Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Ethan!” Hand exclaimed.

  “DCI Ethan Slaughter, sir,” Folkestone explained. “He was the man rescued during the Constantinople…”

  “Ah, yes, I recall,” the Admiral said. “Good man.”

  “Very resourceful,” Folkestone agreed.

  “So he has proved himself to be in Paris as well,” the Admiral continued. “He came across a name in his investigations that also appears in some of the papers you took. It’s MEDUSA, written with all capitals, as if implying a meaning behind the letters.”

  “MEDUSA?” Hand frowned. “What does it mean, sir?”

  “That, Sergeant Hand, is what many people want to know,” the Admiral replied. “A man? An organization? A gang? A power that knows no borders, apparently, employing at least three nationalities, that we know of.”

  Folkestone’s eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities.

  “A supra-national entity is what Whitehall fears,” the Admiral continued. “It can strike at any country but hides behind a veil of anonymity. Its agents can be anyone, of any race or nationality. It would, in effect, be a phantom nation.”

  Folkestone shook his head. “How could we fight an enemy that only exists in shadows?”

  “We couldn’t,” Barrington-Welles admitted.

  “Did anything else come of the papers, sir?” Hand asked.

  “Still being studied,” the Admiral replied. “Most are routine lab notes, very technical, and some were damaged, but two names have emerged as seeming important—Pandora and Hephaestus.”

  “Pandora?” Hand mused. “Isn’t that an asteroid in the Belt?”

  “Hephaestus…” Folkestone shook his head. “Other than the mythological reference, I’ve no idea. Certainly not any planet, moon or asteroid I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Maybe a code word for a place or a project,” Hand suggested.

  “You may be correct,” Barrington-Welles said. “They are somehow connected to Poulpe. And maybe MEDUSA as well.”

  “Well, Admiral, do we go to Pandora?” Folkestone asked.

  “No,” the Admiral said. “Continue your investigation. Expand your efforts to find Tanaka and Zimmer.”

  “What about Pandora?”

  “I’ve already assigned an agent,” the Admiral replied. “That is all for now. Get some rest, then back on the case. Work jointly with Baphor-Ta. Dismissed.”

  Lord Admiral Barrington-Welles watched with relief as they departed. A little brusque, he admitted, but better that than give them the opportunity to wonder about the identity of his agent.

  Chapter 6

  “Damnation!”

  Baron Wilhelm Bellaseus slammed his massive fist against the tabletop, upsetting a wineglass. The ruby liquid spread across the polished mahogany. The delicate crystal rolled toward the edge, teetered, then toppled, smashing into glittering shards against the stone-flagged floor. As the vessel hit the floor, one Naga servant soaked up the spill, another poured a glass of wine, and yet another started sweeping the fragments into a bin with a hand-broom.

  The Baron ignored the destruction, and the actions of those who waited after him. He read again the reports received from Paris and Syrtis Major He crumpled the dispatches, then pulled them apart, tore them in half and crushed them again.

  “Fools!” he muttered.

  He rose suddenly and strode toward the window. The servants, long accustomed to their master’s moods, scurried to silently clear away the uneaten dinner. They were small and quick, these silent servitors, reptilian Nagas imported from the swamps of Venus. Nearly seven feet tall, the Baron towered above them, godlike. They flitted on their appointed errands and tasks, never speaking except to each other in that odd chittering tongue of theirs. The Nagas were the only personal servants the Baron trusted. It was for their benefit that the castle was kept heated to levels almost intolerable to the few other humans in the castle, though such torrid heat did not affect the Baron at all, as he generally felt a chill at all times.

  Baron Bellaseus opened the double-doors and stepped onto the balcony, closing them behind him. It was mid-evening in Central Europe. The sky was filled with glittering diamonds. Looking down the steeps slopes from Castle Bellaseus, he saw the flickering lights of his villages, the oil lamps and candles within the cottages and shops, the torch-lit streets. Whenever he was upset, it helped to survey his domain, the villages contained within this deep circular valley, the small lives he held in his hands, to nurture or to crush.

  No gaslamps gleamed against the night and not a single steam-powered vehicle hissed through the streets. No airship or aethercraft overflew the valley. At the valley’s two passes, his men waited to turn back outsiders, to repel technology by any means.

  In this hereditary realm, time stood still. The villagers lived much the same lives as had their forebears centuries earlier. For the most part, the secrets of technology were his, but there were exceptions, for Baron Wilhelm Bellaseus was not a cruel father to his children. Village doctors were well trained men and women. Though they were not allowed to use modern technology or the latest medicines, they knew their herbs and potions. They were well paid to attend patients and to keep their mouths shut.

  Looking across the bucolic vale, Bellaseus could easily imagine himself ruling tribes of doting peasants more than a thousand years earlier, before the coming of steam, before industrialization crushed the spirit of man and eroded the rule of princes. It was a dream, in a sense, a dream manifested here on a small scale by total control, harsh rules, and an occasional sacrifice or two. It was for their own benefit, he thought, so they would not be burdened with the mantle of power and responsibility.

  What he had done for the people of this valley, he could do for all the peoples of the earth, for all the worlds of the Solar System. The reins of power were not meant to be held by many hands, but by one, by his. Eventually he would bring happiness and peace to all peoples and races. It was for their own good.

  Still unsettled by the reports received from his agents, but feeling much calmer, the Baron returned to his dining room.

  “Prepare a fire in my den,” he commanded.

  The Naga to whom the command had been directed, scurried to complete the task before his master entered the den. Baron Wilhelm smiled. They were quick, intelligent and eager to please. About half as tall as a man, the Nagas resembled nothing less than dinosaurs, and were one of the two dominant races on Venus. The villagers who had seen them called them demons, a misconception the Baron did not correct, for it was helpful for them to think of him as a man who controlled demons.

  By the time the Baron reached his den, a fire was roaring in the hearth and a tumbler of whiskey was by his chair on a side table. He sat in the large wing chair, stared into the flames, sipped at the whiskey, and considered actions to take in response to the messages he had received.

  The Baron was a large man, nearly seven feet tall and very wide, but there was not an ounce of fat on his frame. He could snap a arm or leg bone in half with a single hand. His skin was very pale and totally devoid of hair, including brows and lashes. His eyes were colored like bronze, but little flecks of silver floated in the irises. His mouth was very wide, like that of a shark, and when he grinned, which was not often, he revealed perfect teeth, as white as piano keys and just as regular. After several minutes, he knew what he needed to do.

  He downed the remainder of the whiskey, then went to the complex aether-radio that occupied most of his massive desk. With it he directly controlled the actions of a hundred assassins and spies, covert agents in the employ of MEDUSA, and, by extension, the lives of thousands more, some of whom did not know they worked for MEDUSA, or even know of its existence.

  The most pressing need was to eliminate Marie Poulpe, a task he should have taken care of earlier, but had put off because she seemed to fade from the picture after her initial failure to find the whereabouts of her father. Not only was she back at play in the game, she had used her absence to pry into the workings
of the organization, and was now involved with a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector who was becoming a nuisance in his own right.

  Carefully he tuned in the proper aether vibration, then tapped out a specific attention code. After a moment, the proper response was keyed. He switched to a continuous aether-wave.

  “Agent Eck speaking,” announced a sibilant voice thousands of miles away. “Proceed.”

  “Central speaking,” the Baron replied.

  After a moment: “What are your orders, sir?”

  “Immediately abort your Alexandria assignment,” the Baron instructed. “Proceed to Paris on the next available flight.”

  “Sir, the target is to be eliminated tomorrow,” Eck explained.

  “I realize that,” Baron Bellaseus acknowledged. “Another agent will be given the assignment.”

  The aether-radio was silent for a very long time. The murder of the Egyptian Khedive had been more than a month in the planning, a special project supervised personally by Eck. It was a death that had to happen in specific circumstances to ensure the advancement into positions of power the proper people, all in such a way as to not alarm either the Prime Minister of England or the Sublime Port in Constantinople. Another agent might terminate the Khedive on the morrow, following the plan established by Eck, but the outcome would no longer be certain.

  “I will leave on the first available transport, sir,” the assassin said. “Who is the target?”

  The Baron’s wide mouth stretched into one of his rare grins. Of all the assassins and spies at his disposal as MEDUSA’s spymaster, Eck was the most dependable, efficient and obedient. She was also the most deadly of them.

  The deadliest of the species, the Baron thought.

  “There are two targets, one primary, one secondary,” the Baron explained. “The first is Marie Poulpe.”

  “The daughter of Operative Poulpe?”

  “Yes, but Professor Poulpe is no longer one of our operatives,” the Baron explained.

  Two continents away, Eck said: “I had heard rumors.”

  “You should not heed rumors, Eck,” the Baron cautioned.

  “I never heed rumors,” the assassin assured him, “but I collect them. Professor Poulpe has been…taken care of?”

  “Yes, but not efficiently or prudently, not at all satisfactorily,” the Baron growled. “The termination was not sanctioned. You may ultimately become involved with the settlement of that issue, but, if so, that will be a matter of future concern.”

  “Who is the second target?” Eck asked.

  The Baron smiled. He valued Eck’s ability to remain focused on the present. She never held on to the past, never felt anxiety about the future. She was ever ready for her next assignment, never caught unprepared, always had her ear turned toward sources of information, but never obsessed by what was to come, never swayed by winds of change. It was, of course, a mind-set that left her bereft of vision, robbed her of ambition, but that made the Baron value her service all the more. Eck was absolutely obedient and, more importantly, completely divorced from the internal politics and power struggles within MEDUSA.

  “Your secondary target is Detective Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter of Scotland Yard, currently in Paris, possibly by now in the company of Mlle Poulpe.”

  “Are they to be assassinations or accidents, sir?”

  “Paris can be a very dangerous city,” the Baron murmured.

  “I understand, Baron,” Eck replied.

  “Do you have any questions, Agent Eck?”

  “Not at this time, sir,” the assassin answered. “I shall depart the Alexandria Aerodrome within the half-hour.”

  Baron Bellaseus nodded, even though he knew she could not see him. Not a single question about the matter of the Khedive. She had been removed from the assignment, so it was no longer a matter of concern for her.

  “Very good, Eck,” the Baron said. “Unless situations arise in Paris beyond your ability to cope, no further contact is necessary. I trust you to apply your experience and judgment to the assignment to accomplish it in the most satisfactory manner possible.”

  “As you wish, sir,” Eck acknowledged. “Thank you.”

  “There is one more thing,” the Baron said after a moment.

  “Sir?”

  “During this assignment, you are to follow orders only from me,” he instructed. “No one else. Only me. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Eck replied. “I will only accept orders issued by you. No one but you…no matter what.”

  “Central out,” Baron Bellaseus said.

  “Eck out.”

  The Baron reached for the frequency adjustment control, but he paused and let his arm fall to the desk. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. For a moment, when Eck paused during her last answer, he thought she might be on the verge of saying something else, and he had caught himself on a razor’s edge, fearing what she might say while at the same time reaching for a slender hope.

  You are a fool, the spymaster thought. A foolish old man. The past is dead, and for the sake of all it is best left dead.

  He tuned the machine to another aether vibratory frequency, one which would activate a receiver much farther away. Of course, distance was immaterial when communicating through the aether. Whether transmitter and receiver were separated by a few feet or a few million miles, communication was instantaneous. Due to the pervasive nature of the aether, the colorless and odorless substance that penetrated matter as easily as it did the spaces between the planets, a disturbance in one part of the aether was immediately detectable in all portions of the aether, just as if a stick were being alternately pushed and pulled…when a stick was moved by a person at one end, there was no delay in detecting the movement at the other end, no matter how long the stick. And because two aether-radios seemed almost physically connected during communication, linked by a specific vibration of the aether, it was as secure a form of communication as could be devised.

  After keying the proper alert code, alerting the agents to the identity of the signaler, he again switched to continuous aether-wave and awaited a reply. After too long a wait, he re-transmitted his alert code, then again waited. On the verge of trying a third time, he received a response.

  “Tanaka speaking.”

  “You failed to procure information relating to Poulpe’s work, or to secure the covert laboratory he established.” The Baron’s tone was harsh, unforgiving, and he wondered who might be cringing the most, Tanaka or Zimmer.

  “We did not discover the location of the laboratory before it was found by two British agents from the Admiralty,” Tanaka said.

  “They were not agents, Baron” snapped Zimmer.

  “I know exactly who they are, Captain Robert Folkestone and Sergeant Felix Hand,” the Baron said. “Zimmer, leave the room while I am speaking to Tanaka.”

  “But, Baron…”

  “I shall speak to you later…if necessary.”

  The Baron scowled as he heard unintelligible muttering, sounds of scurrying, and the slamming of a door. If the Baron had had his way, only Zimmer, not necessarily the most capable of the two, but certainly the most loyal, would have been sent alone to bring Poulpe and his work back to Castle Bellaseus. But Tanaka had been assigned by Lord Khallimar as overseer. Though neither man was entirely aware of how their assignments came to be, it was possible Tanaka had at least an inkling of the political currents at play, for the oriental was a man who, when receiving an order, always kept in mind the fortunes of the man issuing the order.

  “I am alone, Baron,” Tanaka said.

  “Why did you not obtain the location of the laboratory directly from Poulpe when you found him and took him captive?”

  “He escaped captivity, and we gave chase,” Tanaka reported. “I was, unfortunately, not the first to catch up with him. I caught up and discovered Zimmer demanding information from Poulpe, the barrel of his revolver against Poulpe’s head.” Tanaka paused in his narration for the duration of a breath, then said: �
�Before I could intervene, Zimmer pulled the trigger.”

  The Baron regretted the almost physical connection between the aether-radios did not allow him to reach through the device and grasp Tanaka by the throat.

  “There was nothing I could do,” Tanaka said after a moment. “It was unfortunate.”

  “Yes, quite unfortunate,” the Baron agreed, his tone betraying annoyance, but none of the animosity he felt against Tanaka. “And the destruction of the warehouse?”

  “We followed the British agents to Poulpe’s laboratory, which would not have been the case had I had a chance to question him,” Tanaka said. “Also, I could have terminated the agents and secured the necessary papers, as well as the laboratory itself, had Zimmer not somehow initiated a self-destruct mechanism Poulpe installed. It was all we could to escape in time with our lives.”

  Worthless though they are, the Baron thought.

  “Blaming others does not negate the responsibility you were delegated,” the Baron pointed out.

  “My abject apologies, but I merely state facts, Baron,” Tanaka replied. “The responsibility for success or failure is mine alone, as you and Lord Khallimar know, but if a mission is endangered due to a misfiring weapon, is it not prudent to mention the defect?” He paused. “To replace the weapon?”

  “Zimmer cannot be replaced, and Lord Khallimar ordered you to work with him.”

  “Yes, honorable Baron, that is so.”

  “But the time may come when it is necessary to eliminate him for the sake of the mission.”

  “I…I believe I understand.”

  “MEDUSA must not be endangered by one man.”

  “Yes, Baron,” Tanaka replied, a tinge of smugness creeping into his tone. “That is true.”

  “MEDUSA is more important than any operative,” the Baron continued. “And your loyalty is first and foremost to MEDUSA, not to any man.”

  “Yes…” A pause of two breaths, then: “Yes, Baron, that is most certainly true. My loyalty is ever to MEDUSA alone.”