Thirty Days Later: Steaming Forward: 30 Adventures in Time

by Harry Turtledove

  “Keep your voice down, girl. I forbid you to speak such foolishness. The Archimedean Heart was created as part of a National Academy project. How dare you try to take credit for it?”

  Adelaide gaped at him, spluttering. He gave her arm a shake and she winced.

  “Do you understand what I am saying, Adelaide? You are not the so-called inventor. It is a national project. Do you think it would have been possible without funding from the Academy? Your precious Master Machinist does not work cheaply, you know.” He released her arm with a jerk. Tears filled her eyes but she kept her chin up, refusing to submit.

  “The project may have been funded by the Academy but I am the inventor. I alone did the research and I oversaw the development of the machine,” she said.

  Piorry’s face reddened and without warning, he slapped her. She cried out in surprise.

  “Shut up, you stupid girl. Your wild claims will go no further. If you do not cease with them, I will be forced to take action against you.” He spun on his heel and walked back into the dining chamber. Adelaide raised a hand to her burning cheek as she watched him go. The door clicked shut. She wheeled around and ran down the hallway, tears flowing down her face.

  A woman, dressed in a mannish suit stood in the shadows of the hallway outside the dining room, speaking quietly to a Palace guard. The young man nodded and headed down the hallway. The woman stepped behind a statue and waited. The clocks struck midnight. Piorry exited the dining room in a crowd of nobles and stood shaking hands and exchanging farewells. He watched them disperse then scanned the empty corridor, not seeing the woman in the shadows. He stalked off and the woman watched him leave. A grin split her face.

  “Ha! After the scene I watched earlier, this could be a fine story for the Courant,” she said and followed Piorry. He didn’t look back as he wound his way through the corridors of the Palace, stepping into dark alcoves to avoid the few courtiers and servants still out this late. The woman shadowing him also halted, keeping out of his sight. He approached the laboratory he shared with Adelaide. The door was shut but light shone from underneath. He let himself in and closed the door. The woman tailing him cursed under her breath. She drew closer, stopped at the door and pressed her ear against it. The young Palace guard joined her, his face flushed with excitement.

  Adelaide looked up from her workbench at the sound of the door, glowering when she spotted Piorry. His customary smirk was gone, a fierce grimace in its place. She shivered at the unfamiliar expression. She hadn’t felt intimidated by Piorry since her success with Marie-Ange’s heart transplant, but he looked predatory, dangerous. Neither spoke at first.

  Piorry, with a voice full of malice, broke the silence.

  “I will not have you make me a fool with your absurd claims,” he said. His voice grew low and hard, no longer the smooth courtier. “I am the Royal Physician, not you. I am in charge here.”

  Adelaide raised her chin in defiance.

  “You may be the Royal Physician, but we both know that you had little input on the Archimedean Heart. Have you forgotten how you tried to dissuade me from pursuing its development? And now that it has been shown to be a success, you wish to take the credit from me?” Her voice rose. He moved closer to her, and stood across the workbench glaring.

  “Adelaide, I have warned you repeatedly. I will not tolerate this insubordination.”

  She put her hands on her hips and glared back.

  “I think it’s time I informed Presidente Le Scientist that I am ready to run my own laboratory. I do not need your interference with my work and I refuse to let you take credit for my inventions.”

  Piorry gripped the edge of the workbench and leaned towards her. His eyes were intent and fierce as he ground out, “I forbid you to speak to him. You are under my control and that is where you will stay until I decide otherwise.”

  Adelaide slammed down the instrument she was holding. The air seemed to drain from the room, leaving her flushed and breathless.

  “I refuse! I am tired of pandering to you. You are a charlatan, nothing but a sycophant, and I will no longer keep up this pretense that you are in charge.”

  He straightened, his face whitening with rage. Faster than she would have believed possible, he rounded the bench and grabbed her wrist, yanking it up. She shrieked, eyes wide with fear.

  “Let me go! You are hurting me!”

  “I will do more than hurt you, you insolent girl,” he bellowed. He dragged her over to a large, ornate cabinet and flung open one of its doors. Reaching in, he drew out a brass and silver baton and switched it on. It hummed.

  “What are you doing with that?” Her voice was high and thin, quavering. “Be careful with that. It produces a strong electrical current.”

  He bared his teeth in a malicious smirk.

  “Yes, I know. Strong enough to stop your heart if I pressed it against your chest.” He thrust the baton towards her. She screamed and jerked away, breaking his grip. Picking up her skirts, she dashed towards the door but he was too fast. He grabbed at her dress and yanked her back. She screamed again then shouted,

  “Help! Murder!”

  He pulled harder and she fell to the floor. Dropping to his knees next to her, he pinned her shoulder down with one hand as the other brought the baton to her chest. She grabbed his wrist to stop him. Taking his hand off her shoulder, he backhanded her, slamming her head against the floor. Adelaide closed her eyes for a moment, dizzied, but kept her grip on Piorry’s wrist. With a twist of her torso, she pulled him across her. He tumbled to the ground, sprawling over her. She raised her knee as he fell and he landed hard on it, letting out an Oof.

  The baton clattered away across the wooden floor. His weight was suffocating her but then he struggled up to his knees, looming above her, panting. She scurried backwards, out of reach, and screamed for help again.

  Piorry pulled himself to his feet and grabbed a wrench off the workbench. His face was ugly and mottled-scarlet with exertion. Piorry lunged towards her, snarling, wrench raised above his head. Adelaide tried to rise to her feet but she was trapped, entangled in her petticoats.

  They both jumped at the sound of a crash at the door and turned. A strange woman burst into the room followed by a Palace guard.

  “Aha! There he is, caught in the act!” she said, a triumphant grin on her face. The Palace Guard rushed at Piorry and grabbed the wrench away. Piorry glared at the guard and opened his mouth to speak but the young man spoke first.

  “Monsieur le Professeur, you are arrested in the Name of His Majesty for the attempted murder of this woman,” the guard said, gesturing to Adelaide. Piorry shuddered and dropped his head and the guard shackled his wrists together. Piorry didn’t resist. Adelaide was still struggling to stand up and the woman came forward to assist her.

  “Who are you?” she asked. Adelaide quirked an eyebrow at her.

  That’s an odd question to ask someone who has just survived a murder attempt. And I’ve never seen this woman before.

  “Who are you?” Adelaide replied. The woman smiled, watching the Guard march Piorry out of the room.

  “No-one important,” she said, turning her gaze back to Adelaide and smiling. “Who was that person who tried to kill you?”

  Adelaide looked at the door. He was gone. Her anger drained away and she felt deflated, sad.

  “My mentor, Monsieur le Professeur Piorry. He wanted to steal credit for my invention,” she murmured. “I suppose his ambition overcame his ethics.”

  “Ah, a terrible affliction, one sees it so much here at Court. I still don’t know who you are.”

  Adelaide lifted her head and stared into the woman’s eyes.

  “I am the inventor of the Archimedean Heart.”

  Adventure Realized

  by Emily Thompson

  For the very first time in Vivian Swift’s entire life, she had reached out to something she truly wanted for herself, and doing so overwhelmed her with a sense of her own ability to enforce her will over the
course of her life. She could steer her destiny to follow her own stars, after all.

  When she had followed the address given in Grace’s letter, she’d found herself in a dark alley. The young man at the unassuming door had let her in once she’d shown him the letter, and he then led her into a glamorous secret cafe at the top of the building, where she could see much of New York through the wide windows. The patrons of the cafe appeared to be from everywhere in the world — men in suits and hats or others in robes and turbans, ladies in silks and furs, some carrying weapons and others with watchful eyes and flawless decorum — and the cafe itself was filled with ferns, stoic black birds in tall cages, and wafting, sweet-smelling smoke.

  There she met with the head waiter, who appeared to be a sort of manager for the local Rooks. After hearing her explanations, he accepted her offer to join the Rooks, even though she had no special Sight. Although Vivian had readied herself to abandon her life and all that she knew, she was told that for the moment that would be unnecessary. The Rooks operated all over the world, but New York City was one of their best established locations. Until Vivian rose through the ranks or showed herself to possess special skills in some area, she was asked to remain in New York and work with the Rooks only a few days a week.

  Vivian was surprised to find herself somewhat disappointed by this, but did her best to convince herself that it was nice to not have to leave her home, family, and friends. There wasn’t even any reason for her to break off her engagement to Trevor, nor for her to miss her usual society balls and parties. Surely this was better than being whisked off into unknown oblivion. Surely.

  She completed her basic Rook training — including how to fire a small gun without shooting oneself, which basic operational secrets to keep, when she would be paid for her few weekly hours of work and how to fill out the time sheets — in just a few days. She was then assigned to guard the very same door that she had first approached with Grace’s letter in hand. And now, just a month later, she found herself alone in a dark entry way with a tiny pistol, but without any of her initial enthusiasm.

  Each day she would ask visitors to the cafe for the month’s password phrase, threatening coyly to shoot them if they got it wrong. None of them ever got it wrong, and Vivian was beginning to suspect that she’d forgotten just what she was supposed to do if they did. Nonetheless, the visitors to the secret cafe were frightfully fascinating in themselves.

  Men and women in foreign costumes, with a wide variety in their accents, cultures, and attitudes, appeared at her door, bringing a moment of life and adventure in with them, along with a breath of the chilly air outside. But none of them paused to chat, or to tell her anything of their journeys or experiences. And why would they? To them, Vivian was nothing more than a doorkeeper. Their mysterious and fascinating business was all attended to up in the cafe, atop the tall spiral staircase to her left.

  Vivian looked longingly up the stairs, to the shifting, soft light and gentle murmurs of voices in the cafe above, and gave a sigh. Why did she still even make any effort to dress well, she wondered, glancing down at her lovely purple gown. A knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts.

  She quickly adjusted her purple, turquoise-feathered hat before she opened the door just a crack to find a strikingly elegant and beautiful woman standing outside in the alley. There seemed to be a few other people with her who Vivian couldn’t see well through the gap. As she’d done a thousand times, Vivian pointed the end of her little pistol at the beautiful woman.

  “Password?” Vivian asked, offering a pleasant smile so that the lady might know there were no hard feelings between them, despite the obligatory weapon.

  “What is it, January?” the woman asked of another in the alley with her. Since it was indeed January, the other person must have confirmed so. The woman turned back to Vivian with a charming smile. “Peggotty’s lost another button,” the woman declared in a gentle Russian accent, giving the correct password.

  “Welcome to Hudson’s,” Vivian said, lowering her weapon and opening the door wide. She sighed again inwardly, wondering why she’d really been given a pistol at all. It seemed silly for her to have one, when she never used it.

  A troupe of disparate individuals followed in behind the Russian woman. While two of them looked much the same — both slim young men, ghostly pale, and wearing black — the others with her all looked quite different from each other. There was a blond man dressed in the rugged, earth-toned costume of an adventurer, with sea-green eyes that wouldn’t so much as look at Vivian. A young lady who appeared to be covered in shining copper — or perhaps, she was really a puppet made entirely of clockwork? No, that would be like something out of a fairytale! — walked in holding the arm of one of the pale men in black.

  Most interesting of all, however, was the last member of the group. He was tall and well-built, wearing a white linen suit — far too thin for the weather, Vivian thought — and his skin appeared to be as white as fresh snow. Vivian wondered if this might be a trick of the light, but all the others appeared normal to her. There were also scrawling black tattooed lines covering his hands, his bare scalp, a part of his face, and the bared top of his chest under his unfastened buttons. And as he glanced to her and offered a light smile, Vivian was startled to find that his eyes were fully gold, with no whites or pupils in them. The blond baboon sitting calmly on his shoulder, and wearing a matching linen suit, and a gold monocle over one yellow eye, tipped its tiny straw hat to her politely.

  But just like all the others before them, these remarkable people all vanished up the spiral stairs and left Vivian alone to her wandering thoughts. Vivian leaned back against the wall and let out another sigh. This wasn’t at all what she’d envisioned when she’d decided to join the Rooks. If she’d only wanted to ogle interesting people, she could simply stand outside in the alley and watch them pass by. She longed to speak to them, to ask their stories, to have her own adventures! Surely there was more to being a Rook than guarding a single door. Surely.

  Vivian’s thoughts continued to darken as she listened to the vague sounds from above, and she wondered if she had been nothing but a fool from the very beginning. After all, Grace had a Sight that made her very useful to the Rooks. What skills did Vivian have? She was a society lady, a fiancé to a man she didn’t love nor even really like. She had breeding and connections, but now that she’d opened her mind to her true feeling she found that she thirsted for adventure rather than status.

  In her own world she was well equipped but bored to tears. In the world of the Rooks, she was little use at all. Vivian shook her head, forcing herself not to cry. Surely there was somewhere she could be, something she could do, that would bring her joy and some sense of achievement. Surely.

  With a heavy sigh, Vivian finally realized that the only thing she was truly skilled at was making such absurd wishes. It was in making them come true, however, that her abilities ended. She pulled out a turquoise handkerchief and dabbed at the corner of her eyes before her foolish tears ruined her makeup.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” a voice asked from above on the stairs.

  Vivian felt a blush of embarrassed heat rise to her cheeks as she looked up towards the voice. The man with the snowy-white skin and the baboon on his shoulder, was now hurrying down the stairs to her, his feet remarkably silent on the metal stairs.

  “Yes, yes,” Vivian hurried to answer. “I have something in my eye ….” As she sniffed to keep her nose from dripping, she wondered fearfully if her distress was very evident on her voice.

  “There, there, now,” the man said, his voice deep and soothing, and his words colored by some accent of a faraway land. “You needn’t put on a brave face if you’re upset.”

  “Yes, miss,” the baboon said in a clear and crisp British accent. “Tell us what’s troubling you.”

  Vivian stared at the rather polite, but still, talking baboon in alarm. “Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all,” she muttered dismissively.


  The man held open a hand, asking for hers with an understanding and patient smile. When she relented and took his hand, she found his touch remarkably warm. She looked up into his golden eyes, noting distantly that while many men were no taller than she was, she did have to look up to meet his gaze. Somehow, just being under his attention felt strange, alien, and yet rather soothing.

  “If you won’t tell us what’s troubling you, then let me ask you this,” he said sweetly. “If you could have one wish, what would it be?”

  The baboon sitting on his shoulder glanced to him with a knowing grin. That a baboon might be able to do such a thing confused Vivian for an instant before she considered the man’s question.

  “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied politely.

  “Now now,” the man said with a smile. “Please answer me. Would you wish for a present? For a solution to some ill? Or would you wish to be taken somewhere fantastic?”

  Vivian smiled at his odd questioning. “Somewhere fantastic, you say?” she asked back, jokingly.

  “Of course,” the man said with a wider smile. “Tell me. If you could go anywhere at all, where would you wish to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Vivian said, grinning wickedly. She knew she shouldn’t, but something about the warmth of his hand, his soothing voice, or the absurdity of it all, made it seem like just the right thing to do. “Well,” she said brightly to him, “if I could go anywhere at all, I suppose I’d wish to visit the moon.”

  The man’s smile took on a satisfied warmth, while the baboon gave a delighted tone.

  “As you wish,” the man said, an instant before Vivian felt the ground fall out beneath her.

  Vivian shrieked, reaching out to catch her balance. The man’s hand never left hers for an instant, and she caught herself against his solid form, feeling an arm loop behind her back to hold her steady as the feeling of falling subsided and her feet found solid purchase. Frightened, Vivian looked about to see what had happened, but found that she was no longer in the dark little entryway at all.