Agatha H. and the Airship City (15 page)

“Then where
are
they?”

“Ah, now that’s a good story! It’s called
The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon From Mars!
” All of the children, even Olaf, leaned forward in expectation.

Off to the side, the older children relaxed. Agatha nudged Sleipnir and indicated the storyteller. “Who’s that?”

“Theopholus DuMedd. He’s head boy.”

“Head boy?”

Sleipnir looked slightly embarrassed. “There’s a… pecking order here. There’s some that take it more seriously than others. It factors in family lineage, Sparkiness and some other nonsense. Theo’s related to the Heterodynes by marriage, and he’s got a touch of the Spark to him.”

“Really? Wow.”

Suddenly Theo jumped up and stretched out his arms and intoned, “And the revenants saw them and they
RAN!”
Which was apparently the signal for all of the young children to run squealing about the room, a lumbering Theo in pursuit.

Sleipnir smiled. “He’s a great storyteller.”

They paused as a swarm of children fled past. Theo followed stiff leggedly. He nodded to the girls as he passed.
“RHaah,”
he said conversationally.

“And he knows how to talk to a lady, he does.” Sleipnir looked over at Agatha and “tsked.” “I see you’ll be needing a change of clothes. The Von Pinn’s a rough one.” Agatha glanced down and saw that where the construct had grasped her, her outfit was sliced and torn. “Come on, I got you some stuff from crew supplies. It’ll probably fit you a bit better too.”

Inside Sleipnir’s room, Agatha tried on several outfits. They did fit better, and Agatha felt more herself once she was back in a proper, ankle-length skirt. But Sleipnir did insist on including a few pairs of mechanics trousers in the wardrobe they assembled. “You’ll get used to ‘em,” she promised. Agatha doubted it.

“So, this Von Pinn. What is she?”

“She’s the nanny. She’s in charge of the children.” Agatha stopped and looked at Sleipnir closely, but as far as she could tell, the redhead was serious.

“You’ve got to be kidding. That vicious lunatic is in charge of

children?”

“Oh, aye. I’ve been raised by her for the last ten years. It’s very comforting, really. She’s never hurt any of the children, and you
know
that nothing could get past her to hurt
you.”
Sleipnir looked Agatha in the eye, “And on this ship, this close to the Baron, that’s worth knowing.” Her voice dropped conspiratorially, “They
say
that she was once Lucrezia Heterodyne.”

Agatha was surprised. “Really?”

“Oh, aye. The Baron found her in the ruins of Castle Heterodyne after the Other destroyed it and brought her back here.”

“That would be a heck of a case of P.R.T.”

P.R.T, or Post-Revivification Trauma, was a frequent result when people were brought back from death as constructs. The chief symptom was memory failure, which could range from the temporary blanking of a few hours, up to and including total, permanent identity loss. This latter was the more common result, and was the main reason why more madboys didn’t transform themselves into constructs in the first place. It was still tempting, as the basics of construct technology were fairly well understood, as were the steps required to give the standard improvements to speed, strength and lifespan. Many a madboy, impatient with the limitations imposed upon their body by nature, had succumbed to temptation only to awaken with no knowledge of their previous life. Most of these creatures were subsequently destroyed by vengeful citizens or were now working for the Baron. This was because another frequent result was a shift in personality, and many a fulminating madboy now found simple contentment as a researcher or lab assistant. Theoretically it could also go the other way around, but as the supply of meek, quiet, sensible Sparks was vanishingly low to start with, it had, so far, remained merely a tricky essay question on the “Ethics of Revivification” final exam at Paris’ Institut de L’Extraordinaire. These revived Sparks were so useful that the Baron actively encouraged his more hysterical fellow Sparks to “give themselves a makeover.”

“That’s as may be,” said Sleipnir, “though I’ve heard it whispered that the Lady Heterodyne had quite a temper in her before.”

They emerged just at the climax of Theo’s story. Agatha was sorry she’d missed the rest, as it apparently involved a gigantic mechanical dragon that was currently being dragged off to Mars via some sort of water portal, pulling the Heterodynes in behind it aboard a rowboat. Suddenly the portal shut with the
SMACK
of Theopholus’ hands coming together, causing his rapt audience to jump and then squeal in appreciation.

Then one of the boys announced that he was hungry and the others joined in. At this the dark-clad servants swooped in and began seating the children at the table.

Agatha was forcibly reminded of how hungry she was at this point by her stomach growling loud enough to be heard by Sleipnir, who laughed and showed her where to sit at one of the long tables.

There was a quick round of introductions, but Agatha found herself distracted by a flurry of activity from a small group of children who had not sat down, but had, to Agatha’s surprise, produced several odd-looking devices. These proved to be controllers of some sort, as with a crash, several primitive clanks rolled, or in one notable case lurched, into the room from what was obviously an attached kitchen.

First came a tall, spindly device that made sure everyone had knives, forks and spoons. Unfortunately, it delivered them with such speed, that as it swept past, it left a small forest of utensils imbedded into the wooden tabletop, still vibrating. Agatha couldn’t help but notice that the tabletops looked brand new, and were held in place by spring-locked brackets for easy replacement. Suddenly, this made a lot of sense.

Next came the lurching clank, which was loaded with a precarious tower of ever shifting china soup bowls. To everyone’s astonishment, it stepped up onto the tabletop itself, and proceeded to spill bowls onto the table in an endless cascade. After the first panic, everyone realized that the bowls wound up undamaged, upright, and perfectly positioned upon the table. Agatha stared at the wildly flailing mechanism and saw how the “falling” bowls were actually skillfully guided down by a series of well-coordinated taps. Everyone understood now, and the table spontaneously erupted in applause right up until the clank strode over the edge of the table and crashed to the floor, sending shattered bowls across half the room. An eight-year-old girl with bluish-black hair and prominent eyebrows dropped her controller and began to cry. A servant knelt to comfort her while several of the others quickly swept up the mess.

The third clank looked like a small tanker car on treads. It lumbered up and a pipe swiveled out. The pipe gurgled and Theo, with a lightning fast move, twitched his bowl under the pipe in time for a stream of hot soup to pour forth. The bowl filled perfectly, and Theo closed his eye and sniffed appreciably, which is why he failed to see the pipe swing towards his head with a dull
BONK.
A small child with a swarthy complexion swore in Greek and made an adjustment on the controller. The pipe elevated, the clank advanced, and the process repeated. By the time the device had swung around the table and got to Agatha, a fourth clank, held aloft by an ingenious collection of balloons and propellers had made several trips back and forth delivering baskets of fresh hot bread, racks of condiments and ramekins of fresh butter.

Agatha ducked under the pipe and examined the soup, which smelled incredible. It was a rich chicken soup, filled with an array of finely sliced vegetables, several of which Agatha was unfamiliar with. A bowl of thick yellow spätzle noodles was handed to her by Sleipnir. Agatha took her cue from the others and spooned a ladle full into her soup.

The children were wiping down their clanks and congratulating each other. The girl with the bowl-dispenser clank was still snuffling a bit, but had rallied.

“That was pretty amazing,” Agatha said. “Does that sort of thing happen at every meal?”

“Are you joking?” DuMedd muttered sottovoce, “We’d be dead in a week.” He twitched a thumb and Agatha noticed several small holes in one of the walls. “You’re lucky you missed last Monday’s Swedish meatballs.”

Agatha thoughtfully turned back to her meal. The soup itself was tangy and delicious and Agatha found that she had emptied half her bowl before she looked up. “You were hungry,” Sleipnir allowed, and poured Agatha a large glass of a thick, white liquid from a broad-based pitcher. Agatha sniffed it and a brief taste confirmed that it was tangy, like buttermilk, but sweet.

“That’s called lassi,” Sleipnir said as she lowered her own half-emptied glass. “It’s a fermented milk drink that Theo brought.”

Further down the table, DuMedd waved a hand in acknowledgement. “Everyone’s expected to provide a few dishes from their homeland. Makes for a nice bit of variety,” he explained.

Agatha found herself chewing a spicy vegetable that required the rest of her lassi to quench. She demurely wiped her lips with the heavy linen napkin from her lap. “You know, I’m quite fond of the Heterodyne Boys stories, but I’ve never heard that one with the dragon before.”

Theo grinned and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “I just made it up. You liked it?” He had a deep voice that made Agatha’s ears tingle.

Agatha nodded.
“My
favorite story is
The Heterodyne Boys and the Race to the West Pole
.”

A short young man with a noble prow of a nose spoke up. “You have an ear for the truth. That one really happened.” He became aware of the rest of the group looking at him. “Well,
mostly,”
he added defensively.

Agatha cocked an eyebrow at him. “Right.”

“No, no! It is true! My father built the Mechanical Camel!”

Agatha blinked. “Your father is—?”

The young man drew himself up proudly. “The
Iron Sheik
. Yes. And I am his son, Zâmî Yahyâ Ahmad ibn Sulimân al-Sinâjî.” He smiled. “But you may call me ‘Z.’”

Agatha sat back in her chair and regarded him with wide eyes. “Golly. I’m not used to thinking of the Heterodyne Boys and the people in the stories as… as real people.”

Zâmî shrugged. “As real as you or I.”

At this point, a large dish of various cheeses began to make the rounds. None of them looked familiar, and Sleipnir made a few helpful suggestions. Most of them were delicious, but one of them caused Agatha to choke, as she was convinced that she was eating someone’s unwashed foot. The others at the table, who had been watching her surreptitiously, snorted in laughter at her expression. “Give it up, O’Hara,” said Sun Ming, a slim Asian girl seated next to DuMedd. “No one else but you likes that stuff.”

Sleipnir morosely took the remaining chunk of the offending cheese off of Agatha’s plate. “You are all heathens, who wouldn’t know the ambrosia of the gods from a cod’s head and I pity you all, sure enough.” She popped it in her mouth and chewed.

Agatha found herself laughing with the rest. While the circumstances behind her being here were alarming, she found that she enjoyed the company of these people more than she had ever enjoyed the company of the students at the college.

A thought struck her and she looked around. Between the older and younger children, they occupied just two of the vast tables in the common area. There were easily another twenty of these, all unoccupied, except for a cluster of the servants who sat near the younger children, keeping an eye on them while they supped on their own bowls of soup. “I can’t help but notice that there aren’t a lot of students here,” Agatha observed. A few of the others nodded.

“You came at a quiet time,” DuMedd explained. “The Baron insists that those with lands that need planting in the spring should help oversee the process personally, and actually assist if they’re old enough.”

A tall young man with wildly disheveled hair who’d been introduced as Nicodeamus Yurkofsky chimed in. “He says that it gives them a better appreciation of where their power comes from and who’s actually keeping them fed.”

Agatha thought about some of the members of Royalty that she had seen come through the Tyrant’s labs throughout the years. “I’ll bet they love that,” she said carefully.

“It’s the older generation that gets all horrified,” DuMedd said with a laugh. “The kids look forward to it all year long. That and the harvest. The fact that it scandalizes their parents? That’s usually seen as a bonus.”

Agatha looked around at them. “So what about your families?”

DuMedd’s face got sober. “I don’t have any family.” Agatha started to stammer an apology, but he waved it aside. “You couldn’t know. My parents died fighting air pirates about twelve years ago.”

“Really? Were they Sparks?”

“Yes. My father was more into the theoretical stuff, but my mother was Demonica Mongfish.”

The Mongfish name was one that was mentioned prominently in any history of the Spark. From their citadel in Novaya Zemlya, they had periodically terrorized the surrounding area. The latest, Lucifer Mongfish had been a perennial opponent to the Heterodyne Boys, so much so that, eventually, one of his three daughters, Lucrezia Mongfish, actually married Bill Heterodyne. After that, everyone pretty much agreed that fighting in public would be unseemly. Holiday get-togethers, however, were a different matter, and by mutual agreement, every event was held at a different location to reduce the collateral damage.

Most of the others had similar stories. Sleipnir concluded, “There’s also a few of the others who are still here, but they’re on duty, like your roommate, Zulenna. You’ll meet her later.”

“Zulenna. That’s a pretty name. Is she nice?” The others looked at each other.

“Um… no, not really,” Sleipnir admitted. “There’s a reason why she’s without a roommate at the moment.”

Suddenly they became aware of raised voices from the children’s table. “No—that’s not how they worked!”

“Oh, like
you’d
know!”