Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (5 page)

“
Aha! I’ve got it. A means to an end.”
Well, not quite, but close enough.
“Obviously some kind of secret organisation. Don’t you think?”

Sonja snickered
. She was usually the one prone to seeing conspiracies in everything. So this was what the others felt like, patronising her at breakfast as Father and Aunt Lily read the newspaper headlines and Sonja spun the stories into her ingenious speculative theories.

“
Why do you say that?” Sonja asked.

“
The man was armed. He was watching us. Then the wave hit. Connected...surely.”

Well, that was a stret
ch, even for a McEwan, but Sonja thought she’d best play along for now. Until
someone
made sense of all this. And if she were honest, nothing would ever surprise her again after tonight.

Chapter Three

Shipmates

The dull chatter of loose cables tapping on sheet metal in
the hold overhead whenever the
Brunnhilde
shimmied in high winds, kept Meredith on edge over the North Atlantic. The others—Sonja, Father, Aunt Lily and Lady Catarina—hadn’t spoken for hours, but they weren’t asleep. Hot lemon sunlight streamed in through the porthole windows, drawing an unpleasant acrid soda smell from the new seat upholstery. Collars had been loosened, sleeves rolled up, and magazines opened to replace conversation. A seething recalcitrance, understood by all, liked by none, ruled the
Brunnhilde
.

Mer
edith fingered the Leviacrum pocket watch on the open
Explorer’s Weekly
page on her lap. What did it mean? The man who’d been hiding in the alpen tree had worn a dark turtleneck jersey, black corduroy trousers with the hems tucked into thick woollen socks, as well as hiking boots and a black woollen hat, and he’d been carrying a .42 Epsilon steam-pistol in a hip holster. No identification on him at all apart from the portable camera and a box of used platelets he’d left hanging in the tree where he’d fallen. So he’d definitely been spying on the party. Sorensen had developed the miniature plates in his darkroom last night, and they primarily featured the men he and Father had spent the most time with after Father’s presentation: investors from across Europe, and the local scientific alumni.

Why would anyone go
to such lengths to record that information? Who was so interested in Father’s affiliations, and why? The man hadn’t woken from his coma, and Sorensen had promised to wire Southsea immediately with any further developments.

As they approached the northern coast of Scotland, Father switched the
cabin wireless on. The newscaster’s almost musical Irish voice burst to life:
“...have confirmed reports of a tremendous explosion off the northwest coast of Norway yesterday evening. At least one merchant airship crew saw the lighthouse and a considerable portion of  Jan Mayen, an island in the Greenland Sea, topple into the sea in the aftermath of the explosion—a blast also seen by an ice breaker and two whalers south of Svalbard. The resulting wave rose to a height of fifty feet out to sea. But as it hit the north-western coastline of Norway, it reached as high as several hundred feet in some of the narrower fjords and bays, demolishing coastal towns and fishing fleets and washing up to six miles inland in one valley.

“
Rolf Fjortoft, a fisherman from Tromso, who was airlifted to safety minutes ago, described ‘an unimaginable swell that roared in before I even realized it had blocked out the sky. It lifted me over half way up the hillside and dumped me, still in my rowing boat, on a ledge above the tree line. Both myself and the boat were unbroken.’

“
Other residents were not so lucky. While the precise death toll might not be known for some time, early estimates suggest as many as thirty thousand lives may have been lost. A grave night indeed for our redoubtable friends in the north. Our prayers go with them over the coming weeks. And if anyone has means to convey food and emergency supplies to these disaster areas, please visit your local post office for details of how to volunteer. The Leviacrum Council has this morning forwarded emergency funds to support the relief effort in full, but if you would like to donate further—”

Father growled as he flicked the wireless off. His normally warm brown eyes had narrowed to an angry squint, while his wide lips, ca
pable of the most extreme grins or sorry-for-himself, hang-dog sulks, pursed inside his fortnight of a beard, in a way Meredith hadn’t seen since he’d resolved to prove the world wrong by organising his second expedition to Subterranea. It frightened her a little, and she shuffled in her seat. He was the calm of any storm, the laid-back one. What disturbed him would surely
terrify
her.

“
Father, what do you know that we don’t?”

He glowered at her. “
Enough to fill a library, where the Leviacrum Council is concerned. The unmitigated nerve. They’d solicit for aid for the very disaster
they caused.”

“
Ralph?” Lady Catarina voiced everyone’s confusion. “What
can
you mean?”

“
Those bloody weapons tests. You’ve all heard the rumours. Whenever the Coalition rebels launch an attack with some new technology, the Council makes a point of demonstrating their superior weaponry. Oh, it’s never advertised as such—a freak tidal wave, this time—but every man Jack knows the goal is to scare the rebels.”

“
But not to drown an entire coast, surely to goodness.” She eyed Meredith and Sonja with concern.

“
No, no. They clearly didn’t know how devastating this particular weapon would be. Reckless fools, the lot of them. That’s been their legacy from the very start. Any challenge to their supremacy and they immediately launch half-cocked on some hair-brained technological display. Remember the airship crash of ’98, smoked Buckingham Palace; the lunar rocket misfire in ’03, killed all those pilots. That’s what the Council’s really about—pushing science through before its time. They want pre-eminence, to sit as gods in their tower in the clouds, so the rest of us will kowtow to their ideologies.” He snarled. “Those warmongers and their—no, no, I shan’t say any more. It’s not for the ears of young girls.”

“
Ahem.
Not so young as all that, Father.” Sonja cast him her cheekiest grin that had never failed to butter him up, but his expression appeared determined to keep the cabin overcast.

While p
olishing his uncut amethyst with his thumb, something he did when he had a lot on his mind—most of the time—he stubbornly jutted out his chin. “Little girls. Bratty and vindictive little girls, that’s what I have. Ah, ah—” he silenced their protests with a wave, the worn-to-a-polish amethyst glinting between his forefinger and thumb, “—I know all about it. You were getting even with Brigitte and her cousins for what they did to you. But there’s getting even and there’s getting
even.
Yours was the latter, and it was completely uncalled for. For the sake of my friendship, Mikael Sorensen has agreed to let the matter drop, but believe me, I have no such intention.”

“
But Father, you don’t know what it was like three years ago. You weren’t—”

“
That’s enough,” he snapped at Meredith. “You’ve clung to that hate long enough. It’s not normal. It’s not
rational.
Your mother would have been appalled. No, I’ll decide a fitting punishment for you both later. Now, not another word about it.”

How dare he trivialise what we went through
! The rotten—
Meredith flung her magazine across the cabin. It flapped and then struck the door to the W.C., drawing an angry call from the occupant, a woman from the next section.

“
That’s quite enough from you, young lady.” Aunt Lily leapt up and pointed a lace-gloved finger at Meredith from across the aisle. “If you don’t want a thick ear, you won’t utter another sound until we reach Portsmouth. That goes for you, too, Miss Backchat,” she aimed at her poor sister, who hadn’t uttered a sound.

In reply, S
onja stood on her seat, made a particularly rude noise for the benefit of the entire airship, then sulked in her seat. After biting her lip and flicking her eyebrows up at Aunt Lily, Meredith joined her sister in their shared Coventry.

So the whole world really was agai
nst them. Well then, so be it.

If it
’s war they want, it’s war they’ll get.

A dour afternoon, muggy between a heavy downpour and the pressing of a thick sea fog, did little to lift their spirits as they alighted from the train at East Southsea Station. Newspaper vendors plied their disaster headlines in the faces of passers-by, shouting to compete with the steam carwash working overtime as it re-minted muddy vehicles.

Near the ticket booth
—a mite too near for the ticket seller’s liking—a goggled dandy wearing a white flying suit was exhibiting his automaton invention to a group of awed schoolchildren. The faceless machine gurgled oil, hissed steam, and generally rattled its way through an attempt at the latest dance steps, though its quick-shuffling feet were really quite impressive. The children laughed at the man’s next African jig, and even harder when his metal protégé aped him step for step.

Science wasn
’t all doom and gloom, at least.

When Father, Aunt Lily and Lady Catarina seated themselves at t
he station cafe for a cup of tea and began to peruse the snack menu, Meredith
psst
her sister and nodded toward the telegraph booth. Poor Sonja shrugged, mouthed her puzzlement, so Meredith beckoned her to follow on trust alone. She used the next group of passengers for cover, mingling for a moment, then broke away to the Halfpenny Arcade, a row of over two dozen glass-cased novelty attractions adjacent to the telegraph booth and ticket offices.

She halted at
Pieces of Eight
, an ingenious sonograph machine that could read anything you typed onto its ribbon spool—well, the mechanical parrot on the pirate figure’s shoulder made you think it intoned the words—for a halfpenny per twenty words. The
Jungle Monkey
machine opposite performed an identical function, and punters often had a good laugh insulting one another as parrot and monkey across the arcade.

“
You don’t think we’re in enough trouble?” Sonja looked over her shoulder to make sure Father wasn’t following. “He’s in a rare muck sweat as it is.”

“
Exactly why we have to escape for a while. Unless you fancy a full day of his belly-aching. And anyhow, we’ve got some sleuthing to do, remember?”

“
We do?”

“
My word, you’re an obtuse wet rag today, girl.” Meredith didn’t mind so much having to take charge, but they were far more formidable as a team. Her little sister hadn’t been her usual outspoken, caustic self ever since Niflheim. Understandable considering what they’d been through, but they were back home now, and Meredith’s vim had returned tenfold. “The peeping tom’s pocket watch. If it has something to do with the Leviacrum, like we suppose, then we should be able to get to the bottom of it. First we’ll try Parnell at the bookstore, then we’ll swing by the library. Sound fair?”

Sonja rolled her
eyes, then bobbed her head in amused assent. “If Parnell didn’t hate us before, he’ll burn us in effigy after this.”

“
Ha! You know it.”

“
Right, then—” Sonja retrieved a halfpenny from her purse and sank it into the
Pieces of Eight
coin slot, “—who’s the message for? Father?”

“
No, how about...Aunt Lily!”

“
Genius.” As she positioned her fingers over the typewriter keys, Sonja snickered to herself. “I know just what to...”

Meredith leaned over her kid sister
’s shoulder, biting a gloved fist so as not to burst out laughing as she imagined the parrot intoning the typed message. Sonja was always the best at these mischievous pranks, and it was wonderful to have her back in such defiant form.

As soon as the message was finished, Mered
ith bribed two young boys who were perusing the attractions. She asked one to fetch the pretty woman in the white dress from the cafe, and the other to start the
Pieces of Eight
machine as soon as she appeared. Then Meredith and Sonja beat a hasty retreat and headed for the nearest tram.

The words were barely audible as they left the station
and ran down Clarendon Road:

“
Lily McEwan. Lily McEwan. Up the Jolly Roger. Be so good as to tell Captain Killjoy his captives have escaped. They will return home for dinner. In the meantime, kindly and slowly walk the bloody plank, wench.”

The brightly striped and somewhat optimistic gazebos erected on the beach along the esplanade—optimistic because of the notoriously fluky weather this time of year, early autumn—were deserted, their canopies flapping in a punchy sea breeze. The fog had rolled away to the east, increasing visibility as far as the Isle of Wight, while closer in, hundreds of gulls huddled together on the lighthouse and the walls of Southsea Castle. An ice cream vehicle sauntered by, its steam-powered tri-wheeler chugging away at odds with the sweet melody chiming from its pink-and-white trailer van. The air on Southsea front bit through her, so Meredith buttoned her coat to the collar as the tram eased to a stop outside Parnell’s bookstore.