The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk

by Sean Wallace

  “The Dragon’s Egg,” I said, looking at the chest beside her.

  Attia frowned. “That’s what we called it, yes. When it was completed I stole it. I went into hiding. I told Song that they could have it. If they brought me you.”

  I shook my head. “You wanted to trade me for the Egg.”

  Attia nodded. “But I knew that as soon as they had it they would kill us both. Once you were here I had to get you alone. I planted that message in the kaffa tin, hoping you would find it.”

  “In the museum,” I said. “Was that you?”

  She nodded. “I got desperate. I needed to see you. I was hoping to pull you away, but Song was too close. I couldn’t get you alone.”

  “So what now?”

  “We’ll go south. Into the disputed territories in India if we can.”

  “Will that work?

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like our chances are better together though.”

  But they’re still impossibly long, I didn’t say.

  Silence stretched between us then, accented only but the occasional pop from the fire.

  I rubbed a hand through my hair. Dust shook free. I looked askance at the metal chest. “I still don’t understand. Why so much trouble for a dragon’s egg?”

  “It’s not a dragon’s egg.”

  “What?”

  “Come here,” she said.

  She took me by the hand and led me into darkness. Holding my hand in hers, she knelt down and pressed it against the metal box.

  “Open it.”

  I was almost afraid to. What was she trying to show me?

  I reached down and released the clasp. I swung the chest open, and frowned. Inside the chest, resting in a wood frame, was a perfectly round sphere of silver-white metal. I reached out and pressed my hand against it. It was just slightly warm to the touch. I didn’t pick it up, but I could feel the denseness of it. “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Gailium,” she said.

  I stared at her blankly. Nothing made any sense.

  “I would have called it Arturium if I’d known you liked your new name,” she said sadly. “A new metal, one made in a laboratory. Remember when I said that if I ever found a new element I’d name it after you? I did it.”

  “This is the Dragon’s Egg?” I said dumbly.

  “All spies have codenames.” She laughed then, though the frown never left her face. It made her look sad and afraid at the same time. “The dragons are dead. They wanted to replace them. You can’t remake the past, but you can create something new.” She glanced at her watch, and then the sphere. “Not long now,” she said. “You’ll see soon enough. We’ll be safe here.”

  She closed the lid of the chest and took me by the hand. We scrambled up the rock slope toward the tower, her helping me balance with my bandaged arm. I could feel that widening gulf in my understanding again. This whole ordeal had felt like I was stumbling from one dark room to another. Was she just rambling?

  We reached the top of the hill from which the tower emerged, and instead of climbing inside we skirted around the base until we looked over the desert to the East. The moon swung low through the sky and it illuminated a smattering of sandstone ruins below. They were so old and covered in desert that in my mind’s eye they manifested as labyrinthine canyons as much as anything manmade.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She pressed her finger to my lips. “Just watch. Wait.”

  The specter of death still hung over us. She had dragged me into the most dangerous situation of my life. More dangerous, even, then Aelia Capitolina. Maybe I should be mad at her, but when I studied her face all I felt was a thrill.

  “I love you,” I said.

  The wind whipped through the ruins below. “You don’t understand,” she said. “What I’ve done . . .”

  What was she—

  And then, far in the distance, a flare of light. Attia, the salt-flats, the stone city below, were all illuminated as bright as day. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away. Even through eyelids, and then my hand, the white light shone over everything. When it faded I opened my eyes and blinked in the direction of the light. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, brighter than the ten thousand stars, rose up into the predawn sky. And then there was a low, rumbling boom. A heaven-shattering explosion.

  “You see now,” Attia said. “You see what they made me do. What I did for you.” She made a sound and I wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.

  The more things ch— No. This wasn’t merely a replacement. We had lived too long in the shadow of our history. I found her hand and squeezed it tight. Make something new.

  The horizon shone white with the fire from a second sun. One brighter than dragonfire.

  Mountains of Green

  Catherine Schaff-Stump

  Kayo sharpened the corners of the sheet she folded into a perfect square, just so. Even though it was laundry to be done, Mrs Sasa preferred the customer to have a neat impression of her service. Kayo folded, her eyes on bleached cotton. She did not look at him, although she felt him looking at her, his blue eyes skimming her smooth black hair like he was using his hands, caressing her ears, and touching her long braids. She kept her face as smooth as the white sheet.

  She also felt the other set of eyes, like kami were watching her, in the distance, hovering over the scene. She wondered if the spirits of Japan liked the Occupation. The eyes of the kami watched her hands pluck a second sheet from the pile of dirty laundry, watched Private Quill and his gaikokujin face, pulled outside, looked down onto the converted city hall, now American barracks, and hovered over cars and bicycles in the narrow streets, the rubble and the makeshift buildings in the neighborhoods of Hakodate.

  Quill said something to her in English and left. Kayo exhaled, slowed her breathing, unclenched. His footsteps faded away, and she turned toward Quill’s desk. Quill always left presents for her. Today he had left her three things, and two were useful. There was half a bag of rice, much too dear for her to afford, and a chocolate bar, which she would not care for, but which she would pass along to her little brother Isao, who would sell chunks of it to the boys he played with. The third thing was a pair of nylons.

  Kayo had no need for nylons. Since the war had ended, she wore pants, rolled up at the ankles, too large, but right for her now that she worked long, hard hours scrubbing clothes. Even if she wore skirts, she would never wear nylons. She was only thirteen years old.

  She would give them to Isao as well. He was a natural salesman. Surely, one of these Hakodate women would want something like this at a good price. With a little effort, even a troubling gift like Quill’s nylons could find some use.

  Kayo stacked the last sheet into the basket. She tucked the chocolate, the nylons and the rice around the sheets and followed Quill down the hallway, past the commander’s office and toward the exit. The office door was closed, and she heard language gobbledygook on the other side.

  That meant she would have to wait outside before she could return to the laundry, to collect the money for the order she had delivered today. She went outside and sat on the concrete steps and placed the basket on the ground. These Americans never took off their shoes, and she didn’t in the barracks either. Wearing shoes inside just wasn’t natural.

  “Kayo!” Isao ran toward her. He was dressed in a dirty pair of black shorts. His knees were covered with smut from the streets, his white tennis shoes were gray, and his stomach gaped through a hole in his striped shirt. Maybe she should ask Quill for a needle and thread. If he was going to leave her gifts, they might as well be useful gifts.

  Kayo tried out the stern look that her mother would have given Isao under the circumstances, but she couldn’t sustain it. Thinking of her mother made her think about crying. She knew she was failing Isao when she didn’t scold him for skipping school. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working,” he said. “Like you. Did the gaijin give you anything today?”

/>   Kayo produced the nylons and the chocolate. “See what you can do with these.”

  Isao let the nylons dangle from his hand. They floated in the air like bonito flakes. “Hunh,” said Isao. “These don’t seem very sturdy.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Women will want them. You should take them to the Comfort Center, see if any women want them there.”

  Isao shook his head. “They closed it, remember?”

  Kayo’s lips thinned. “Yes. Now I remember. Well, someone will want them.”

  “Maybe you should keep them, and see if anyone at the laundry wants them. Maybe old Mrs Sasa wants to look sexy. Or she wants to give them to one of her girls.”

  She cuffed Isao, and he winced. “That is for disrespecting your elders,” said Kayo. “If Mrs Sasa didn’t give me work, you and I would starve.” Kayo thought. “Should I give them to her as a thank you present?”

  “No!” Isao shoved the delicate nylons into his pocket. “We live in the new Japan. It’s all about money and democracy. There are no more gifts without motive. You need to be more ruthless. Like a fox. Like an American.”

  “But Mrs Sasa—”

  Isao’s voice lowered. “She would fire you on the spot if she knew we were hibakusha. They believe that we are freaks because of the bomb. Don’t paint her as our savior. She uses young girls to make a killing off GI Joe’s laundry. Don’t let her talk you into doing anything else.”

  Kayo wanted to scold Isao, to remind him of who was the oldest, but he had learned so much. He could speak English. He could make money out of dust. She said nothing.

  The door to the barracks opened. Kayo dusted off her baggy pants. As she stood, one long, skinny braid whipped over her shoulder. The American commander had an envelope for her, written in English letters. “Kane,” he said, massacring the Japanese word for money. It didn’t matter. She took the envelope.

  Out the door behind him came a strange man. She’d never seen his like. Her first thought was akuma, a demon. This man was black, with hair that clung to his skull in black and gray whorls. He dressed like an American army officer, the same army uniform, but different patches than the rest of them. Not taking her eyes off him, Kayo stumbled down the steps next to her basket. She gathered Isao to her side. Isao’s mouth gaped open.

  The man towered over the commander, a full head taller. “Hey Isao,” said the commander. “Glad you’re here. Dr Marsh needs someone to help him, and I thought about you.”

  “They’re talking about you,” said Kayo. “What are they saying?”

  “They want me to help that man. He is a doctor.”

  The akuma man knelt so he could look Isao in the eye. Kayo looked away, as direct eye contact was rude. She was ashamed that Isao met the man’s gaze without flinching. “Hello,” akuma man said in accented Japanese.

  “Hey Joe,” said Isao in English. He went on into a strange patter that Kayo recognized as his merchant talk.

  “No,” said akuma man in better Japanese than Kayo expected. “I don’t want to buy anything from you. I need a guide. I hear you know what I’m looking for.”

  “What are you looking for, Marsh-sensei?” Isao couldn’t pronounce the “r” and the word was Ma-shu. English had some stupid sounds.

  “I’m a biologist. I focus on the effects of radiation.”

  Kayo’s stomach tightened. Were they looking to study people? His Japanese was good, but she didn’t know what his words meant.There were already scientists in Nagasaki and back in Hiroshima, studying people with their hair falling out and their skin sagging off their faces, burns and sickness and death. So far, Kayo and Isao had not been sick, but every day she lived in fear of it. She did not want to be alone in the world. She didn’t want to die.

  Isao shook his head. His smile sparkled. “Marsh-sensei, you are in the wrong city.”

  “I’ve heard there’s something outside of town. You could help me look.”

  Kayo shook her head. She had heard about it too. They talked about it at the laundry. Some sort of mutated animal, a fantasy, they said. But she didn’t think so. She thought that when the Americans came with their poisonous bomb, that Japan’s guardians would not let this pass, and now they were awake. Maybe that was also her fantasy, one that kept her moving forward.

  Isao had that gleam in his eye, the one that sealed a deal. “You want me to guide you?”

  “Yes. I need someone who knows the area to help me.”

  “I am afraid,” said Kayo, studying her feet, “that my brother and I are new here. Perhaps another boy would be better.”

  Isao pulled himself up, and pointed at himself, middle finger to nose. “I’m your guide,” he said. “We may be new here, but I’ve been everywhere.”

  Kayo winced inside. Did he ever go to school at all? She hoped her parents would forgive her.

  “That’s what they tell me,” said Marsh. “Then tomorrow we’ll get started.”

  Kayo’s hands were becoming red and scaly from the harsh soap of the laundry. She wrapped strips of cloth around them when they weren’t in the water. She and Isao sat in the tiny room they occupied, eating dinner by a dim lantern. Isao took the small bowl of rice from her and dug in, chopsticks flashing like blades.

  “Not so fast,” said Kayo. “That’s all you get tonight.”

  “Soon,” said Isao, “we’ll have more. I’ll take that American everywhere. Except where he could find anything.” He picked a grain of rice off his upper lip and popped it in his mouth.

  “There’s nothing to find,” said Kayo. “Don’t you feel ashamed, taking advantage of that man?”

  “No,” said Isao. He uncrossed his legs and poured her a small cup of hot water. They could not afford tea. “We must take advantage of them. Besides, there is something out there. He doesn’t need to find it right away, that’s all.”

  “One of the guardians?” Kayo smiled. She sipped the water. The Americans had brought clean water and, tea or not, it was a blessing to have it.

  Isao nodded. “Not the kirin, the dragon, or the phoenix. They all flew away when the bomb came. But the turtle. Now, the turtle is slow. The turtle wants vengeance for Japan.”

  Isao would pick the turtle. He loved them and had kept several over the years. “For our family,” said Kayo.

  “For our army,” said Isao.

  “If you found the turtle,” said Kayo, “I would not be displeased.”

  Her kami eyes failed her when Quill touched her shoulder. She sprang away from him, putting a bed between him and her. “It’s okay,” said Quill. That much English she understood. His freckles made him look like a spotted salamander and his red hair repulsed her. He spewed out some English and started toward her.

  She slipped past him and ran into the hall, past the commander and Marsh. The commander asked her something in a concerned voice, but she didn’t stop running until she was outside. She ran to the laundry without the basket, without the sheets and without the payment for the last load, her throat coated with the metallic taste of fear.

  The laundry was a swampy quagmire of humidity, like a hot Hiroshima day in the summer. Old women stirred a giant vat of clothes, scrubbed clothes on washboards, and toted baskets of clothes to drying racks. Coming down the stairs from Mrs Sasa’s office, two young women wearing Western dresses blew kisses at their boss. Mrs Sasa walked from station to station, supervising the work of her employees. She noted Kayo’s appearance.

  “What is it, Kayo-chan?” She placed a solicitous hand on Kayo’s shoulder, her nails like the talons of a dragon.

  Kayo shook her head. She had no idea what to say.

  “Where’s the money for the order?”

  “I forgot it.”

  Mrs Sasa puckered her lips. “That’s not like you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You come into my office,” said Mrs Sasa.

  The noise of the laundry diminished a little as Mrs Sasa slid her door shut. She tapped her finger on her chin. “What is this about
?”

  “Nothing,” said Kayo. “I saw a mouse in the barracks. I was afraid.”

  Mrs Sasa laughed. “There isn’t a woman in Japan afraid of a mouse anymore. Try again, little liar.”

  Kayo shifted and listened to the floorboards creak.

  “Was one of the GIs mean to you?”

  Tears rimmed in Kayo’s eyes. “No. Not mean.”

  Mrs Sasa could afford tea. She poured Kayo a cup, sat at a low table, and patted the tatami beside her. “Kayo,” she said, “I don’t know what happened, but I think I can guess. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “And you are not a woman?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “I feel sorry for you. I know you have no mother.You mustn’t feel ashamed of a man being attracted to you. You must take advantage of it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “A soldier gives you gifts. Isao told me when he tried to sell me nylons last week. You accept these gifts.”

  Kayo nodded.

  “You must,” said Mrs Sasa. “It is a very practical thing to do in your situation, but you must know that any American wants something in return for their investment. They aren’t like us. Give this man what he wants. There will be more gifts, better gifts.”

  “I can’t do that,” whispered Kayo. “I can’t.”

  Mrs Sasa’s hand covered the top of Kayo’s. “I am only giving you advice. It is such a little thing to give for such a good return. After the first time, you will feel no fear.” She laughed. “You will only be bored. Get pretty things for yourself, get food for your brother.”

  “I can’t.”

  Mrs Sasa shrugged. “I can only give you my opinion. What you do is up to you. Now, I need you to go back to the barracks and get my money.”

  “Can someone else go?”