Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3)

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

Buckle peered at the bulkhead. “Yes, I do. Someone tapping from the other side.”

  “It is a secret passageway,” Penny chimed in lightly.

  “What?” Buckle asked. “How do you know that?”

  “I am well versed with the blueprints of the seven domes of Atlantis,” Penny replied.

  The sound of scraping metal—a wheel or latch being rotated—rumbled from the bulkhead.

  Sabrina jumped to the bed and grabbed her sword, half-drawing the blade from its sheath.

  “I don’t think it’s assassins,” Buckle said.

  “Why not?” Sabrina asked.

  “Because they came a’ knocking,” Buckle replied. He stepped to the divan where Welly slept. “Welly!”

  Welly remained sound asleep. Buckle kicked the divan. Welly twisted upright into a sitting position, blinking. “What? Sir?”

  “We have visitors,” Buckle whispered, pointing at the chamber wall.

  “Welly peered at the bulkhead. “I don’t see anything. This place is so confusing.”

  “Just get your sword, Ensign,” Sabrina ordered as she hedged forward toward the sound of the turning metal wheels.

  “Sabrina, stand back,” Buckle said. His heart hammered in his chest for now with his senses heightened, he felt he might be in the presence of Elizabeth.

  XXIX

  A FATHER’S DAUGHTER

  A low burst of compressed air hissed from the edges of the hatch, its outline well camouflaged among the ornate decorations on the bulkhead. Buckle took a step forward as the hatch swung open with a burst of light and Lady Julia emerged, looking harried and stern. Behind her Buckle saw a narrow, utilitarian passageway lined with pipes and lit by one thin aether tube.

  “Lady Julia,” Buckle said, “You could have used the front door.”

  “My apologies, but no,” Lady Julia replied. “No one can see me coming to you. The enemy eyes and ears inside Atlantis are many.”

  “Our strongholds have also become hotbeds of assassins and saboteurs,” Buckle said.

  “What do you want?” Sabrina asked, lowering her sword but keeping the bare steel at the ready.

  “I have come to you to explain our condition,” Lady Julia said. “The Founders arrived a full day before you did, blockading our city and threatening our latifundium fields with destruction if we did not accept their ambassadors.”

  “Have you joined with them?” Buckle asked.

  “No,” Lady Julia replied. “But now the Founders have demanded that Atlantis capitulate to their demands. If we refuse, they will attack and attempt to destroy us.”

  “I thought your storied defenses were such that the Founders would fail,” Sabrina said.

  “Yes,” Lady Julia replied. “But our latifundium fields and surface ports are vulnerable. The Founders have already invaded many of our sister islands.”

  “We barely escaped them when they took Vera Cruz,” Buckle said.

  “Where is your father?” Sabrina asked.

  “He and the Praetorian Guard have their hands full right now, arresting conspirators and garnering support so we can dominate the Senate floor in the morning,” Julia said. “Our internal split is dangerous, especially if the powerful Capitolines have secretly joined the Founders.”

  “What of the other Atlantis houses?” Sabrina asked.

  Julia shook her head. “We have called upon our closest gens, the Esquilines, to dispatch their submarine fleet to our assistance. But it appears that the Founders have them under siege as well.”

  “How long do you have to answer the Founders’ ultimatum?” Buckle asked.

  Lady Julia looked at Penny as she spoke. “We have until dawn to respond.”

  “What is the ultimatum?” Buckle asked.

  “We surrender control of all sea trade to the Founders exclusively. We are also required to place our soldiers and sea fleet under Founders command, and we must turn over the secret of the luminiferous aether.”

  “That is one rotten deal,” Sabrina said.

  “It is,” Lady Julia said. “And though we have ordered them away, the Vicar’s submersible is still docked with the city. They claim they’re having some kind of mechanical malfunction and cannot disengage but we believe that there is a high-ranking member of their parliament aboard ready to receive our surrender in the morning.”

  “What do you need from us, Lady Julia?” Buckle asked.

  “I come to you in this way,” Julia said, “inside secret tubes and under shadows, to let you know that I have persuaded my father and our gens to join the Grand Alliance. I cannot speak for the other houses of the now collapsing Atlantean confederation but we Aventines shall prove a most capable and loyal partner to you in this war against the Founders.”

  “Agreed,” Buckle said, offering his hand to Julia, who shook it. He didn’t like the idea of taking sides in an Atlantean civil war but at this point he could not refuse the Aventines. “My zeppelin is not far off. If I can get to it we shall collect some airships from Spartak and be able to come to your aid within two days.”

  “Spartak?” Lady Julia groaned. “They shall not come. They hate us and we hate them.”

  “They must be willing to abide by the spirit of the alliance,” Buckle said. “One must not refuse to support the other.”

  “Ah, to be friends with Spartak?” Lady Julia mused. “That will take some getting used to. But I am afraid there is no way we can sneak you out of Atlantis at the moment—the Founders have us hemmed in. But as I said, we can defend ourselves from anything the Founders might throw at us underwater. We can do them much harm, I assure you. What the First Consul and the Aventine gens need to do now is secure Senatorial commitment to the Grand Alliance and reconfirm our position as the lead gens of all seven domes of Atlantis.”

  “And what of your own rebels?” Buckle asked.

  “We shall deal with the Capitolines and any other traitors on our own,” Lady Julia replied. “Once you make your way back to your own clan you may assure Admiral Balthazar that Atlantis can hold its own as far as the sea goes. We shall both choke off the Founder’s vital sea trade lanes and sink her shipping at catastrophic rates. And when this is all over we shall ask for much of the spoils in return for our participation.”

  “That is something you must work out with the Alliance,” Buckle said.

  Lady Julia nodded. “I shall leave you now. I have ordered our guards to protect you as they would protect the First Consul himself. You shall be safe here tonight.” She looked at Penny Dreadful and her face hardened. “That automaton should be destroyed.”

  “It belongs to me and I shall see to its future,” Buckle said pleasantly.

  “As you desire,” Lady Julia answered. “But you have been warned as many times as you shall be warned.”

  Sabrina sheathed her sword. “Lady Julia, I have a request to make of you.”

  “And what is that, scarlet?” Lady Julia asked.

  “My long lost sister, my twin, is a member of the Vicar’s party,” Sabrina said. “I would like to ask for you to arrange an audience with my sister on my behalf.”

  Lady Julia raised an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, the identical steampiper officer. What good will it do us to have you speak with her?”

  “Someone needs to be talking.” Sabrina replied.

  Lady Julia narrowed her eyes at Sabrina. “The time for talking has passed.”

  “She’s my sister,” Sabrina said.

  Lady Julia turned and put her hand on the hatch handle. “It is against my better judgment but I shall forward your request to the Founders submersible,” Julia said. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Lady Julia,” Sabrina said. “And thank you.”

  “Good night,” Buckle said.

  “Good night, Lady Julia,” Penny Dreadful echoed.

  Lady Julia halted and stared at Penny. “I strongly urge you reconsider our request to turn the automaton over to us for termination.”

  “What is it with you Atlanteans and your little
machines?” Buckle asked, exasperated. “This one has proven nothing but loyal to us, though we have not had it for long.”

  “Not ‘it,’ but ‘she’,” Julia said.

  “What?” Buckle replied.

  “Order the machine to turn itself off, Captain.” Julia said, turning back from the hatchway.

  “Why?” Buckle asked.

  “I don’t want to,” Penny whined.

  “Do it,” Julia repeated to Buckle, more forcefully this time. “And I shall explain to you what that thing actually is.”

  XXX

  THE LIVING MACHINE

  Buckle turned to Penny Dreadful. “Penny, go to sleep.”

  “I don’t wish to,” it replied.

  “You’re already halfway there—please shut down for the night,” Buckle ordered. “That is an order.”

  “As you wish, Captain,” Penny answered in a sullen, disappointed fashion. It folded its metal fingers in front of its waist as its interior gently clicked and rattled. Steam oozed from vents in the back of its torso and thighs and its glowing eyes ebbed weaker and weaker until they went black.

  “It’s shut down,” Buckle said.

  Julia leaned close to Buckle and whispered as if she did not trust that Penny was actually deactivated. “I beg you, Captain Buckle, destroy this thing while you still have a chance.”

  “Is the automaton really so dangerous?” Buckle asked. “This one has proven quite helpful to us, in the short time we have had it in tow.”

  “The machine is a catastrophe waiting to happen,” Julia said gravely. “You must know that it is a child, a real child, or at least it once was.”

  “I knew it,” Sabrina muttered.

  “There is a human child inside that machine?” Buckle asked. “How is that possible?”

  “Yes,” Julia replied. “Or, more accurately, the last remains of a child. One hundred and seventy-four years ago there was a terrible sickness, a plague, which struck one of our colonies, Pontus, the furthest, deepest outpost under the western sea. Every child fell mortally ill and the parents, dying themselves, were desperate to save their children. They turned to their genius inventor, the brilliant but unstable Tarquinus Lombard, descendant of the great inventor and founder of Atlantis, who possessed the brilliance of his mother but also the mental instabilities and torments of his father’s line. Since the plague destroyed the body but not the brain, Tarquinus devised a machine, an automaton, to replace the bodies of the children almost in their entirety with metal, but in a fashion which preserved both the brain and the soul.”

  “So Penny Dreadful is a machine with a child’s brain,” Sabrina said.

  “Yes,” Lady Julia said. “Though there is also some heart and lung tissue in the torso. Tarquinus made his living machines capable of surviving underwater and defending themselves, for the colony was facing extinction and the adults would be gone. Most of the children did not survive the procedure; the two dozen who did were the only ones left after the plague finally wiped out the colony six months later. The Pontus dome was first quarantined, then permanently sealed. No one on the outside knew about the children until twenty-two years later, when a security expedition re-entered the Pontus on a mission to raze it. There was no trace left of the plague so we brought them home and took them in, for they were our children.”

  “Half human, half machine,” Buckle muttered.

  “More machine than human—a living machine,” Julia continued. “The Pontus children were adopted into new Atlantean families but their brain development seemed to be partially arrested, somehow locked into the age in which they had been introduced to the machine. They also displayed an unnatural longevity, so one over one hundred years later all but one were still operating, passed down through Atlantean families from one generation to another. Until, all at once, fifty years ago, almost all of them broke down. The automatons”—she glanced at Penny and lowered her voice even more—“committed murders, mass killings. They tore their relatives to pieces, their families, bloodlines they had known for a century. The senate ordered immediate termination. Most of the automatons submitted willingly but a few ran, escaping into the sea and up onto the surface. It took years for our soldiers to hunt them down.”

  “I have seen the Penny Dreadful in action against your Guardians,” Buckle said. “Your Tarquinus provided the children with lethal attributes.”

  “Tarquinus knew the children would have to fend for themselves,” Julia said. “In the end, all of the Pontus children were destroyed except for two who were never found. And Penny—that is her name, though I don’t know where the ‘Dreadful’ came from, fitting as it is—is one of them. She was a nine-year-old at the time of her salvation, one of the innocents, one of the Pontus children.”

  “And she came back here willingly, after all of that?” Buckle asked.

  “It proves that she is unstable,” Julia said. “Who knows where she has been for the last fifty years? Her violent deterioration is inevitable. She must be destroyed.”

  “She has done nothing to warrant her own termination,” Buckle said.

  “Neither had the others,” Julia said softly. “Until the day came when they murdered everyone who loved and cared for them … and many others. Even Tarquinus knew what he might have done: he recognized the potential for evil in his new, dark science of the living machine. He burned all records of his experiments before he died of plague.”

  Buckle cast a worried glance down the passageway. There something human inside the dangerously equipped metal automaton, the ancient, perhaps on-the-verge-of-madness mind of a child. But he could not kill or abandon her now. Even if there would be a terrible price to pay. He knew that much. “But, in the end, she is still a human child,” he said softly.

  “You are mistaken, Captain,” Lady Julia replied quickly. “As long as she remains here, the manacles stay on. As for our current circumstances, try to get some sleep—the Senate shall convene in emergency session one hour before dawn. We want to bring you to the speaker’s podium as my father makes the announcement that we shall reject the Founders’ aggressions and ally ourselves with you. We need to ratify the decision and turn our full attention to the defense of Atlantis, for I am certain the Founders shall prove true to their word once their ultimatum is rejected and we shall be attacked.”

  “I will stand with you on the Senate floor, of course,” Buckle said.

  “Very good,” Lady Julia answered, swinging back into the hatchway. “Good night.”

  “May I ask something of you?” Buckle said.

  Lady Julia paused, looking at him.

  “I have a sister. She and I are very close, very … connected. I have been looking for her and I feel her presence here, faintly, in a way that I cannot explain. Her name is Elizabeth.”

  “I have no answer for you,” Lady Julia replied. “I can swear to you that there are no Crankshaft citizens other than your company inside the Aventine dome at this time, and I have never heard of your Elizabeth.”

  Buckle nodded. “It is a strange thing then, what I feel in this place.”

  “I hope you find your sister,” Lady Julia said. “Now, good night.”

  “Good night,” Buckle said.

  Lady Julia ducked out of the hatch, pulling it shut behind her with loud clicks of engaging locks and rotating gears.

  XXXI

  ODESSA

  The chamber was plain for an Atlantean one, windowless, with copper pipes lining one wall, hatchways on opposite sides and a large table in the middle carved with leaping dolphins and winding eels. To Sabrina it felt like an interrogation room, though the diffused illumination from the luminiferous aether tubes overhead took the edge off everything. The Praetorians had brought her here without a word and now she waited.

  For Odessa.

  Sabrina wasn’t nervous. At least, she told herself she wasn’t nervous. She had no idea what to expect from her twin sister, wasn’t even sure why she’d asked to see her. They’d been immensely close long
ago. Perhaps Sabrina needed to see if any of their old bond still remained or if Odessa would now prove to be nothing but a stranger to her entirely.

  Beside the table sat two chairs with plain wooden seats. Sabrina took one step toward a chair but stopped herself. She didn’t want to be sitting down when Odessa first came into the room. Sabrina slowly slid her foot back, the leather sole brushing across the metal floor.

  Odessa. Her sister. Sabrina fought her old memories, always tried to avoid dwelling in the happy days before the purge, for that meant dwelling with ghosts. But it was impossible not to fall back into them now. She and her sister were not ghosts.

  Or were they?

  If one vanished from one life and re-emerged into another, did that not make one some kind of ghost?

  Ghosts. As much as one wished to leave them behind they always followed—not like hauntings, necessarily, but more like one’s own shadow, always there but rarely noticed, popping into view at odd moments, arriving with a sound, a smell, the way someone folded their hands, or drifting into the otherworld before sleep. Odessa had been a ghost for Sabrina. One of her most potent memories of her sister was a day with their mother, Chelsea, the first day Isambard had taken the girls outside of the Crystal Palace, or at least one of the first times she could remember being outside.

  ***

  Sabrina and Odessa had been at least seven years of age, riding their ponies at the grand equestrian center inside the city. She remembered her pony named Wren. The girls rode every day under the strict supervision of their instructor, Peter Darling, with either their mother or nanny in attendance. The equestrian center was a large dirt arena with a grandstand where the Founders cavalry would parade for Isambard and the elite families. Lines of thick black smoke, issuing from the factory quarter’s chimneys, streamed endlessly over the high ceiling of dirty glass and wrought iron, resulting in faint stripes of shadow and weak sunlight across the equestrian center floor.

  Sabrina remembered looking up as she rode, the warm body of Wren under her and the depthless, glowing mass of clouds far overhead making her feel like she was floating. She would often forget to keep her little pony on line, which rather miffed old Darling.