Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  “Time travel has not been accomplished outside the laboratory,” Dame Alice mused. “Meaning it has been accomplished inside a laboratory—and this you heard from Newcomb, who famously wouldn’t admit the practical use of airships until they had been used to deliver him post.”

  “That . . . is my impression of the man,” Georgiana said.

  “And my impression of Lord Christopherson is that he is, indeed, a Restorationist,” Dame Alice said, “a cause which, with the Liberated Territories of Victoriana celebrating their Ruby Jubilee and Liberation itself a century on, could only be advanced using a time machine.”

  “It is . . . my hope that that would be the only way to undo Liberation,” Jeremiah said.

  “Noted. I also note the blackguard purloined,” Dame Alice said, “a thermionic airship, one fitted with a demagnetizing frame of the most advanced design. Could this navigational device be fitted into that housing, to move an airship as it did the blackguard’s machine?”

  “The idea’s preposterous,” Lord Birmingham scoffed.

  “Certainly not,” Georgiana said. “Aetheric travel—”

  “The stress on the airframe,” Birmingham protested.

  “Though,” Georgiana said, “a demagnetizer stresses it too . . .”

  “But not more than an airship can handle,” Birmingham said thoughtfully.

  “It looks a standard demagnetizer fitting . . .” Georgiana said, turning the device.

  They stared at each other, then turned and together said, “Yes.”

  “And is it your belief that he’s affixed such a device to the ZR-101 and gone back in time, no doubt to alter the past to make the present more to his political liking?”

  “Yes,” Georgiana said more firmly. “Almost certainly.”

  “Then we shall follow,” Dame Alice said. “Commander Willstone!”

  “Yes, ma’am?” Jeremiah said, standing at attention.

  “It seems that Lord Christopherson has cracked the secret of travel to the past,” Dame Alice said. Her mouth quirked in a grim smile. “Sixty seconds ago, I would have blown up at myself for saying that, but I can see the possibility.”

  “I can see the value of the technology,” Jeremiah said.

  Dame Alice straightened in her chair, the ruby light flickering. “Outfit the Prince Edward with one of his own devices and hunt that blackguard down to the very ends of time,” she said. “I’ll see no one destroy Victoriana on my watch, much less undo Liberation!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Jeremiah said. “Prevail, Victoriana—”

  Lord Birmingham cleared his throat. “Dame Alice, might I remind you that the destination Lady Westenhoq has charted is over the dark heart of Georgia?”

  Dame Alice scowled. “Your point being—ah.”

  “Oh yes,” Georgiana said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Jeremiah looked around, baffled. “What is the issue of which all you incessant talkers are so suddenly reluctant to speak?”

  “The leadership of this Expedition,” Dame Alice scowled.

  “Ah,” Jeremiah said, steeling herself. “I understand, we do not reward failure—”

  “What? No, not that at all,” Dame Alice said. “Clearly, my earlier judgment was hasty—with a third of the resources you asked for, you succeeded in getting intelligence critical to the future, if not to the existence of Victoriana. That’s in no wise a failure.”

  “Well,” Jeremiah said. “Thank you, ma’am—”

  “But,” Dame Alice continued, “there are issues at stake that require a change to your chain of command. To be clear, Commander Willstone, I do prefer to have a person of sensibility, such as yourself, leading an Expedition—”

  “Dame Alice!” Jeremiah said, shocked beyond prudence. “Person of sensibility, my pert arse! You mean, a woman! The point of aggressively upending the masculine preference in our culture was not to replace it with a feminine one—”

  “Forgive an old woman her prejudices,” Dame Alice said. “Your grandmother once told me we spent so much time fighting for women that we forget that we’re not fighting against men. I think she would be quite proud of how fiercely you guard the true point of Liberation.”

  “I—well, thank you, ma’am,” Jeremiah said. “But . . . with respect, ma’am, if I may speak as the guardian of that family project, we did not take men’s names as a steppingstone towards taking men’s places. That attitude is why my uncle has gone to undo Liberation—”

  “Which is why I want to send Liberation’s finest weapon after him—you,” Dame Alice said. “But, like the issue with Newfoundland, this is a matter of some delicacy. A member of the Peerage must be in command, and as it so happens, we have a ranking member at hand.”

  She looked down. The Lady Westenhoq, second Viscountess Greylock, suddenly twitched.

  “Well, don’t look at me,” Georgiana said. “I’m just a computer—”

  “Oh, I understand,” Jeremiah said dryly. “But, I repeat, the point of Liberation was not to replace one chauvinism with another. Rank and gender aside, there is another member of the Peerage at hand, with ample military experience, which we have just tested.”

  And then, even though it meant giving up her hard-won command of her own free will, Jeremiah swallowed her pride and stepped before Lord Birmingham. The man might be new to their outfit—but he was an experienced soldier, a veteran general, and while the two of them had butted heads once or twice . . . he was, she had to admit, earning a place on her shortlist.

  “I would be proud to take your orders in the field, sir,” Jeremiah said. “Forget your relative newness to our command and our most recent troubles: we have the opportunity to resolve both together on our next mission—and your prior work, especially in Africa, speaks for itself.”

  “Thank you for your vote of confidence, Commander,” Lord Birmingham said.

  Dame Alice lowered her head, then nodded. “You are right, Commander. My apologies, Lord Birmingham: like our Commander’s illustrious forebear, I believe we must always push for Liberation. Sometimes, perhaps, I push too far, where it is no longer needed—”

  “Think nothing of it,” Birmingham said. “But think more of my request. If we had already knighted the Commander, none of this would be necessary—”

  “Knighted,” Jeremiah said, her mouth falling open.

  “I have considered it,” Dame Alice said. “I’ve even drawn up the paperwork. Unfortunately, no matter how I choose to dress the outcome of this misadventure, Commander Willstone was quite right: the mission did not go as well as we hoped—”

  “Come on, woman,” Birmingham said. “The villain knew our entire repertoire and had a time machine to boot. Commander Willstone had him cornered in a hangar by the time the Falconry caught up to them—and we can fly. Surely the Queen—”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Birmingham, but I have thought through this carefully. The Commander also correctly notes we can’t blame her for not lighting a fire with wet wood—but I know what Her Majesty would say,” Dame Alice said. She pinched her nose and said in a high-pitched voice, “We do not care if he pulled a magic carpet out of his arse. We do not reward failure, no matter how valiant, because we do not want to encourage our soldiers to throw their lives away.”

  Everyone laughed at the dead-on impression of Queen Columbia II, and Alice raised a finger. “Now, now!” she said. “Don’t let me catch you repeating that.” Her face grew more serious. “Commander Willstone, please do not think this reflects on you. We honor your service and invest in you our trust,” she said gravely. “But there’s more at stake than the diplomatic issue of having an aristocrat represent Victoriana. Lord Christopherson had access to some of our most terrible secrets, and we need a member of the Peerage at hand to help divine his mission—”

  “Again, I register my protes
ts against fighting blind,” Jeremiah said. “I gather the Peerage had a fairly complete inventory of what Lord Christopherson stole from the Providence Museum of the Insane, but in the last operation I had to guess what contraband he was smuggling—”

  “Commander, please,” Dame Alice said. “Catch him, catch his luggage—and surely a stolen airship provided you focus enough! Regardless, we didn’t send a fresh Ranger recruit: we sent you. Did you have any trouble recognizing the Egg of the Scarab when you saw it?”

  “Well, no, ma’am,” Jeremiah admitted. But while she knew how to work in the dark, she’d grown used to her late mentor, Lord Bharat, taking her into confidence. Bad enough her foes tried to keep their plans secret; now her leaders were too! “But what if it had been smaller, say, a key—”

  “Commander!” Dame Alice said. “The legendary Key to Victoria’s Flying Castle, is, officially, just that, a legend, but if some blackguard does steal the key to a flying fortress, rest assured I’d not just tell you, but send an engraved plate of its full specifications!”

  “That’s . . . comforting, ma’am,” Jeremiah said—but, comforting or not, Dame Alice’s bluster about her willingness to take her into confidence wasn’t as useful as Dame Alice actually sharing actionable intelligence. Jeremiah tried again. “But recall Austria—”

  “Which ended in resounding success, thanks to both your valor and the discretion of Lady Westenhoq,” Dame Alice said. “Commander, we will take you in confidence if we must, but restricting dangerous knowledge to the Peerage is a good rule. We carry dreadful secrets—”

  “Terrible secrets,” Lord Birmingham said, shuddering.

  “Appalling,” Lady Westenhoq said.

  “Like the Machine?” Jeremiah asked.

  “That toy,” Georgiana said, “is the least of our worries.”

  “Well spoken, Lady Westenhoq,” Dame Alice said, and Jeremiah—responsible for keeping her own fair share of secrets—let it go. Dame Alice’s gaze shifted. “Lord Birmingham, the mission is yours. Commander Willstone is your weapon; give her every possible advantage the Falconry has to offer. You have a blank cheque—and permission to share secrets with her, if required.”

  “Thank you, Dame Alice.”

  “Prevail, Victoriana,” Dame Alice said.

  “Prevail, Victoriana,” they all repeated.

  As the spectroscope went dark, Jeremiah sighed.

  ———

  “Well,” she said. “At least she didn’t take a lot of convincing.”

  9.

  Prevail, Victoriana

  “BLOODY HELL,” LORD Birmingham said, “the woman’s a firecracker.”

  “She’s a strong spice,” Jeremiah said wryly. “Too much can burn, but it flavors the dish—”

  “Clearly I have a lot to learn about this command,” Lord Birmingham said, shaking his head as the Expeditionaries gathered around the plotting table to plan their next move. “But when we got into your family history, she skated too close for comfort, Commander. Bad enough your traitorous uncle’s involved, but if she’d spilled one more word about that business with your mother, I think I’d’ve been obliged to punch her through the spectroscope dial—”

  “I’m proud of my history,” Jeremiah said, coloring. Well, she might be proud of the family project to defend Liberation, but between the Baron’s loss of Iceland and her mother’s loss of her whole platoon, the honor of the family name was a touchy subject. “But thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” Birmingham said, with a stroke of his hand seeming to dismiss the betrayals of her uncle—and the smaller, but equally spectacular failures of her mother. “I was quite serious earlier, Commander: you did well, collecting valuable intelligence—”

  “Like what, sir?” Jeremiah scoffed. “And don’t return to the lapel buttons—”

  “But I shall,” Lord Birmingham said. “Expensive, handmade: he’s well resourced, despite his forfeiture. And his exclusively male complement of guards, plus you unmasking that Restorationist noble, confirmed our diagnosis of his support. That egg itself proves he’s up to his old tricks—”

  “Trying to use Foreigner’s weapons against them,” Jeremiah said. “Or, in this case, trying to use a literal Foreigner. Ryder even called it a larva. When it matures . . . well, no matter how prepared my uncle thinks he is, a living Foreigner could turn apocalyptically bad in an instant.” She grimaced. “Trust me—I know from bitter experience how insidious Foreign technology can be.”

  “All valuable intelligence. Perhaps this mission didn’t go as badly as you thought.” Lord Birmingham smiled. “You remind me of my eldest daughter. She tries so hard to acquit the family name well that the slightest misstep has her failing to credit her real accomplishments.”

  He touched her shoulder with what he perhaps hoped was fatherly reassurance, though it came off as condescension, given he was speaking to a nine-year veteran who’d just upbraided him for disobedience—and then seen him given her command.

  No, that was unfair, egotistical; Lord Birmingham had been her strongest defender, and had made a strong case for his bold, if inconvenient assault. Regardless of the circumstances, she’d nominated him for her command, and had to own that decision.

  “Thank you, sir. But I’d rather the next be an unqualified success.” She leaned forwards and spoke quietly, determined not to undermine Birmingham the way Herbert-Draper had done her. “With respect, sir, joining the Rangers and the Falconry at the hip on these last two operations has left our chain of command a muddle. One of us needs to be in command, and I am proud to—”

  “To take my orders in the field—I heard,” Birmingham said. He lowered his voice as well, eyes faraway, as if thinking of how they’d gotten into this pickle. “Still, it’s never good to give an old crew to a new captain, not with the old one still around. Make no mistake, Commander, I accept the responsibility of command, but I intend to work lockstep with you, if you permit it.”

  “I shall, sir,” Jeremiah said. “And I shall do my utmost to reciprocate.”

  “Very well, ‘weapon of Liberation’—spend Dame Alice’s blank cheque,” Lord Birmingham said. “Plan our assault, and I’ll go clear the air. Between their Marconi Stations and Tesla Towers, if we don’t get permission to enter Confederate airspace, this is likely to be a very short trip.”

  Birmingham nodded in salute, his mechanical kneebenders revved to life, and he turned and stomped off, one of his aides running to his side. Jeremiah sighed. The man had his own substantial personal staff and a permanent traveling entourage—because he was a Peer. Even Jeremiah’s roommate had artisans at her beck and call because she was the Lady Westenhoq. But Jeremiah shared a common dispatch pool with the other two SECs in the Foreign Affairs Command, along with a single harried aide on leave caring for his first child. Dame Alice may have raked her over the coals for not standing up to the Peerage, but Jeremiah knew that even on this mission there were things she, a commoner, would have to do for herself.

  But still, as Birmingham dismissed his aide with a sheaf of dispatches and stomped to the communications booth, motioning for a remote operator to assist him with a telegraph, Jeremiah had to admit he knew how to work. She glanced over at Natasha.

  “Well,” Jeremiah said, “there’s some good to having a former diplomat at the helm.”

  “Well,” Natasha said, “there’s a great deal more good to having a former general at the helm. I’d be a bit worried putting this mission entirely in your hands.”

  Jeremiah glanced over, then felt her face drain. Natasha was serious. In another era, another army, that cheek would push the boundaries of insubordination—but Jeremiah’s mentors had taught her a commander valued not deference, but directness. “Elaborate, if you please, Lieutenant.”

  “I meant every word,” Natasha said, holding her gaze. “You may spout p
retty words about military doctrine, but your plans always let your Rangers shine, regardless of whether it’s good for the mission—and when the crunch comes, you act more like a foot soldier than a strategist. Striking like a cobra is all well and good, but mark my words, one day it will lead you into a blunder. A general doesn’t just ask where her enemy is going, but what he aims to do.”

  The words stung. Jeremiah’s career had been built on her strategic insight, but what had she to show for it lately? Was Natasha right? Had Jeremiah reduced herself to one strategic move, the lightning strike? Then she thought of Birmingham’s words.

  “Then you need a foot soldier like me, one capable of accomplishing singlehandedly what a platoon cannot,” Jeremiah said, instantly regretting her words as anger flashed across Natasha’s face. It was fantastic to have an accomplished soldier on your side, but insulting for a commander of a different service to imply your soldiers weren’t capable. “I didn’t mean that as puffery, or to impugn your Falconers or my Rangers, but as a reminder that by striking like a cobra, I penetrated close enough to the heart of the matter to witness the birth of a Foreigner.”

  “It is valuable intelligence,” Natasha admitted stiffly, “to know we’re not simply facing a traitor with a stolen Foreign weapon, but an actual Foreign Incursion.” The words seemed to hit home, and now Natasha’s face drained. “I’ll arm my soldiers appropriately.”

  “Remember, we’re fighting human men and women,” Jeremiah said sternly. “The blackguard didn’t field a single female soldier—but I didn’t see a single lethal weapon, and society clock or no, his men dressed in sharp livery. The man may have called down a monster, but in a civilized way.”

  “If we’re fighting Foreigners, we must be prepared,” Natasha snapped. “But . . . you are right. I meant to say, armor my soldiers appropriately,” she said. Her eyes glinted at Jeremiah. “You’ve never catch a Falconer taking a human life on my watch—we set high standards!”

  Jeremiah scowled. Where was this coming from? It was old news that Jeremiah had been called on to kill, sadly, more than once. Hang on—her first had been back in Academy . . . shortly after a rash flight with inner ear trouble got her drummed out of the Falconry program.