Clockwork Souls (20 page)

“Straighten up, you damned Yankee spy,” a tenor voice
drawled. Deep South, not the soft lilt of Virginia, or the western states’
twang.

“I—
cough
—am in
uniform. You can’t arrest me as a spy,” Tad choked out, coughing again as his
words faded to a whisper. Unconsciously his tone drifted back to the gentle
accent of northern Virginia rather than the clipped affectation to help him
blend in with his own troops.

“Traitor,” a Reb snarled.
His accent sounded identical to Tad’s. He emphasized their common origin and
opposite affiliation with a resounding slam of the weapon against the back of
Tad’s head.

He saw stars as the stunning blow sent knife-sharp pain over
the top of his head to his eyes and down his spine.

In his tent Jules de Chingé tore his attention away from
his codex puncher to listen to the report of the Union captain taken prisoner.
The dead sergeant had been taken away to wherever the army took dead bodies. He
left it to the experts to deal with the matter. The young captain, however,
presented an interesting problem. Interesting, not beautiful.

“Looks quite a bit like you, sir,” the reporting sergeant
remarked. A brutish fellow de Chingé had dealt with before. He didn’t want to
remember the man’s name. When given orders to keep a prisoner alive he
frequently returned the solider bruised and sometimes broken. Useless for
interrogation.

“Where is Lieutenant Markham?” Jules asked. “I do not deal
with subordinates.”

“That’s as may be,
sir
.”
The last word came out on a sneer. “Seems like our
Union
Captain sounds like a traitor, nice civilized drawl wearing a
blue uniform. Not a trace of your Frenchified accent. Not a trace. Seems
strange to hear proper words coming out of a face and mouth that could be
yours. If he was wearing a proper uniform that is. That got me to wondering.”

“Yours is not the place to ‘wonder,’ Sergeant, or you will
find yourself minus a stripe or two. Now send Lieutenant Markham to me at once.
With the prisoner. I have the need to interrogate him.” De Chingé hid his
embarrassment at having lapsed into his own accent colored by his French
origins. He’d become distracted, comparing the punch holes in the gold card
with the mathematical formula on a page of diagrams and calculations.
Fortunately his mechanical body could not blush.

The sergeant withdrew, sullen and disrespectful, without
saluting. De Chingé ignored him. He’d find a way to put the man in his place. Perhaps a demotion was in his future.

He knew that time passed, because he made progress in
aligning the codices. Yet he was unaware of how much time. Eventually a man’s
voice interrupted his concentration. “Lieutenant Markham reporting as ordered,
sir.”

De Chingé swung around to find the short, square man in his
early twenties standing stiffly at attention, hand locked in salute, as if
turned to stone.

“Do you have the prisoner, Lieutenant?” With a start he
vaguely remembered to return the salute so Markham could drop his.

“Yes, sir.”

“I do not see him. Bring him in. I have questions for him.”

“Excuse me, sir, but your authority reaches only as far as
designing and protecting the weapon. The interrogation of prisoners belongs to
General Pemberton . . . .” The lieutenant narrowed his
eyes. “Nor do you have the authority to discipline
my
enlisted men.

“The prisoner was observing
my
gun. I need to know how much he knows, so that I can make
modifications above and beyond what he has reported to General Grant.”

Markham opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. “Very
well, sir.” He dropped his salute, did an abrupt about face, and retreated as
far as the tent flap. He spoke softly to someone.

A moment later, a disheveled figure stumbled in. His torn
blue uniform, the bruises on his jaw beneath a short brown beard, a split lip,
and filthy hair bespoke rough treatment at the hands of the sergeant. Oh, how
he wished he could treat that sergeant like the cur he was.

“Stand up and face me,” De Chingé ordered when the prisoner
continued his hunched over posture and concentrated study of the canvas floor.
De Chingé needed the layer of heavy flooring to protect his delicate
instruments from as much dust and moisture as possible.

Then the man looked up.

De Chingé gasped and recoiled. He could be looking into a
mirror—except for the bruises and filth. Instinctively De Chingé ran his hand
through his own beard, the same shade of dark golden brown as his opposite. The
prisoner mimicked his action.

“Who are you?” De Chingé asked, amazed.

“Captain Thaddeus Hyatt-Forsythe.” The voice was devoid of
emotion. But his eyes studied De Chingé minutely.

“The Richmond Hyatt-Forsythes,” De Chingé echoed. He’d been
told some history of his new body image. The Confederates had chosen to keep
his true identity, and therefore his likeness, a secret. No one must know that
he was an automaton. And yet the insolence of the enlisted men, and Lieutenant
Markham told him that they suspected his true nature.

If the Yankees learned that the genius of Jules de Chingé
directed the defenses of Vicksburg, they’d have to respond with new tactics and
weaponry. Possibly employing De Chingé’s greatest rival known only as “The
German,” a man who lived in secret isolation and sent underlings to build new
weapons according to his designs, never showing his face in public, or to
clients.

For over a decade de Chingé had heard rumors of experiments
with electricity, light rays, Greek fire, and a host of other impossible forms
of devastation. Impossible weapons. Yet . . . the monster cannon
he had built was an impossible weapon. He’d included a full array of gold codex
cards to perfect its aim, trajectory, and recoil. Additional coding allowed him
to monitor overheating and the build-up of black powder residue that could
impair its performance.

De Chingé created the impossible. As soon as the impossible
became possible, he grew bored and moved on to the next puzzle.

If the men in the Confederate army discovered that his true
identity was hosted in an automatic body, then they might very well forget his
rank and his talents, regarding him as less human than the
Nègre
slaves they owned. Pemberton
had promised that his genius would put him above slavery. But all men are
mortal—except de Chingé. Who would remember the promises of a dead man?

Non!
They would
not dare. He was Jules de Chingé. They must honor his genius.

General Pemberton had been born a Yankee. De Chingé heard
frequent rumors that the West Point-educated man could not be trusted. If the
Confederate position and chance of victory weakened, would Pemberton return to
his roots and throw himself on the mercy of General Grant?

The captive captain nodded slowly, staring until his
eyes—the same color as de Chingé’s own—seemed to start from his head. His
action returned De Chingé’ attention to the current situation, where he must
work to protect himself, and his precious weapon.

“They told me—
and our
mother
—that you were dead, Nate.”

“A mistake.”

“A mistake that cost our mother many tears and much
heartache. You couldn’t be bothered to notify her of the erroneous report of
your death and dismemberment? But then you never did have the forethought and
courtesy to think of another’s hurt.” Captain Thaddeus almost spat the last
words.

De Chingé dared not speak. His soul panicked but he made an
effort to speak evenly and mimic Captain Thaddeus’s accent. “What do you know
of our troop placement and ability to withstand a siege?”

Captain Thaddeus shrugged, then grimaced, as the movement
twisted his shoulder. How badly had the sergeant hurt him?

“You observed us for quite some time before I detected your
presence,” de Chingé insisted.

Captain Thaddeus looked up sharply.

De Chingé might have blushed at his reversion to his normal
speech pattern, had he still had the power to blush.

“He was wearing these, sir,” Lieutenant Markham said,
holding up a pair of thick-framed goggles with multiple lenses.

“If you please, Lieutenant, I would like to examine that
device more closely.” De Chingé requested politely and held out his hand for
them.

Markham dropped them across his wrist then wiped his hand on
his trousers as if the goggles had tainted him in some way.

De Chingé picked up the device by the head strap (an
innocuous leather belt, it seemed) with two fingers, cautious of hidden
poisonous needles or small explosives. He’d written a paper in his youth about
the possibility of such traps to safeguard one’s possessions against theft.

He blinked and increased the magnification of his mechanical
eyes and noted that the thick brass frame only encircled the primary lens
frame. He held up the goggles to peer through them without allowing them to
touch his face—those pesky traps might still exist even though he could not
detect them. The tent space took on a green cast, heat signatures intensified.
He allowed himself a half smile. Ah, the Yankees had used some of the
improvements in his own eyes to design the goggles. The green? “What is this?”

Captain Thaddeus looked at the sagging canvas roof, saying
nothing.

“Corpse effluvium.” Markham spat and crossed himself, an
instinctive ward against evil.

“That is not a term I have heard used before.”

“Ectomorphic gel,” Markham said quietly. He licked his lips
and pursed his mouth as if tasting something nasty.

De Chingé clicked through memories. Yes, sometimes a rotting
corpse glowed green in the dark. So did swamp gas.

He could not remember hearing of a practical use for this
substance. “What does it do?” he asked.

Markham turned away as if unwilling to discuss it further.

“Captain Thaddeus Hyatt-Forsythe?”

“You know my name, my unit, and my loyalty to the United
States of America. I need provide you with no other information.” The captain
tried to assume a stiff pose at attention. It lasted about five seconds before
pain made him curl forward, protecting his belly.

Ah, yes, the sergeant had been most thorough.

De Chingé turned right and left, still holding up the
goggles. Not until Markham pushed back the tent flap and breathed deeply
(probably to clear himself of the corpse effluvium) did De Chingé note that the
goggles pushed back the darkness outside and revealed to him substantially more
detail than his own eyes could, good as they were.

“A ghost has no need of light to see in the darkness of
night. This effluvium grants a similar, but lesser power, to the user.”

Again Captain Thaddeus shrugged. He looked a good deal paler
than he had a few moments ago when he first entered the tent.

“Take this man away. Give him a place to sleep and something
to eat, but guard him well. The first duty of a prisoner is to escape. Do not
allow him to do so. Do you understand me, Markham?”

“Yes, sir.” He snapped a salute and grabbed the captain’s
arm ungently.

“That does not answer the question of who
you
are,” the Union officer said. “You
may have my brother’s face and form, but you do not have his voice, or his
memories, or his barely rudimentary intelligence. Who are you? I have a right
to know.”

“No, you do not have any rights, Captain Hyatt-Forsythe. You
are a prisoner of war.” De Chingé shivered inwardly. He remembered assuming
that same hunched over posture when a particularly violent coughing spasm had
broken one of his ribs.

“Even a slave has some rights. I am not a slave . . .”

Markham gave him an elbow to his ribs. The inquisitive
Captain collapsed forward, knees buckling as he vomited on De Chingé’ boots.

Tad drew the blankets of his rough bedroll closer around
his shoulders. The early April dawn came quickly with a round of chill showers.
The bare ground beneath his blankets absorbed the cold and shared it willingly
with Tad’s body.