Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit

by Shelley Adina

  *

  Lady,

  Claude and I are in Baie des Sirenes, France, along with a dozen navires bearing troops of bathynauts set to invade England and Prussia for the Bourbon King. They are armed and led by Gerald Meriwether-Astor, and plan to deploy huge war machines called Kingmakers in Cornwall and Jutland. I intend to scuttle this one on the way across before it lands on Grandfather’s beach. You must send a pigeon immediately to Uncle Ferdinand and tell him about the other one. Claude is safe—he is being spirited away to Venice by my family here.

  I am so happy to know my real family and my real name: Marguerite Marie Polgarth. But you and Lizzie are the family of my heart. I love you both.

  You must marry Mr. Malvern, Lady. He loves you. Name your first daughter after me, and tell Lizzie I expect that statue in the town square.

  With all my love,

  Maggie

  30

  Slowly, ponderously, the Kingmaker’s enormous weight bore it toward the sea floor, pushing all before it. Maggie clung to Serge, watching unblinkingly as the monster thrust them ahead of it. How many moments of life did they have left before they were crushed? How deep was the Channel here?

  A shadow darkened one side of the glass, and Maggie watched in wonder as Neptune’s Fury spiraled past them, huge air bubbles trailing it like a bridal veil as the water rushed into the navire’s decks and crushed the life from the fuselage.

  She sent up a quick prayer for the souls of the men aboard, as misguided as they had been, and thought of Jean-Luc Martin, that cheerful flirt who had been so helpful to the young woman he believed to be Gloria Meriwether-Astor. Where was Neptune’s Maid at this moment? What would happen to the rest of the undersea fleet when they learned of the fate of their greatest hope, the Kingmaker? Was Gerald Meriwether-Astor even on that ship? And most important of all, had her message reached the Royal Aeronautics Corps outpost in time for them to mount a defense?

  Serge’s arm tightened about her shoulders and she felt him stiffen, preparing himself for the worst as the Kingmaker began to roll. His lips moved in a soundless prayer—Maggie braced herself likewise—

  —Lord have mercy on my soul—

  —oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, think of me—

  —and a massive bubble issued from the cockpit of the armed fortress, slowly rotating as its heavier weight bore the behemoth to the bottom. The bubble caught them—lifted them—and spat them out to the side.

  Maggie and Serge lost their balance as the chaloupe rolled. The floor became the ceiling, and Maggie snatched at whatever protruding instruments she could, to no avail. They were flung like dolls from one side to the other until the air within triumphed over the water without, and the chaloupe righted itself, glass side up.

  Serge dragged himself from the curved wall, blood trickling down the side of his face, one arm held tightly to his body in pain. “We must surface as quickly as possible.”

  On hands and knees, hardly able to believe she was alive, Maggie gasped, “But we will be discovered!”

  “It matters not. If Fury did not get off a distress signal to the fleet, they will proceed as planned. If they did, the fleet will be in the disarray absolute. In either case, they will not be surfacing in the middle of the Channel. It is the safest place for us.”

  Maggie sucked in a breath of pain as she picked herself up from the deck. A quick catalogue of arms and legs proved that all were still operational, though her head hurt and it seemed her leather corselet may have protected her from a possible broken rib. The bruising was going to be ugly, though.

  But these hurts were nothing in comparison to the horrific death they had been saved from by a bubble, of all things. Maggie would take the bruises and cuts and be grateful for them.

  Serge increased the air pressure just enough to send them shooting to the surface. Seawater sheeted from the glass and cleared, leaving them a view of stars and moon gazing calmly down from far above.

  Maggie had never seen anything so lovely in all her life.

  “May we open the glass?” If she could only take one breath of fresh air, she would never ask anything of the universe again.

  Serge shook his head, pain clearly stripping him of the energy for civilities. “We will be swamped. The pumps will keep us in air until we are rescued, which is all we may hope for without the ability to make way.”

  “How long will that be?”

  He gave a most Gallic shrug of one shoulder. “If we are lucky, sometime tomorrow. But I should prepare myself, ma petite. On the French side, all will be focused on the invasion. To the north, England will leap to its own defense. No one will be looking for une petite chaloupe bobbing in the middle of the Channel. The tides will take us where they will—and we must pray that it is east and not west.” He stopped, out of breath, and folded himself to the deck to recover.

  It took a second for Maggie to understand what he meant. The tides could sweep them toward Dover, like a cork in a funnel, where they might make landfall. Or they could be borne westward, out into the Atlantic, where they and their disabled vessel would be lost.

  She swallowed, attempting to moisten a mouth gone dry. “Can we repair the rudder? I could go out and attempt to bend it back. I am a very good swimmer.”

  “It is solid iron, ma petite. Even I would not be able to do it without a forge and tools.”

  “Serge, there must be something we can do to help ourselves.”

  But he did not answer.

  Catalogue your resources, and then use your imagination, Maggie.

  Right. They had no rudder, but they had propulsion, and air. Perhaps if they could get the chaloupe pointed north and east, they could assist the flow of the tide—or resist it if it went the wrong way.

  But which way was east?

  She could see no shore—the Channel here was a hundred and fifty miles across. The moon was up, but what time was it? Where was north, exactly?

  “Serge, you are a bathynaut—help me!” Rapidly, she outlined what was in her mind.

  He did not respond.

  “Serge?” Alarmed, she shook his shoulder. “Serge!”

  His face had gone pasty white, and he was unconscious. The blows he had taken were obviously more serious than either of them had thought. What if he had gone into shock? There wasn’t so much as a blanket in here, and the canvas equipment bags were torn and ruined from having been flung about during their ascent.

  Maggie whipped off her practical brown skirt, thankful for the black ruffled petticoat underneath, and covered him with the length of tightly woven gabardine wool. The deck upon which he lay was wet, which would not help the situation, but she tried to tuck as much of the skirt under him as possible. Then she stuffed canvas under his head and heels.

  When she had done what she could, she took stock. The undersea fleet would not come for them—unless it was to shoot them out of the water for ruining their plans. The aeronauts on St. Michael’s Mount would have their hands full. Mariah and the other members of the resistance were occupied in securing the sea caves and seeing Claude to safety.

  If the pigeon had flown true, only one person remained who knew where Maggie was and what she was doing.

  Only one person would not give up until she was found.

  Maggie tried to imagine the sea from above, with the moon shining down, creating a path of wrinkled silver. The chaloupe would be invisible—its glass top as transparent as the bubble from which it took its design.

  What did the sea creatures do to be seen? What had been the first thing she had noticed about Neptune’s Maid when it surfaced?

  Its eerie greenish-yellow glow.

  Maggie leaped to the chaloupe’s simple control panel. Lights. She must have lights. She must create the world’s largest moonglobe so that they would be seen from above—a tiny beacon in all this vast ocean.

  She flipped levers and pressed buttons—most of which were no longer capable of responding. One of them began to open the glass top, splitting along its brass seam,
and Maggie hastily pushed it the other way before the waves sloshed in and swamped them.

  Nothing seemed to activate the lights.

  Think!

  The path of energy was being blocked somehow, after all their acrobatics below. Therefore, she would have to take it from elsewhere. Propulsion was useless without Serge’s knowledge of navigation. They did not need it—so she could reroute what power they still had from the engine to the lights.

  Maggie snatched a moonglobe from the navigator’s station and dove under the control console. Gears and cogs and a small rotating shaft … move this wheel … switch the pressure and direction from here to here … the gears meshed in their new pattern and behind Maggie’s shoulder, light glowed.

  She increased the power with the propulsion lever and the interior of the chaloupe became illuminated with a yellowish-green light. Stronger it grew, until she could see everything inside clearly and in detail.

  Including poor Serge’s face. He looked dreadful—as though he were not merely unconscious, but dead.

  No, she could not think such things. They would be found in time. They had to be.

  They had no propulsion at all, and were utterly at the mercy of wind and waves, but Maggie was quite sure that the little chaloupe could now be seen from the Lizard to Dover.

  That is, if anyone was out there looking.

  31

  “This is an impossible task,” Michael Polgarth murmured in falling tones of despair.

  “It is not!” Lizzie snapped. “Our Maggie will have thought of a way to save herself.”

  “But you said she wrote a letter of farewell,” Michael said. He and Lizzie were pressed against the viewing port, watching the sea below as though they expected at any moment to see a swimmer surface and wave her arms.

  “She did, but that does not mean anything,” Lizzie said stoutly. “She was merely being prudent—most of it was military instructions.”

  Claire, at the helm, resisted the urge to touch the letter in her pocket. She and Lizzie were the only ones with knowledge of its contents—and for the sake of the last two paragraphs, Claire was not willing to share it with either of the two gentlemen aboard.

  The pigeon bearing the news of the invasion was already well on its way to Schloss Schwanenburg. Claire did not have any more information than what Maggie had dashed off in what was clearly a hurry, but details were not necessary. Once the count mobilized the Prussian fleet and they got their first look at the Kingmaker, it would become clear enough what their plan of action must be.

  As though Michael’s thoughts had taken the same path, he said, “And this Count von Zeppelin will leap into action on the word of a sixteen-year-old girl?”

  “We are not talking about just any sixteen-year-old girl, Mr. Polgarth,” Claire said with some asperity.

  “I know Maggie is a young lady of spirit and talent, but I cannot imagine that—”

  “We helped to save his life on more than one occasion, Mr. Polgarth,” Lizzie informed him crisply. “If the count receives a message from any one of us saying that immediate action of any kind is necessary, he will not hesitate. He will act, and ask questions later.”

  Michael Polgarth’s astonishment at these revelations about his cousin silenced him, and Andrew, bent over the navigation charts, straightened with a smile. “You will learn, upon further acquaintance with Maggie and our friends, not to underestimate the effect that one woman can have upon the world.”

  “As might anyone who is a subject of our most glorious Queen,” Claire reminded them. “Now, gentlemen, we have reached an altitude above which I dare not go. It is a tricky balance between being high enough to have an effective field of view, and being low enough to see a person signaling for help.”

  A hundred and fifty miles of water. Oh, Maggie.

  Claire fought against despair herself—she must not let it overwhelm her. She needed all her faculties and resources of optimism to face the task at hand—plying the skies above the Channel in hopes of seeing a vessel that might contain her girl. And they did not have much time. If Maggie had somehow managed to escape and was clinging to a piece of flotsam, she would not last long in the cold waters. Even her indomitable spirit might succumb to the forces of nature.

  “Lady, we are over Penzance—but what is that?”

  Lizzie’s eyesight and talent for scouting were gifts for which Claire was grateful, fully employed as they were in the search. “Eight, set the helm at this heading until I return.”

  The automaton intelligence system responded and Claire felt the wheel steady under her hands as Eight took over its control. Then she rounded the navigation table and joined Lizzie, Andrew, and Michael Polgarth at the viewing window.

  For a moment, she could hardly comprehend what she saw. “Good heavens above. Is the sea—boiling?”

  As Athena drifted further west, far below and to the right came Seacombe House, looking like a pile of child’s blocks in its lawns and gardens. And along the beach for at least a mile, the sea roiled and tossed as what appeared to be whales attempted to surface.

  “Those are the navires,” Lizzie said breathlessly. “Undersea dirigibles. Claude was kidnapped in such a vessel. Is it the invasion?”

  Claire resisted the pull of scientific inquiry as to how they were powered and what they were capable of. This was no time to be distracted. Maggie’s life was at stake.

  “If it is, it’s a terribly disorganized one,” Andrew observed. “Look, they are crashing into one another.”

  It was like watching a school of fish being beached in a net. No one dirigible seemed to have command, and as for beaching, some had attempted it. Others seemed to be milling about in the deeper water, waiting for some greater authority and seeming unable to form themselves into organized ranks.

  “You don’t suppose she succeeded?” Michael Polgarth finally said. “What are they waiting for?”

  “I believe you are right, Mr. Polgarth,” Claire said. It was the only explanation. “The Kingmaker of which Maggie wrote was on the command ship—and its absence has confused them. They cannot proceed. Look, there are more, just surfacing.”

  “And there is one turning tail and swimming away.” Lizzie pointed. “Coward.”

  “Maybe it is going back to see what’s keeping the Kingmaker,” Andrew suggested.

  “Maggie is what’s keeping it, I know it.” Claire raised her voice. “Eight, bear six degrees south and follow that dirigible.”

  There followed thirty of the longest minutes of Claire’s life. The dirigible submerged itself so that they could no longer directly follow its course, but Eight held the same heading. Athena followed the wide road of the moonlight, bearing south until Lizzie made a sound of surprise.

  “What is it, dearest?” Claire scanned the ocean from side to side, hardly daring to hope that a small figure might be visible in the waves.

  “Lady—the sea is rising!”

  Frozen in astonishment, they could do nothing but watch as an enormous dome of water rose about half a mile ahead. It appeared to be lit from within with the fires of hell—it convulsed—it burst, water sucked up from the gloomy depths below fountaining into the air in an explosion the likes of which Claire had never imagined possible.

  It was as though a volcano had erupted in the middle of the English Channel, and a huge wave spread out in concentric circles, traveling at speed in all four directions of the compass.

  “The navires will be swamped!” Andrew exclaimed. For they were rather closer to the coast of Cornwall than the middle. “And every fishing boat in every cove from here to Truro.”

  “The coast of France will take a beating,” Michael Polgarth breathed.

  “They will feel this in the Channel Islands and as far as the Isle of Wight,” Claire whispered. “But Maggie? Oh God, where is Maggie?”

  “If she is responsible for that, Claire, you may need to brace yourself to learn the worst.” Andrew put a hand on her shoulder.

  She turned to l
ook up into his warm hazel eyes, her own filling with tears. “I cannot,” she whispered. “If there is even the smallest hope, I must believe that Maggie will survive.”

  “If she has, then she will be waiting for us, and we must not fail her.” Gratitude for his unfailing support and faith overwhelmed her, and she swayed against his chest. After a second’s hesitation, Andrew slipped his arms around her and hugged her close. “Once the sea recovers from its upheaval, we must go closer.”

  “Shall I ready the basket, Lady?” Lizzie asked.

  Claire took a deep, steadying breath and straightened, Andrew’s arms falling away. Lizzie, for once, had greater things to think about, and made no embarrassing remarks.

  “Yes, Lizzie. Let Four manage it, though. I need your sharp eyes up here to search the waves for Maggie.”

  If it took all night and the rest of tomorrow and the following weeks and months, she would search. Neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature would be able to separate her from the girl she loved.

  *

  Weeping with pain from a wrist that must be broken, and shivering from shock and cold, Maggie dragged herself up off the deck, grasping at the useless levers and wheels with her uninjured right hand.

  What on earth had happened? One moment she was standing under the glass, watching the sky, and the next moment she was being flung about like a blackbird in a windstorm, tossed head over hems as they were engulfed by a wave at least twice as tall as Seacombe House.

  And since she had disconnected the propulsion system, she had been unable to steer her way through, but was forced to become a bubble like all the rest, and surface again when the ocean jolly well decided it was time for her to do so.

  “Serge?” she croaked.

  He lay in a heap against the gunwale, as unresponsive as before. She fetched her gabardine skirt from where it had got wrapped around the hatch lever, wrung the water out of its hems, and laid it over him once more, inadequate to the situation as it was. At least he was breathing, but his color was still ghastly.