Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth (17 page)

He jerked a chain, causing a loud steam whistle on his roof go WHEEEET! He kept jerking it, WHEE-WHEE-WHEEET! But the vehicles only came on faster.

The Green Dragon roared up the close side of the lifting drawbridge and sailed over the gap, landing with a loud thud and tremendous rattle on the other side.

The far bridge bent, wobbled, and almost broke. Had the Green Dragon been going any slower, its weight surely would have snapped it off, but it cleared the damaged drawbridge section quickly and made it to the street beyond, unharmed.

Because the large ball carrier had blocked their view, the drivers of the pursuing Raz locomobiles had no idea what was coming until it was too late. They screamed with panic and tried to save themselves.

The first locomobile raced up the front side of the drawbridge, which now arched higher, and sailed through the air. It easily cleared the canal and landed on the damaged section, which broke off. The locomobile slid off it and plunged into the muddy canal with a mighty splash.

The next driver also went flying off the drawbridge, very high, and landed in the water just past the first vehicle. The third driver tried braking but was rammed by the fourth and went plunging into the canal. The final locomobiles managed to stop in time.

The drivers and crewmen got out, glaring as the Green Dragon sped away on the other side. Above it,
Skyshadow
pursued, and they wondered with grave fear what their punishment would be for failure.

***

In the Green Dragon, Will and the others were too stunned this time to celebrate. Still holding on tightly, they looked at each other with disbelief, and one by one they realized they were still holding their breaths. Gasping, laughing, they felt happy to be alive.

“That was close,” Donell admitted. “Far too close!”

“Hurry,” Will said worriedly. “They know we’re staying at Cobee’s house. We need to get to Angelica and Tante Klazee.”

“Och, right ye are! Already on it.”

***

They didn’t know, but not far behind them a virtual armada of Rasmussen vehicles, some heavily armed and armored, was swarming across New Amsterdam in locomobiles and steemwagons. In the sky, two additional airships had added their presence to the city skyscape and were scouring the streets below. The Raz knew Tante Klazee’s address, and in moments the first units would be arriving there.

***

Sitting in the upstairs bathroom in Tante Klazee’s house, Angelica sighed with frustration. The steam clocks had already gone off at nine o’clock, and now it had to be almost nine-thirty. There’d been no sign of a verltgaat opening. Even worse, she worried about her brother and cousins.

Going to the top of the steps, she called down, “Are they here?”

“Not yet, kint,” Klazee answered. “Anything up there?”

“Nothing yet.”

Lowering her head, she went back into the bathroom and sat down on a stool. Noticing the old tub, she smiled as she remembered startling Tante Klazee in the bathtub when they’d first come through from Old Earth.

She almost didn’t notice when a dim, pale glow appeared near the far wall. At first it was white but began sparkling with colors that swirled and seemed to be trying to assume a form. Twisting her head, she gasped.

“Tante Klazee!” Angelica cried. “It’s opening!”

Chapter 14

OFF AND ON

Moments earlier in Beverkenhaas, Marteenus S. Skelthorpe had been nervously studying the verltgaat control panel. Eleven years earlier he’d written coordinates in indelible ink on a piece of parchment, and he’d kept it with him ever since. Going over the figures, he tried to determine if they would work on this device. If not, he’d have to fire up the boiler and run new figures on the Variable Engine, something he did not look forward to.

Also, his delicate ears had detected a faint but bothersome clicking sound. It seemed to come from the ancient, scratched control panel, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was significant. Unable to reason what it might be and nagged by his uncertainty, he went over to the large, computer-like Variable Engine to see if he could make sense of it.

Out of the blue, a cacophonous noise erupted upstairs. He almost jumped out of his shoes, and his hand went for the security of the pistol in his pocket.

“Henry!” he cried, trembling.

He was so nervous he accidentally pulled the trigger. The pistol fired, and the bullet tore a hole through his green coat. It
pinged
off the stone floor by his foot, lodging somewhere in the wooden ceiling above. As his panic grew, he aimed furtively at shadows, trying to figure out what was happening.

He had no way of knowing, but moments earlier the automatic timer in the control panel, which indeed had been set for one week, had finally ended. Softly clicking, spring-powered mechanisms had opened a throttle in an attempt to send steam to the verltgaat machine, and when nothing happened, a back-up system had come on line.

In the normal basement above, a hidden reservoir of fuel oil flowed into the firebox, where a striker ignited it. As more oil trickled in, the boiler, which was low on water but still within the safe zone, quickly came up to pressure and flooded the pipes of Beverkenhaas with steam.

RING RING RING! WHEEEEEEEET! CLONK CLANK, CLONK CLANK! The network of steam clocks had attempted to sound off days earlier, but with no power, they’d been stuck. With a resurgence of steam in the lines, they all went off.

Down in the sub-basement, Marteenus rolled his eyes, recalling with embarrassment how the silly things had frightened him before. “Stupid toy clocks!”

When they shut off and became quiet, another sound caused hackles to rise on the back of his neck. Turning his head, he gasped and would have accidentally fired the pistol a second time had he not returned it to his pocket.

The carousel-like part of the verltgaat machine spun furiously, and the crystals, already tuned, glowed and displayed dancing geometric shapes. Ghostly and spinning, the lump of Tracium hung in the air. With a
click
, a heavy spring under the control panel tugged a lever, and a twelve foot diameter circle of light appeared in the air.

He knew it was only moments from opening. With a peep of terror, he dashed for the control panel. Surely, his paranoid mind argued, this was Hendrelmus, heavily armed and wearing a steemsuit, about to come back and wreak havoc. He only now realized that his bullets would likely bounce off such armor.

“Off!” he screamed, blanking on how to do it and hopping up and down in a panic. “Off! Off! Off!”

Colors shot through the disk of white, and soon it settled on a purple so deep that it seemed he could fall into it.

“Hurry!” he shrieked, knowing it was about to open.

At last his fevered eyes landed on a big lever. Giving it a tug, the Tracium diminished and faded. The carousel-like wheel, no longer powered, began slowing down, and the verltgaat began losing color and intensity. The large white circle quickly faded and soon disappeared.

“By the crack in the sky,” he muttered, “that was close!”

To his horror, the control panel
clicked
, and the large lever moved itself into the on position again. He shoved it off and held it with one hand. Spotting a large wrench, he grabbed it with his free hand and looked for something to whack.

“Timer panel,” he muttered as memories returned.

He lifted the wrench and brought it down several times. Though he dented the wood, he could still feel the lever tugging, trying to automatically turn itself back on.

“Wait,” he said, stopping himself from hitting it further.

Realizing he might need the timer, he looked around for some way to jam or block the thing in the off position. He picked up a wooden chair and balanced it on the lever. The lever, jammed by the chair, couldn’t move, and the world hole couldn’t open.

He waited a moment to be sure, but the chair held. Now, he thought, he could find a way to make the machine work for him. Soon he’d have it set to new coordinates and go home.

THUMP. He cringed at this new sound and looked up. Suspecting the worst, he put his hand on the pistol and moved toward the stairs.

***

“What in B’verlt?” Tante Klazee said.

“It shut off!” Angelica cried.

Her great aunt had come running up the stairs, only to see the disk of dim, white light vanish. Angelica ran over and waved her hands in the air where the world hole had almost opened.

“Nothing!” she said.

Klazee looked worried. “Kint, what could this mean?”

“I don’t know.”

An extremely loud
thump
came from a nearby wall. The whole house shook, and Klazee grabbed Angelica to shield her.

“What now!” she cried.

The bathroom had no window, so she ran into the hallway and opened curtains at the landing at the top of the stairs. She shrieked in terror. A large, green monster’s eyes were just outside, staring right at her.

“Tante Klazee!” a familiar voice shouted below. “Get back!”

Coming to her senses, she realized the creature was mechanical. Craning her neck, she saw a large, green vehicle below and her nephew’s head popping out of a hatch in the top.

“Will!” she called. “What’s the meaning of this!”

“Sorry, Tante Klazee,” he said, “but we need to get this inside.”

“What are you doing in that contraption?”

“We stole it,” he admitted.

She did a double-take as she noticed something. “Groes Vevardinker, is that the steemball?”

“Tante Klazee,” Giselle called from another hatch. “No time to talk! They’re already here!”

She pointed up as a large airship, the
Skyshadow
, buzzed overhead.

“Get back!” Will shouted.

The Green Dragon’s head pulled back, and Klazee realized what they were up to.

“Run, kint!” she cried to Angelica. “This way!”

The dragon head lurched forward and crashed through the upstairs window, tearing out some of the wall. With a resounding
thump
, the crane dropped the heavy ball. It dented the wooden floor at the top of the stairs but did not go through. Angelica hugged Tante Klazee with fright.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the woman shouted.

***

“Now I see their plan,” Clyve told the airship’s captain. “This must be a Steemjammer safe house, where they’ve been opening verltgaats. They’re going to try getting the ball through to Old Earth and escape with it.”

As
Skyshadow
circled, he moved to the other side to maintain his view. The captain came over to join him.

“Ground units are going to arrive piecemeal,” Clyve said. “As long as they can contain our prey, we’ve got them. There’s a nasty surprise on the way.”

***

“What’s happening?” Tante Klazee demanded as she opened her front door.

Will and Giselle had already exited the Green Dragon and ran toward her, followed by Cobee, Donell, and a boy and girl she’d never met.

“Why have you done this?” she asked.

She jumped as a crossbow bolt embedded itself into the doorframe next to her head. Tipped with a metal syringe, it was meant to knock out its victim. Down the street a small, fast locomobile had pulled up, and the Rasmussen driver was already reloading his ranged weapon.

“Inside!” Donell bellowed. “Bar the door. I’ll be right there.”

For some reason he ran back toward the Green Dragon.

“Donell!” Will called.

Another crossbow bolt bounced off the ball carrier’s armor.

“I have tah do this,” the short man shouted. “Just open the door when ye see me comin’!”

He vanished into the Green Dragon.

“Tante Klazee, this is Jack and Kate,” Giselle said as a hurried introduction. “They’re helping us.”

The elderly woman blinked as they forced smiles and rushed inside. Cobee helped her shut and lock the door.

“Angelica!” Will said, shocked to see his sister. “Why are you still here? Didn’t the verltgaat open?”

“It tried to,” his sister began explaining.

“What do you mean?”

“It sparkled and glowed, but then it vanished.”

“Verdoor!” Giselle said. “Is it broken?”

“Maybe there wasn’t enough steam at first, and it will try to open again,” Will said optimistically. “Go back and watch for it.”

While his sister dashed upstairs, he opened the front door. Donell climbed out of the Green Dragon with a familiar metal box under his arm. From out of nowhere came a Rasmussen agent, aiming a crossbow at him.

“I’ll take that,” the man said.

Will started to charge out, but Donell signaled him to stay put. He’d left his hammer leaning against the Green Dragon, and he clearly planned on lunging for it. The Raz agent, however, would surely kill him.

“Steem hoeg!” screamed a voice from out of nowhere.

A man with reddish brown hair and blotchy freckles on his face charged from the other side of the Green Dragon. Before the Raz agent could do anything, the man leaped through the air and knocked him to the ground in a full body tackle. As he fell, the crossbow fired into a tree trunk.

“Alfonz?” Donell said incredulously. “Alfonz Zeldemthoos?”

Alfonz grinned. “Ter naar de vlees!”
In the flesh
! “Away, he is getting!”

He pointed at the Raz agent, who’d gotten to his feet and was running down the street.

“Och, let him go,” Donell said, picking up his hammer and leading Alfonz to Klazee’s house. “Ye’ve lost some hair.”

“Ya, bald like the egg, I am,” Alfonz said, “but the ladies, this they’re liking!”

Will stared as they reached the door. He’d been wondering if Alfonz would return, and he had, just in the nick of time.

“Alfonz?” he said. “You’re back!”

“Ya, of course,” the man grinned. “Back by the opening, I said I’d be.” He turned to Donell. “What were you doing, back-coming out?”

“Had tah get the Incendium,” he panted, “or they’d use it tah burn us out.”

They got back inside and barred the door, but there was no time for the others to greet Alfonz with more than a wave or a quick hello. Things were getting bad outside.

“I see the airship,” Cobee cried, looking out a side window. “It’s coming down!”

Jack looked out a front window. “Three locomobiles pulling up. Eight Raz, now, with crossbows and swords. They’re climbing into the Dragon. I think they’re disabling it so we can’t use it to flee.”

“We need tools, Tante Klazee,” Will said, already running up the steps.

“Tools?” she said. “What kind?”

“Big ones, to open up the steemball. The Tracium’s inside. We need to get it out!”

***

“Signal the men below,” Clyve ordered, his telescope pressed to his eye as he scanned the ground. “Tell them to spread out and prevent escape. We need to get men around to watch the back.”

“Right away,” the captain said, signaling a lieutenant to see to it.

“Get your men on the roof.”

“We’re still lowering.”

“Faster. They mustn’t be allowed to escape.”

***

“We should run out the back, now!” Tante Klazee cried. “We could get to the Hemel Snoor or a fast train!”

“And leave the Tracium for them?” Cobee asked, running by with an armload of heavy wrenches and pry bars.

“But we’ll be trapped.”

“The verltgaat opening, will it not?” Alfonz said in his butchered English.

“Too late,” Donell growled, peering out the back door. “They’ve got us surrounded.”

He slammed the back door as a pair of crossbow bolts stuck into the wood.

“Escape tunnel?” he asked.

“Isn’t one,” Klazee admitted. “The water table’s too high, and our attempts flooded.”