Flaming Zeppelins (37 page)

His head went —

— POOF.

Nothing more.

A little explosion. A poof. Then there were black ashes settling to the floor. The remainder of his body collapsed, kicked and quit.

“Goddamn,” John Feather said.

Another ray struck one of the stained-glass eyes. Glass shards sprayed. Glass hit both Beadle and John Feather. A large piece went through John Feather's cheek and lodged there, the tip of it poking through his gums, against his teeth.

Beadle snatched at the controls. Steam rushed forward, hunkered down. His fists flew.

And they made contact. The sound of metal on metal was deafening. Sparks flew from the blows. Martian machines went to pieces, were knocked about.

A ray was fired. Steam lost the metal tip of another one of his fingers.

Verne's, Twain's and Ned's machine was right on top of the melee now. But instead of joining in they wheeled their machine and sent rays flying back at their pursuers.

Rays jumped out of the Martians they were attacking. The sky was dotted with light. There were so many rays, and they came so fast, it was as if someone were tossing stiff confetti.

And then a strange thing happened.

The foremost pursuer fell.

Just fell over.

Toppled and hit the ground with a thud, went skidding along on the pavement, sparks leaping up like startled red and yellow frogs.

“What the hell?” Twain said.

But there was no time to wonder. In the background, the two machines that had entangled their legs were now disengaged. They were up and coming.

Everyone and everything weighed in.

It looked like a bar fight.

Steam was throwing machines this way and that. Verne, Twain and Ned were too close to use their ray, feared they might hit Steam. But they swung one tentacle like a whip while they supported themselves on the other two.

They snapped it here. They snapped it there. Shattering windshields, popping exposed Martians. They scooped with it, jerking Martians out of broken windshields, slapping them on the ground, grabbing machine legs, tugging them out from under the machines, smashing them to the turf.

“They're not that quick-witted,” Twain said. “They can build a machine, but they don't have imagination. They fight like sissies.”

The other machines arrived.

The brawl went on.

The Martians didn't mind using their rays close in.

But this didn't work well for them. They quickly wiped out three of their own allies.

A few Martians escaped from broken windshields, or screwed open the plug trap doors, hustled down ladders (Ned thought: Hey, where's our ladder? How come we don't have a ladder?), scuttled onto the ground, looking for hiding places.

They didn't find many.

Twain and Verne were pretty good shots with their ray. They cooked the Martians on the street bricks quicker than Ned could write:

FASTER, FASTER, KILL, KILL.

There was a pause now.

The calm after the storm.

Steam extended a hand.

The machine extended a tentacle.

They shook.

Then, without really talking about it, the Martian machine Twain and Verne operated clambered up on top of Steam, stretched two tentacles high, clung to Steam with the other, coiling it around his head like a constrictor crushing its prey.

The tentacles grabbed hold of Rikwalk, who had climbed down even closer, and lifted him on top of Steam. Rikwalk climbed down the metal man quickly, stood happily on the ground.

No sooner was this done than Steam made a noise and froze up like a rust-encrusted bolt.

A ladder was dropped out of Steam's ass. Beadle and John Feather climbed down, John pulling the glass from his cheek as soon as he descended.

Twain and Verne caused the Martian machine to coil its legs beneath its body, bringing it down to the ground. They unscrewed the plug and came out, Ned dragging the cruiser after him.

“Out of fuel,” Beadle said. “We'll have to leave Steam. We were operating damn near off residue. We're lucky we lasted as long as we did.”

“I think it's time we leave our machine as well,” Twain said. “We're a little conspicuous. And it's taken a lot of damage.”

“We are close to Herbert's home,” Verne said. “We must try to find him. Where is Passepartout?”

“He is gone,” Beadle said. “A ray struck him. He never knew what hit him.”

“My God,” Verne said. “Passepartout. My butler. My friend.”

“I feel for you, sir,” Beadle said, “but now is not the time to grieve. We must move on.”

The cruiser carried them all except Rikwalk. It was a tight fit in the device and it moved more slowly than usual, bearing the excess weight. It barely skimmed above the ground. But it carried them.

Rikwalk ran beside them, using his foreknuckles to propel him.

As they went, they were surprised to see Martian machines lying about. Both the stalking machines and the triangular flying craft; several of them had crashed, tearing apart, spraying the premises with residue of Martians.

“What happened to them?” Twain said.

“Perhaps there are freedom fighters,” Beadle said. “People working from the shadows, like us.”

“It's not that shadowy right now,” Twain said.

They wound down amongst broken, smoking stones, along damaged walls and trampled gardens, and finally came to a row of houses. The homes had all suffered damage, but appeared to be in reasonable condition.

Verne pointed at the largest of the row. “That is Herbert's home. We'll check.”

“Careful he doesn't shoot you for a looter,” Twain said.

Rikwalk crouched in the courtyard, a sharp eye out for machines, as the others tried the door.

It came open.

They went inside.

Verne slumped. Though the house looked fine from the outside, inside the back wall had been knocked down, and the interior had been gutted by fire. The floor was littered with charred remains.

“Damn,” Verne said. “Our last hope. Another friend gone. God. Is life worth living anymore?”

“It hasn't been for me for a long time,” Twain said. “Until now. Until we banded together. With a cause. We have a reason, Jules. I almost forgot it's better to go down fighting than to not fight at all.”

“Right now, I am all out of fight,” Verne said.

Rikwalk yelled out from the courtyard.

When we went outside, me on the cruiser, the others on foot, to respond to Rikwalk's cries, we were surprised to see that above the courtyard a triangular machine was wobbling in the air.

“We have to flee,” Verne said.

“No,” Rikwalk said. “Watch. It's lost control.”

The machine vibrated violently, sailed past us, dipped into a house across the way, exploded in a ball of fire. The heat from the explosion made my whiskers curl.

“Something is happening to them,” Verne said.

“No shit,” Twain said. “Microbes.”

We wheeled at the sound of the voice.

Standing at the back of the courtyard was a stocky, mustached man.

“Herbert,” Mr. Verne said.

“I am surprised, but glad to see you, my friend,” the man said. “Your head is bandaged.”

Mr. Verne said, “It's nothing, Herbert.” Then to us: “This is H. G. Wells, gentlemen.”

I wrote:

I READ
THE TIME MACHINE.

“Holy shit,” Mr. Wells said. “A seal that can write.”

“A long story,” Mr. Verne said.

IT WAS A GOOD BOOK.

“Alas, a bit of reporting on my part, Mr. Seal, and part of a greater concern, that story is. But that is not a story for this moment.”

We paused at this mysterious reply, but Mr. Wells offered no more explanation.

“We saw the house,” Mr. Verne said. “We thought you were dead.”

“Come. We are still not safe. This ape, is he trained?”

“Oh my, yes,” Rikwalk said. “But I don't do tricks.”

“My God,” Mr. Wells said. “He talks. A seal that writes, and an ape that talks. And a big ape he is.”

“It's a convoluted story,” Mr. Verne said. “These are my friends: Mr. Beadle, and John Feather, Ned the Seal, and Rikwalk, from an alternate Mars; this is Samuel Clemens, better know as Mark Twain.”

“Amazing,” Mr. Wells said. “We will share our stories. But not here. Come, the back way.”

We went through the courtyard gate, around to the back of the house where it had been knocked down.

Mr. Wells said, “I see that the fuel cell worked in Passepartout's design for the cruiser… Where is Passepartout?”

Mr. Verne hung his head. Mr. Twain said, “Rubbed out.”

“I am sorry. Your family, Jules?”

I thought: The family jewels? Now is that a proper question?

“My wife and child left me long ago.”

Oh. Never mind, I understood now.

“They felt I was too preoccupied with stories and reporting the events around me. They ran off with Phileas Fogg.”

“I never liked him,” Mr. Wells said. “Too, I don't know… Too too. Come. Look at this.”

Mr. Wells bent down and pulled back a large piece of wood, and underneath it were stairs.

“They didn't destroy the basement. I've been hiding down there. I was down here when the house was attacked. Come. I have lights controlled by the same type of fuel cell that runs the cruiser. It's quite comfortable, actually.”

“You clever rascal,” Mr. Verne said.

“Of course.”

We went downstairs, me by cruiser, Rikwalk narrowing his shoulders. Fortunately, it was a wide opening, and he was able to make it, though the stairs creaked in a frightening manner under his weight.

Mr. Wells pushed the board back over the hole, and we remained in the dark until Mr. Wells managed his way downstairs and hit a switch.

The room lit up.

Above us and along the walls were long bars that generated light.

The room was huge. Packed with rows and rows of books. They rose all the way to the ceiling and there was a rolling ladder that went around the room to give access to them. There was also a lot of fine, comfortable looking furniture. Through a doorway I could see a lab, and beyond that, another open doorway and another room.

“Please, sit,” Mr. Wells said. “Rest.”

There was plenty of space. I climbed down from the cruiser and stretched out on a lounge. I lay there as if I had been harpooned. The events of the last few days were catching up with me. Mr. Twain and Mr. Verne sat and sighed, feeling the years creep up on them. Until that moment, they really hadn't had time to be old, and I hadn't actually noticed how elderly they seemed. Mr. Verne's beard, which I presume had been dyed black, now showed silver at the roots near his face, and it was the same for his hair. Mr. Twain had grown a bit of a beard, and it matched the white hair on his head. The lines on his face were as deep as ditches.

Beadle and John Feather found soft chairs. They sat back and stretched out their feet. Rikwalk curled on the floor, rested his head on his arm.

“I feel like an old dog crawled up my ass and died,” Mr. Twain said.

“That is unique,” Mr. Wells said.

“If I was any more tuckered out, I'd have to be buried,” Mr. Twain said.

“We will try to hold off on that,” Mr. Wells said.

“This is incredible,” Mr. Beadle said. “All that destruction above, and here you are, safe and sound, thank goodness.”

“It is quite the haven,” Mr. Wells said. “But I have had my adventures on the outside as well. I was out scrounging for more food today. I have a large supply set in. I even have a refrigeration machine that is run by the fuel cell I discovered that operates the cruiser. It is amazing stuff. It is not an invention, I might add, but a discovery. Anyway, I was out scrounging, and I saw more and more of the machines crashing. Martians dying. I took one of the machines apart one night, and I found many things of interest inside. I have them in the laboratory. They are very advanced technologically. But that aside, they are not as smart as one might suspect.”

“You said something about microbes,” Mr. Verne said.

“Exactly,” Mr. Wells said. “Fate has stepped in to weigh on our side. The Martians do not have our immunity to such simple things as a summer cold. All manner of diseases that we deal with every day are little devils to them. They are over-laden with our microbes, and now they are dying. It is just a matter of time, and it is all over.”

“My God,” Verne said. “That is why they are starting to collapse, why there were so many dead Martians lying about.”

“Correct,” Mr. Wells said. “It started a day or so ago, and I've been waiting them out. Though, foolishly, I went about trying to secure even more food today. It was an unnecessary chance, and, alas, I had no real luck. Within a week, I predict, the invaders will be no more.”

“Then all we do is wait,” Mr. Twain said.

“Of course,” Mr. Beadle said, “happy as that all is, we have the problem of the rips.”

Mr. Wells nodded. “Yes. The rips. The tears in time.”

“You know about all this?” Mr. Verne said. “How did you know what they were? Beadle and John Feather told us. They are from another time. As is Rikwalk. But how did you know?”

“Because of the Time Traveler. The star of my book
The Time Machine.
I reported his adventures as he told them to me. He was my friend once upon a time. I fear he is the cause.”

“He is,” Beadle said, and told Mr. Wells the story he had told us.

“It appears it is too late to do anything,” John Feather said, “if there is anything that can be done.”

“Possibly,” Mr. Wells said. “But it would involve traveling in time. I feel almost responsible. I made a hero out of him, and a hero he was not.”

“You could not have known,” Mr. Verne said.