Mechanicals

by Jordan Stratford

  Just then, he looked up to discover that one of the mechanicals had marched towards the control-box. Being this close to an operational, massive mechanical, chuffing and grinding, near set his bowels to water. It was solid, towering, menacing, and this particular iron man, the Dauntless, was armed with cylinder guns the size of rain-barrels. The monster came to a stop, and loomed over the men, its back spewing steam and black exhaust.

  “Gentlemen,” Kendrick grinned broadly. “This is a mechanical of the Eleventh. It is a horse, a cannon, a tower, and a garrison, all in a piece. If you march this up a hill–any hill on God’s green earth–that hill is England. To your mounts, sirs, if you please.”

  SIX

  Billings pulled his coat to fend off the snow, the snow he knew should be falling but wasn’t. The wind was there, though, and scent of snow. But a low black shadow kept the Syracuse streets clear of precipitation.

  From the station Colt had sent him to deliver a number of telegrams. This accomplished, Billings returned scouring the terminus for any sign of his employer. The town’s population of twenty-two thousand was hardly intimidating for a New Yorker, but it seemed that every one of Syracuse’s inhabitants was teeming the station at once. The place was a nexus of salt merchants, canal workers, shipping and rail workers, couriers and vendors. Everywhere the steam and coal-scent of engines, and the maelstrom of travelers excited and exhausted. But most noticeable was the gloom, the skyward gaze of a sizable minority of the throng, and the chatter. Billings looked up to see what all the fuss was about.

  It was an airship. He’d seen airships before, in and out of New York’s harbours, but nothing like this. The vessel was twice as long as any he’d seen; hell, any he’d seen depicted. And there were three of them alongside, which is to say, the one airship was comprised of three massive envelopes, connected by a single gondola the size of a schooner and ensnared by a giant net of steel cables.

  A familiar hand landed hard upon his shoulder.

  “Ain’t that the most goddamn majestic sight you ever took in in your whole life?” asked Colt.

  “I’ve never even heard of its like, Mr. Colt.”

  Colt was pleased at Billings’ awe. “That’s the Celerity, Mr. Billings, and our destination. Found us a carriage and a porter. You’re with me.”

  “Yes sir.” Billings followed Colt into the thick of it, but his eyes kept darting upwards to the impossibility of the Celerity’s scale.

  Some twenty minutes later, their carriage stopped in front of a line of Colt’s men, each with one hand on a sheaf of documents, the other on their hats from the cruel wind. Behind them, the airship had touched ground, and a steady stream of porters kept a pour of provisions into the decks of the thing.

  Colt greeted each businessman in turn, shouting over the wind, signing papers, objecting and berating or hand-shaking enthusiastically, as required. From one he took a long leather gun belt and holster, occupied and obviously quite heavy, handing it to Billings.

  “Mr. Billings! I’ll see you armed in my company. Strap that on. Don’t get to attached, I may need you to hand it over on short notice for promotional purposes if you take my meaning.”

  Billings nodded and began strapping on the six-shooter. He’d never worn a sidearm before, and the thing felt off balance at first, but once he’d snugged the stiff, creaking leather into a tighter cincture, he felt like he was getting the hang of it. His reflex was to draw and admire the nearly three pounds of weapon, but thought better of it. He brushed his palm against the butt of its handle, he hoped casually.

  “Matches,” ordered Colt, and Billings dutifully patted down his pockets until he located a box, and handed them over. Without looking, Colt placed the box behind him, and they were whisked away by a black-coated sycophant.

  A porter had taken their bags and was jogging towards the grounded airship. Colt strode through the remaining men, hunched against the growling wind, and Billings followed, losing his bowler in the process. He caught up to Colt at a trot, who, noticing his secretary’s hatlessness, said “Give him your hat” to the black-suited man next to him. Wordlessly, the man removed his bowler and handed it to Billings, who accepted it with a nod of thanks, and followed Colt up the gangplank as the band of lawyers, accountants, and secretaries fell away, the wind lashing their coat-tails.

  It was the smell of it that caught him first. New varnish, tung oil. The smell of new-worked wood, and carpet wool, and brass polish. Billings thought he could be told the thing had sprung forth whole just twenty minutes ago, and he’d have believed it. The place seemed worked along nautical lines, down the port-holes and speaking-tubes, but in a gentleman’s-club way he could not have imagined. It was the morning’s experience of the luxurious rail car taken to an absurdity.

  The uniformed porter with his bag beckoned him to his stateroom. Billings followed obediently, a little embarrassed at being dumbstruck for the half-dozenth time that day.

  He found the room spartan, but of the best quality. Bed, basin above a slim chest of drawers, a small desk, a port-hole a good foot around, and to his surprise, his own water-closet. The most remarkable thing was that every item that wasn’t metal or ceramic was made of cane, either bent or woven.

  “Cuts down on weight. The rattan. India. Gives us more allowance for cargo.” Colt leaned in the doorway, answering Billings’ unasked question. “Join me in the library, we’ll be away in a moment.”

  “I apologize if I’ve left my wits unpacked, Mr. Colt.”

  “Understood, son. Nobody’s done what we’re about to do. And I must confess to an inappropriate portion of amusement at that thought.” Colt turned and walked up the narrow hall.

  As Billings followed, feeling uncomfortably like a lap dog at Colt’s heels, he found himself suddenly drunk. The world swooned underneath him, and his hands shot out for the bulkhead. Colt laughed. “We’re away!” The two sought to find their air legs en route to the library.

  Once settled, whiskey and unlit cigars in place, they could be mistaken for any two gentlemen at ease in a club, save for the thin brass rail that ran along the bottom third of each bookshelf. Colt found himself satisfied at the gentle swaying of the ship, and the scent of the tobacco he kept bringing to his nose. “We can smoke in here. Nowhere else though.” He reached into a wooden box and struck a match, lighting his cigar and leaning forward to offer the flame to Billings. “Bags up there full of gas. One spark and it’d be one hellacious sight for the ages.” Billings nodded in appreciation of the gravity.

  “We’re about three hundred feet off the ground, I presume. What do you think about that, Billings?”

  “I’m damned impressed, and still a tad witless, to be honest,” Billings replied. “But unless I left my brains on the ground, which is not outside the realm of possibility, believe me, the cargo that you mentioned before, that would be those Russian rifles, yes?”

  “Indeed, son. Five thousand revolving rifles, destined for the Tsar. At ten pounds apiece.”

  Billings did the math. “That’s twenty-five tons. In an airship.”

  “Oh, she’ll take twice that,” offered Colt. “Just didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. Least not ‘til we hear from the Emperor.”

  “You mean the Tsar, Mr. Colt,” corrected Billings.

  “I mean the Emperor, Mr. Billings.”

  Billings was confused, but getting used to it. “So we’re bound for Russia? Over the Atlantic?”

  “No, son, we’re bound for San Francisco. Over the United States and Territories organized and otherwise.” He put down his drink. “How long you figure it’ll take?”

  “By train,” answered Billings, racking his brain for a basis of comparison, “two months? Maybe three?”

  “Across Indian country, mountain passes, connecting trains, schedules.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pirates, cannibals, train-robbers, bogeymen.”

  “No doubt,” replied Billings.

  “Two months by
rail,” said Colt, “and that’s if God’s on your side. As for us, we’re making somewhat better headway. Find your way to that window.” He motioned with his cigar.

  Hesitating, and keeping his feet under him, Billings stood. Three steps to the broad porthole, and he had to stop himself from gasping. Wisps of cloud, rivers no wider than his thumb. Billings saw the world as a bird must; no, as God must.

  Ahead he could discern rail lines, and then a cluster of buildings. Could that be...?

  “Rochester?” Billings was astonished.

  Colt pulled out his pocket watch. “Just about. We’re making seventy-five knots. Eighty-five miles an hour, eight hundred fifty miles in ten hours, or about sixteen hundred miles a day, if we stop for water. Three thousand miles to San Francisco, so we should be there Thursday afternoon, barring the unforeseen.”

  “That’s incredible. This could reshape the world.”

  “And I intend to, Billings. The Celerity can drop five hundred men, with fifty pounds of gear and weapons apiece, anywhere in the Unorganized Territories, in an afternoon. They can be soldiers or settlers, I don’t give a damn which. By this time next year, the entire continent will be pacified. And American.”

  “Can’t see the Mexicans liking that much. The English either, I imagine, what with Canada and all.”

  “Right you are, Mr. Billings. And hence, the aforementioned war. Which I can start, and win, with what you see around you. Manifest destiny beyond a shadow of a goddamn doubt.” Colt punctuated the air between them with his cigar.

  SEVEN

  Eleanor heard a discrete knock on her door, but did not respond. In the gloom of her distress, she had not noticed the winter sun succumb to London’s grey skyline, or that she sat in the dark.

  The doorknob turned, but she had locked it, the key still protruding. There was a click, then another, then a tap. The lock turned, the door opening, and candlelight warmed the room as Avery entered.

  Eleanor was exhausted from weeping. She had wrung every tear from herself, and now felt oddly calm, yet utterly hollow. Even the sight of the hated priest did little to rouse her.

  “I thought I locked that door,” she commented absently.

  “Indeed, you had. I thought I’d bring along a little supper.” And there, on a tray with the candle, a bowl of stew, some bread, and a glass of either wine or sherry, she couldn’t discern which in the light.

  He set the tray on her dresser, and stood tall before her, his hands clasped in front of him.

  “I shall not apologize,” he said flatly.

  “But you owe me such an apology,” she replied wearily. “For capturing me. For imprisoning me here. For torturing me, as you have.” She felt herself rallying, however slightly. “Just yesterday I had a home, a family. Sisters. Friends. My customs and my comforts and my freedom. All these you have cruelly taken from me, for whatever grotesque pleasures I cannot and dare not fathom.” She had rehearsed this particular patch of melodrama for some time, but its delivery seemed to her more pleading than accusatory.

  “I daresay,” he responded after a moment, “that you are correct in this; that you cannot fathom my intentions, their nature or their scope. But these will be apparent to you in time.”

  His expression bordered upon stern. “I shall bring these facts to your attention; you are of a marriageable age, from a merchant family of modest means, granting you modest prospects. Had I been a cloth merchant or a butcher’s son, I could have paid half of what I gave your father as an acceptable dowry, wedded you by nightfall, thrown a brat in you by midnight, and set you up in a dreary house somewhere to a life of darning my socks by dawn.”

  “But such is not my intention. Instead, I shall employ your innate talents, and what my instincts tell me is a rare and exceptional intelligence, in my agency as a gentleman and a servant of God. You will travel. You will speak well, and with authority. You will be presentable, or invisible, as you choose. You will be courted by gallants and officers and fools, or Dukes and Princes, and you can do with them or do away with them as you please. You shall have fine things and pass as a beggar should it suit you. But all of this requires an exercise of capacity which you, in your impulsiveness, presently lack. And to be blunt, Miss Eleanor, I find this display unappealing.”

  She was taken aback by all of this. Somewhere in her head had taken root the idea that she, ultimately, was to be kept for some depraved personal purpose by the clergyman to satisfy some bizarre appetite of which she’d heard in the less olfactorily-favourable corners of the market. Having now banished the thought, she was surprised to find herself slightly disappointed.

  “Then I am sorry, sir, to have thought so ill of you,” she offered meekly.

  “I do not wish, Eleanor, your apology,” Avery rebutted. “Nor do I wish your gratitude, nor your appreciation of your circumstance. Currently, I wish only and shall obtain your cooperation. However, a brief explanation is in order.”

  He sat down on the bed beside her, taking her hand and placing it in her lap in the most avuncular and natural way. His voice softened.

  “Our business brings us to Paris, and you shall accompany me. From there we have, perhaps, a long journey ahead of us. We can store your belongings here, if you like, or I can have them returned to your family. You will need proper attire, allowing for company, climate, and circumstance. Regrettably we do not have time to acquire such prior to our departure, but we will have opportunity to outfit you adequately in Paris. I trust this meets with your approval, and gives you some glimmer of satisfaction.”

  She could scarcely believe it. Paris! In her gazette-fueled imagination it was graceful, palatial, and refined. So unlike London with its ceaseless greys and alleys that stunk of alehouse-piss and sweat. She had heard how Napoleon III had swept aside the crowded and dilapidated districts of poverty to replace them with long, uninterrupted boulevards. Her Paris was of fragrant air and classical facades around which paraded elegant gentlemen and the most fashionable ladies, and she was to about to make its introduction.

  Her voice betrayed her excitement. “You are most kind, and most generous, sir. I should like that very much.”

  “Excellent.” Avery stood. “I do hope you don’t get airsick. I’ll have you knocked up at dawn with breakfast. Our transport leaves abominably early.”

  Airsick? As Avery shut the door behind him, she wondered what he could possibly mean.

  ---

  Eleanor had hardly slept, but the early rising, and dark, rattling carriage ride, had left her tired and achy. Avery seemed miles away as he offered his arm up the gangway onto the airship’s cabin, which had pews in rows like tiny church. There was a brass rail running along the back of each bench, so that once seated passengers could grab hold of the bar in front of them. The entire undertaking struck her as most unglamorous, and the sensation of leaving the earth felt more like being in a rough rowboat than soaring like a cloud.

  As it was, the one small porthole in the cabin was smeared outside with soot from the clamoring engine, and could, if cleaned, only look out upon the overcast upon the glaucous English Channel.

  Fortunately, either because of the hour or the uncomfortable proximity, the thirty or so passengers had collectively embraced silence, punctuated only by the occasional cough, flatulence, and one rather disturbing belch which made her feel rather suddenly queasy. Like a nervous tic, Avery kept checking the dial on his cane-knob, which Eleanor had originally taken to be an eccentrically-placed watch. The priest would crane his neck towards the window, and upon gleaning no discernibly satisfying data, return to minute adjustment to the incised brass rings around the central gauge.

  The crossing was over in just under an hour, and as uneventful as was the process of mooring and landing, she was grateful to be on terra firma once again. Her inaugural adventure in air travel had been disappointingly mundane.

  The train from Calais was arguably even more tedious, with Avery attempting to play some baffling game with a deck of cards.
/>   “Try again,” he said. It was not a request.

  “Four of clubs. Three of diamonds. Six of... spades,” reached Eleanor. This had been going on for about eight minutes, and she was already finding it bothersome.

  “Hearts. Hearts, my child. Again.”

  “Four of clubs. Three of diamonds. Six of hearts. Jack of... bloody hell. Can’t we do something else? This is boring me to tears.”

  He looked sternly at his charge and her adoption of an overly-familiar tone. “This is no game, Eleanor. This is your education. Here.” He gave her the deck. “Cut them, but do kindly do not shuffle them.”

  Rolling her eyes slightly, she did as he asked.

  “Now,” he continued, “if you’d be so kind as to show me the top card...”

  She flipped it over. “Four of diamonds.” Into those three words she distilled her dissatisfaction with this pointless and dreary pastime.

  “Four of diamonds,” the priest repeated. “Four of diamonds. Four of diamonds. Four of diamonds. Alright. Six of spades, nine of spades, Queen of diamonds, three of clubs, eight of hearts...” As he rattled these off, Eleanor raced to keep up with him, flipping through the deck to discover he predicted each one with perfect accuracy.

  “It’s a trick,” she stated. “They’re marked or something, on the back, yeah? And you can tell.”

  “It is a trick, yes,” he replied. “A trick of memory.”

  “No one can do that,” she countered. “There’s, what, fifty cards in a deck.”

  “Fifty-two.”

  “As you say, fifty-two. No one can remember that many things.” She was quite certain that it was a trick of marking, and that Avery was putting her on.