she possessed no such item. The automaton's arm was drawing back for a second strike but before it could launch its attack, it froze. Elizabeth counted twenty hammering heartbeats; it remained still.

  "Excellent work, Mnemo."

  "With respect, Madam, the credit is all yours." A new click beat rhythmically from somewhere inside it. Elizabeth pictured the elegant mechanism within, now busy with activity. She rose with fresh vigour.

  "Let us call it a shared triumph." Once, she had said such things to John Gracemere. "Come now. Time is short."

  #

  To Edward's surprise, the deck was clear of mutineers. His ephemeral relief was swept away by one upward glance. Various figures clambered among the rigging and spars along the armoured underside of the airframe, locked in combat. The Antarctic winds whipped and howled, drowning out all but the sharpest sword clashes and pistol reports.

  A dishevelled lieutenant emerged from below decks and snapped a sharp salute. "Captain Hollioak! Cabins and crew quarters are secure, sir! We've rounded most of the blighters up."

  "Good work, Brooke," said Edward, as other loyalists formed up behind him. "Get some men aloft to secure the aft engines and a fire crew for the port input vents. And a marksman to remove those rogues bothering my riggers, if you please!"

  Trusting his men to attend their duties, Edward resumed his scan of the airframe. Ah! There, toward the nose battens – Dempsey and two ordinary seamen, clambering hand over hand up the forward spars. "Brooke, do you see?"

  "Aye sir," growled Brooke. "Making for the forward lift sacs, I'll be bound."

  "If they put them out of commission, we'll have no choice but to set down." Edward hauled himself up onto the nearest spar, which slanted upward from the foredeck to the underside of the airframe's nose. "With me, Brooke!"

  "Aye, sir! For the Bishop of Sarum!" Two marines joined the cheer and the assault.

  The climb was brutal work; Edward's body already ached with his exertions, the wind ripped at his grip, and he could not afford the delay of a safety tether.

  Below, Erebus's crater was a wide mouth waiting to swallow any man who lost his hold. The steam rising from the gaping hole in its summit twisted and writhed as it met the winds sweeping up the mountain's slopes. Snow met the pluming updraft and coalesced into ice crystals that cut like razors.

  Sprawled around the crater's rim was Winter's stronghold, a black stone edifice of jutting towers and squat bunkers built into the mountain. A work of heroic engineering and brutal functionality. Like its owner, thought Edward as he climbed. Elizabeth must be within its walls by now. The alternative did not bear consideration.

  "Commander Dempsey's sent a greeting party, Captain."

  Edward felt the thrum of approaching climbers in the ropes and timbers under his hands before he spied them, clambering concealed along the spar's underside.

  "See you give them a warm reception, Mister Brooke. I'll deal with Dempsey."

  With that, he steadied his nerves and scuttled off the main spar along a crossbeam. Eight terrifying balance-steps carried him across space to the side of the airframe. He grabbed a handful of rigging and pulled himself against its rigid surface. Uncomfortable off-key notes burred the airframe's normal baritone vibration; more than a few engines were damaged.

  Gritting his teeth, ignoring the sounds of battle joined in his wake, he resumed his climb toward the nose.

  #

  The subjugation of Doctor Winter's automata proceeded very much to Elizabeth's satisfaction. They had encountered a number of his mechanical servitors, each individually distinct from the original design with some offensive customisation such as whirling blades and repeating carbines. In no case had their master elected to protect their crystallometric tabulators. Mnemo's fluorescent outbursts handily overwhelmed each in turns. Paralysed motor functions prevented further physical threats. In short order, the automaton's standing instructions erased themselves. New commands took their place.

  Surrounded by an entourage of Mnemo and his oblivious knights-automatic, Elizabeth ascended toward the fortress's upper levels. Her quarry would be found close to the action, though not likely anywhere personal peril might arise.

  "Hold steady in Winter's name!" Elizabeth flung herself to the floor immediately this time; the German accent marked the speaker as human.

  "No! Get back!" A shot ricocheted off metal plating then stonework. Servo motors whined, metal arms snatched out. The hapless guard was pinned in a moment, his firearm crimped into scrap by crushing metal digits.

  The guard wore the silver-grey livery of Doctor Winter; his bulbous breathing apparatus was distinctly German in manufacture. Removing this revealed
a young man with a worker's brow and a monkish haircut.

  "Shall I order him despatched, Madam? He could raise the alarm."

  "Certainly not, Mnemo. We will avoid needless savagery, if you please."

  "In that case, Madam, I believe we will find suitable prison facilities on the next level up." Mnemo's dominating exchange of light flashes had furnished it with a detailed plan of the fortress.

  They marched the silent prisoner up to a wing dominated by a greenhouse the size of a manor house. It teemed with fruit trees and vegetable gardens in raised beds and was topped with a sparkling crystal roof.

  As Mnemo subjugated the crew of automaton grounds-keepers and set them to guarding the prisoner, Elizabeth's attention was wrested by the remarkable sight above.

  The Bishop of Sarum hovered some distance overhead, turning in abnormally tight circles and emitting great gouts of smoke from several locations.

  "Mnemo, they are aflame!"

  Mnemo's neck did not articulate; it leaned backward like a foreign dancer to take in the scene. "The fire is limited to two engines at present."

  "What if it should spread to the interior of the airframe?"

  "The gasbags will deflate with catastrophic results, Madam."

  Elizabeth swore so vehemently even Winter's guardsman blanched. "Right," she said. "I'd better do something about that. Pray leave some guards for our prisoners and continue with the plan, Mnemo."

  "As you say, Madam. What will you do?"

  "You'll see. Kindly furnish me with directions to the pumping station."

  #

  Dempsey was waiting for him. The axe he had used to chop away the aluminium sheeting of the airframe's nose hung loose from one hand. He stood in the verge he'd cut open as the wind howled past him into the airframe's interior and drummed on the inflated balloons netted within.

  "That's close enough, Hollioak," he called. The wind all but muted the words but their desperate fury rang true. "Don't force my hand."

  "This is insane, Dempsey." Edward ceased his approach. He could traverse the small distance between them in a few movements. Dempsey could strike his head off in less time. "You'll kill yourself along with the rest of us."

  "Order the Bishop to land and surrender yourself Captain."

  "You know I will not."

  "Put her down or burn in the sky!"

  Edward's heart ached. "You stood beside me when the Marquess went down. You saw the same carnage I did. How can you entertain such madness?"

  "It's your choice, Hollioak." Dempsey unhooked a glaring kerosene lantern from his harness and made as if to throw it inside the airframe, where dozens of bound balloons gave the Bishop her lift. "Do you think your men want to die for your honour?"

  Edward ignored the images roaring up from his memories. Clinging to the netting to steady himself, he drew Farmer's pistol. "Better that than hand them to a monster."

  Dempsey took cover through the rent in the airframe nose. As Edward clambered up to circle to the top of the rent, he caught a glimpse of flaring light. The lantern had surely burst. His suspicions were confirmed as the glare grew brighter.

  Once above the missing panels, he could see clearly down into the cavity within the nose. Dempsey was below, nursing his bloody shoulder at the border of a spreading pool of flaming kerosene. The smoky flames licked up the side of one bulging lift balloon.

  Edward grabbed a dangling rope and swung out from the frame. His momentum carried him down and through the rent at a frightening speed. His deck boots collided with Dempsey's face. Both men fell and scrambled to stand, weapons in hand.

  "Well now, Captain," said Dempsey. "I didn't think you'd give me the satisfaction."

  As the flames began to take hold, he dashed forward with his axe.

  #

  Bundles of hissing pipes affixed throughout by sturdy brackets to stone ceilings served a clear purpose: to regulate the temperature of the fortress into a habitable compromise between the Antarctic freeze and the volcanic melt. Elizabeth deduced the existence of a pumping facility. Mnemo confirmed it.

  What she found was unexpected. A cathedral-scale room that was part bedchamber, part business den and a greater part lunatic trick of architectural engineering. It overlooked a rocky vent roiling with lava. What appeared to be a fine stratum of pearlescent glass separated the room from sputtering lumps of molten rock. The radiant heat suffusing the room restored some of the sensation sapped from her extremities. A great assemblage of riveted pipes sprang from a two-storey brass instrument panel like a giant's dishevelled pipe organ. At the feet of mirrored spiral staircases stood a four-poster bed of notably plush appointment.

  "He sleeps by the boiler," Elizabeth muttered to herself as she made for the control room's upper storey. "Quite peculiar."

  The dense window gave an unobstructed view not only of the roiling magma just below, but also the Bishop of Sarum above. Its distress was obvious. Smoke poured from numerous locations. One starboard engine was fully aflame, and the conflagration had spread to the support spars below and the canvas-wrapped skin of the airframe. Frayed netting and loose cables dangled and trailed smoke.

  "Hold fast, Edward," she declared, refusing to give strength to a lurking fear for his safety. "Help is at hand."

  She needed scarcely a moment to take in the control functions before her hands set to work of their own accord. She kept an eye on a bank of twitching pressure gauges as she diverted flows and bypassed safety valves. Needles bounced into red. Dials showed reservoirs bulging past their limits. She traced pipe layouts, searching for – ah, there it was!

  "Out, out, brief candle!" she said, and threw a switch.

  Beyond the crystal wall, a pressure hatch swung open and all at once released the fortress's water supply. A great jet of water burst forth and fanned out.

  The relentless spray fell directly onto the molten magma of Mount Erebus's crater.

  #

  The butt of Dempsey's axe swept up into Edward's chin. His head snapped back. He stumbled.

  A gas balloon arrested his fall. Pain flared on his back and neck; the bag was well alight.

  He brought his sword up just in time to deflect Dempsey's swing. The axe bit deep into the gas bag beside Edward's face. With a huffing sound, the bag split and began to deflate.

  Dempsey twisted his axe to dislodge it from the collapsing bag. Edward lurched forward. He butted his forehead against the scarlet patch at Dempsey's shoulder. The traitor gasped in pain.

  Both men tumbled over, sprawling on the gantry that circled the airframe's interior. Edward slid and found himself hanging head and shoulders out over empty space.

  The deck of the Bishop of Sarum bustled below as fire crews scurried about. Beyond, the icy white of Ross Island surrounded the glowing orange of the Erebus crater.

  "Got you!" Dempsey kicked his ribs, hard. His hands closed around Edward's wrist and twisted the sword from his grip. His vision went white.

  "I'll spare you the flames, Hollioak. It's the sky road home for you!" His dragged Edward forward by his coat collar.

  Edward barely heard him. All at once he realised his vision was clear. The crater below billowed with steam.

  His airman's instincts took over. He rolled against Dempsey's legs, throwing his balance off. As Dempsey shed his grip to steady himself, Edward rolled away from him. Dempsey lurched forward in pursuit but Edward's flight was fuelled by reflexive alarm.

  "Get to cover, you fool!" Heedless of Dempsey's snarled response, Edward propelled himself desperately across the gantry and threw himself bodily into the bundled ruins of the deflated balloon sac. Its canvas skin enveloped him as he fell through it.

  As it gave way, Edward caught a final glimpse of Dempsey's silhouette as a wall of steam blasted over him and billowed in to fill the airframe cavity.

  Cocooned inside the bag, Edward crashed to the airframe floor. He lost consciousness to the sound of Dempsey's screams.

  #

  When Winter's guards came f
or her – the human guards, of course – Elizabeth offered no resistance. The Bishop of Sarum had vanished into the steam plume, but she had done all she could to extinguish its flame. The rest would be up to Edward and whatever men he still commanded.

  German soldiers with grim countenances escorted her outside through a courtyard, open to the sky and slick with volcanic steam frozen into ashen ice.

  The stone beneath her boots was warm. More: a grumbling vibration from somewhere below. It could have been Erebus maintaining its discontent over its drenching. Elizabeth thought not. She could read the mood and health of engines as easily as a blueprint.

  A factory.

  She had a good idea what Winter was building down there.

  They passed through heavy steel doors that lifted with the turn of great cogs. Inside was a miniature railyard every bit as busy as Waterloo Station. Legions of automata loaded and unloaded cars, stacking barrels, massive crates and disassembled munitions. Some of the mechanical labour force duplicated Mnemo's design. Most appeared little more sophisticated than basic geometric shapes on wheels with skeletal limbs ending in pincers.

  Elizabeth and her escorts wound a path through the bustle to a flat freight car. They rode on rails through a short tunnel that terminated at another cog-driven door.

  It was a parlour; oak and walnut furnishing and fixtures, book cases that stretched to the ceilings and a tasteful selection of Turkish rugs and wall hangings. It incongruously resembled the same room in her own home, to the minute detail.

  The soldiers steered Elizabeth into a comfortable armchair and withdrew to the tunnels. Across a small table bearing a silver tea service sat the man whose works had brought her here.

  "Doctor Winter, is it?" she said with a heavy voice, as he stood to receive her with a deep nod of his balding head and an appraising look in his hazel eyes.

  "I hardly think we need stand on ceremony, my dear," replied Doctor Winter, baring his teeth in a charmless rictus. "We have been married far too long for that. Do call me John."

  #