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

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “Nor I, Captain,” Welly added.

  “She was taken away,” Buckle said. He looked up at the others. “She came to me in a dream—I don’t know how—and she showed me exactly how to reach the docking bay and find her. She is in poor condition. We must get to her. We must.”

  Sabrina turned to Lady Julia. “If this is true then you must not detach the Vicar’s boat. You must keep him secured in place until this mess is settled. One of Admiral Balthazar’s daughters is being held aboard that Founders war machine against her will.”

  “That makes no sense,” Lady Julia grumbled. “What need have they of your sister here?”

  “I don’t know,” Buckle said, standing unsteadily, waving off Welly’s attempt to help him. “As your ally I ask your assistance in her recovery.”

  “I have empathy for your situation, Captain,” Lady Julia replied. “But you shall make no demands of me.”

  Fury surged in Buckle but he recognized it as despair disguised as rage. Elizabeth was so close. Why were the Founders holding her? Had Elizabeth been used as bait? Had the Vicar and his Martians brought her close and allowed her to beseech her own rescue—through some alien-powered mind amplification, surely—in order to lure him in? But, why? What did they need from a Crankshaft airship captain? No. Nothing added up. The Founders boat had arrived hours before Buckle and his contingent did and they would have had no knowledge of his coming nor would have any sane person predicted it. No, Elizabeth was here for a different reason. “Very well, Lady Julia. If you could update me on the situation.”

  Lady Julia took a deep breath. “The Founders tightened the blockade at dawn. One of our submarines has gone missing and two Guardian patrols have not returned from their pickets.”

  “Julia!” Octavian roared from the Neptune archway. “That is enough.”

  Buckle spun to face Octavian and Cressida as they strode into the room. Marius and Horatus walked behind them wearing gold breastplates and helmets, hands tight on the handles of the swords sheathed at their belts—nervous men.

  “The Crankshafts are now our allies, as we all agreed, father,” Lady Julia said. “I do not believe obscuring our condition is the best way to have them help us.”

  Octavian shook his head. “We Aventines keep our own council on military matters. You know this.”

  Buckle noticed a small, fat man strolling in the protected gap between the politicians and the soldiers; he was the shape of a billiard ball and his equally round head was rounded out by a spherical coif of tightly curled brown hair. His white toga swept under a golden sash at his midriff and then hung to his knees like loose drapes, imparting to him the appearance of a small table with an oversized tablecloth; he seemed to float rather than walk even though you could see his sandaled feet scuttling along underneath.

  “It is best to keep one’s mind to one’s self,” the round man growled. “There are traitors among us.” He held one hand out in front of him in a deliberate, theatrical fashion, his small fingers adorned with gold rings. Foppish. Arrogant. Buckle already disliked him intensely. Nero, the Pneumatic Zeppelin’s ballast officer and overbearing performance artist, would love him.

  Lady Julia turned to Buckle. “May I introduce you to Cicero, the Keeper of the Aether.”

  Buckle made a small bow. “Captain Romulus Buckle of the Crankshafts.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Cicero said. But he didn’t mean it.

  Buckle didn’t care. His head swam, reaching for the underpinnings of a desperate plan, a plan to tackle the Founders submersible and rescue Elizabeth.

  “Are you alright, Romulus?” Sabrina whispered. She had moved alongside him, her mouth close to his ear. “How is your head?”

  “I’m fine,” Buckle replied.

  “I would like to state for the record I do not approve of foreign clan members being introduced into Atlantean affairs,” Cicero announced to no one and everyone.

  “It tasks me but we need the Crankshafts with us,” Lady Julia said.

  “Do not allow outsiders to know what we need, Lady Julia,” Cicero snapped.

  Octavian turned his attention to Buckle. “We are heading into an emergency session of the Senate. Once they ratify my motion for Atlantis to join the Grand Alliance your clan must openly assist us in our resistance against the Founders.”

  “We have to get out of here first,” Buckle said.

  “There are escape routes the Founders are unaware of,” Octavian said. “Your mercenary submarine has been salvaged and should be repaired before nightfall. Captain Felix shall get you to your airship if his crew isn’t too drunk to drive her. Cressida, have someone make sure that the crew of the Dart has no more access to stupefying drink.”

  “Yes, First Consul,” Cressida replied.

  Cicero tapped his fingers together. “Of what use to us is this alliance? I don’t believe any of your member clans possess submarines, do they, Captain?”

  “We shall secure the sky,” Buckle said.

  “Oh, Captain, please,” Cicero snarked. “Secure the sky? Your balloons are useless to us down here if this confrontation falls to blows.”

  “The Grand Alliance shall soon apply immense pressure upon the Founders from the north, east and south,” Buckle said. “They’ll be forced to turn their weapons toward us.”

  “Soon?” Cicero asked. “How soon is soon, Captain? Because we are about to be attacked. Are there any Crankshaft airships on their way to us now? No. Of course not. Useless.”

  “It is no matter,” Marius boomed in his deep, commanding voice. “Our defenses shall hold. The seven domes are impenetrable.”

  “Nothing is impenetrable, Master Equitum,” Cicero said. “Except your daughter’s chastity. But then again, perhaps not.”

  Marius reddened. He looked like he was ready to chop Cicero’s head off.

  “You are a royal jackass, Cicero,” Horatus said.

  “Enough!” Octavian said. “I hope you are a decent orator, Captain Buckle. Upon my signal you shall enter the Senate chamber and come to stand at my side. You shall present the Grand Alliance’s offer of alliance to Senate.”

  “For the fools to debate it?” Cicero huffed. “Pah! Just do it. Do what must be done. The Senate is a rubber stamp as it is.”

  “Things must be done correctly, Cicero,” Octavian said. “Especially in times of great duress. Otherwise the entire system breaks down. Remain here, all of you, and I shall send for you. Cicero shall present you on the floor, for as the Keeper of the Aether he carries great import with the Senate.”

  “Of course they listen to me,” Cicero said. “I am the best mind in Atlantis, after all.”

  Octavian led Marius, Horatus and Julia towards the Neptune gate. He pointed at Penny Dreadful as he walked past her. “And keep this living machine out of sight. No one out there wants to see her. How has that thing not been destroyed?”

  Octavian and his entourage disappeared into the passageway. Buckle closed his eyes. Every inch of him ached. He kept seeing Elizabeth in his mind’s eye, her face and shirt ragged with blood. He kept seeing the winged creature, no more than a nightmare shade in the dark chamber, looming up behind her. He opened his eyes.

  “That automaton must be scrapped,” Cicero huffed. “You fools have no idea what your toy is capable of.”

  “We are handling her,” Sabrina replied.

  “Oh, and I suppose you think you’re its mother, don’t you?” Cicero said. “Of course you do.”

  “She is a lovely little thing,” Sabrina said.

  “Until she slices your abdomen open and makes a bow out of your intestines,” Cicero laughed. “That’ll be the abrupt end of your little ‘mothering’ adventure. A sky tramp like you isn’t cut out for mothering as it is.”

  “Just hold it right there, Keeper,” Welly snapped.

  “It’s alright, Welly,” Sabrina said. “I’m sure your mother is quite proud of your manners, Keeper.”

  “My mother gave me the blood of the Lombard line,�
� Cicero replied. “I surpassed the intelligence of my parents at the age of five. That’s what she is proud of, not the ignorant game of ‘manners’.”

  Sabrina gave Cicero a big, lovely smile. “Why don’t you take your manners and shove them up your—”

  “Lieutenant!” Buckle ordered, crossing his arms.

  “Yes, sir?” Sabrina said.

  “A proper move, Captain,” Cicero said. “No one, not even I, wishes to see your pretty officer humiliated.”

  “How about we all stay quiet for a moment?” Buckle asked. He folded his hands behind his back, trying to stretch his arms in a way that might relax the immense tension in his shoulders, but he failed. What he really wanted to do was to draw his sword and wiggle the tip against Cicero’s throat until the man pissed himself, but he kept that urge under control.

  XXXVII

  THE KEEPER OF THE AETHER

  Cicero released a long, bored sigh and eased his portly form onto a large divan. “This shall be a little while. It takes at least twenty minutes for Marius to introduce Octavian, though he might make an exception and abbreviate his list of imaginary accomplishments and titles this one time, considering the dire and impending nature of our circumstances.” Cicero clasped his hands together and his gold rings clinked. Each ring was set with precious stones and the largest, a large golden dolphin, looked too big for his short, pudgy finger. Cicero studied each of the Crankshafts with unkind eyes, like a butterfly collector peering into his killing jar. “Might I ask how a Founders scarlet finds herself among the old Crankshaft pirates?”

  “I am not Founders,” Sabrina said.

  “Your blood is,” Cicero said mildly. He cocked his head. “That crimson-haired trait seems not to exist anywhere else in such powerful expression but among the Founders, which is interesting in itself, really, genetically speaking. Inbreeding creates some brilliant results as well as the undesirable ones, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Sabrina looked at Buckle and grinned.

  “A person is more than the clan they were born to,” Buckle said.

  “Aye,” Welly whispered from the background.

  Cicero glanced at Welly. “Ah, the pipsqueak apprentice squeaks? And so eloquently and vociferously.”

  “I know what those words mean,” Welly said.

  “Of course you do,” Cicero replied as if he hardly cared. “As well as a pimply midshipman adolescent schooled in the northern backwoods might know anything.”

  “I am a man of action, not an eater of cake,” Welly replied, but Cicero wasn’t listening to him anymore. “And my rank is Ensign.”

  “Insulting my crew will get you prickly results,” Buckle said.

  Cicero tapped his temple and looked Buckle. “I see through people and into their deficiencies; it is as if I can scan them microscopically and identify defects in their evolutionary strands. This perceptiveness is both a blessing and a curse. Don’t make me turn my microscope on you, Captain.”

  “How about you turn it on yourself, fish man?” Sabrina asked.

  “I’m afraid you’d find far too many odd bugs on my strands to make sense of it,” Buckle said.

  “Fear not, Captain,” Sabrina said. The Keeper’s insight seems restricted to little more than hair color and insignia pips.”

  “Ah, yes, I have restrained myself because you are guests of the First Consul, but don’t get me wrong, Fawkes-girl!” Cicero laughed, a high-pitched trill both happy and mocking. “I would be thrilled to possess a few bits of your genetics, the ones which would supply me with your head of rich crimson hair. Ah, the partners I might bed with tresses such as that!” He stopped and peered into the falling water in the fountain. “Matters of love and war. Diplomacy is so childishly buggered and transparent. Boring.” He paused, slipping his right forefinger back and forth under the stream flowing from one of the hippocampi, for a moment apparently mesmerized by the gurgling interruptions.

  “You do understand that Atlantis cannot stand alone against the Founders,” Buckle said.

  Cicero continued flicking his finger through the water. “Incorrect. The Founders do not possess sufficient underwater forces to crack Atlantis, as the Master Equitum has already mentioned. The constant circling of the Founders submarines does, I must admit, unsettle me. But then it takes little to unsettle a sensitive stomach like mine.”

  “You must choose a side,” Sabrina pressed. “We all must choose sides.”

  “Or we shall all fall under the sword of the Founders and, if we survive that, be forced into a lifetime of slavery and servitude?” Cicero interjected. “Choice? Ha! Do not speak to me again of choice! We are all prisoners of the original Cycopede we are, our very lives locked into this circus veneer of culture, these Victorian-era aping stereotypes the four original founders used to reconstruct human society from the wreckage that was left after The Storming.”

  “There were three original Founders,” Welly said.

  “There were four,” Cicero muttered under his breath.

  The legend of the mysterious fourth Founder, Buckle knew. But he had never heard of a Cycopede. Was that the same thing as the famed Encyclopedia which each clan historian possessed, the hauntingly incomplete history of the human world before The Storming?

  Cicero leaned back from the fountain, wiping his fingers on the sleeve of his toga. “The reconstruction, the great new society built on a vague memory of the Victorian era, worked, it did, at least, it worked well enough, despite the silliness of much of it. Geeks, I tell you, geeks. Self-aggrandizing anti-social shut-ins playing God. Who better equipped to reconstruct the human experience, eh?” He laughed. “No going back now. And to be honest I do very much like living in the traitor Cassandra Lombard’s underwater amusement park, in this re-engineered, re-imagined Greco-Roman mishmash. And with togas there is no binding underwear.”

  “What the hell is a geek?” Buckle asked.

  “The very people who made this, what we are, what this is!” Cicero waved about the room. “Do you know why this atrium is black? Of course you don’t. The ancient Romans once lived in one-room houses and the walls were always blackened by smoke from the fire. It is amazing what useless tidbits of information survive an apocalypse, eh? ‘Atrium’ is derived from the Latin word for black, which was something like ‘ater.” In later Roman villas the atrium became the area where guests were received, as we do here for the Senate. You see, our reconstruction of ancient society is as accurate as we could make it with the shreds of true history left to us, and knowing such details gives us great pride. As for the all the rest, well, we mimic the form and wing it, just like the Founders did.”

  Buckle stared at Cicero. Whether the Keeper of the Aether was truly brilliant or no more than a witty pretender he could not yet tell; the man’s mind seemed to flip back and forth barely under control. Buckle knew something of the histories of the original Founders and of the clans, of how the Founders rebuilt the ruins of human society to emulate a pre-apocalypse historic era—the steam-powered age of a great empire called Victorian England. He knew how the Founders designed their expanding colonies to emulate other Victorian era model nations, which had resulted in the clan-distinctiveness of the Imperials, Gallowglasses, Spartak, the Tinskins and so on—they were based on mysterious nations of the past with enigmatic, romantic names like Germany, Ireland, Russia and Spain. This was all grammar school lesson material. But what was the Cycopede? And what were geeks?

  Cicero clasped his hands on his belly. “That the original Founders would rebuild human society by reconstructing the base, dirty Victorian era never ceases to astound me. They were given a carte blanche by history. Think of it! An opportunity to remake the world! An opportunity to create a steam-driven utopia! To re-educate humanity to despise violence. And what do they do, those incompetents? They opt for the pretty clothes and the empire-mad European imperialist culture of the 19th century. Damn those fools. Those geeks, arrogant, myopic, ivory tower board gamers. Damn them.”

  Buckle didn
’t understand much of what Cicero had expressed in his final sentence. “Tell me, what are the geeks?” he asked.

  Cicero yawned. “What I would be, I suppose, had I been living three hundred years ago.”

  “Are you suggesting that the world we live in is nothing more than a sham?” Sabrina asked.

  “No, not entirely,” Cicero said. “Human beings are real and our lives are real. Culturally, the whole hastily constructed mess has evolved into its own functioning form, I suppose. We are what we are and the cities we have built, the songs we sing, and the children we have spawned, but our culture is not an organic growth. It’s rather an imperfect reconstruction grafted imperfectly onto a pre-determined framework, like living plants potted on the spokes of a blacksmith’s wheel by people who were neither smithies nor gardeners.”

  “You have difficulty speaking clearly, don’t you,” Sabrina said.

  “Too clearly for you to understand, apparently,” Cicero shot back.

  “Is such not the way to rebuild something?” Welly asked. “To use the best parts of what remains?”

  “Ah, the midshipman voices another opinion,” Cicero sighed.

  “Ensign,” Welly said.

  “That depends upon the quality of the remaining parts,” Cicero said. “We are the phoenix rising from the ashes, eh, as the Founders believe? Humankind reborn from its finest hour? Hardly. Our Victorian rebirth is a return to the horrors of the age of industrialization, of war-worship, social inequality, and the slavery of colonization. One step forward equals two steps back.”

  Buckle eyed Cicero but said nothing. He hoped that the First Consul did not put too much stock in Cicero’s view of the world. But, then again, the First Consul was also fond of decapitating senators and tossing their heads into cauldrons of soup. “Is that what you think of the Snow World, Keeper?” Buckle asked, pulling his pocket watch from his jacket and clicking the stem winder. “Quite the disparaging viewpoint.”

  Cicero waggled his finger at Buckle. “You believe that we are the phoenix, Captain, and in many ways we are. But our phoenix is imperfect. That is to be expected, of course, because we are imperfect descendants of apes or something quite like it. But what divides us is the result of pure stupidity. The Republics and Parliaments, monkey houses that they are, must stand. They must not fall to the tyrants as the Founders’ parliament did long ago. Atlantis is a Republic—currently in a poor condition I admit, but a Republic nonetheless. We are the bastion of the yearnings for the greater good. You and your army of buccaneers must see to it that we do not fall or your lives of shadow-bartering and excess shall become very dark indeed.”