The Havoc Machine ce-4

by Steven Harper

“That’s a good way to get killed,” he growled, pointing a metal finger at her collarbone.

  “That day will come later. You did promise,” she said. “What did you want?”

  “Where did you put my blades?”

  “In the Black Tent. Dodd gave me permission to store them there for now so Nikolai would not injure himself. You may retrieve them anytime you like.”

  “And these are yours, then.” He gestured sharply at the clothes in the wardrobe.

  She cocked her head. “Did you want to borrow something?”

  “Not my color,” he replied, refusing to be baited. “Why are they here?”

  “For three and a half days I could not leave you alone,” she pointed out. “Where else would I put my things? Nikolai needs something besides borrowed rags to wear, by the way. We are taking him shopping later.”

  “We?”

  “I have no wish to do this by myself. He is also your responsibility, so you will come to buy clothes.”

  “Nikolai is an automaton!” Thad said. “What does he need with clothes?”

  Sofiya put her hands on her hips. “He hauled us both onto the train as it was pulling away, but you begrudge him clothing? What sort of man are you?”

  He gave up. “All right, all right. We’ll buy him clothes.” Thad held up his hands. “It looks bad for the circus if he’s wandering around like a beggar anyway.”

  “Good.”

  “And then we hunt down Mr. Griffin.” Thad turned his brass hand in the light. “I won’t let him run loose after everything he’s done.”

  “Oh yes? And how do you propose to begin this hunt?”

  “Any number of ways.” Thad folded down fingers on his flesh-and-blood hand. “Make enquiries at machine shops and metal forges, search the city for his spiders and follow them, check abandoned buildings-”

  “Ah. And once he learns you search for him, he sends his army of spiders to tear the circus to pieces. Or perhaps just dismantle a few people while you watch. Very good planning. I like it.”

  Thad fell silent. Sofiya was right, though he hated to admit it. There had to be a way around the problem. Griffin could not go free.

  “While you are planning this hunt,” Sofiya continued, “we should also speak with a tentmaker about adding on to this wagon like I have seen some of the other performers do. Three people can live in here, but it is crowded.”

  “Now look,” Thad began. “You can’t stay-”

  “And where else would I go? I can’t leave the circus. I am performing for the tsar in a few days, and Mr. Griffin will be looking for me-for us-eventually, so it would be awkward to move into a boardinghouse or hotel, what with spiders and things crawling after me. I will stay here.” She patted his cheek. “Do not worry, little one. Your virtue is safe. Though I have to say, you are doing a fine job of tempting me.”

  For the first time, Thad remembered he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He snatched his from the floor with a yelp and yanked it on. Sofiya covered her eyes with mock horror. “Oh me! I will go blind!”

  “Pretty boy, pretty boy!” Dante chinned himself on the perch. “Sharpe is sharp!”

  Thad turned his back to do up the buttons, but his new hand wouldn’t do the fine motions. He made a frustrated noise.

  “Let me.” Sofiya spun him around and finished the job before he could protest.

  “Thank you,” he said grudgingly. “Look, you can’t stay in my wagon. People will talk. We’ll get you a wagon or tent of your own.”

  “You think the two of us together will shock your friends?” Sofiya laughed. “Mama Berloni was divorced before she married Papa Berloni. Mordovo takes morphine when he isn’t sipping laudanum or drinking. And your ringmaster is all but married to his manager. I think everyone will find our living arrangements rather tame.”

  “Mama Berloni left her husband because he beat her and their daughter,” Thad replied sharply. “Mordovo was in an accident several years ago, so he takes the drugs to dull the pain. And Dodd and Nathan are good men who will give a beggar the last coins in their pockets.”

  “While we are flung together because of a dreadful clockworker who holds our loved ones hostage,” Sofiya added, “and because we are looking after a little automaton who fell into our laps. Honestly, no one cares what we do, Thad. Not here. You would know that if you spent more time out there instead of brooding in here.” Her tone lightened. “And there is no worry about the sleeping arrangements. Clockworkers sleep almost never and Nikolai sleeps not at all, so you may have the bed all to yourself.”

  “Yes, fine.” Feeling out of sorts, Thad gestured for her to turn her back so he could finish dressing, and she obeyed with a shrug. “So what do you do all night, if you don’t sleep?”

  “Dodd has said I can use the Black Tent.”

  Thad twisted his head to look at her, though all he could see was a waterfall of golden curls spilling over the crimson cloak. “He let you in there?”

  “Sometimes I must adjust Kalvis. His Black Tent has good tools for it, so he gave permission to use it as long as he is not there. I persuaded him.”

  “Persuaded or bullied?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Thad adjusted his braces and reached for his jacket. He also took the precaution of pulling on a thin pair of leather gloves. No point in calling attention to his new hand if he didn’t need to. “At any rate, what exactly are you doing in there?”

  “Building.” She turned around and held out her hands. “Sometimes the madness comes on me, and I must build. The destruction of your hand brought the madness on me, fortunately for you. And it was good that Mr. Griffin had his own reasons for allowing it.”

  “Hm,” was all Thad could say. The hatred for Mr. Griffin smoldered like a crust of ash over lava. He held out his arm, and Dante hopped onto his shoulder.

  “Now that you are fully dressed,” Sofiya said, “we will shop. Bring money.”

  After some searching, they found Nikolai in the very Black Tent they had been discussing. The Black Tent wasn’t actually black, nor was it even a tent. It was instead one of the boxcars attached to the train. The main door had been slid open, and sounds of someone hammering on metal came from inside. An unlit forge sat outside next to an anvil. Thad poked his head into the car. Tools of all shapes and sizes hung on the walls. Worktables sat beneath, and they were littered with small machines and machine parts-cogs and keys and memory wheels and small axles and iron bolts and copper plating and more. Dodd was punching holes in a bit of brass. Next to him on the wooden table were two identical toy dogs, both half finished. Nikolai stood on a footstool, his eyes on Dodd’s hands.

  Originally the Black Tent had indeed been a blacksmith’s tent-hence the name-and it had always been pitched far away from the rest of the circus for fear of fire. Later, the Kalakos Circus had become successful enough to buy a boxcar for its metalworking, but the original name had stuck. Dodd was a tinker, a very good one, who could create clockwork toys and perform minor repairs. He could not, however, create anything like the machine at the end of Thad’s wrist or the rag-wrapped boy who stood by the tabletop, watching him work.

  Dodd, Thad happened to know, had once been a chimney sweep’s apprentice, which meant he was an orphan boy the sweep had bought from the church and forced into slave labor, crawling into claustrophobically narrow chimneys to scrub them clean. Eventually he had run away from his master over events he still refused to speak about. Thad suspected he had become a second-story thief; climbing boys were experts at scaling bricks and getting into small spaces. At some point, Dodd had tried to steal from Victor Kalakos, but instead of turning the boy over the to the police, Victor had taken him on as an apprentice. Several years later, when Kalakos died without an heir, it seemed perfectly natural for Dodd to step into his shoes, even though his last name wasn’t Kalakos. Indeed, Thad didn’t know if Dodd even had a last name.

  Thad had no idea how Dodd and Nathan had met, nor did he care to ask.

 
Dodd finished the holes on the metal plate, fitted it onto one of the dogs, and used a squeezer to pop the rivets that held it in place.

  “There,” Dodd said. “Now you.”

  Nikolai picked up the hammer and the punch, studied them them for a moment, and looked at a second piece of brass on the worktable. Thad heard the tiny whirring sound of memory wheels. In rapid-fire succession, Nikolai punched perfectly even holes around the edge of his bit of brass. His hands moved so quickly, Thad could barely follow them. Then he popped the piece into place and squeezed every rivet into place with mechanical precision. The entire operation took only a few seconds.

  “Bless my soul!” Dante squawked.

  “Oi!” Thad said, climbing the short staircase into the Black Tent. “What are you blackguards up to, then?”

  “It’s fun!” Nikolai brandished the squeezer. His scarf had fallen away, creating a sharp contrast between his boyish demeanor and his half-mechanical face.

  “Your…automaton has an interesting function,” Dodd said. “He learns quickly. Instantaneously, really. I’m not sure how, but he does.”

  “It’s fun,” Nikolai repeated.

  “Don’t let him get in the way,” Thad said. “If he bothers you, send him away.”

  “Not at all. I enjoy his company.” Dodd picked up one of the dogs and wound it with a key. The dog strutted mechanically round the worktable, paused, sat, and sprang into a backflip. Nikolai wound his own dog, which did the same thing. “It’s nice to have the money to tinker again. I haven’t made anything in months and months. I do miss my spiders, though.”

  Sofiya was staring about the Black Tent with a haunted look on her face. “Would you like them back again?”

  Before Dodd could respond, Thad jumped in. “We’ve come to take Nikolai off. He needs clothes.”

  Nikolai whirred again. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Applesauce,” Dante muttered.

  “What?” Thad said.

  “I don’t want to go,” Nikolai repeated firmly. “I want to stay here with Dodd.”

  Confused, Thad traded looks with Sofiya. Nikolai had never refused a command before. “We could go later, I suppose,” Thad said slowly.

  “No!” Nikolai’s eyes flickered. “That’s not right.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re the papa. You have to make me go, even if I don’t want to. It builds character.”

  Sofiya clapped a hand over her mouth. Dodd’s expression went carefully wooden.

  “Ah,” said Thad. “And I suppose you’re going to complain the entire time we’re out.”

  He jumped down from the stool. “Yes.”

  “Doom,” said Dante.

  * * *

  They crossed the Field of Mars and the heavily trafficked street that ran along it to the long, elaborate barrack, in front of which waited a line of izvostchik, the little roofless carriages that provided for-hire transportation. At the forefront of each sat a man in a padded blue coat bound with a sash or heavy belt, and a flat-topped, black hat. All the men wore bushy beards, each combed and elaborately styled. The coats and the beards combined to make the men look big enough to haul the carriages without the help of a horse, and fierce enough to try.

  “Vanka!” Sofiya called. “I wish to shop at Peter’s Square!”

  The izvostchik drivers turned as one and began shouting in Russian.

  “My cab is the finest in the city, lady! I will take you everywhere you-”

  “He is a fool! My cab is much more comfortable, and the fastest in-”

  “My cab! My cab! No smoother ride in town!”

  “I know every merchant and seller, lady, and I can find you the best prices!”

  “You.” Sofiya pointed to one of the drivers. “Perhaps you, Vanka. But also perhaps not. Your cab is shabby and your horse is old. How could I ride with you?”

  “You wound me!” The driver slapped his chest. “Every day I oil the wheels and check the springs. My horse is young and quick! And you can see I am strong and handsome, just for the lady.”

  “I see mud on your fenders, Vanka,” Sofiya pointed out. “If I ride with you, I will become dirty.”

  “He is dirty, too!” called out another driver. “He will take you to unsavory parts of town. My cab is the cleanest in the city.”

  “Saint Petersburg is muddy, alas,” agreed the driver. “But I have special lap robes to protect the lady’s beautiful cloak.”

  This went on for considerable time. Eventually, Sofiya begrudgingly agreed to hire the driver with the lap robes and they settled on a price that seemed to Thad scandalously low, but he kept his mouth shut and boosted Nikolai aboard the cab while the other drivers continued to call out hopeful last-minute pleas and insults.

  “Is it always like that?” Thad asked as Vanka guided the horse away from the curb. Other traffic-carriages, cabs, spiders, automatons, and horses-swirled around them. The horses churned up a steady stream of dirt, and Thad was glad for the lap robes the driver had provided to keep their clothes clean.

  “It is a game,” Sofiya said in English. “Vanka-all the drivers are called that-would be disappointed if we didn’t argue with him. You should see them in winter. They wrap themselves in furs to keep warm, and they look like Siberian bears. If you like him and want to hire him again, you must remember what his beard looks like. All the Vankas comb their beards differently so you can tell them apart.”

  Vanka cracked his whip, and the carriage shot forward. It careened through traffic, dodging around larger carriages and team-hauled lorries. Nikolai wrapped his arms around Thad’s waist with silent strength.

  “Applesauce! Applesauce! Doom!” Dante clung to the back of the carriage and bobbed up and down with excitement. Further conversation was impossible. Thad bounced about the back, and found himself pushing against Sofiya. Half the time she was in his lap, and he found himself noticing how soft she was and how long it had been since he had felt anything like it. He gave himself a mental shake. Sofiya was not someone with whom he wanted to create a romantic relationship.

  But his treacherous mind sketched out scenarios anyway. Nikolai had already declared that the three of them were a family, and in a strange way, they were. What would it be like to be…involved with Sofiya? She was beautiful and intelligent and skilled. He flexed his new hand inside its glove, feeling a strange mixture of gratitude for what she had done and aversion to what was she was. The carriage dashed in a razor-straight line down the street as Thad’s mind flicked ahead and saw the three of them living at the circus, performing afternoons and evenings. Afterward, the three of them would gather in the wagon with a new tent spread over the front. Nikolai would read his book and Thad would sharpen his blades and Sofiya would work on-

  Idiocy. Even if he were interested, Sofiya was a clockworker. Within three years, she would go insane, and Thad had promised to kill her when that happened. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing for a papa to do?

  Vanka barreled around another corner and hauled up short at a large square where a noisy open-air market spread out like a quilt beneath the cloudy autumn sky. No sellers had booths. Some used farm wagons, many walked about with baskets, and some spread their wares out on the ground. A box seller’s boy wearing a long coat four sizes too big for him trudged past with piles of empty boxes strapped to his back. A chimney sweep in a high hat brandished his blackened broom to let people know he was for hire. A farmer stood next to a wheelbarrow heaped with potatoes while a boy waved at people to examine the bright-beaded abacuses spread out on his blanket. A spider with an enormous bowl of sweets on its back wandered about the crowd, accepting small coins in a slot on its back and handing out treats in return. Smells of food, of cooking apples and frying potatoes and baked fish, clashed with smells of unwashed people and raw sewage and rotting garbage.

  Here Thad felt on firmer ground. This market was exactly the same as the ones in Romania and Poland and Ukraine and Lithuania. Sofiya poked Thad and jerked her head at the driver.
Thad fumbled with his new hand until he could force it to extract some coins from his pocket for Vanka, who grinned within his carefully combed beard when he saw they were rather more than the sum Sofiya had haggled.

  “I will wait for you, my lord,” he said, and crossed his arms, ready to do just that.

  Sofiya tsked at Thad. “You aren’t supposed to pay them extra. They lose respect for you.”

  “He can tell his children how he bested the foolish foreigner over an extra piece of bread tonight,” Thad said, holding out his arm so Dante could jump aboard. “Come along, Nikolai. Stay close.”

  “Yes, pa-”

  “Don’t,” Thad admonished. “Just don’t.”

  Nikolai made a sound very much like a sigh from inside his scarf and Sofiya gave Thad a hard look.

  “Where should go, then? I assume you know this market,” Thad said.

  Although Thad’s command of Russian was perfectly up to the task, he let Sofiya take the lead, content to let her search for already-made clothing that would fit Nikolai, and haggle over the price while he paid and carried. Sofiya didn’t even bother to have Nikolai try anything on, but instead held shirts or trousers up to him to check color, and Thad remembered that most clockworkers could measure by eye with perfect accuracy. It had never occurred to him that such a skill might come in handy in a textile context.

  Contrary to his earlier threat, Nikolai didn’t complain. For his part, he stood patiently while Sofiya checked this or that, though his large eyes seemed to devour everything around him. Thad wondered what his earliest memory was. Looking up at the ceiling of a laboratory? Or into Havoc’s face? Perhaps Havoc implanted memories into him. It would theoretically be possible to remove any or all of Nikolai’s memories by just changing or removing his wheels. And how would that change Nikolai? Thad found he didn’t like the idea.

  Sofiya bought a basket to carry things in and handed it to Thad along with a shirt for the growing pile. She was choosing the peasant style popular for boys and men-blousy shirts and trousers, a pair of calf-length boots to tuck them in, a furry cap, a long coat. The shopping itself was turning out rather pleasant, as if the three of them were out on a family-