Heart of Steam & Rust (Empires of Steam and Rust) (11 page)

She did.

“Please, Dr. Fiend, take me to the land of Rust. Recharge my heart—”

“The heart I so generously gave you.”

“—The heart you so generously gave me. Please!”

“Please, what?”

“Please, Dr. Fiend, save my life … again.”

For a long moment, only the thrum of the engines and the rhythmic beat of the tracks filled the silence of the lab.

Anger and despair warred for supremacy within Lina. She could feel the machine running down inside her, feel her energy waning, her very life seeping away. She lurched to her feet and staggered toward her oppressor.

“So will you do it? Will you take me to Rust and re-charge this damnable heart?”

He said nothing.

She took one step forward and then fell to her knees, nearly spent. She spread her arms wide in supplication.

“Please, Dr. Fiend, I’m begging you: Save my life!”

Exhausted, she sank to the floor.

Only then did he turn, fully facing her at last. He smiled, showing row upon row of sharp white teeth.

“No need to worry, my dear,” he said. “We’re already well on our way. We’ll reach our destination in time, I assure you.” He turned back to his machines once more. “And Colonel … It’s good to have you with us. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the ride.”

The train containing Dr. Fiend and Pavlina Ivanova sped into the tunnel to Rust and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

COMING SOON:

A Fiendish Pact

* * *

* * *

AFTERWORDS

SAMPLES OF OTHER STORIES

Here are some samples of other stories by me that you may enjoy.

Don’t forget to read the
“About the Story”
and
“About the Author”
sections that follow the samples!

* * *

KIT CHAPMAN-CHALLENGER &

THE LAST RANODON

(formerly “Of a Feather”)

A Steam Nations Story

Stephen D Sullivan

O’Brien grabs his Remington from the map table and swings it toward the incoming ranodon. “Miss Kit! Miss Tesla! Duck!” he hollers. The prehistoric beast—jaws open, talons extended—dives directly toward me and Zoe as we stand together, amidships.

“No!” I shout. “No guns! Use the cannon!” While I admire O’Brien’s devotion to keeping us safe, I’m not about to lose months of careful scientific work because of his superstitious nature.

But the captain of the
Louisa
isn’t listening. He draws a bead on the center of the ranodon’s forehead. Fortunately, Armstrong grabs O’Brien’s arm, spoiling the captain’s aim. The shot goes wide, merely clipping a hairy feather from the trailing edge of the pterosaur’s left wingtip.

The ranodon’s eyes blaze with reptilian hate as it swoops in. At the last instant, I throw my arms around Zoe, carrying us both to the deck. The beast’s talons flash harmlessly over our exposed backs.

The creature wheels for another pass, but as it does, I spring to my feet and run for the cannon mounted in the bow of our shallow-draft steamer. Armstrong continues wrestling with O’Brien, struggling to keep the captain from shooting our prize before I can carry out my plan. Zoe—often the wisest among us—lies flat on the bottom of the boat. Miz Tesla isn’t on this trip because of her bravery; she’s here because there isn’t a piece of equipment in the world that she can’t fix.

I swing the cannon around as the ranodon comes for me, murder in its yellow eyes. I tick off the range in my head, waiting for the optimal distance.
Thirty meters. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten…

I pull the trigger, and the specially manufactured shell bursts from the end of the big gun. A weighted net billows out, surrounding the reptilian monster. The ranodon squawks, entangled, and crashes into the side of the boat before plunging into the murky Greenwater.

 “Quick!” I call. “Help me pull her out before she drowns!”

Immediately, Armstrong appears at my side with a pair of boat hooks. My cousin has his faults, but superstitious fear of monsters is not among them. Together, we quickly snag the net and pull the raging, sopping-wet beast aboard the steamer. The ranodon snaps ineffectually at us as we pin the netting to the deck. O’Brien inches forward, his gun leveled; Zoe follows a few steps behind, her eyes wide with wonder—and more than a little fear.

The ranodon is all flailing wings, snapping teeth, and sharp talons. Even its brilliant plumage doesn’t make it appear any less threatening. I can hardly blame Zoe and O’Brien for being frightened of it. If I hadn’t devoted so much time to studying this creature and its ilk, I might be afraid myself. As it is, all I can see is the monster’s immense archeobiological value: the last known ranodon, east of the Antes! Most scientists in my field would give their lives to see something like this—and more than a few have.

“Take it easy, big guy,” Armstrong says, pushing the barrel of O’Brien’s Remington toward the deck. “No sense shooting it now. Kitty and I have everything under control—and, besides, you wouldn’t want to hit one of us by mistake.” Reluctantly, O’Brien lowers the gun.

Armstrong smiles at me, and, for a moment, I see what every other woman in the world sees in Ray Armstrong; my cousin is one handsome piece of work. Fortunately, being a blood relative, I am immune to his legendary charms. “Nice shot, Kitty,” he says, beaming. “Everything went just like clockwork.”

I smile back, ignoring his use of a nickname I abandoned as a child; being family does have its privileges, after all, and Ray is the only kin I have left. I shrug. “Months of planning… a dash of research… and enough money to choke an anaconda… Anyone could have done it.”

“Anyone with the last name of Chapman-Challenger,” Armstrong says, apparently trying to give me a swelled head.

“Or Armstrong,” Zoe adds. Armstrong blows her a kiss, and my mechanic blushes.

I take a deep breath, more relieved at the capture than I had first realized. I needed a big score on this expedition—we all did.

“Fetch the Rolleiflex, will you?” I tell Armstrong. “We’re not getting paid for shots of the landscape, and my trust fund is looking awfully skinny lately.”

“At least you still
have
a trust fund,” Armstrong replies, eyes twinkling.

“Lucky for you that I do,” I shoot back good naturedly. Money runs through my cousin’s hands like water. “Otherwise, who would hire an old sot like you?”

Armstrong gazes up, thoughtfully. “Some rich widow, I’m sure. You know, come to think of it, that might be a good career move for me. . . .”

I laugh. “Zoe, bring me some of that bait, will you?”

Zoe’s bespectacled eyes, both wary and fascinated, remain fixed on the prehistoric creature thrashing in our net. If the ranodon were free, it could easily carry her ninety-pound frame into the wild blue yonder. “Do you want the f-fish or the meat?” Zoe asks.

“Antean ranodons are flesh eaters,” I say, “so we’ll try the meat first.” Zoe nods and goes to get the bait from the steamer’s storage locker.

“This beauty’s a long ways from the Antean Mountains,” Armstrong observes as he comes back with the camera.

“Not as the ranodon flies,” I note. My cousin focuses and takes pictures as I examine the hissing, snapping beast.

“A female, just as I expected,” I say, pleased.

“Do you really think there’s a nest nearby?” Zoe asks. Gingerly, she hands me a strip of meat. I flip it to the ranodon, careful not to lose my fingers to the pterosaur’s sharp teeth.

“She’s mating age,” I reply. “And it’s the right season, and the locals did bring down that male six weeks back.”

“So the time is about right for hatchlings,” Armstrong agrees.

“Just what we need,” O’Brien grumbles, “more of these blasted gooney birds! I give you three-to-one that they get one of us—or all of us—killed before this is over.”

“If they get all of us killed, how are you going to collect?” Armstrong asks.

“Well, we could turn back,” the captain suggests.

“When we’ve already got a mother ranodon in our nets?” I ask. “When we’re so close to a nest I can almost touch it? Not on your life.”

As one, all of us turn and gaze at the tepui rising from the Amazonian jungle a short distance upriver. The plateau rises precipitously from the river’s edge. Its sides are sheer rock, wrapped with tenacious, clinging greenery. Bushy thickets cover the top of the escarpment.

“Like something out of the family album,” Armstrong notes.

I nod. We have Amazon explorers on both sides of the family—extending back into the seventeenth century. One ventured even further into the jungle than we have, in search of the legendary Maplewhite Land; another freed some local Indians from slave mine run by a psychopath with a trained ranodon as his “guard dog.” Those triumphs were ages ago, though, and, at the moment, I wish we had our ancestors’ elaborate equipment—and funding.

“An autogyro would really come in handy about now,” Armstrong observes.

Zoe sighs; there’s one back home—from grandfather’s day—but not enough cash for the parts she needs to repair it. “Or one of those new Russian helioships,” she adds.

Armstrong grins at her, sharing my mechanic’s fantasy. “Yeah . . . Even one of those small twin-rotor jobs with the overhead gas cells would do. ‘Course, if we’re dreaming, we might as well dream of a new helioliner, with all the trimmings.”

“I’d settle for a small, heavily armored gunship,” O’Brien puts in. “If we’re going after more of these crazy birds.”

“Pterosaurs,” I remind him. “More like feathered reptiles.”

“Whatever they are, I don’t like ‘em,” the captain says, “not even when they’re netted and pinned to my deck. That devil would just as soon take off your fingers as look at you.” He glares at the ranodon and clutches his gun tighter.

“Why don’t you check the boiler,” Armstrong says. “I think it might be low on pressure.” It’s more of a command than a suggestion. O’Brien grumbles, but turns to check on the boat’s aging engineworks.

My cousin shades his eyes and gazes toward the tepui’s summit. “You going up?” he asks.

Read more of this adventure in
Steampunk’d
at better book sellers everywhere!

* * *

AUTOMATA FUTURA

A Steam Nations Story

Stephen D. Sullivan

Zoe stood outside the Great Man’s door, her references clutched in her left hand, along with the cablegram that had summoned her to this ramshackle structure. The hall of the building was dingy, its once-ornate carpet musty, dust filled, and stained. The hallway’s sole light came from a grime-covered window at the far end. It seemed odd that Doctor Von Lang, the famed inventor, should live in a deserted tenement, though he was a renowned eccentric. Yet, Zoe had checked, and the city registry definitely said he owned the building, so. . .

Maybe I should have brought Armstrong or CC with me
, Zoe thought.
No! You can do this! We need this job so Kit can continue her research, so
all
of us can—so we don’t go broke. You can do it!

She remembered Ray Armstrong’s confident smile from earlier that day.... “If Victor Von Lang wants to see you, it must be important. And if he’s got work, so much the better.”

“But what could he possibly want with
me
?” Zoe had asked.

“Zoe, you’re brilliant,” Kit Chapman-Challenger, whom Zoe called “CC,” put in. “Bring your references, in case he wants them.”

“B-but . . .” Zoe stuttered.

Armstrong cut her off. “No ‘buts,’ kiddo. Just keep the rendezvous and knock him dead.”

Dead,
Zoe thought.
I wish
I
were dead.

She stretched out her trembling right hand and pressed the doorbell. Somewhere in the unplumbed recesses beyond the battered mahogany door, a distant buzzer sounded.

Suddenly, the door flew open, and the face of a wild man poked out. His shocking blond hair protruded in all directions; grease-smeared goggles covered his frantic blue eyes. Zoe jumped back and nearly lost her glasses.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the man said, fairly spitting the words. Then, he looked Zoe up and down, and his gaunt face brightened. “Miz Tesla?”

Zoe nodded mutely.

The madman grinned from ear to ear. “Welcome! Welcome! Do come right in.” He held the door open and motioned for Zoe to enter. “I’m Victor Von Lang.”

“I-I’m Zoe. I got your cablegram.”

“Of course, of course.” Doctor Von Lang laid one greasy, glove-clad hand atop the shoulder of Zoe’s freshly cleaned blouse. Despite his apparent mania, his touch felt surprisingly gentle. “I know who you are, Miz Tesla: aide-de-camp and chief mechanic for the world-renowned Kit Chapman-Challenger.”

World-renowned but perpetually strapped for cash
, Zoe thought.

“That’s why I cabled you,” Doctor Von Lang continued. “Do step inside. We have so much to talk about.” He gently moved Zoe through the doorway and into the cluttered laboratory beyond.

She gawked. Beakers, tubes, electrical engines, lathes, drills, cutting equipment, and more filled the huge space to overflowing. The ceiling in the lab stood easily thirty feet tall.

It looked as though Von Lang’s lab took up the entire floor . . . maybe the entire structure.
No wonder the building seemed deserted!

Zoe held out the papers clutched in her hand. “I brought references . . .”

“References? Don’t be silly! Why would a mechanic of your caliber need references? I wouldn’t have cabled you if I thought you needed references.”

“Why
did
you cable me, Doctor? You said something about a job. . . ?”

Von Lang pulled off his dirty goggles and gloves and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, of course. I almost forgot in the excitement of the moment.” He removed his chemical-stained lab coat and hung it on a mahogany coat rack. “You’ve heard of me, I suppose?”