The Impossible Cube

by Steven Harper

  “Do you think the other airships will give us camouflage?” Alice asked.

  “Honestly? No.” Gavin gestured at the softly glowing envelope. “She stands out, even among airships, and the envelope isn’t big enough to lift her without turning on the generator.”

  “Then why did you build your ship this way?” Feng asked.

  “You’re such a clicky kitty,” Dr. Clef cooed. “You are.”

  Gavin’s stomach turned over. “Because I could. You don’t think about consequences when you’re in a… a clockwork fugue. You just build. I didn’t even know I was a clockworker when I built the Lady. I thought I just had insomnia.”

  “Whatever the reason, we have a conspicuous ship,” Alice said, “and the Third Ward is spreading word of a generous reward for our capture.”

  “Is the clicky kitty hungry? Would he like a saucer of arsenic?”

  Gavin sighed and leaned over the gunwale, the fresh breeze on his face, solid wood beneath his bare feet. Forests and fields stretched to the horizon, emerald meeting azure, broken only by a railroad that ribboned through the green.

  Alice joined him. “What are you thinking?”

  “That you’re right. The ship is too conspicuous,” he said. “We’re too conspicuous. You have that gauntlet that won’t come off. Feng is Chinese. Dr. Clef is… Dr. Clef. And we have all these automatons. I mean, you can order Kemp to stay hidden—”

  “We have to for at least a while,” Alice interrupted. “Human-seeming automatons are illegal on most of the Continent.”

  “Only in the western part,” Gavin said, “where the Catholic Church is powerful. Once you get past the four French Kingdoms and the ten Prussian Kingdoms into Poland and the Ukrainian Empire, no one cares.”

  “Oh.” Alice looked miffed that she hadn’t known this. “Kemp will be glad to hear that.”

  “But I was saying that Click has a way of showing up wherever he wants,” Gavin continued. “We’re a very distinctive group, and you know Phipps has described us carefully.”

  “Come, clicky kitty,” Dr. Clef said. “We will go below and you will watch me while I work. Would you like that? You would.”

  “If I took such a tone with Click,” Feng said to no one in particular, “he would disembowel me. Why does he allow Dr. Clef the privilege?”

  A train passed beneath them, puffing smoke and spurting steam. The whistle—a G, Gavin noted automatically—sounded high and thin up in the air. The locomotive was painted bright red, and the cars sported bright colors as well. It looked like a child’s toy. Something about it tugged at him, but he couldn’t say what.

  “We’ll have to figure something out soon,” Gavin finished. “Luxembourg is the only place nearby where we can stock up on paraffin oil for the generator, and we have to stop there.”

  “And the food stores are nearly nonexistent,” Kemp added. “Madam and everyone else were searching for Sir, and I was not allowed to shop.”

  “That’s another worry,” Alice said. “Money. We don’t have much left. The Ward won’t be paying our salaries anytime soon, and I rather doubt Norbert would be willing to wire me any money now that I’ve left him.”

  Gavin stared across the free sky as tension tightened his muscles again. Even here, on his own ship, problems weighed him down. He wanted—needed—to leap over the side and coast away with nothing but bright and flowing air beneath him. The clouds twisted in the air currents, droplets hovering like trillions of tiny spirits buoyed by—

  Alice touched his arm. “You’ve been staring for a long time. Would you play for me?”

  “A long time?” He blinked at her. “How long?”

  “Over an hour.” She handed him his bow and fiddle. “Maybe this will focus you.”

  Gavin looked around, bewildered. The sun had moved a considerable distance. Dr. Clef, Click, and Alice’s whirligig were nowhere to be seen. Only Feng remained, still at the helm. Gavin looked down at his fiddle. It had been his constant companion ever since he could remember. His inborn perfect pitch let him pick up songs almost instantly, which meant he was able to play street corners in Boston at an early age and bring the pennies home to his mother and siblings. He had secretly fantasized that one day he would play in a music hall or even in an orchestra. But later, on his twelfth birthday, Gramps had brought him down to the Boston shipyards and introduced him to Captain Felix Naismith of the Juniper. From that day on, cabin boy Gavin Ennock had barely touched the ground while he played for airmen and ran their errands. Then came the attack. In seconds, both Naismith and Gavin’s best friend were dead and Gavin was forced to perform for pirates. They had stranded him in London. Unable to find work on another airship, he’d gone back to playing the streets for pennies until Alice’s aunt had snatched him away and locked him in her tower. For three weeks, he’d had nothing to do but play the violin until Alice had appeared and rescued him. And then he had rescued her, and then she him, and so it went.

  He drew his bow over the strings and was about to begin when Alice abruptly held up a hand. For a dreadful moment, he thought he’d made a mistake and she was stopping him. It was one of his secret fears—that he’d made a mistake while playing where someone could hear. His playing, like his pitch, needed to be perfect. It often felt as if someone were watching over him, waiting to pounce if he played wrong, though he couldn’t say why.

  But Alice said only, “A moment. I want to try something first.”

  From her pocket, she took a small bird made of gleaming silver. Sapphires made up its eyes and glowed softly at the tips of its claws.

  “My nightingale,” Feng said. “Yours now, Gavin. I am glad Antoine did not get it.”

  “I found it in the hotel.” Alice set the bird at Gavin’s feet and pressed its left eye. “Now, play.”

  Gavin nodded and swung into a song familiar to all airmen. He played a verse, relieved when he got through it with no mistakes, then sang.

  For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam, ten thousand miles I traveled

  Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel.

  Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys, bedlam boys are bonny

  For they all go bare and they live by the air, and they want no drink nor money.

  “Tom of Bedlam” was the unofficial song of airmen everywhere. The idea that men who lived by the air went naked and didn’t want for drink or money held immense appeal, and the song’s infinite verses were made for pounding out on wooden decks. Gavin started to sing the second verse when Alice jumped in herself:

  No gypsy, slut, or clockwork shall win my mad Tom from me

  I’ll weep all night, with stars I’ll fight, and the fray shall well become me.

  Gavin laughed and joined in for the chorus.

  Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys, bedlam boys are bonny

  For they all go bare and they live by the air, and they want no drink nor money.

  The orange sun sank to the horizon and shadows snaked among the trees below. The sputter and hum of the generator continued beneath Gavin’s music as he played and sang his way through “Bedlam” with Alice clapping her hands to the beat beside him. He caught Alice’s eye, letting her know the song was for her. Her face flushed, and he flung her a wide smile. The music cast itself out into the darkening void, sweet as wine, carrying Gavin’s spirit with it.

  “That was wonderful,” Alice said softly. She picked up the nightingale and pressed its left eye again. Then she pressed the right eye. Instantly, the little bird opened its beak and the sound of Gavin’s fiddle trilled forth. It was a smaller sound, with a tinny undertone, but otherwise a perfect replica, a recording. Then Gavin’s voice joined the music, and “Tom of Bedlam” again floated across the deck. The sound struck Gavin. He had never heard his own voice before. It sounded different than it did in his own head, but also vaguely familiar. It made him uncomfortable. He tapped the nightingale to stop the music.

  “I like the real thing better,” he said.

  “
I do, too.” Alice kissed him on the cheek, and he smiled again. “Where did you learn to play? You’ve never said.”

  “Gramps—my grandfather—started me on the fiddle when I was five or six,” Gavin said. The strangeness of the nightingale’s reproduction stayed with him. “I mostly taught myself. It’s easier when you have perfect pitch like I do, and when you never forget a song after you’ve heard it, like I don’t.”

  “So the fiddle was your grandfather’s?”

  Gavin was all set to say yes, when something stopped him. For a moment, a tiny moment, he remembered something else. A man was handing him the fiddle, but it wasn’t Gramps. A much younger man, tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair. The memory hovered in front of him like a reflection in a soap bubble, shiny and distorted.

  “You can play just like Daddy. Would you like that?”

  Gavin realized Alice was waiting for an answer. “I’m… I’m not sure,” he said. “Gramps used to have it, but…”

  “Was Gramps your father’s mother or your mother’s father?”

  “Hold the fiddle like this and the bow like this. They’re big now, but you’ll grow. Do it right.”

  “My father’s.” Gavin’s voice grew distant. He felt strange, mixed up. “He lived with us, even though Dad… didn’t.”

  “Didn’t? What happened to him?”

  “This one is D, this one is G, this is A, and this is E.”

  Gavin shook his head. “I don’t know. He left when I was very small. Ma refused to talk about him, and she became angry if anyone asked. After a while, I stopped wondering.”

  “Good! Keep that up, and you’ll play ‘I See the Moon’ for your ma just like me.”

  He raised the bow again. The horsehair was new, but the wood was old, burnished from hours of skin and sweat. He waved it, and the bubble burst, taking the memory with it.

  “I’m sorry, darling.” Alice put an arm around his waist. “I didn’t mean to awaken painful memories.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “It was a long time ago, and I don’t really remember. Though,” he added wistfully, “I wonder sometimes what it would be like to have a dad. Gramps was there for me, of course, and Captain Naismith was kind of like a father, but… you know.”

  “I know,” Alice said. “I find myself wondering what it would be like to have a mother. Mine died when I was so young.”

  “Well, between us we had a full set of parents,” Gavin said with a small laugh to break the heavy mood, and Alice smiled. He buried his face in her hair and smelled her soft scent. “All I really need is you.”

  Feng spoke up. “The romantic moment unfortunately will not keep me awake all night. We have to anchor ourselves.”

  “I’ll take over.” Gavin took back the nightingale, stowed the fiddle in its case, and accepted the helm from Feng. “I don’t sleep much these days.”

  Feng disappeared belowdecks. Alice stood beside Gavin for a moment, her presence warm and solid. Gavin steered with one hand so he could put an arm around her. “We’re alone for the first time in ages,” she said.

  “Unless you count the Lady,” Gavin replied with a smile.

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “I want more time with you, Gavin. I feel like we never have enough.”

  “No one ever has enough time.” Gavin checked his heading on the compass set into the helm, visible thanks to the soft blue glow of the envelope, and corrected his course. “Especially not clockworkers.”

  Eventually, Alice kissed him good night and went below herself, leaving Gavin alone on the deck. He felt her absence, even though she was only a few yards away.

  In the morning, everything changed.

  Interlude

  Lieutenant Susan Phipps threw her hat onto the rickety table. She had intended to drop into the ladder-back chair next to it, but found she couldn’t, and paced the tiny room instead, her hands clasped behind her. Her brass left hand felt cool and heavy in her fleshy right one, though the sensation was so familiar to her now she barely noticed it.

  Glenda Teasdale, her blouse and skirt looking worse for the wear, stood behind the other ladder-back chair while Simon d’Arco, equally disheveled, hovered near the bed. A tiny lamp shed grudging light over the table as the sun slid away. The quarters, part of what passed for a hotel in this little town, were dank and cramped compared to her spacious rooms at Third Ward headquarters back in London, but Phipps refused to voice a single complaint, even to herself. What sort of commander sent her troops into conditions that she herself refused to endure?

  “We were close,” Glenda said in that flat voice that was still new to Phipps. “So close. If that bloody Dr. Clef hadn’t shown up—”

  “It’s fine,” Phipps interrupted, still pacing. “They’re traveling by airship. Very hard to hide an airship. We will catch them; we will bring them back to London; we will see them put on trial.”

  “It’s just… We’re very tired, ma’am,” Simon said.

  She suddenly realized what she was doing. They had to remain standing while their commanding officer was on her feet. “Sit, sit,” she ordered. “I think better on my feet.”

  Simon dropped onto the bed while Glenda perched on the chair. The woman looked odd in skirts. Ever since she joined the Ward, she had put aside feminine clothing in favor of more practical male attire, like what Phipps wore. However, when female agents traveled abroad, especially in places where the Third Ward had less influence and no actual authority, they typically wore skirts to avoid attracting attention. Phipps continued to wear her uniform, partly because it conveyed authority whether she had it or not, and partly—she admitted only to herself—because it provided her with a wall that made her feel safe.

  “They’re heading for Luxembourg, no doubt, judging from the general direction they took and the fact that it’s a major trade city,” Phipps said, thinking out loud. “Alice will want to spread her cure there. And that’s a fine thing for us. The Crown has strong ties with Luxembourg, and I can force a fair amount of cooperation with the local gendarmerie. They’ll help us find Ennock and Michaels in no time. The mechanicals will let us catch them up fairly quickly, so we won’t lose much time.”

  “Maybe we should check the hotels first, Lieutenant,” Glenda said. “They’ll have to stay somewhere, and if we find them without starting a fuss with the police first, so much the better.”

  “I like that,” Phipps said with a small nod. “We’ll start there, then use the police.”

  “Good plan.” Simon paused, then added, “How long are we going to chase them?”

  Phipps turned. The monocle that framed her left eye amplified low light and let her see better—a clockworker invention she had confiscated nearly a year before the incident that had claimed her left arm—but she didn’t need it to read the tension in Simon’s body.

  “We’ll pursue them until we catch them, Simon,” she said evenly. “There’s no question.”

  “Only I was wondering,” Simon replied in a low voice, “whether it’ll be worth the cost.”

  “Worth the cost?” Phipps repeated. “Simon, they are dangerous criminals. In addition to releasing a weapon from the Doomsday Vault, they let Dr. Clef out of the Ward. Have you forgotten him?”

  Simon didn’t answer. Dr. Clef worried Phipps. He was a classic clockworker—completely absorbed by his work and utterly oblivious to the impact any of it might have on the world around him. His Impossible Cube was one of the most powerful inventions she had ever seen, and thank God it had been destroyed. Unfortunately, he was running about loose in the world with Gavin Ennock, a new-made clockworker. The thought of the two of them creating world-class inventions together made her sweat ice water and lent new urgency to her need to capture the little group before China got hold of them. Every hour she regretted not killing Alice Michaels beneath Third Ward headquarters. It was the biggest mistake of her career, and now the world was paying for it.

  “Dr. Clef will probably be dead in a few weeks,” Simon s
aid at last. “As for the doomsday weapon Alice and Gavin released… Well, we can’t put the cure back into the bottle, and England’s clockworkers will be gone within the year. If we let them go to China, they might be able to ensure the same thing happens to the Dragon—”

  “You shut it, Simon d’Arco!” Glenda was on her feet again. Two spots of color rose in her cheeks. “I’m going to capture Alice Michaels—Lady Michaels—and drag her back to London by the hair if I have to. Every damned mile over broken glass, if I can arrange it.”

  “Why, Glenda?” Simon asked. “What for?”

  “What do I have, Simon?” Glenda snarled. “The Third Ward is dead, by the Queen’s order. Once the final clockworker dies, we’ll have no reason to exist anyway. Maybe a few of us will hang about to guard the Doomsday Vault, but nothing more. And where will I go? I’m a woman, Simon. Shall I become a seamstress? A schoolteacher? A parlor maid? A wife? For nearly ten years I’ve been hunting clockworkers and keeping England safe and I brought Alice Michaels into the Ward because she was small and timid and I felt solidarity for my fellow woman. Now that bloody bitch destroyed the Ward and I have nothing. I’ll see her hang for treason, and I’ll piss on her grave.”

  “Oh,” was all Simon said.

  “You may sit down again, Glenda,” Phipps said quietly, and Glenda reluctantly obeyed. “And I don’t answer to you, Simon,” she added.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “But I… I just…”

  Phipps leveled a hard gaze at him. “Simon, I want the full truth from you, as a gentleman and an officer of the Third Ward.”

  He stiffened. “Ma’am.”

  “I brought you and Glenda on this assignment because you are my absolute best agents. I am not saying this as flattery or to puff you up. It’s simple truth. However, I am also fully aware of your… romantic proclivities and of your feelings toward your former partner. I don’t much care about the former, since you are an officer of the Ward, and as such, you have my complete loyalty and support. As for the latter, I assumed that your loyalty toward the Ward would be the overriding concern, but now I must ask, Agent d’Arco: Is your loyalty pure? Will your feelings for Gavin Ennock get in the way of our mission? Answer honestly. You will not be reprimanded, but I do need to know if I must send for someone else, someone who can be a fully capable man.”