Clockwork Chaos (13 page)

“You’ll do other work.” Dr. Abrams tried to usher them both to the door.

Jeremy paused. He looked at her, straight into her eyes, weighing something. Whatever it was that he saw there, he turned back resolute. “We’ll stay.”

Dr. Abrams tried to protest. “My dear boy, I don’t think you know what you’re letting yourself in for.”

Jeremy shook his head. “She wants to stay. We’ll stay.”

Dr. Abrams looked worriedly back and forth between them. Evangeline straightened her spine. Dr. Abrams shrugged helplessly.

The initial furor had begun to die down. Lord Hilden stood, knowing better than to interrupt a roomful of scientists in full outrage. When the hubbub had quieted enough for him to be heard, he spoke.

“My most recent information regarding Ravenswood’s work indicates that he has been experimenting with some sort of mechanical cross between cavalry and artillery—a cannon that pulls itself, if you will. Since he has the element of surprise, I have no doubt that he has constructed as many of these as he deems necessary, possibly surrounding the estate. If we stay on the ground waiting for them, we shall surely lose. I see no better alternative but to put all of our plans into effect early—we must construct our airship, and do it in the next three days.”

Stunned silence greeted the announcement. Finally, von Karloff voiced all of their thoughts. “Three days? Are you mad, man?”

Lord Hilden favored them with a wan smile. “Perhaps. But haven’t we all been called mad, at one time or another?”

Lady Hilden spoke up. “Professor MacTaggert and Miss Bell—you are staying, dear, yes? Excellent—should be able to make the proper modifications to his engines. Dr. Abrams and Professor von Karloff will be putting their control plane theories into practice. The Woolseys will build the balloons, of course—I’ll put the women on our staff at your disposal for sewing duties. Lord Hilden and Lord Flynne can supervise the assembly of the hull—I believe we already have a great deal of the pieces unassembled in the basement.”

“And you?” von Karloff rumbled.

“I’ll be coordinating, while I see to the evacuation of the village, of course,” she replied calmly. “It’s fortunate, Hilden darling, that we insisted on keeping up those drills, now isn’t it?”

For all his brave words, Jeremy had grave misgivings about this entire situation. While he understood how much her work meant to her, and that abandoning it would essentially mean abandoning her dreams of working the airship project at all, he still wished that she had chosen the more feminine reaction and fled for her life. He did not like the idea of sitting in what would soon be a very well-contained war zone.

He liked the idea of her there even less.

Jeremy had known that Miss Bell’s profession put her in danger. After all, she had only hired him after he helped her clean up the glass she had blown out of the windows of her cottage. It was the first of many explosions they had shared. He doubted it would be the last—while the theory was sound, they had never succeeded in getting a full-scale version of the governor to work. But surely if anyone could do it, it was she. He had begun to believe his mistress could do anything.

Once they reached the lab, though, there was no more time to brood. The group scattered purposefully, each team heading to their appropriate equipment. He had seen the laboratory the night before, and remained stunned by the size. Most of the cottages in his village could have fit inside. A wide catwalk ringed the room and MacTaggert’s assistant Corby had claimed that the roof was made of tin instead of slate; they could retract it if necessary.

A massive forge dominated one wall, complete with its own dedicated blacksmith. A screen could be pulled across to partly shield the rest of the room from the heat. Foundry equipment littered that side of the room. Electrical experiments claimed the other side, with vanes running up to the roof to catch passing lightning bolts. In between lay equipment he could not even conceive of a use for, let alone name.

Corby tossed him a pair of goggles and a heavy leather coat. They would swelter, but the thick leather did offer a degree of protection from burns and the like.

“We’re going to need a new governor,” Miss Bell turned to him without preamble. “Larger, much larger. Here, I’ll write you some specs. I need to help get the engine itself up and running—do you think you can build this by yourself?”

He swallowed. He wasn’t sure. He looked at her. She trusted him, and she needed him. He would not fail her now. “I can do it.”

“Good.” She turned away and hurried across the floor to catch up with MacTaggert. He shoved down the shock of abandonment and went to find the blacksmith.

Recasting the flyweights proved nerve-wracking. He calculated the new size required by the weight, but had to put together a makeshift mold. Only the number of men helping made it possible to finish any of it on time. Apparently, every able-bodied servant on the estate had been drafted. When they finally poured the brass, Jeremy took a step back. The weights needed to cool, and there was nothing to be done with them until morning. No longer absorbed in his task, he looked up.

Over the course of the day, the other teams had built the skeleton of the hull. Somehow, the laboratory was transforming into a hangar. This ship was not the enormous vessel that they had talked about. They did not have the time to plate a hull the size of a man-of-war; that would have to wait until another day. The little airship would more resemble a sailboat, and carry a crew of seven or eight people at most.

Even that inspired awe, though. The airship might not reach the size they dreamed of, but the fact that so much had been built approached miraculous. Lady Hilden must not have been joking when she said they had many of the pieces already lying around.

A pretty serving girl appeared at his elbow. “Sandwich, sir?”

She held out a silver tray piled with sandwiches. Not a single spot marred her black and white uniform; not a single hair dared to leave its place. Jeremy became acutely aware of the sweat and grime coating his skin. He could hardly do anything about it. He shrugged and took a sandwich.

She threaded her way neatly between a shower of sparks and two men carrying an iron beam, vanishing into the far side of the room. Jeremy shook his head. The Hildens certainly trained their staff well.

He thought little of it after that. His entire world narrowed back to his work. Corby finally dragged him away.

“I just need to finish measuring the spring coefficient,” he protested.

“Your hands are shaking,” Corby replied, never releasing his iron grip on Jeremy’s arm. “You need to wash them, eat something, and go to bed.”

“I had a sandwich.”

“Just the sandwich? Those were almost eight hours ago. Didn’t you get any of the roast beef?”

Jeremy couldn’t remember a roast beef. Someone had tried to interrupt him awhile back, but he hadn’t wanted to leave until the latest casting could be removed from the mold.

Corby rolled his eyes. “Ach. Save me from the young ones. You haven’t learned when to stop yet.”

“But it’s important,” Jeremy pleaded. Corby grabbed something from a tray left in the corridor and shoved it at Jeremy’s face. It was another sandwich. “They need us to get this up and running, there’s only two days left.”

“It’s always important,” Corby sighed. He pushed Jeremy up the staircase ahead of him. “It will always be an emergency. Don’t let them run you ragged, boy, or they’ll burn you out and then find another one.”

Miss Bell wasn’t like that, he wanted to protest. Instead, he just asked, “Are the professor and Miss Bell still on the floor?”

Corby snorted. “He made her go to bed an hour ago.”

Jeremy squashed the impulse to declare that it was his job to make her go to bed.

Instead, he stumbled into his room. His fancy new clothes looked worse than his farming clothes ever had. When he washed his face and hands, the water in the washbasin turned black. He weighed the pros and cons of going in search of a real bath. His temporary roommate Beckett already snored from his bed. Jeremy gave up. He managed to get the lab coat and his boots off before falling over, but just barely.

Evangeline stared in despair through the hole in the wall. On a hill in the distance, sheep continued to bleat in dismay.

“Are you all right?” Jeremy appeared at her elbow, panting.

“Of course not,” she snapped. “That’s the biggest blowout yet. The hull work is nearly complete, and we’re running out of time.” She looked at the naked fear in his face and took a deep breath. “But physically, I’m fine.”

He nearly sighed in relief.

“I thought this governor of yours was supposed to keep this from happening,” MacTaggart growled.

“My governor is working just fine,” she fired back. “Your tank has too much pressure.”

“Fire-tube boiler tanks are supposed to have high pressure!”

“Not this high!”

“Well, that’s what happens when you run hot air in tubes through water! The pressure builds up! That’s the point!”

Jeremy held his hands up, placating. “Is that the only way? Is a fire-tube boiler the only kind?”

MacTaggart blustered at him. Evangeline ignored it. In her mind’s eye, she could see the pattern shift. If they reversed the order, rearranged things...

“We’re doing it backward,” she declared.

The men stopped arguing. She explained, the words tumbling over themselves as the new boiler took shape in her mind. “We need to do it the other way around. Not hot air from the furnace through the water, but hot water from the boiler through the furnace. The water would heat either way, just in a different location.”

Light blossomed in Jeremy’s eyes. She was surprised, and then chagrined. Just because he had started on a farm didn’t mean that he was stupid. And after all, she had taught him herself.

“In the water-tube version, there would not need to be nearly the same amount of pressure in the tank...” he said slowly.

“...reducing the risk of explosion,” she finished.

MacTaggart’s eyes narrowed. “It’s hardly conventional, young lady.”

She opened her mouth, intent on arguing the math, when Jeremy jumped in.

“To hell with convention,” he said bluntly. “We don’t have time to debate this.”

Evangeline blushed slightly, shocked at Jeremy’s coarse language. But MacTaggart backed down, grumbling.

“We only have time to do this once more,” he warned. “It’s on your head if it doesn’t work. Backward boilers, indeed. I’ve never heard of such a thing, in all my years as an engineer. Still,” he sighed, staring up at the growing skeleton above, “it’s not like I’ve heard of an airship, either.”

They were going to make it.

Evangeline could not remember ever being more tired in her life, but a curious triumph lay under the exhaustion. They were going to make it, and it was going to work.

The last few days blurred together horribly. She couldn’t remember the last time she had bathed or sat down for a civilized meal. But the first balloon trial had worked—the ship floated over the floor inside the laboratory. Jeremy came through with the governor. She had been concerned about leaving him alone, but he had more than proven himself...and proven
her
in the process. Even more importantly, the modifications to the boiler worked as well. The looks of amusement from the day after the dinner party had converted back to looks of real respect. Her design worked flawlessly.

They would have a working airship by evening.

They even had a strategy—the Woolseys were certain that their super-charged powder bombs would be able to break through whatever armor Ravenswood could have used, as long as they could be dropped on top of the machines. All they needed was to determine who would crew the ship.

This would be the difficult bit.

“Your part is done, Flynne,” Hilden said. “You’ve been invaluable, of course, but there is little you can do up there.”

Flynne backed down with ill grace. The maiden flight could very well prove to be a suicide mission, yet they all yearned to go anyway.

“You’ll need us both,” interjected a Woolsey. “One to prepare the bombs, and the other to monitor the balloon.”

“Very well,” Hilden replied. “Both Woolseys, Abrams to steer and Beckett to keep the controls working, MacTaggert to run the engines and Corby to shovel coal, and von Karloff to navigate the currents and help load the bombs. And myself, naturally. Can’t well hold a duel without the challenged party.”

Evangeline took a breath. “MacTaggert and Corby will stay here. Wright and I are going.”

Lord Hilden raised his eyebrows. “Miss Bell, the deck of an untested warship is scarcely a place for a lady.”

“At least the lady has depth perception,” she fired back. “And you can’t tell me that Corby can manage a tossing deck with that leg of his.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” von Karloff scoffed.

MacTaggert looked thoughtful. “I’m afraid she might have a point. As much as I would like to be on the maiden voyage, we may not be the best for the job.”

Von Karloff glowered at him. “That is no reason to replace you with her. Surely a manservant would be a better choice. Grooms, perhaps? Someone used to wielding shovels.”

“But would a groom be able to take care of that engine?” Evangeline argued. “I’m the only one you have with both the expertise and the physical ability.”

“My dear, you can’t be serious,” Dr. Abrams protested.

“Completely serious,” she replied.

Lord Hilden opened his mouth to object once more, and his wife touched his sleeve. She whispered something in his ear, and he deflated.

“I concede the point,” he muttered. “The places of MacTaggert and Corby will be taken by Bell and Wright.”

She lifted her chin triumphantly.

The group dispersed, turning in early for the night to be rested for the next day. She paused next to Lady Hilden.

“What did you say to him?” she asked.

The lady tilted her head. “I asked him whether I had ever failed to get my way in the end, and noted you seem to be every bit as headstrong as I was your age. And I merely suggested that he would do best to save the time and energy and pointless shenanigans, and just allow you to do as you willed in the first place.”