Phantasmical Contraptions & Other Errors

by Jessica Augustsson

  “Idiot, idiot, idiot,” Jo berated herself. She blushed, winced at her emotional reaction, and blushed again. “Ten minutes in a room with a handsome face and you’re reduced to a quivering miss.” Where the blazes had Reston stashed her chocolates? Blast the man for attempting to clean before a landing. He shoved things all a’jumble into drawers and close-topped baskets without organization. Not, she sighed, that he wasn’t correct. Close-air fighting would lead to sudden maneuvers and then simple desk items would become airborne projectiles. She’d never lost a man to something as foolish as unsecured plates, and she wasn’t about to start now.

  As if she’d summoned him, Reston rapped on the door. She gave him her aye, and he leaned in the doorframe. “Ain’ gonna believe this one, Captain,” he said.

  “Place it all on the table, Mr. Reston,” she said. “I am in dire circumstances, and could use a telegraph of glad tidings.”

  “How about ‘we got ‘im’? Them joyous enough for ye, Captain?”

  “How did we accomplish that, in short time?”

  “Apparently, Kernigan is a fool. Or a fair bad pilot. He pushed the engines to their max; mayhap he weren’t familiar enough with the design, an’ had him a steam-leak. He’s whistlin’ and puffin’ not two knots off the starboard side. We’ll up an’ catch ‘im within the next ship-shift.”

  “And then we fight. Glorious.”

  Reston rubbed his hands together with malicious glee. “Allus like to blow me some idiots out of the sky.”

  “Keep in mind that this is not the ship of an enemy, and that we might be best served to ground him by less violent means.”

  “And how in the nine levels of hell do ye expect us to ground a ship without damagin’ it? Are ye daft?”

  Aha! She found the box of chocolates and stuffed three of them into her mouth at once. While she chewed, she contemplated Reston’s not-entirely rhetorical question, ill-mannered and rude as it had been phrased. How did one get an air-ship out of the sky?

  Over-weighing it was an option, although she was uncertain how to transfer such a mass to the other vessel, unawares. Coming in range of the Haliphon would certainly alert the renegades who currently manned the guns. She tossed that idea, offered the box of chocolates to her first mate, and when he shook his head at her, she took another one, not caring in the slightest that she looked like a greedy five-year old with her fist in the cookie jar. By the end of this adventure, she’d have to let the seams out of her flight-dress.

  Jo staggered backward, falling into her desk chair. Since it was nailed to the flooring, it didn’t rock back like the one in her study might have done, which only served to give her a pain in her head when she whacked it against the backrail.

  “You got yourself a notion, Captain?”

  Jo nodded and chewed frantically to clear her mouth. “I do, actually,” she said, licking the last of the chocolate from her fingers. “Ready the flitter. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll strike.”

  “I cannot decide if you are the most wondrous woman of my acquaintance, or a dangerous lunatic who will result in my spectacular demise,” McKeon said, fitting the goggles over his eyes and tightening the strap. Jo was already so accessorized, her gamine chin covered with a dust-mask. If it weren’t for her coffee-colored eyes, he might not have known who she was under her layers of flight-suit and armored long-jacket. She bore two long-steel swords, one on each hip and her first mate held a second set, just for McKeon’s use.

  “Both,” she answered him, her voice muffled by the mask. “Both is good.”

  Mr. Reston handed McKeon the sword belt, which the professor buckled on with some hesitation. He was not a skilled fighter and he was not at all looking forward to doing a night operation on an untested craft with the intent of single-handedly downing the Haliphon. He was aware that he appeared to no great advantage in the bulky gear, but the suit would protect from a great many things, including some experimental wings that while, not really capable of flight, might aid them in gliding in case things went very, very badly. Mr. Reston’s hopeful gaze was clear, the first mate would like it exceptionally if McKeon’s design for gliders didn’t work and he tumbled—headfirst, preferably—into the ground.

  In further fact, McKeon was of the opinion that Reston should have accompanied the Captain, as he was best able to assure her safe return, but Reston had been quite clear. He was needed on the Meduzoa, the only man aboard with enough skill to pilot underneath the Haliphon and give the two boarders a safe place to land, should all go pear-shaped and they had to leap from the sides to escape.

  Phrased that way, McKeon didn’t really blame the man, and perhaps McKeon should be responsible for the primary recovery of his own ship. Not to mention that if this strike did go pear-shaped, it would not be easy to forgive another team who’d wreaked such havoc on his beloved vessel. Best that he hold the sword himself and cut Haliphon down, if need be.

  Unlikely that Kernigan hadn’t noticed them—even a bad pilot could use a spyglass. The captain had directed them to fly a parallel course and had not even slowed as they passed the Haliphon, so it was possible that Kernigan didn’t realize that they were in pursuit. As soon as the sun was low in the sky, the captain had used that cover to raise elevation into the clouds, unseen by their prey. The trick would be to backtrack, overtake them, and drop unawares. If not, the tiny flitter-craft would take no more than a single hit to tumble out of the sky. It was, Jo reassured him, highly maneuverable, but they’d be strapped in like kittens, and they wouldn’t be able to get free quick enough in case of a bad landing.

  Death of me, he thought, eying her. Even in the bulky flight-gear, she had a litheness and grace to her that was uncommon. And greatly admirable.

  He lay down in the copilot’s couch, and buckled the shoulder harness in place as Jo did the same thing in the pilot’s station next to him. The flitter ran on straight aethor, and would not travel far distances before needing to be refueled. What it would do was fly quick and virtually soundless in short distances. No weaponry—the craft was too light to carry guns of any sort without overbalancing. Even two human passengers put a strain on its capabilities. Another reason Reston declined to accompany his captain. He was quite a bit taller and bulkier than McKeon, although Reston had phrased it as the professor was ‘built some’at like a girl,’ a comparison that had neither endeared him to the first mate, nor pleased his captain, who glared at Reston with narrowed eyes.

  “Oh, McKeon,” Jo said as the crew pushed them toward the open moonbay, “I forgot to mention...”

  “What?”

  They teetered on the edge for a moment, then fell in a stomach-clenching dive.

  “I’m not a very good pilot,” she admitted. He heard, rather than saw, her grinning like a madwoman as she pulled the flitter out of the nose dive and soared breathlessly over the woods below.

  “Now she tells me,” McKeon muttered. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and to stop watching the ground swooping up at him like it thought he might make a tasty meal, but at the same time, he was fair certain that he’d be more dizzy and sick if he had no idea when the violent curves were headed his way. His hands ached from uselessly gripping the sides of the couch. If they fell, holding on would no him no good, but he couldn’t seem to pry his fingers loose.

  “Here we go,” she whooped. “Hold on.”

  “What,” he said, his voice an arctic wind, “do you think I am doing?”

  “Panicking?”

  “That, too.”

  Jo turned the craft in a sweeping loop, heading them back toward the Haliphon, or so McKeon desperately prayed. She laughed the whole while and in that moment—despite being so terrified that his stomach was creeping up into his lungs and his fingers were going numb from shock—McKeon couldn’t help but admire just how beautiful she was. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with her face, hidden as it was behind the dust mask, or her hair, bound up under her cap, or the lovely eyes protected by her goggles, but the grac
e of her spirit and the courage of her mind. Lovely.

  Oh, I’m in trouble now, he thought.

  “Just cut it, McKeon, and let’s get out of here,” Jo whispered. The professor perched, on hands and knees, on the rounded silk of the dirigible. It was not, perhaps, the safest location—the balloon was not the most stable surface, after all, and the air inside was quite warm. They wore layers of clothing to protect from steam burns, but Jo was sweating profusely inside her protective gear and never minding that her mother had always claimed ladies didn’t sweat, they glistened.

  McKeon glanced at her, and at once she understood. This was his craft, his baby, his woman and mistress and wife and child, and he would not—could not—voluntarily pierce her skin and send her crashing to the ground. He would rather cut his own heart out.

  Except that they didn’t have time for histrionics or weak spirits. At any moment, a lookout could spot them—there was nowhere to hide on the top of a dirigible and there was no place for the flitter to land, except tied off the side and bouncing around against the silk like an over-sized bat.

  She laid her hand on his arm, even through many layers of clothing, her skin tingled at the contact. “Forgive me, but it must be done.”

  With that, she turned, raised the twin swords over her head and stabbed downward, piercing the silk. Steam billowed, hot, wet and deadly, into the night air. She let herself tumble backward, riding the rip down, widening it. A moment later, with a strangled cry, McKeon came slipping after her. The Haliphon shuddered all over and slowly at first, then faster, sank toward the ground.

  The flitter was a lost cause, she knew that, but still, Jo glanced up at its shadow in regret—a fair craft it had been and quite useful. Praying that Reston was in place, she let go of the swords and fell into the darkness. She spread her arms and legs wide. The kite-suit extended, cushioning her in the air, slowing her fall. They were only two or three hundred feet up; the kite would probably cushion her from dying from the fall. Which didn’t take into consideration trees, streets, falling in front of stray bears, or perhaps onto spiked iron fences. Now is not the time to reconsider options, she reminded herself.

  The retractable net snapped shut just as Jo was panicking that she’d missed the safe spot.

  She heard a strangled cry that was probably McKeon hitting the other net, and then Reston’s comforting bellow, moving them laterally away from the slowly crashing Haliphon. The gondola crunched into the trees, tearing, ripping. Cracking. She winced. So, it wasn’t being blown out of the sky, and it would probably be fixable, but she would weep if the Meduzoa was in the same straits.

  The net opened up and dumped her unceremoniously inside Meduzoa’s gondola. A few crewmates helped her untangle from the ropes and she grasped Tink’s hand and hauled herself to her feet.

  “Well, that was exciting.”

  Reston chuckled. “You allus do impress, my captain.”

  McKeon struggled out of his net and staggered to the nearest porthole, peering through the darkness to see the wreck of his airship. He sighed.

  “It can be fixed, McKeon.” Jo hastened to his side to reassure him, taking off her dust mask and goggles, breathing deeply for the first time all night. “And the crown will surely pay for it, if Kernigan’s information is worthwhile. His Majesty’s war department has a fund for those sorts of things. Civilian property damaged, and that sort of rot. It’s a lot of paperwork, but I’ve filled it out before.”

  McKeon stared at her, his pale blue eyes rueful. “Somehow, Jo, I am not surprised by this information. Over a bottle of very expensive wine, you shall regale me with tales of all the other civilian property you have destroyed.”

  “It’s not entirely my fault,” she spluttered. “I’ll have you know—“

  “Shush,” McKeon said.

  Jo opened her mouth to snap something offended and sarcastic, but McKeon closed the distance between them and kissed her. Certainly she’d been kissed before, the sensation of lip and tongue was nothing new to her, but at the same time, McKeon’s kisses kindled a fire in her belly the likes of which she’d seldom imagined. It swirled there, hot and sweet and delicious as he slowly explored and devoured her mouth.

  “It’s all right, Jo,” he said, when he finally released her. “I had fun.”

  Reston shook his head sadly. “Yer just as off-the-rocker as the captain is, man.”

  “And therefore, a very good match for her,” McKeon said. “Do you agree, my darling?”

  Jo might have agreed, and later, she would have many delightful and elaborate words for him, describing her interest in his proving a fair match for her, but at that very moment, she was too busy kissing him to say any of them.

  Lynn Townsend is a geek, a dreamer and an inveterate punster. When not reading, writing, or editing, she can usually be found drinking coffee or killing video game villains. Lynn’s interests include geek comedy music, romance novels, octopuses, and movies with more FX than plot. She lives in southeast Virginia with her dark overlord husband and a zombie-killing child. Her home is protected by lightsabers.

  The City of Dragons

  by

  Ariel Ptak

  There is a tall, narrow house on Brandy Street, sandwiched between an equally narrow dress shop and a clockwork repairman’s, built entirely of brick with tasteless curtains in the thin windows and a front garden consisting entirely of two unkempt butterfly bushes and a short path running arrow-straight between street and steps. A hand-painted wooden sign stands before it, half-consumed by the rightmost bush. It reads: Cloudhaven Fostering Home for Unwanted and Abandoned Creatures. Please Inquire Within for Adoptions.

  A smaller sign hangs below it, an afterthought with a dash of exasperation that it should have proven necessary to clarify at all: Creatures ONLY, Not Children.

  This is the home of one Ms. Button. It is also the home, on an assumed-permanent-until-proven-temporary basis, of seven cats, three dogs, a parakeet, two rabbits, and half a dozen miniature dragons of varying genetic manufacture. All fancy traditionally-modified breeds or descendants of the gene splicing laboratories, and all found on Cloudhaven’s beautifully cobbled streets - or, in the case of the parakeet and some of the dragons, on Cloudhaven’s beautifully bricked windowsills.

  None of them are hers, strictly speaking. She is merely watching out for them until they find new homes, ones where they will not be thrown away by those who no longer cared.

  Ones where they would be loved.

  There is a newspaper boy on the corner of Seventh and Nimbus, copies bundled in string at his feet and one held high over his head, fanning the air as he peals his calls of Extra, Extra! Science Gone Too Far, Read About It! Extra!

  It is the Mountain Gazette, not as reputable as the Cloudhaven Times, full of idle gossip and sensationalist chatter - so passersby agree as they stop to purchase a copy, coins clattering into the mechanical lockbox strapped to the boy’s chest. Not as reputable, but there can be truth hidden in the morass, if one is intelligent enough to find it, and they all like to tout the implication that they are, indeed, intelligent enough.

  Today the subject is not tutting over suspicious goings-about by otherwise perfectly upright persons of public interest, the scandalous new trends of foreign fashion, humanity reaching the peak of possible power with the latest in steam and gears, or even the implications of recent happenings in government and politics, but something altogether more serious for the inquiring, intelligent mind. Today, it is about Natural and Unnatural Science, the Mind of Man against the Hand of God.

  Today, it is about Genetic Manipulations.

  The Gazette does not call it an abomination or a perversion of the sanctity of nature. It does not condemn the arrogance of men who think to create anew from what has already been perfected by creation. It very much does not lay accusations of any moral wrongdoing at the doors of any who studied or supported cloning, splicing, enhancing of life’s codebooks. Instead, it merely raises memories of past controversies, men
tions arguments made by others, poses questions to which there are clearly right answers, if you can but see them yourself, clever reader. Genetic Manipulation’s greatest, most noteworthy creation is the miniature dragon, you know. It is the symbol of the times, and the symbol of many more things besides, drawn up from stories of good vanquishing evil. Of course we know which one is which.

  Do you?

  There are public houses and coffee parlors and salons throughout the city, and everywhere there is talk over drinks and close tables.

  Did you see in the papers?

  Cloudhaven, the city of miracles. Cloudhaven, the city of dragons.

  They’re all over the streets. Everywhere. Like rats. Vicious beasts.

  Unnatural.

  Not supposed to breathe fire, but my sister swears she once saw a spark.

  Didn’t they try to make them as a way of creating more heat, more steam, more power in the first place? Of course there was a spark.

  Dangerous.

  I always knew.

  My father always said.

  I heard from my cousin’s brother in law.

  They are twisting nature, first our food and now our animals.

  What’s next?

  Human genes are already being used.

  Unwholesome technology. Unnatural.

  Evil.

  I’ve heard it. I’ve read it. It must be so.

  In the worst possible ways, do you suppose?

  What’s next?

  There is a laboratory compound on Hill Street, bright and shining in university alabaster, flights of stairs and columns, gleaming pneumatic tubes, billowing white clouds of steam emerging from rooftop vents, a temple of science. It is home to biologists, geneticists, chemists, physicists, mechanics and engineers. It teaches and it questions, tests and advances, and more of the comforts and knowledge of the age has come from its walls than from any other institution in the city.