Terra Mechanica: A Steampunk Anthology (13 page)

Humboldt didn’t knock when she arrived at Valerie’s lodging the next morning. The door banged open as she strode into the parlour. “Get your things. You’re leaving.”

Valerie was suspicious of another lie, but the chance to escape from there was too good to miss. She knew she would have to be alert for any sign of trouble. She threw her few belongings into her bag and followed as Humboldt hurried out to the street.

Humboldt talked as they walked quickly and jumped onto a passing tram. “You’ve caused quite a stir. The government on Harmony City . . . well, to be honest, they’re not convinced this isn’t a trick, but with eight million lives at stake, they’re not prepared to take the risk. We’re giving you an aircraft, and Castrovalva knows you’re coming. They’ll have the protonium ready when you arrive.”

Nothing more was said until they reached the docks. A flyer sat on a docking rail, its nose almost touching the launch doors. It was twice the size of the one she’d flown from City Twenty-seven—a dark cylinder of polished wood, with brass and copper pipework running from the engines at the rear, along the body and the double wings to the six propellers. “It’s huge! What is that, ninety feet?”

Humboldt smiled. “When the agency agreed to help you, they had in mind an older machine. I persuaded them to give you something more reliable, given the importance. You need something fast, and with cargo space for the protonium. She’s called Nomad. She’ll get you to Castrovalva and back to City Twenty-seven.”

Valerie stepped forward to board the aircraft, and Humboldt took her arm to stop her. “Valerie . . .”

Valerie was startled. “What happened to ‘Miss McGrath’?”

Humboldt ignored the remark. “When you’ve done what you need to do, come back to us. I know what’ll happen if you go back to the Royal Cities, even if you don’t.” She walked away. Valerie couldn’t tell whether the woman was genuinely concerned for her, or if it was just an act. The thought that it might be real gave her an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling as she boarded the flyer and closed the hatch.

Something was happening that she didn’t understand. The Rogues were the enemy; they had no reason to help a Royal City, and every reason to let it fall. But they didn’t need to pretend to let her go to do that. They could have just kept her locked up until it was too late. What were they up to?

Unless . . . what if Humboldt was telling the truth? Valerie didn’t like the direction that line of thought was beginning to take her. She dismissed it and steered her mind back to more immediate concerns.

She’d gone a quarter of the way round the world to get to Belvedere. Castrovalva was the same distance again—about as far from City Twenty-seven as it was possible to go. She looked at the chart attached to the clockworks. The first stop would be Profundis, five days distant. She started Nomad’s motors, and engaged the propellers.

The clockworks docked the aircraft at Profundis without her assistance. The dock workers there had been forewarned, and refuelling was completed in less than an hour. Valerie allowed herself two hours beyond that to stretch her legs, get some air, and see how different Profundis was from Belvedere. Other than being a little larger, it was much the same—and, as on Belvedere, she saw no signs of starvation or sickness in the people. If they’d staged all that just to fool her, they were making a serious effort.

She returned to the dock and prepared to move on. The next stop would be Syberia, six days closer to Castrovalva.

Valerie awoke knowing something was wrong. She slipped off the bed quickly and almost fell as the deck shuddered and tilted. The flyer was nose-down, diving.

She ran from the little sleep cabin to the controls. A grating sound came from the engine compartment behind her. She grabbed the wheel and pulled, but it was frozen, locked as the clockworks did their best to keep the flyer airborne. On the panel, a red lamp flicked on and off with a clicking sound. Outside the glass of the bow port, the ground was coming up to meet her. She had about sixty seconds.

She whirled and scrambled up the sloping passageway to the engine room. Smoke hung in the air, and the grating sound was deafening. It ceased as the engine died.

Smoke issued from the edges of a square panel on the engine’s cylindrical iron casing. She flipped the clips holding it in place and tore it away. Inside, a mangled mess of chitin and thick, green gunk had fouled the gears—the remains of a dragonfly. She had no gloves, and no time. She grabbed the corpse and yanked. It was stuck firm. She put a naked foot against the metal—hissing in pain as the heat seared her sole—and pulled as hard as she could. The body came free. She threw it to the deck and ran for the control room.

She grabbed the wheel and pulled it back. The nose came up and the flyer glided, unpowered, and at high speed, no more than twenty feet above the ground.

Fifty yards ahead, a stand of trees blocked the way.

She braced herself for the impact.

The control room was spinning. Valerie’s head hurt, and her eyes stung. She wiped them and saw blood on her hand. Then she heard a throaty roar and stood up from where she’d been thrown against the control panel.

Nomad sat on flat ground—the tough bird had smashed through the trees and settled, upright, on sandy soil. Bushes around the aircraft writhed, tendrils reaching out toward it. If they got around the landing wheels, they’d pin the ship down and begin to digest it—and Valerie. She didn’t have much time.

The roar came again, and then the animal that made it came into sight. An armour-plated body twelve feet tall, on six thick legs tipped with razor-sharp claws a foot long. A behemoth. Five thousand pounds of muscle, teeth, and venom.

She grabbed the engine lever, letting out an involuntary yelp of relief when it started on the first pull. It would take ten seconds for the engine to get to speed, before she could engage the propellers. The behemoth could reach the ship in three, and it would come through the hull as if it was made of paper.

“Come on,” she hissed, urging the engine to speed up. The behemoth scratched at the ground with a front foot. It charged. Valerie slammed the prop lever home, and the flyer shot forward. The wings bit air and the aircraft lifted. There was an impact, the sound of tearing metal, and Valerie was thrown to the deck—but when she got up, Nomad was airborne and climbing, the clockworks steering it up to safe altitude and turning it back on course for Syberia.

Syberia City came into sight as Nomad came out of a bank of clouds. Hairs rose on Valerie’s neck when she saw it. The city was green. Vegetation covered every building. Smokestacks were covered in vines. Tendrils hung from the disc’s edges. It looked like a fragment of jungle, suspended in the air.

Syberia was infested with surface life. If she landed there, spores would get into the machinery—they always did, eventually, filters or not—and take root, disabling the flyer. She’d be stuck on a dead city and wouldn’t survive for more than a few hours.

She was on the verge of panic. She couldn’t land to refuel, but without refuelling, she’d never make it to the next port of call. She had to make a decision, fast. There was, perhaps, a minute before the clockworks docked the aircraft.

A quick end when the flyer smashed into the ground was better than being slowly eaten alive by some jumped-up flower—of that there was no question. She would take the chance—dock, refuel as quickly as she could manage on her own, and get back into the air. Spores would germinate. All she could do was hope to get to the next destination before the aircraft was disabled.

She rushed to make sure all the hatch seals were secure, then returned to the control cabin. The ship had lined itself up with the docking rail—and Valerie’s jaw dropped when she saw that the dock was clean, and that there were people there. Syberia wasn’t dead, after all.

Valerie looked over the green city from the safety of an enclosed platform on a tower high above the docks.

Mercer, the city manager, explained what had happened. “This was one of the Royal Cities until a couple of years ago. City Twenty-three.” He glanced up at the sky. “Something cracked the dome—we think a flyer crashed into it. Spores got in, got a grip, and the people couldn’t stop the growth. They evacuated.”

“Why did you save it?”

“We couldn’t do otherwise. If we’d left it alone, with no-one here to keep the power on, it would have fallen. There’s fuel, oil, chemicals, all kinds of pollutants that would have contaminated the surface. So we came aboard after they’d gone, repaired the dome, and we’re cleaning away the vegetation, little by little. It’ll be a few more years, yet, but eventually this will be another Free City.”

Valerie was tempted to ask why they didn’t think to give it back to the people who’d lived here before. But she held her tongue. These people had shown her nothing but courtesy, and she—and her home city—were at their mercy. It wouldn’t do to appear hostile.

Quite apart from that, her professional curiosity had been aroused. “How do you keep the city flying? How do you keep the growth from fouling the suspensors?”

Mercer grinned. “Actually, it isn’t that hard. I’ll show you.”

Valerie followed as he led the way back down to the dock, and into the city’s basement maintenance tunnels. A few minutes later they were in one of the observation rooms under the city, a few dozen yards from one of the suspensors. Valerie looked over the huge, square panel and its vents. It was free of greenery. “Surely you don’t have people out there cleaning them while they’re running?” She was horrified by the possibility.