Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Sykes, Urias and Mordred are busy surviving,” Gearhead said. “We have to get to the Time Disruptor, but watch out for Lilith.”

  “The cat?”

  “More a demon, to my way of thinking,” Gearhead quipped. All right…” He hesitated. “Say, what’s your name, mate?”

  “Artemus Gordon.”

  “Cor, that’s a mouthful,” Gearhead said. “Let’s get ‘em, Artie!”

  “But it’s…”

  “For England and Saint Gelert!” Gearhead shouted.

  Artemus Gordon leaped over the others, avoiding their slashing teeth. He did his best to keep up with the smaller dog, who ducked under and around the larger animals with enviable ease.

  They almost made it to the machine, came within inches of the cat’s claws, could almost feel Lord Cerberus’ hot breaths in their faces. Gearhead leaped toward the glowing tube atop the device while his new helper menaced Lilith. With Lord Cerberus’ soldiers on the verge of defeat, all Gearhead had to do was stop the machine from activating. He craned his neck and opened his jaws.

  The machine flooded the interior of the church with light. The trilling mixed with Lord Cerberus’ strange maniacal laughter.

  Gearhead hung suspended in time and space. He strained for the tube, but it might as well have been on the Moon. All the other dogs, friend and foe, were also frozen in a bizarre tableau.

  The trilling stopped and the darkness surged back. When the dogs of Otay finally worked up enough courage to enter they found nothing but cold death and an unsolvable mystery that would eventually become myth.

  Chapter 9: Brave New Old World

  1887

  London

  Earth 2

  Levi fell through a void into a world lit by a deep violet glow. Tumbling head over tail, he saw an oddly familiar skyline lit by thousands of flickering lamps.

  Then he plunged into black frigid water.

  He fought his way upward. The chilling water took away his breath. When he broke into the purple twilight he sucked in several lungsful of air. Immediately he turned his attention to his pack.

  “Sunny!” he called, paddling desperately, but unsure in which direction lay the shore. “Yoda! Smokey and Groucho! Where are you? Can you hear me? Sunny!”

  “We’re over here,” the Golden Retriever yelled.

  “This way,” an unfamiliar voice called in the night. “Follow the sound of my voice. You’re not that far from us. Keep coming this way, old fellow.”

  “Let me go!” Yoda shouted in the darkness. “Levi!”

  “Yoda, you won’t help him if you go back in the river,” Sunny advised. “He’s a strong swimmer. He’ll be okay.”

  Levi headed toward his friends, toward the dog who had called, and still did, shouting encouragement from the unseen bank. The tug of the current was strong, but Levi paddled furiously, making headway against it with every sharp thrust of his slightly webbed paws, a heritage of his Dachshund ancestry. The air above the river reeked of oil, sewage and methane.

  Ahead, against a darkening sky, Levi saw a long black mass upon which moved vague shapes. Heartened by the sight, he strove all the harder to attain it. His strength ebbing, he felt slippery mud beneath his paws. He dug into the ooze and floundered up out of the water and onto the shore.

  Sunny and a Bulldog wearing goggles surged toward him out of the darkness. The Golden Retriever grabbed his collar in her strong jaws and, assisted by the other dog, pulled Levi fully out of the freezing river and farther up the bank, where mud gave way to hard-packed dirt. Levi collapsed.

  Sunny pressed the length of her body against his. Her wet and matted fur was evidence that she, too, had fallen into the river, but none of the coldness had penetrated her insulating undercoat. The goggled Bulldog was replaced by a Lakeland Terrier with a small hat. In moments, caught between the warm bodies of the two dogs, Levi felt the coldness recede.

  “Levi, are you okay?” Yoda asked, a tiny whine of concern in his voice. “I was really worried.”

  Levi raised his head, saw the Pomeranian standing in front of him, and fought the urge to laugh. Sunny’s fur was designed to take a good dowsing when retrieving game from water, while Levi’s fur was so short it was hardly worth mentioning, but Yoda’s fur was magnificently thick and wild. Even a slight drizzle was enough to ruin his day. His startling coat was never intended to get damp, much less soaked. His fur at the moment was neither wild nor magnificent, but hung in bedraggled locks close to his body. He quite literally looked like half the dog he had previously been.

  “I’m fine,” Levi said. “It’s takes more than a dunking in the River Thames to do me in.”

  The River…” Yoda did a quick double-take. “The Thames? But that’s in London!”

  “And so are we,” Levi said softly, still weak from his ordeal. “The only thing I don’t know is when we are. It’s the Nineteenth Century, obviously, but the specific year is uncertain.”

  “And just how do you know that?” asked a Bearded Collie. The others stepped aside as he approached.

  Levi forced himself to stand as a show of respect to the dog. He recognized another alpha when he saw one. They approached each other and performed the timeless rituals of recognition.

  Quigley knew the dog was old, but until this encounter at close quarters had not realized just how elderly. His white face and salted fur proclaimed him at least nineteen, but, more than that, Quigley smelled antiquity resting heavily upon the Dachshund-mix. As he had seen in the chapel, the dog was an alpha, but now he had to exert a measure of control to keep from submitting. The Bearded Collie had never met a dog with such a strong aura of authority, such a quiet sense of confidence. This was a dog who led because of who he was, not what he did or said, a natural alpha.

  “I recognized the skyline of London as I fell, the dome of Saint Paul’s, the outline of Tower Bridge,” Levi explained. “But the skyline lacks modern characteristics, such as the London Eye; and Tower Bridge is only partly completed, so we are after 1886, perhaps ’87 or ’88, judging by the level of completion.”

  “It’s 1887,” Quigley confirmed.

  “Keep an eye on Whitechapel,” Yoda quipped.

  “Also, the river traffic is composed of masted ships and steamers, the docks are filled with berthed ships,” Levi continued. “In our time traffic is mostly diesel or small sailing craft, and the Docks have mostly been converted to residential areas.”

  “You saw quite a bit on your tumble-down, didn’t you?” the Bearded Collie remarked.

  “Additionally, though you can’t see them now, thin plumes of smoke from innumerable chimneys were visible against the dusk,” Levi continued.

  “Chim-chim-cheree,” Yoda muttered.

  “Shh,” Sunny cautioned.

  “Those chimneys are part of London’s past, not present, mostly ornamental after the Great Smog of 1952,” Levi said. “As I fell, I noticed the city seemed to be lighted by coal gas, and the scent of methane would confirm that.” He looked up as an airship droned overhead. “That also proves we are not in our present, but it also suggests we may not be in a past exactly like our own, as would the gear your pack wears—goggles, hats, vests and the like.” He paused and grinned amiably. “And I did not see; I observed.”

  A tense silence reigned as the two alphas faced each other. Then Quigley sat down and laughed.

  “What a clever little chap you are,” Quigley said. “We are indeed in London…” He paused and looked Gearhead, who nodded. “We’re back in our London, in 1887, but, as you surmised, perhaps not the past you know.” He regarded Levi with earned admiration. “Quite a keen sniffer you have, and a logical turn of mind, perhaps even a match for a colleague of ours—Toby.”

  Levi frowned as he considered the year and the dog’s name. “Not Toby who sometimes works with a Companion of some note, a certain consulting detective residing on Baker Street?”

  Quigley started with surprise. “ One in the same. Toby is still remembered in your tim
e period? He will be insufferable.”

  “The stories are still avidly read,” Levi said cautiously.

  “Stories?”

  “The tales of a fictional detective named Sherlock Holmes,” Levi said. “A Companion who can never die because he never lived, dwelling in a foggy realm where it is ever eighteen ninety-five.”

  “Fictional?” Quigley barked sharply. “Balderdash!”

  “Perhaps we can discuss this at headquarters, Guv,” Penelope suggested. “It’s freezing, and not all of us have the kind of fur you and the Golden Retriever have.”

  “Quite right,” the Bearded Collie agreed. “Most introductions can wait, but my name is Quigley.”

  “And the dogs of S.T.E.A.M.,” Levi said, looking around.

  Quigley again registered a measure of surprise.

  “I am Levi; we are the Three Dog Detective Agency.”

  Quigley looked at the drenched cats, a bit apart from the dogs, licking their fur clean and watching the English dogs warily.

  “Associates,” Levi explained.

  “What a brave, new world that holds such creatures,” Quigley remarked. “Or perhaps in your time the Bard is not…”

  “I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster,” Levi said, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “But I have not the heart to do battle with him.”

  “Yes, I should have known,” Quigley sighed. “The Bard is not only timeless, but, like the Greeks, had words for everything. Come along, all; Penelope is right—it’s bloody freezing out here.”

  Quigley took the lead and set a fast trot across the London night, with Levi a half-pace back. The others followed in the ragged form of a mixed pack. The two cats, as watchful of the new dogs as they were of them, bounded back and forth, sometimes ahead, often behind, always wary of shadows, as was their nature.

  “This is fascinating,” Artemus Gordon remarked. “And a little frightening, maybe.”

  “Don’t you worry none, Artie,” Gearhead assured him.

  “Actually, it’s Art…”

  “The Guv will get everything sorted out.”

  “Can you believe we time-traveled?” Yoda whispered excitedly to Sunny. “It’s London, 1887, can you believe that?”

  Sunny sniffed the air. “It’s hard not to believe. As Levi said, there’s a scent of methane from the coal gas, but, evidently, London here still has a large horse population.”

  Yoda also sniffed the air. “Oh, I smell what you mean.”

  Once they reached S.T.E.A.M headquarters, food and drink were provided, plus blankets and rugs in front of a fireplace. Levi and Quigley went off to confer. The presence of cats caused some tension, as felines had never before been allowed in the building, but Levi quickly ironed out all the difficulties.

  “Why a problem with cats?” Sunny asked the Lakeland Terrier.

  “Well, they’re cats, aren’t they?” Penelope answered. When she saw Sunny did not understand the obvious, she added: “Cats are too flighty and insensitive to work with Companions, as we do It’s their nature, can’t help themselves, poor dears.”

  “Both Smokey and Groucho are valued associates of the Three Dog Detective Agency,” Sunny explained. “We live with two other cats—Kim and Little Kitty—who interview clients, run a network of informants, and analyze computer data.”

  Penelope shook her head. “All I can say is that cats from your world must be…” She paused. “Computer?”

  “It’s a machine that can store information, compare data sets, and perform math operations,” Sunny said. “Companions invented them. I’m not very technically minded myself.”

  “Perhaps what Companions call a Babbage Machine, though some say ‘Differential Engine’ now,” the Lakeland Terrier said. “Flummery, I call it. Give me a dog’s sensitive nose, sharp ears, and keen eyes over Companion-crafted gadgets any day of the week.”

  Quigley and Levi returned to the common room. The dogs who had been lazing before the fires, trying to drive the chill from their bones, came to attention, adopting the Sphinx Position or, for the females, the Sphinx Lounge. Even the cats spared the dogs a portion of their attention.

  “I’ve checked with the Ministry and it seems we’ve been gone for more than a week,” Quigley said. “All right, quiet down now. I know how it sounds but it’s quite true. In that week, London has been as free of Lord Cerberus as it has been of us. The authorities, naturally enough, assumed we had all perished at the gasworks.”

  “Being outside of time, caught in the Rift, then passing through another warp caused by the Time Disruptor, we did not experience the passage of time in the same way those within the timeline did,” Gearhead said. “What was an hour or two for us was more than a week by their perception. In effect, we jumped over the week.”

  “Really, Gearhead, you need to spend more time with dogs and less with Companions,” Chauncey chided good-naturedly. “Next thing, you’ll be wanting to pull on a pair of trousers.”

  Quigley waited till the chuckles died down. “After speaking to Levi, it seems Lord Cerberus arrived at least a day in advance of us. Gearhead, is it likely Lord Cerberus is here, now? Did he arrive earlier? Will he come later? Have we any waggle room?”

  “Hard to say, Guv,” he admitted. “When the Time Disruptor activated, all of us, including the machine itself, were swept along the currents of time, just as in a swift-flowing river. We managed to stay together, mostly, though some landed in the Thames close to shore, while Levi landed toward the middle, and a good seven or eight minutes later, judging by the splash. If Lord Cerberus and his pack are not already in London, they will be, and soon.”

  “I’ve instructed other S.T.E.A.M. packs to thoroughly search the metropolis for some spoor of the fiend,” Quigley said. “In the week since he vanished from the gasworks, chaos has reigned among the outlaw packs of the East End, which, all in all, is not a bad thing. One of the signs we are watching for is a lessening of that disorder, for it may mean Lord Cerberus has returned and once again has them under his paw.”

  Sergeant Beefsteak raised his old bones from near the fire. “If that is the case, sir, I should return to Scotland Yard.”

  “The C.I.D. has been good enough to approve my request that you be temporarily attached to S.T.E.A.M.,” Quigley said. “At least for the duration of this emergency.”

  Very well,” Beefsteak agreed. “I shall strive to do my best for you and the pack.”

  Quigley nodded approvingly. “I hope that all of you took the opportunity, while Levi and I were conferring, to get acquainted with each other. Eventually we hope to get everyone back to their proper timeline, but it will have to wait until we run Lord Cerberus to ground. That is our prime directive; besides, he apparently still has possession of the Time Disruptor, and nothing is going to get sorted out until we gain control of that infernal machine.”

  “Excuse me,” Yoda said. “But am I the only dog in the room who is thoroughly confused?”

  “Not by a far shot, mate,” Spyro snapped.

  “Too right!” Chauncey agreed.

  “I mean, okay, I’ve listened to what others have been saying,” Yoda continued. “I’ve had a look around, read some of the flyers, and inspected your gear, but I still don’t really know what’s going on. Yes, we’ve traveled in time, we’re back in London of 1887, but Levi said we may not be in our London of 1887. Dogs don’t work as closely with Companions as you do, and, somehow, dogs with steam-powered jet packs and wearing goggles got left out of our history books. I know several dogs who visited England, and they never said anything about an outfit like this.”

  “From what I understand, our world has a different history than your world,” Quigley said.

  Seeing Yoda and Sunny frown, Levi asked: “Do you recall the Star Trek episode ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’?”

  They nodded, though the S.T.E.A.M. dogs looked confused; the cats, not being television watchers, returned to their grooming.

  “When the USS Enterprise of th
e past was thrown to the future, it created a different future because they could not perform certain actions in the past,” Levi explained. “ Some events in these dogs’ past were different than in ours, and it created two timelines, two separate worlds alongside each other.”

  Sunny looked more confused than ever. She watched Star Trek only because Levi and Yoda liked it, and because she could not turn on any shows she liked—her paws were too big to manipulate the remote control with any dexterity. Yoda frowned as he tried to grasp the concept.

  “Is this like the reboot with Nero and the new Kirk?” Yoda asked. “Now Star Trek has two histories, the Original Series and the new adventures?”

  “Yes, you could say that,” Levi admitted. “The old series did not go away, it just…”

  “Like the shows are on two different channels,” Yoda said. “I can watch one or the other, because they both still exist. They have a common history till the point where Nero is thrown into the past after the destruction of the planet Romulus. I get it now!”

  “I’m glad someone does,” Chauncey muttered.

  “I’ll just accept that we’re in a past where things are different,” Sunny said.

  “It’s really very simple, Chauncey,” Gearhead said. “At the University of Berlin, Herr Doktor Max Planck has written a thought experiment in which a German Shepherd in a box may be alive, or dead, or both, proving the possibility of…”

  “Please, Gearhead, you’re going to give me a migraine,” the Bulldog interrupted. “I think I’ll just agree with Sunny.”

  “And, as interesting as it is, it is not our most pressing issue,” Quigley said. “As I said, our first order of business is to find out where Lord Cerberus is and what he is doing.”

  “So, we’re back to where we started,” Spyro moaned.

  “No, not quite,” Quigley countered. “If he has not returned to London, we have an obvious advantage. Even if he is already back in our timeline, we still hold an advantage we did not previously, the sure knowledge that he will once again use the Time Disruptor to breach the barriers between worlds.”