Steampunk International

by Ian Whates

  He drummed clockwork fingers on the rail of the bridge as he surveyed his army spread out below, his great work come to fruition at last. His new body suited him much better. It was on an altogether more human scale and its workings were the most intricate he had ever devised.

  It had been a simple thing for a mind such as Brunel’s – used to planning things with the minutest precision, down to the smallest detail – to evade the authorities, swapping places with the other automaton-engine at Swindon. While his replacement had continued to lead his pursuers a merry dance all the way down to Bristol docks, he had transferred onto the Cheltenham line, and from there made his way, via Birmingham, to Shropshire and the Iron Gorge industrial complex.

  He took in the ranks of giant automata, his Brass Brunels, their stovepipe chimney-hats puffing steam into the smoke-fogged atmosphere that reeked of coal-tar, row after row of the colossal robots, made in his own image, filling the factory floor.

  This place was where the Industrial Revolution had begun before and here was where it would begin anew.

  Magna Britannia would pay for what had been done to him and all those countless other great minds imprisoned within the Vault.

  It was time for the machines to arise. It was time for a new age of steam. It was time for a new Industrial Revolution.

  Jonathan Green is a writer of speculative fiction, with more than seventy books to his name. He has written everything from Fighting Fantasy gamebooks to Doctor Who novels, by way of Sonic the Hedgehog, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Judge Dredd, Robin of Sherwood, and Frostgrave. He is the creator of the Pax Britannia steampunk series for Abaddon Books, and has written eight novels and numerous short stories set within this steampunk universe, featuring the debonair dandy adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver. He is the author of the award-winning, and critically-acclaimed, YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. He also edits and compiles short story anthologies. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathangreen and find out more about his current projects at:

  www.JonathanGreenAuthor.com.

  The Athenian Dinner Party

  Derry O’Dowd

  The butterfly escaped the attentions of the young white cat by hovering above him, before landing on the stone sill of the house at 52 Queen Street, Edinburgh.

  She wore her colours proudly; they mirrored the setting of the sun that could just be discerned behind the castle on the hill: umber, burnt orange, gold and sepia. The butterfly spread her wings and settled by the sash window, which was opened a little to admit the pleasant September evening breeze that recalled summer in its memories.

  Inside the window and through the open curtains was a pleasant Victorian dining-room, high of ceiling, with a decorative rose in its centre from which hung a gas lamp chandelier of bronze with glass cups open as flowers to the sun. An ornately scrolled mirror graced the darkly papered wall above the mantel, where a clock ticked away the sands of time. To the sides were plates of finest bone, decorated in the Chinoiserie style, and a small Turkish rug of bright origins lay before the gently heating fire to catch any tiny embers. Beneath this, another larger rug, softer on the eye, traversed the length and width of the room, covering the deeply patinated wooden floorboards. Bookcases wilted under tomes of medicine and the assorted classics.

  A gleaming mahogany table sat proudly in the centre of the room surrounded by button back chairs, including a carver at the head. A screen stood to one side of the table, a credenza to the other; the curios that sat atop its gleaming surface gave a truth which proclaimed that the gentleman who owned this house was rather out of the ordinary.

  Some Hae Meat

  ‘“Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat and we can eat, and sae the Lord be thankit”,’ declared James Young Simpson in avuncular fashion, running his finger along his clean-shaven upper lip, then through his luxuriant under-chin beard before reaching for his cutlery.

  ‘He admires Robbie Burns so,’ declared his wife Jessie, her beautiful face softened to pretty through the years of childbearing, hair bound up to either side of her head and loosely pinned. An intricate brooch of jet adorned her dress at the breastbone.

  ‘Oh Jessie so fair, I do love you so, could you think to fancy me?’ responded her husband playfully, placing his hand on the lace cuff of her sleeve.

  Marion Sims sat in peaceful reflection before the food, observing the amusing behaviour of the Scottish folk, a small smile tugging the corners of lips as he reached for his silver service.

  ‘Aye, Marion, welcome once again to our home here in Edinburgh, the Athens of the North, named for our great castle on the hill yonder, and our love of Greek literature.’ Simpson gesticulated towards their guest. ‘And this room, nay our Letheon grotto, dedicated to Hypnos and his wing’d son Morpheus, the God of dreams, who enters through gates of ivory and horn.’

  ‘But now Marion “Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care, dish them out their bill o’ fare” your vittels, should I say ambrosia, await.’

  The Celestial Liquid of the Age

  After the meal was cleared, Simpson ambled to the credenza to acquire a treasured memento. Placing the maroon coloured leather container in the centre of the table, he removed a bottle of clear liquid from its safe-keeping within.

  ‘It was in this very grotto that it all began,’ he remarked, holding the bottle to the light. ‘Chloroform, this sweet smelling fluid.’

  ‘We sat around our dining room table with my sister and Captain Petrie the night we first sampled its glory,’ confirmed Jessie, smoothing her silken skirts.

  ‘My parents, and me,’ Agnes declared emphatically.

  ‘And my colleagues Keith and Duncan,’ continued Simpson. ‘Eventually the chloroform anaesthetic was blessed by Queen Victoria herself, her pangs of childbirth defeated. The women of the nation followed suit. ‘More chloroform!’ they cried in exultation.’

  ‘The vapour from the chloroform was so powerful,’ said Jessie, recalling the experiment.

  ‘The first inhalation brought excitement and great mental clarity. We told fantastic tales and thought new scientific methods.’ Simpson nodded his leonine head.

  ‘But I became an angel with poetic zephyrs that transported me,’ Agnes said with wonder, laughing.

  ‘One inhalation led to another, then near disaster, Ring a Ring o’ Roses, and all fell under the mahogany,’ sighed Jessie.

  ‘We had discovered the celestial fluid chloroform, anaesthetic of the age.’ Simpson’s voice was quiet, considered.

  Marion Sims observed intently as the slight, softly spoken man with Carolina in his cadence recited from memory, “The man who emerges with fame, whose mind gropes for lofty ideals, to bring them to light, must first with rigid frugality study his part”.’

  ‘Aha! We have a scholar in our midst.’ Simpson paused, in reflection. ‘An icon of Satyrs perhaps?’ he remarked with some relish. ‘But enough of classics, what say you we open our minds?’ and as he looked around the table, his wife caught his eye.

  ‘No more than five drops of the celestial liquid only, for fear of drowsiness on the floor,’ she said.

  ‘I could dream on a magic carpet,’ Agnes wiggled her toes in her soft slippers.

  ‘Come now Marion, we all espouse the Presbyterian ethic. There is no harm in experimenting with chemicals to seek better physic for our kin-folk,’ Simpson jollied his visitor along. ‘But first, let us make a list of problems to solve before our minds begin a-wandering.’

  In a moment, Jessie declared ‘My, oh my! Just one item penned here for enlightenment but perhaps not suitable for delicate ears,’ she cast a glance in the direction of her niece.

  ‘“When even children lisp the Rights of Man; amid this mighty fuss just let me mention…”’ quoted Simpson to his wife.

  ‘Aye indeed,’ she acknowledged with a nod.

  ‘The rights of Woman merit some attention,’ husband and wife recited together.

  ‘Thank you, my lo
ve,’ said Simpson as Agnes carried a plaster bust to the table from the credenza.

  ‘This effigy is a copy of is the first child born under anaesthesia.’ The dining guests regarded the baby’s cherub lips, eyes closed as if asleep. ‘The poor woman could not deliver as her pelvis was merely one half the expected size. Her first infant was stillborn and delivered piecemeal. With her second pregnancy, she was in obstructed labour with no chance of birthing. The Fates hovered round her life’s thread. I administered the anaesthetic, turned the child, and with excessive struggle extracted the wee bairn feet first,’ he spoke softly, sadly.

  Marion lifted the likeness of the tiny child, noting the substantial concavity on the right side of the baby’s skull. ‘A large indent, pressure on the brain from the narrowed birth channel, fatal. A pitiful outcome,’ he paused. ‘Yes, there is but one item to discuss. The jeopardies of difficult childbirth.’ Sims ran his fingers gently over the baby’s face and returned the bust to the table.

  Gyrus and Sulcus

  Removing the top from the chloroform bottle, Simpson placed a few drops on proffered linen handkerchiefs, and re-stoppered the vial.

  Soon after inhalation. Marion sang in a pleasant tone, ‘The wavy ringlets of her flaxen hair, floating in the summer air, the gentle power of Rosalie the Desert Flower.’

  ‘Luve’s like a Red, Red Rose that’s newly sprung,’ trilled Simpson over the Southern gentleman’s vocals.

  ‘Hush, and let ye be talking childbirth,’ chuckled Jessie in a mock-strong accent.

  ‘Sufficient to frighten your loving niece,’ giggled Agnes.

  The moment passed, elation abounded, and each gyrus and sulcus sparkled in the bilateral hemispheres of Scottish and American brains.

  Automatic Continuous Body Closure

  Simpson trod the room heavily, hands behind his back. Marion stood by the window observing the street scene, passers-by enjoying the evening air before night drew her cloak tightly to display the stellar firmament. A cabby closed his coat against the coolness now apparent, and the butterfly, tired of her sill, flitted into the room.

  ‘Caesareans are dangerous, but your “wee bairn” would have survived the operation. Being Professor of Midwifery you may not favour that surgery.’ Marion turned from the street view to the room.

  ‘Less than one in five mothers survive. Tissue destruction, blood loss, putrefaction of the wound.’ Simpson’s pacing stopped and he faced Marion. ‘But you are aware from your American practice of the perils of caesareans, even in this year of Our Lord 1861.’

  ‘Indeed… I observed a man close his coat there on the street,’ Marion mused as he took his seat. ‘Could we treat the lower belly akin to a coat and devise an open then close method. Lift the baby out of the matrix and close all up again safely, with no fear of copious blood loss?’

  Jessie began to speak, hesitated, and then uttered with conviction, ‘James, ’twas in the Scotsman.’

  ‘Out with it Jessie, I am lost,’ replied her husband, who trod a track through the convolutions of the Turkish rug.

  ‘In America. I kept the news cutting in my sewing box. A man invented an Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure, pulled together with a string.’ Jessie spoke the words over her shoulder as she went to retrieve the article.

  ‘His name was Elias Howe,’ she read on her return.

  ‘Howe? How, what, when, where, why, in what way, by what means?’ mused Marion.

  ‘Ah the quis, quid, quando etcetera of Hermagoras,’ muttered Simpson.

  ‘So, when suturing the wounds of the first Caesarean, fit an Automatic Continuous Body Closure. Pull a clasp or string to “Open Sesame” when the next childbirth is imminent.’ Marion looked to his own belly to demonstrate. ‘Remove the bairn from its cosy nest in the womb. After the birth, close the womb and other structures by a simple tug on the clasp.’

  ‘The man in the moon and his wife would be so happy,’ Agnes said, smiling.

  The Osseus Porta

  ‘You are asthenic are you not, Marion?’ asked Simpson. ‘While I am somewhat less so.’

  ‘Yes, and we both inhaled the same quantity. In truth, another dose of chloroform is required for you, kind sir. I prescribe it thus,’ Marion beamed.

  While Simpson availed of the opportunity to inhale more vapour, Marion spoke with Jessie. ‘I cannot help but observe that stone with pins adherent.’ He gestured towards the sewing box.

  Agnes intervened, ‘Uncle James collects rocks.’ Her cheeks flushed as becomingly pink as her gown.

  ‘An interest in geology and archaeology, he tells me,’ Jessie tutted. ‘The house is burdened, and books of all sorts.’

  ‘Lapis magnes, the Magnesian stone. It is a lodestone, Marion, I presume your awareness. The attractive facility for iron within the nugget was discovered by the ancient Greek tribe that inhabited Magnesia.’ Simpson halted at the burgeoning bookcase to retrieve a favourite tome on that civilisation.

  ‘What if…’ Marion spoke, paused, fingers dancing across the table top. ‘But would it work? For the women of low stature or whose pelvis is as small as you described?’ He closed his fists then brought them close together, knuckles almost touching.

  ‘This is perhaps an American riddle you task us with?’ Simpson looked up from the book which he held in his hands.

  ‘Oh Uncle, do cease and desist,’ Agnes chided him affectionately as only those who hold a close kinship can.

  ‘The bones of the pelvic girdle almost touch at the front but there is a slim cushion of tissue between, the symphysis pubis.’ Marion took his kerchief and inserted it between his closed fists. ‘Like so. Why not incise the slim cushion during the first caesarean. Insert lodestone and a ferrous object and attach to either bony end. The pelvic girdle would be locked in a magnetic embrace. Undo that encirclement to open the pelvis. The infant would escape more easily.’ He moved his fists apart.

  ‘But what is the key to unlock the embrace?’ asked Jessie.

  ‘Your attention, one moment, may I be so bold as to utter words of wisdom?’ Simpson opened the book in his hands. ‘The Greek tribe of Magnetes discovered the loadstone. And here,’ he pointed to the tome, ‘it is written further in Hesiod’s poem The Catalogue of Women, “The sweet-voiced Olympia Muses, they who were the best in those days, loosed their girdles to give birth”. Could it be that those heroic women of ancient Greece opened their pelvic girdles for childbirth? In days so far away?’

  ‘The key, Jessie, there is your answer,’ said Marion, inspired, excited. ‘Far away, Faraday, Michael Faraday. He electrified magnets to increase their power. Apply in this instance and a rock-solid pelvic girdle would result. Undo that electro-magnetic attraction with a retro-current when required. Voilà, a pelvis unlocked, the infant escapes. Electrify the Magnesian stones once more until the next birth.’

  The Dark Olympian

  The gas lights hissed above their heads and Jessie rested her chin on her hand as the American guest wove his story.

  ‘The poor girl was incurable. Her fate was to live as an outcast, abandoned by the father of her stillborn child, unable to continue as a servant in the plantation house, living on scraps. A consequence of her difficult childbirth.’

  ‘A most cruel fate,’ Jessie said, greatly saddened.

  ‘Her urine flowed day and night, the bedding and clothing saturated. The delicate skin of the female parts and thighs was inflamed. Ulcers and blisters were a torment that caused unremitting pain and burning akin to smallpox. The malodour permeated every corner of her room so that her life was one of suffering and disgust.’

  ‘Death would have been preferable,’ remarked Agnes, troubled.

  ‘But patients of this kind never die, they must live and suffer.’ Simpson covered his niece’s hand with his own.

  ‘Untoward and prolonged pressure on the bladder base during a difficult slow birth led to a mortification. The tissue sloughed and an opening between bladder and birth canal larger than a silver dollar allowed urine
to escape unfettered. Anarcha was just a teenager. Many more women in America, here in Europe, Africa and Asia are similarly affected.’ Marion trailed his napkin through his fingers.

  ‘But you are rightly famed as the surgeon who first cured women of those fistulae,’ said Simpson, ‘for which you founded the world’s first hospital for women in New York.’

  ‘A time for healing of the affected tissues before surgery would benefit.’ Marion’s statement posed a query.

  The fire consumed the wood, a cool breeze ruffled the curtain as Jessie slid the sash window shut and turned to speak.

  ‘The wives of Edinburgh make elbow patches for worn out coats. Would a temporary patch in the birth canal suffice?’

  ‘Indeed, a flap of skin interposed as postulated by Jobert, Velpeau and Leroy.’ Simpson faced his wife. ‘But the notion is without success to date.’

  ‘Perhaps the Olympic Muses in whom you delight may yield a reaction,’ spoke Agnes.

  Simpson gazed at the titles as he rummaged through of his beloved books. ‘You, Agnes, are a wonder. So, Jessie, the books that burden our home reveal their beauty.’ Triumphantly, he read, “Galen, de Compositione Pharma-corum book four, 531. Fuscum Olympoinico inscriptum, the Dark Olympic Victor’s Ointment”.’

  Walking back to the table, he offered the book. ‘Marion, for you.’

  ‘Facit ad maximos Dolores, for severe pain,’ Marion read and translated.

  ‘Explain further,’ Simpson urged his guest.

  ‘The ingredients of the ointment are: “Cadmia burnt and washed eight drachma”, with acacia, antimony, aloes, crocus, myrrh, opium, gum, water and an egg. Make a thick paste. Add pomphylox and frankincense,’ recited Marion.

  ‘All the materials are available in our Edinburgh Dispensatory. This paste laid on skin would hold fast and becomes solid,’ Simpson declared.

  ‘Could it be the elbow patch Marion requires to stem the flow of urine?’ Jessie mused.