Thirty Days Later: Steaming Forward: 30 Adventures in Time

by Harry Turtledove

  In the room behind her, the blue bedspread was rumpled. The wardrobe door stood ajar. A tiny sweeper mechanical bumped, trapped, between a folded-over corner of the rag rug and the rickety wooden desk. The desk, at least, appeared normal, scattered with papers and splattered with ink.

  I reached up to tip my hat and remembered I wasn’t wearing one. “You shouldn’t open the door to just anyone, you know.”

  “An angry mob wouldn’t have bothered to knock. Besides, I’d have smelled the tar and feathers. Or at least the tar.”

  I liked that she could joke. But I didn’t like to see her beaten, cynical, hiding. I was going to make it right.

  “Have you any news?” she asked.

  “Soon.”

  She walked to the window above her desk and looked out. “We’re not leaving San Francisco, are we?” Her tone was flat, defeated. Her brown skirts seemed to fold into the gloom.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Your equipment is loaded on the Navy ship. All I need do is complete the inventory.” That would be more easily accomplished with her assistance, but I didn’t like her moving about the streets. A miasma hung over the boomtown, the San Francisco fog oppressive rather than cooling, and tasting of ash. There was a lot I could protect her from, but angry mobs were unpredictable and dangerous. The town still blamed her for the harbor fire.

  “This must feel like prison,” I said. “No mechanicals to toy with, no workshop, can’t go out. But it won’t last much longer.”

  The rattle of hammers and horse carts, invisible in the fog pressing against the thick glass, seeped beneath the windowsill. Miss Grey touched her fingers to the glass. “I need to go … somewhere.”

  Something in her gesture made me shift my weight, uneasy. “This may cheer you up.” I laid the parcel atop an open book on her desk, and a spring of tension between my shoulders released.

  Twin wrinkles appeared between her brows. With a snick, a knife popped from her sleeve. She cut the strings and returned the knife to its hidden sheath. Unwrapping the paper, she frowned at the engraved metal chest. “I don’t … Where did you find this?”

  “Soldiers retrieved it from what’s left of your workshop.” I’d polished the black from its strange symbols, but the chest smelled of soot and ruin.

  “I’d forgotten about this,” Miss Grey said. “Strange. It should have been in my safe, not lying in the rubble.”

  “What do you want to do with it? Send it to the States by steamship, or carry it with us overland?”

  She frowned. “It’s not mine. A traveler asked me to keep it in my safe for two weeks. But he never returned.”

  “How long ago?”

  “It’s been three months.”

  “The man’s not coming back. Maybe whatever’s inside will indicate where he is or what to do with it.”

  Miss Grey turned the chest over in her hands. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “It’s locked. Can you open it?”

  “Mm.”

  I could have picked the lock but didn’t want to deprive her of the pleasure. It would keep Miss Grey ungainfully employed for at least an hour. “Is there anything else you need?”

  Miss Grey traced her fingers over the lock. “To depart San Francisco as soon as possible.”

  I reached again for my missing hat, bowed, and left, satisfied. If that uncanny box didn’t lift her spirits, nothing would.

  There was the usual chaos in the streets, drunken miners and swearing cart drivers and sailors slipping in the thick mud. A madman crawled on all fours, ranting. “It’s fastened on me. Hollowing me out. Make it stop!”

  Watchful, wary, I walked to the blasted harbor. Burnt and sunken ships protruded from the sand. Planks had been laid over the ruins, stretching to abandoned ships farther out in the bay.

  At the shore, a soldier in blue saluted and led me to a beached rowboat. Another soldier guarded the vessel. I helped shove it into the water and splashed inside. They drove the boat through the mercury waters, the swells gray and seething, to the steamship.

  A rope ladder with wooden rungs hung over one side. I clambered aboard.

  A man waited on deck, his face hidden beneath the hood of his slicker. He held a ledger between gloved hands. Though the captain had told me the man covered himself due to a lab accident, dislike tightened my spine. I like to look a man in the eyes when I’m talking to him.

  “And where is Miss Grey?” His voice scraped, thin and squeezed.

  “Safe.”

  “I do not require her safe. I require her assistance cataloging the items.”

  “I’m here to help catalog.”

  I felt his stare for a long moment. Pivoting, he strode down the wooden deck, his slicker flaring about his knees.

  I followed him into the ship’s hold. Lanterns swung from above, and weird shadows danced across the open crates. The scientist led me through rows of boxes, pointing to the contents of each crate, demanding a response. I didn’t like his attitude, and what I didn’t know, I invented. The man’s response was the same in any case – a hiss, a flick of his pen across the page.

  Finally, we finished.

  “This is not everything, I think,” he rasped, setting my teeth on edge.

  “It’s everything to be shipped. We plan to travel overland to Washington—”

  “I must see it all.”

  “Why?”

  “The US Government—”

  “Has no authority over Miss Grey’s personal effects.”

  “And are mechanicals included in her personal effects?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then I will judge whether I have authority over them.”

  “No, you will not.” Jaw clenched, I turned and strode from the hold.

  Day Two

  “The ship can’t leave until that scientist is satisfied,” the Colonel said. Lamplight glittered off the brass buttons in his blue uniform.

  “He won’t be satisfied until he’s pried through each of Miss Grey’s carpetbags.”

  “Most likely.” Rubbing his knuckles along a blond mutton chop, he leaned back. His chair creaked. The Colonel sighed, grim. “You’ll have to negotiate a truce, Agent Sterling. I haven’t time. This morning a man from that very ship washed up with the tide.”

  “From the steamer?” I asked sharply.

  He nodded. “Drowned, most likely. But his expression ….” His expression grew distant. “Such horror.”

  “Sir?”

  He shook himself. “A sad business. Well, that’s all.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tipping my hat, I took my leave.

  On horseback, I made my way from the Presidio. Night had fallen, fog twisting across a blood moon. Rectangles of light from nearby houses splintered the road. Tinny piano music floated from a distant gaming hell.

  Some instinct made me veer toward the burnt wharf. New buildings were already rising, skeletal in the gloom. At the ruins of Miss Grey’s warehouse, I slowed. A steady scrape and thunk floated from the burnt and broken beams — most likely a two-legged vulture scavenging for metal. I stiffened. It was still Miss Grey’s property, and she had lost enough. I drew breath to urge my horse forward.

  The piano music, the lap of the nearby bay, the scrape-thunk from the ruins, all stopped. A wall of silence descended. Even the jingle of my horse’s harness quieted.

  A shadow glided across the broken beams and mounds of ash.

  And then I smelled it.

  Fear.

  I’ve smelled fear on other men, but Ely, this was the first time I smelled it on myself. And I’ll be damned if I knew why.

  The shadow vanished, and not knowing its location was worse. A clammy vapor brushed past me, prickling my scalp.

  As if released, a wave of sound crashed down. Men shouted. A buggy jingled on a nearby street.

  I slid from my horse and searched the ruins but couldn’t find that damnable shadow. After twenty minutes, I gave up and rode to the boarding house.

  At the door to my room,
I hesitated. That shadow had got my wind up. I walked down the hall to Miss Grey’s room and knocked.

  No response.

  I knocked again. “Miss Grey?”

  She opened the door.

  Haggard smudges bruised the skin beneath the inventor’s unfocused eyes. A hank of brown hair fell loose across the front of her leather waistcoat. It looked like she’d slept in yesterday’s gown. She seemed thinner, shrunken.

  I stepped backward, shocked by her alteration. “Are you all right?”

  The lady swayed. “Perfectly.”

  I strode inside and looked around. The gas lamp was low, and in its flickering shadows I saw the room was no more or less disordered than the day before. The mechanical bumped against the same carpet hillock. “How’d you get on with that box?”

  “I opened it last night,” she said in a dreamy voice.

  “What was inside?”

  “Nothing.” Miss Grey’s shoulders twitched. “And the ship? Are they prepared for departure?”

  I turned my hat in my hands. “I’m afraid not. The government scientist in charge is worried he doesn’t have everything.”

  Eyes glazed, Miss Grey said nothing.

  “I explained your personal items would be traveling overland, but he needs to see them.”

  “He has everything he needs.” She stumbled sideways and banged into her desk. The oil lamp trembled, shadows shooting about the room. Something metallic clanked to the floor, one of her aether guns.

  I’d already confiscated one of these weapons. The government scientist would no doubt want this as well, but the gun would come in handy as we traveled east. Besides, I hadn’t the heart.

  “I’ll take care of the scientist,” I said. “Get some rest.”

  “I am rather tired. Thank you for speaking to the man. I’d prefer no more delays to our journey.”

  I took my leave, struck by the sensation she was already on a treacherous voyage.

  Day Three

  The town reeked of smoke from a thousand woodstoves, cooking dinner. Angry shouts drifted up the darkened street, and I urged my horse to a trot.

  My fist clenched on the reins. That damned scientist had complained to the Army commander, who’d put his booted foot down. I’d wasted another day at the Presidio, arguing and losing. The Army couldn’t allow one of its ships to sit in the harbor indefinitely. Three soldiers had already deserted for the gold fields, plus the one who’d drowned.

  If he had drowned.

  I pulled up short in front of our boarding house. A brawl was in full swing. Men tangled, a body being flung from the knot at random moments. Our landlady, the diminutive Mrs. Watson, stood at the top of the porch steps, a sawed-off shotgun in her hand.

  I waded through the combatants to her. “What happened?”

  “That there man tried to push his way into Miss Grey’s room.” She pointed.

  That-there-man was the government scientist. I rubbed my chin. Now I don’t like six on one, but he was holding his own against the miners. And I didn’t like that he’d tried to bully Miss Grey. “And the other boarders defended her?” That was a good sign. Not all San Franciscans wanted Miss Grey punished.

  “No. That man beat on her door so long and loud, the other boarders got fed up with the racket.”

  “Well, I won’t spoil the fun. Is Miss Grey in her room?”

  Mrs. Watson frowned. “Don’t rightly know. I didn’t see her leave. She never does these days. But she didn’t come down for meals today, and I don’t know how she could have ignored all that banging.”

  I took the stairs two at a time and pounded on Miss Grey’s door.

  It swung open.

  Invisible ants crawled up my spine. I edged into the room. In the dim lantern light, everything appeared as it had yesterday, with one exception: Miss Grey was absent.

  The window, latched from the inside. Wardrobe, empty. I lifted the bed skirt. Miss Grey did not hide beneath it.

  I raced downstairs. Men stumbled inside, lips swollen, blood streaming from noses and foreheads, clothing torn and dusty. No Miss Grey in the parlor, dining room, kitchen. I barreled through the kitchen and outside, to the yard. The privy door hung open.

  Unsettled, I walked down the steps into the muddy yard, nearly decapitating myself with a clothesline. A steam-powered washing machine — another of Miss Grey’s creations — sat, cold and unmoving, near the water pump.

  I paused on the plank walk to the privy. Where the devil could she be? She hadn’t left the boarding house in over a month. The thought that she’d strike out now, in the dark, made no sense. Unless she was on a mission of her …

  The fog parted. Moonlight edged the mist with silver and silhouetted a feminine figure on the roof.

  I gasped. “Miss Grey!”

  The lady stood, unmoving, at the roof’s edge, her hems bleeding over the side.

  “Don’t move!”

  A ladder leaned up against the plank wall. I scrambled up it and onto the roof. “Miss Grey, I’m …” My voice dried in my throat.

  The moonlight turned Miss Grey’s face ghastly, immobile as a Greek statue and frozen in horror. She clutched the metal chest in both hands. Its lid was open.

  “Miss Grey?”

  “I’ve seen them. Unspeakable things,” Miss Grey said, hoarse. “Good God, they’re coming.”

  “Who’s—”

  A winged shadow swept behind the lady.

  “Miss Grey!” I leapt toward her, but the thing knocked us both down. We sprawled on the rooftop.

  I whipped my pistol from its holster. One shot. Two. Three.

  Ely, I hit it. I know I did.

  Claws scrabbling, the creature landed. Its inky wings coalesced behind it. It flowed across the roof like oil, a malignance freezing the blood in my veins. The thing swooped upon the fallen box and snapped it shut. “At last,” it rasped

  My throat tightened. It was the government scientist. “What do you want with that chest?” I rolled, angling myself between that monstrosity and Miss Grey.

  “The world, sir. The world.”

  Blackness flattened us. Fog and stars spun, a whirlwind, and the corruption vanished.

  The Clockwork Writer, Part I

  by Steve DeWinter

  Had I heeded the final message from the clockwork writer, I would look like the mirror image of my twin brother pointing a loaded pistol at my head. Instead I had refused to follow a direct order, was now unarmed, and about to pay the ultimate price for my disobedience.

  My brother’s hand was rock steady as he squeezed the trigger without remorse. I watched in slow motion as the hammer snapped forward a heartbeat before the gun’s discharge would blind me at the same moment the bullet would end my life.

  Thirty Days Earlier

  The attic of the palatial family estate in the country just outside London looked as if no living soul had touched it in two generations. Despite spending every summer at the massive estate in my youth, I couldn’t remember ever setting foot on the stairs leading up to the attic, let alone entering the attic proper before today. Joseph, born two minutes before me to our same mother, seemed more at home in the crowded space, as if he had spent some time up here before. He pointed to a particularly suspicious looking mound under a faded dust cloth.

  “That one,” he said. “That looks like it might be it.”

  “Might be what?” I asked, unsure about touching the dust enshrouded cloth with my clean hands.

  He smiled at me from across the open space. “You’ll see.”

  I shot him a withering look. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “Grandfather made me promise to never tell. But can I help it if you discover it on your own?”

  I sighed heavily. Joseph was always good at keeping secrets. Unlike me. Maybe that’s why he and grandfather became so close that one summer when I lay sick in bed for two months. Joseph never did tell me what they did together while I slowly recovered from the fever. His devilish smile told me mayb
e now I was about to find out.

  I quickly pulled back the dust cloth and sent a plume of particles erupting into the air like a miniature volcano spewing ash. I coughed harshly and blinked away the tears, unable to see more than a few feet across the attic in the sudden dust cloud.

  Joseph waved his hands frantically back and forth, which only resulted in the dust swirling around the stale air with very little of it deciding to accept that gravity existed. “Easy, James. You don’t want to choke us to death before we receive our fortunes.”

  I was about to ask him what he was talking about when the dust settled and the air cleared visibly, revealing a strange wooden boy seated at tiny student desk poised with quill in hand as if ready to write something. It drew my attention to it so rigidly that I nearly forgot the words poised along the edges of my lips and stared at it in silence. Through an open panel on the side of the tiny desk that had sprung open from disrepair I could see rusted old gears and springs.

  Joseph leaned in beside me and smiled at the tiny figure. “Hello again.”

  The mechanical boy jerked and we both jumped back. I’m not too ashamed to admit I yelled out in surprise. The boy dipped his quill into the inkwell and then scraped the pen across the top of the desk. The inkwell had dried up long ago. And without any paper to write on he ended up giving us his message in the dust that had only recently settled on the desk. The same dust I had unceremoniously tossed into the air with the canvas dust cloth to reveal this strange contraption.

  When he was done, he settled back into the position I had first seen him. Joseph, always the more brazen of the two of us, moved closer and twisted his head to read the message scrawled in the dust. Keeping my distance, I met my brother’s confused expression with one of my own. “What does it say?” I asked tentatively.

  His eyebrows met at the middle of his forehead. “Paper and ink.”