Steampunk International

by Ian Whates

  For a fleeting moment, he considered that his dreams had perhaps led him to create a monster, but the idea was smothered faster than he could say his name. Had it been a dream, after all? Hadn’t the master himself desired to create something unique, something the university men could only dream of?

  The master laughed. Someday he would make a cylinder hat for the Swedish king himself, maybe for the emperors of Russia and Germany, too, because he would be able to. Then everyone would respect him. He was sure of that.

  Anne Leinonen (b. 1973) is a multiple-award-winning, author, tutor, and editor of Finnish science fiction and fantasy. Her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies, and they have won several Atorox awards. Her science fiction novels, such as Viivamaalari (The Line Painter) and Ilottomien ihmisten kylä (The Village), have received considerable critical acclaim, as has the trilogy she wrote in collaboration with Eija Lappalainen, Routasisarukset (The Frost Siblings). In addition to writing YA and adult fiction, she has recently started to work on audio and television drama. Leinonen moves fluently between science fiction and fantasy. Her stories deal with the themes of otherness and unfamiliarity, as well as the problems between a community and the individual.

  Augustine

  J.S. Meresmaa

  Translated by Christina Saarinen

  1.

  To Augustine’s mind, Jacques Gaston’s smile was too broad, and it lingered on his face for no apparent reason.

  A few weeks ago, Uncle Bernard had fallen on the stairs and broken his ankle. The Whittock repair works had just signed a major maintenance agreement with the Giffard-Krebs Corporation, and her uncle, concerned with the extra workload, had hired additional help. Perhaps the job was reason enough for Gaston’s smile, since he had graduated only a few months ago from the mechanic arts program at the Paris Institute of High Technology and unlike many young men his age had found gainful employment.

  Augustine sighed and straightened the stack of plans for Giffard-Krebs’s newest airship. She worked carefully and cautiously; her fingertips were already stinging from two papercuts.

  Augustine dreamed of studying, too, and had once snuck away from her uncle to the centre of the city and visited the institute’s satellite office. The office, noisy and stiflingly hot, was crammed into a stone building behind Sainte-Chapelle and the courthouse. With trembling hands, Augustine had perused the academic catalogues, course schedule, and the entrance exam eligibility criteria. Her age was no barrier; at fifteen she was old enough to meet the requirements of the law. She didn’t dare bring the material back to her uncle’s house, though. If Bernard heard that Augustine wanted to study mechanical engineering and millwrighting at the institute, he would speak of nothing else. She could already imagine the words that would stamp out her dreams: They don’t accept females, and even if they did, certainly not half-deaf ones. So that’s how you plan to waste your inheritance – on an education that won’t do you a bit of good! Why on Earth would anyone hire you? Every school and institute is spewing capable mechanics into the labour market now that machines have populated the roads, skies, and waterways.

  In her uncle’s opinion, Augustine should be grateful that he allowed her to live under his roof, eat at his table, and earn her keep helping in the file room, where she organised plans and did other office work.

  Augustine stuffed the plans into the filing cabinet, rolled down the cabinet door, and started when she noticed Jacques Gaston standing in the doorway. His knuckles were resting on the door frame, so it was possible the young man had knocked. Augustine hadn’t heard.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Jacques said. The big freckles on his nose and cheeks made him look thirteen, but Augustine knew that Jacques was at least twenty-one. Herbert Gaston was an old friend of her uncle’s, and Jacques was Herbert’s youngest son. At first, Augustine had wondered why her uncle had hired an outsider to take his place – and a recent graduate, at that. Then she heard from Nancy, their housekeeper, that during his studies, Jacques had done an apprenticeship at Ridderton & Son, where the world’s first steam-powered flying machine had been developed. Perhaps her uncle thought that Jacques, with his up-to-date knowledge and experience, would have a lot to contribute.

  “It’s okay,” Augustine said. “Did you need something?”

  Jacques let his eyes roam around the file room. The familiar smirk flashed in the corners of his mouth. “Not from here. I was looking for you.”

  Augustine rubbed at the loose skin of her paper cut. “What can I do for you?”

  “Gertrude said you might know where your uncle keeps his private customer registry.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Holmsten mentioned it in passing during our lunch break.”

  Augustine gazed at Jacques’ brown hair, which curled naturally at the ends. He kept it long, and a strand was dangling over his forehead – to say nothing of his neck. Augustine would have liked to find out if his hair felt as soft as it looked. “I don’t know. Bernard is careful with his personal papers.”

  Jacques stepped over the threshold. He leaned against a filing cabinet a few steps away from Augustine, who discretely turned her head so that her good ear was towards Jacques.

  “I had a look at the new contracts last night,” Jacques said. “I know the notary has already been through them, but I wanted to be familiar with them myself now that your uncle has entrusted me with so much responsibility for the Giffard-Kerbs project. I thought it would be useful to go through your uncle’s own notes. It was such a struggle to get the maintenance agreement, with competition being as strong as it is these days. Gertrude thought so, too.”

  Augustine considered asking permission from Bernard, but even the thought of climbing the stairs up to her uncle’s room, with its stench of sweat and morphine stupor, was so unpleasant that she decided to act on her own. And if even Gertrude had given him permission to use the registry, it couldn’t be such a big secret. “All right. I’ll bring it to your desk tomorrow morning.”

  Jacques raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you get it any sooner than that?”

  Augustine shook her head.

  “Well, I suppose I’ll have to make do without it until tomorrow, then.” Jacques raised his hand to make a gentleman’s farewell, which looked a bit ridiculous, since he wasn’t wearing a hat. His smirk lit up his eyes. “Don’t work yourself to exhaustion here, Augustine.”

  Augustine continued standing there for a moment after Jacques was gone. Her cheeks burned at Jacques words – though whether he was praising her or teasing her, she couldn’t be sure.

  After dinner, the work in the office and hall slowed.

  Augustine climbed the circular metal staircase up to the office, pulled a key from her pocket, and went in. She glanced at Gertrude’s desk. The pens stood neatly in their holder, not a single slip of paper lay on the desk, and the cover had been pulled over the typewriter. Gertrude had left for the evening.

  Augustine let out the breath out of her lungs and stepped briskly to the door of Bernard’s office. Light filtered through the blinds covering the window looking onto the shop floor, revealing the outlines of the room’s furniture. Augustine turned the brass doorknob and drew the odour of Bernard’s room into her lungs. Jacques had been working for them for only a week, but already a new scent mingled with the reek of cigars and her uncle’s cologne.

  Augustine moved briskly. She closed the blinds, lit the desk lamp, stepped up to the beechwood cabinet where the cassettes were stored, and fished another smaller key out of her pocket. After dinner, her uncle had received his dose of morphine and fallen asleep as if at the snap of a finger, and Augustine, who had even as a child had learned to observe adults silently and unnoticed, had known where to find the keys. She raised the cabinet’s sliding door, lifted the cigar boxes out of the way, and felt for the place where the cabinet’s bottom could be removed. When she found the screw that jutted slightly from the surface of the cabinet, she knelt
down and tugged gently. The shelf lifted like a lid and revealed a shallow recess in the base of the cabinet. The unmarked cardboard folder felt heavy in her hands.

  Augustine set the folder down on the desk and untied the ribbon. Inside, she found a bundle of papers and, after paging through them for a moment, she realised the customer registry wasn’t all the folder contained. Her heart raced. If her uncle found out, Augustine was in for more than just a lashing: she would need to find herself a new place to live. She glanced at the door and the silent hallway beyond. If she was going to dothis, she would have to go for it now.

  She set the customer register aside and started to look through the rest of the papers. Bank documents, promissory notes, official-looking stamps and seals. Then her eyes fell on a name that was hardly ever heard in this building: Augustine Eleonore Blaise. Her own name.

  A muffled noise in the office made Augustine drop the paper back into the folder. In a panic she gathered the folder and the customer papers into her arms, put out the lamp, and hid behind the desk. She strained to listen with her good ear toward the door, but heard only her own quickened breathing.

  A light went on in the hallway. The thought that Bernard had somehow foreseen her plans flashed through Augustine’s mind – maybe her uncle hadn’t been sleeping as soundly as she had thought. But then she came to her senses. There was no way her uncle could have made it up the office stairs in his cast. Perhaps Gertrude had forgotten something.

  The office door opened. Augustine’s heart pounded. She squeezed the papers against her chest and pulled her knees up under her chin. She closed her eyes. The insides of her lids turned red. Someone had turned on the ceiling light.

  “Augustine?”

  Augustine was so terrified that she didn’t recognise the voice, at first.

  “I see the hem of your dress, Augustine.” Jacques’s voice purred with amusement.

  Augustine clambered to her feet. She clutched the folder against her chest, too timid to look at him.

  “Why on Earth were you hiding?” Jacques placed his hat and top coat on the coatrack beside the door. The smell of the gentlemen’s club – leather, smoke, and self-importance – billowed up around him. “Surely you aren’t doing something forbidden?”

  Even though Augustine was sure he was teasing her, she couldn’t do anything to stop the flush of heat rising to her cheeks. “Uh, I wasn’t –”

  “Is that the registry?” Jacques nodded at the folder and took a step further into the room. He circled around the desk opposite Augustine and plopped into a chair, its springs squeaking. He swung the chair around to face her.

  Augustine squeezed the folder more tightly. “What are you doing here so late?”

  “Working, working. Isn’t that why you’re slaving away here, too?”

  Augustine took a quick glance at the cassette cabinet gaping open in the corner of the room. The cigar boxes and the cover of the secret compartment were strewn on the floor in front of it. Jacques noticed where Augustine was looking. His smile broadened. “I wondered where your uncle kept his cigars.”

  The air in the room was stifling. Augustine pulled the customer registry from between the folder and her thumb and held it out to Jacques. “I promised this in the morning, but you can have it now.”

  Jacques took the bundle of papers and laid it on the table. He didn’t take his gaze off Augustine. “I suspect there’s more to you than your uncle would have us believe.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Augustine shifted her feet. The toes of her shoes were worn. “I’m clumsy, and I don’t always hear what’s said to me.”

  Jacques leaned back in his chair. Augustine couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but she heard the back of the chair creak. “I heard there was an accident when you were a child that damaged your hearing in one ear.”

  “I don’t recall,” Augustine said. “I was young.”

  “Was it the same accident that killed your parents?”

  Augustine stared at Jacques. His expression changed, and he said, “Forgive me! It’s none of my business. I don’t know why I asked.” He stood up from his chair.

  Augustine found it hard to breathe. She turned on her heel and fled from the office. It wasn’t until she reached the circular stairs that she loosened her grip on the folder she had been clutching with both hands and steadied herself on the railing.

  2.

  The engine unit of the airship Goliath, the newest pride and joy of the Giffard-Krebs Corporation, was towed into the shop, accompanied by its convoy.

  Augustine followed the action from the little window in the file room. The men’s voices and the squeal of the tow’s cables rang out in the high-ceilinged shop. Representatives of Giffard-Krebs, dressed in top hats and carrying handsomely carved walking sticks in their gloved hands, moved among the mechanics and shop assistants in their coveralls, navigating the uneven floor and avoiding the greasy machine parts lining the walkways. Jacques walked among them in his short jacket and less expensive hat. Augustine could see his broad smile as he explained their operation to the company bigwigs. Augustine thought back to the question Jacques had posed yesterday, which had struck her in a place more tender than any bruise. Before returning to her uncle’s house, a two-story stone building next door to the workshop, she had hidden the folder in the spare parts room on the far side of the shop floor. If only she had remembered that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to sneak back and recover the folder today. The new engine unit would keep the workers busy late into the night.

  A loud clang shook the shop walls as the tow lowered the engine unit onto a cradle over the grease pit. Two young assistants rushed to secure the cradle locks. Augustine watched them work for a moment before turning with a sigh to the work waiting for her in the file room. If only she could be below, too. There had been articles about the Goliath in all the papers, and she would have liked to see its innovative technology up close.

  Her chest was still clenched with disappointment at lunchtime. The large clock in the shop began to strike, marking the beginning of the break. Augustine opened the large envelope that had most recently arrived from Giffard-Krebs and let the plans spill out onto the table where she would review and organise them.

  Gertrude stepped into the room. “Don’t you plan to stop for lunch at all, Augustine?” Her broad figure filled the doorway. Her hair, pulled high in a bun graced with a few gray wisps, brushed the top of the door frame.

  Augustine didn’t hear exactly what Gertrude said; her bad ear was towards the door. But she had developed the ability to skilfully read situations, expressions, and contexts, so she was able to wave her hand and say: “I’ll eat the sandwich Nancy made me later. I want to have a look at these first.”

  “Bernard wouldn’t see a good thing if it bit him in the nose,” Gertrude said and left.

  This time Augustine heard what she said. A warm feeling pushed aside her despair. Gertrude was the only person who knew about Augustine’s dream to study at the institute. In fact, it was Gertrude who had told Augustine about the Paris Institute of High Technology. Gertrude had noticed her interest in engineering early on, but knew as well as Augustine the reality of the situation: Bernard Whittock wouldn’t in a million years grant permission for Augustine to study a subject like that.

  Jacques’s rash question revived thoughts that had occupied many sleepless nights when Augustine was a child. She realised she was thinking about her father, who, at least according to what she had been told, had been a brilliant engineer. Bernard had never said much about Frederic, leading Augustine to the conclusion that her uncle had never approved of her parents’ marriage. Nancy had confirmed as much: Bernard had hated Frederic. As for the reasons, Augustine could only guess. But perhaps she had inherited her own interest in machines from her father.

  Augustine eyed the plans for Giffard-Krebs’s latest innovation. For a moment, she allowed herself to dwell on the beautiful lines of the engine unit and admired the precision with which
the draftsman had captured the creation on paper. Then she drew a deep breath and returned her attention to the plans, checking that each attachment was in its place and correctly numbered. It would be disastrous if at some critical moment they were unable to locate an important diagram.

  She was running through the checklist she used when reviewing documents when a shadow fell across the doorway.

  She turned to find Jacques Gaston’s eyes shining at her.

  “Augustine, it worked!” He bounded into the room and took her hands in his own. Enthusiasm emanated from him like an entrancing aroma. Augustine blinked. “Mr Roudeaux and Mr Maxwell were extremely impressed with what they saw. They want me to participate in the early phases.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  Jacques smirked. “When they heard I was involved in research at Ridderton, they said they most definitely want to take advantage of my expertise and to have me along in the planning.”

  Augustine looked at Jacques. “Are you planning to leave the position my uncle gave you?” She pulled her hands away. His touch had made her skin tingle, almost to the point of numbness.

  Jacques tossed his hat on top of the filing cabinet and ran his fingers through his hair. “Lord, of course not! If your uncle has any sense, he’ll do what I’ve been laying the groundwork for: The Giffard-Krebs companies have been growing like crazy these past few years, and they want their own maintenance division.”

  Augustine’s mouth fell open. “So you’re saying my uncle should sell us to Giffard-Krebs?”

  “It would be a smart move in these times.” Jacques had grown serious. He sat down on the corner of the table, and Augustine hurried to pull the plans out from under him. Her throat tightened. “Whittock is a relatively small repair shop, and, based on what I’ve seen, it’s one of the best at what it does. But Bernard hasn’t invested enough in updating the equipment or the shop. Giffard-Krebs would offer new workshops and top of the line equipment.”