Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War (55 page)

“Of course I do,” Penny Dreadful replied brightly. “I was born there, after all.”

THE PENNY DREADFUL

C
APTAIN
B
UCKLE STRODE INTO THE
cramped chart room at the rear of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
’s piloting gondola, Ambassador Washington hard on his heels. Buckle was greatly annoyed, and even more displeased when he saw Howard Hampton and Penny Dreadful—the half-girl, half-metal goblin—sitting in the chairs, both patting Kellie. Kellie looked a bit unsure about the robot, but she was not inclined to turn down a good scratching, from a human or otherwise.

“This is not your mission,” Washington said. “Captain, you go too far.”

Buckle turned back to face Washington. There was little free space in the cabin, and it was dark—it took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the rich green boil illumination on the bridge. His face was close to Washington’s, his right leg pressing against the Penny Dreadful’s iron knees.

“It is an opportunity, sir,” Buckle whispered back. He could hear the bridge crew relaying orders in preparation for liftoff. He desperately wanted to be out on the deck with them. “With the invasion under way, every clan is in peril. The people of Atlantis shall understand this.”

“The people of Atlantis,” Washington said, punching the word
people
in an unfriendly way, “care for no clan but themselves.
They are absolutely neutral. Have you given thought to the fact that you shall not be able to find their city under the sea? The Atlanteans have no door to go knocking on, and I doubt they shall be popping up to greet you.”

“Penny Dreadful knows the way in.”

Washington uttered an unformed, frustrated sound. “This bashed-in automaton the Russians were about to melt down for scrap? You are going to risk this airship and the lives of your crew chasing the mumblings of an ancient robot and the insane prisoner who led it here?”

Buckle said nothing. He thought of Shadrack, who had vanished after the group charged to the rescue of Penny Dreadful. It irked Buckle to have lost the old man; he had so many questions for him. Buckle looked at Penny Dreadful, who returned his gaze with her shimmering eyes. Howard Hampton looked uncomfortable, not wanting to be trapped in a small room with an angry ambassador and a defiant captain.

“It is your duty to return home,” Washington pressed. “You can no longer afford to jump every time some rusty bucket of bolts starts yammering about your poor, dear sister.”

Buckle locked eyes with Washington. “My sister is important, but I shall bring Atlantis into the Grand Alliance.”

“Do not lie to me, Romulus,” Washington whispered, almost sadly. “I have known Balthazar all of his life and I love his children, you and Elizabeth included, as a blooded uncle might. And you know this. But Elizabeth is dead, Romulus. The Founders killed her at Tehachapi. Whispers and rumors will never bring her back, and if you chase her ghost in the night now, you will achieve nothing but your own death and the death of every crew member aboard the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
.”

Buckle was at the battle station in his brain, a place where all bomb blasts and insults passed by him like water in a river, clear and unscathing. He looked into the passageway, where the stained wood planks gleamed with the bioluminescent green glow of the boil lamp overhead. Normally, he would have agreed with Washington and returned to a safe Crankshaft harbor. But Lady Andromeda’s words from the night before never left him; they haunted him.
You must find a way to rescue Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the key to winning this war, the key to all of our futures. She must be rescued at all costs.
Never in a thousand years would Buckle have thought that he would trust a foreign clan member so utterly as he trusted Andromeda. For an instant, he tried to doubt himself and his belief in her words, but his forced uncertainty did not stick, passing in a heartbeat.

Elizabeth was the key to
everything
.

But Washington would never believe it.

And Buckle knew Elizabeth would be in Atlantis. He
knew
it. “I can bring the Atlanteans to us, sir, and win the war in so doing.” As he spoke, he heard the rumble of horse hooves arriving on the ground below the gondola.

“Such overconfidence is dangerous, Captain,” Washington countered, taking a deep breath. “Think of your position. With the Russians retreating north to Archangel, you are alone with the Founders coming up from the south. If you strand your airship over the sea, you cut yourself off, putting the Founders between you and home. I guarantee you the Founders shall take advantage of that mistake. The Atlanteans shall not rise to meet you, sir. You will be greeted by nothing but black ocean, and, once the Founders fleet surrounds you, it shall become your grave.”

“I assure you I shall find a way,” Buckle said evenly. He could not tell Washington what Andromeda Pollux had told
him, but he trusted Andromeda so much it actually frightened him. The recovery of Elizabeth was the paramount mission. Without her, according to Andromeda, the Grand Alliance would lose the war, and that would only be the beginning of the evil that would rise.

Washington sighed, his anger dissolving, looking older and more haggard than he had when his face had been tense with argument. “So many things have happened before, Romulus—so many things you do not know. The world is not so cut and dried as you think.”

“Captain?” Valkyrie leaned into the cabin doorway.

“Yes,” Buckle replied. Valkyrie looked good, looked sharp. She had just learned of the destruction of the
Cartouche
and her brother’s death fifteen minutes before; Buckle had asked her, with all the sympathy a man could muster, if she might wish to spend some time alone in her cabin. She had refused him, stating that the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
required her chief engineer on the bridge, and she would do her mourning later. If she wanted to remain in the thick of it, Buckle would allow her to do so.

“The
Czarina
has sent a mounted escort with a horse for the ambassador, sir,” Valkyrie said.

“It is time for you to go, Ambassador,” Buckle said.

Washington sighed, then offered Buckle his hand. Buckle shook it warmly. “Good luck to you, Captain,” Washington said.

“And to you, sir,” Buckle replied. He had great respect for Washington. He was sorry to send him away like this.

“Please follow me, Ambassador,” Valkyrie said. “And we shall be ready to be away in five minutes, Captain.”

“Aye,” Buckle said.

Washington followed Valkyrie out into the passageway. “A horse?” he grumbled. “It has been a hundred years since I have ridden a horse. My goodness.”

Buckle placed his hand over his mouth and ran his fingers along his cheeks to the point of his whiskery chin. Kellie, Howard, and Penny Dreadful lifted their faces to him, the eyes of the boy and dog shining, alive with their own life force in the weak light, while the gold-yellow orbs of Penny Dreadful gleamed with power quite unhuman. “How are we doing in here, Howard?” Buckle asked.

“Just fine, Cap’n,” Howard replied, sounding rather joyful that the tension in the air was gone. “Penny here, she knows some quite extraordinary word games, sir.”

“She does, does she?” Buckle asked.

“I am always good at learning things,” Penny Dreadful said, folding her hands in her lap with the light click of metal on metal.

Kellie, released from her scratching, trotted out the door, brushing against Buckle’s knees as she passed. Buckle suddenly felt uneasy. Washington was right. It was insane to place all his eggs in one basket, a basket woven by a madman and carried by a somewhat-melted robot. He suddenly missed Max, having her at his side, always a paragon of objectivity, always ready with wise advice even if he did not want to hear it. “You are certain you can get us to Atlantis, Penny Dreadful?”

“Oh, quite, Captain,” Penny Dreadful replied. “Please, do not worry.”

“Have you been having any mechanical problems?” Buckle asked. “I do not know how long you lay in the crucible. Perhaps I should have my chief mechanic take a look at you.”

“I feel extremely hale, thank you,” Penny Dreadful replied.

“You were not functioning when we found you,” Buckle said.

“I had shut myself down,” Penny Dreadful replied.

“And why was that?”

“Is it not obvious, Captain?”

“Humor me,” Buckle replied. “I am not much used to conversing with machines.”

“Because they were about to melt me,” Penny Dreadful said, something resembling a sob rising in her voice. “And I did not want it to hurt.”

Hurt? Buckle thought. In what way could a machine feel hurt? “Ah, well, I am glad you are well, Miss Dreadful, and that we were able to rescue you from any hurt.”

Penny Dreadful’s mouth formed an odd smile, and her eyes burned a little brighter. “And for saving my life I am eternally grateful, Captain Buckle. Be sure of that. Metal people never forget, you see.” She tapped her head with an iron finger in a childish fashion that Buckle found disturbing.

“Very well, then,” Buckle replied. “How about I escort you out onto the bridge, and you can help my navigator find the hidden city of Atlantis?”

“Oh, Captain,” Penny Dreadful said with a giggle, slipping off her chair and skipping past Buckle, her iron shoes clomping heavily across the deck. “Things are not hidden if you know where they are!”

THE GRAVEDIGGER

M
AX AWAKENED
,
RELEASED FROM
B
UCKLE
and sabertooths both. Her brain battled the morphine even in her sleep. It was late—she could tell by the brightness of the infirmary lanterns and the darkness of the window curtains. Tyro’s iron lung wheezed with its constant beat, and though she could not see Valentine, she sensed that he lay fast asleep in his bed.

Max tried to move—tried to lift her head, an arm, a finger—and failed. Pain stabbed her neck and back. She ignored it.

The infirmary nurse walked past, holding an empty syringe, its glass gleaming in the light of the lantern flames. She was a middle-aged woman with a bored face and little yellow flowers sewn into the collar of her medical smock.

Max could not remember the woman’s name.

She was suddenly frightened. Not for herself, but for Romulus Buckle. For the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
and her crew. Buckle had refused to tell her things, bad things. The airship and her crew were in mortal danger—she was sure of that. But there was more to fear. Something unknown, something even more terrifying than the prospect of war.

Something slithering beneath the known world.

She should be there, with them, guarding them.

When she was small, she could remember standing in the snow in front of her parents’ house. Someone had killed a timber wolf, and the creature’s body lay in the back of a wagon. She and Tyro stared at the dead animal, having edged up to it until there were mere inches away from its face.

The dead wolf stared at them with its lifeless yellow eyes, which were frozen open. Its mouth was open, too, the dark tongue lolling out over the jaw, framed by the rows of big, dirty, yellow teeth.

The fangs frightened Max. The dead animal smelled awful, of old carrion and rancid blood. She wanted to retreat, but Tyro would have teased her. Tyro had reached into the mouth and grabbed the tongue. Max had never forgotten that moment.

She closed her eyes, and she was in the chamber of numbers again. Her Martian unconscious, fueled by her dreams, had revisited the place and rebuilt it for her, piece by piece, carving brilliant details out of her murky memories,
working the problem
. The candle flickered on the table—she could smell its old, oily paraffin.

The numbers would not leave her alone. The crowded formulae on the walls kept returning to her unbidden. Perhaps she had absorbed the mystery of it, the obsession, somehow, when she lay in the chamber, near death.

Without willing it, she kept reviewing the calculations, flipping them upside down, inside out, the morphine constantly dragging her in and out of her lines of thought, zigzagging her brain.