Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth (3 page)

“How’s the cow?” Ron asked.

“About to drop,” Jenny said.

His face collapsed in horror. “Drop dead?”

She covered her mouth to keep from laughing. “About to drop a
calf
!”

Ron looked worried. “They
drop
them?”

“Yeah. Cows give birth standing, usually. The little calf just drops out, right on the ground.”

“This is normal?”

“Basic biology, yeah.”

“Not my favorite class, as I suppose you can guess.”

Ron was greatly relieved. If he killed their animals, what would the aliens do? He didn’t want to imagine.

“I’m pretty clueless about this,” he said with a nervous laugh, hoping to clear his fertile mind of the image of spaceships raining down fire and death. “In first grade, we had a field trip to a dairy farm, and they made me milk a cow.” He shuddered. “That huge, squishy, pink knobby thing – it had wiry
hairs
coming out of it!”

The memory of the udder made him wince with disgust.

“It was horrible,” he continued. “I wouldn’t drink milk until my mom bought the powdered kind from the store. I actually thought it was made in a factory. It was years before I could go back to the regular stuff.”

He laughed, while Jenny politely tried not to.

“Well,” she said, “I guess if you don’t grow up around it, farming can seem kind of alien.”

The word “alien” alarmed Ron, but he decided she’d meant it innocently enough. A loud tapping sound came from the igloo.

“There!” she said. “What’s that?”

“Oh, the penguins,” Ron blurted.

“
Penguins
?”

He grimaced, afraid that he’d said too much. The purple alien creatures resembled penguins, but if he let her see them, she’d suspect the truth and might call NASA. Calm down, he told himself.

“They must be tapping on the door with their, uh, beaks,” he said, “but never ever let them out!”

Jenny nodded.

“I have to feed them,” Ron continued. “The owners are very touchy about their pet penguins.”

“You do seem nervous,” she observed. “Don’t worry. You said not to mess with the igloo, and I haven’t.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket. “We never settled your pay. This is for the first week.”

He shoved some hundred dollar bills into her hand. Eyes opening wide, she counted them.

“Two thousand dollars?” she gasped. “I can’t.”

He looked puzzled. “It’s not enough?”

“Too much! I’m only working a couple hours a day.” She brought up the calculator function on her cell phone. “That’s almost 143 dollars an hour.”

With guilt, Ron realized he should pay her more. Who knew what kind of danger he was exposing her to? Still, if she kept the animals alive and the aliens happy, that could save the earth. She’d be a hero. Future generations would name schools after her.

“These people are rich,” he told her. “Just take it, and make sure all the animals stay healthy.”

“Except the penguins,” she reminded, buttoning the money in a shirt pocket. “You sure you know how to take care of them?”

“Oh! Frozen herrings. I bet they’ve thawed!”

***

Jenny Knox watched the short, white-haired man run to the car and struggle with a heavy bucket of icy fish. Patting the $2,000 cash in her pocket, she thought that this was the craziest situation ever. Then, she realized what it had to be: a hidden camera TV show.

She told herself to remain calm. If she revealed that she was onto the trick, that would surely end her part, and she’d get no more money. Trying not to look for the secret cameras that had to be all over the property, she walked slowly to the barn. If this could keep going until Christmas, she thought, it’d pay for a good chunk of her college education.

Unnoticed by Jenny or Ron, an oblong gas-bag shaped like an enormous loaf of French bread with a gondola underneath appeared on the horizon. The airship rose above a forested hill about a mile away. As quickly as it had appeared, it turned and sped out of sight.

***

In the heart of New Amsterdam sat a sprawling building complex called the Steem Museum. A gift from the Steemjammer family to the people, the place had been originally set up as a gigantic machine shop, wood shop, and factory open to the community. Over the years, it evolved to be like Old Earth museums - marble fronted on the outside with displays of Beverkenverltish history, science, and art inside – but it also offered much more.

For most families in this world, the ability to make things – locomobiles, toys, clothing, work-saving devices, or whatever – was all important. Though people did buy items made by others, they tended to be very self-reliant and preferred making their own, if they could. The old Steemjammers had made sure that any person with an idea in their mind and a willingness to work had a place to go where they could make their dreams real. Not only were tools and work spaces provided, free of charge, but a community of experts was on hand to help – plus metal foundries and a storehouse of exotic materials, offered at cost or discounted, when situations merited that.

Lesser versions of the Steem Museum had been constructed in all the major cities, but none of them topped the one in New Amsterdam for sheer size and completeness. The family had built lecture halls and an auditorium. Apprenticing programs had been added to give job skills to young people, along with classrooms for anyone who had a desire to teach.

These Museums, however, were mainly vast factories where a free people could attempt to build anything they wanted. No one had to ask permission. For the Steemjammers, that was what created a happy and prosperous society.

In a main stairwell of the front building, ten-year-old Angelica Steemjammer raced down. She had wavy blonde hair so strongly cowlicked that it stood straight up – at least most of the time. Just then, she went so fast that the breeze of her motion swept her hair back like a sapling in a strong wind.

“Please, be alive!” she said, bursting out of the stairwell into a large display hall. She hurdled a velvet rope barrier and took a shortcut through an exhibit on the exploration of early Beverkenverlt. Racing past wax mannequins dressed in fur coats, funny breeches, and buckled shoes, she leaped the barrier on the other side and hurried on.

People dodged out of her way as she sped like a tiny, runaway locomotive, huffing and puffing: “Be alive, be alive, be alive, be alive!”

She’d grown tired of pretending to search for her kidnapped brother and had found a private corner of the library to meditate. Her friend, Rachel, had seen a disturbance in the lobby. She’d run to tell her.

“Will?” she cried, bursting into Donell’s office.

“Back here,” a male voice answered.

The girl followed his voice to find an extremely short, muscular man with a full beard and a thick Scottish accent, Donell Ogilvy. Wrenches, pliers, and other tools hung off his thick, leather belt. He was in charge of the various volunteer and apprenticing programs at the Steem Museum, and she’d been surprised to learn he was a distant cousin on her mother’s side.

“Where?” she said.

He nodded at a couch, and then she saw her brother lying there. He looked very still.

“Will!” she cried, starting to rush to him, but Donell stopped her.

“Let him rest,” he soothed. “He’s very weak.”

“He’s alive, right?”

“Aye, lass, thank the Great Maker.”

A wave of joyous relief seemed to crash through her body, washing away the days of doubt and fear. Still, she noticed his paleness and grew concerned. “What happened?”

“He walked through the Steem Museum’s front doors, plain as daylight,” Donell explained. “Someone recognized him and brought him straight tah me.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He collapsed where ye see him and fell asleep.”

“Where’s the rest of the fish?” a familiar but weak voice surprised them.

It was Will. Eyes open, he found himself staring at a piece of framed fabric on the wall with the words “A Fin” stitched in needlepoint. Angelica smothered him with a big hug.

“What day is it?” he said.

Donell grinned. “Tuesday.”

“I’ve been gone that long?”

“You’re all right!” she cried, with tears of joy streaming down her face.

“Yeah,” Will said. “I got run over, but I’m fine.”

“Run over?” Donell said.

“By a locomobile, yeah. It literally went right over me, because I fell in front of it. The driver was so relieved I wasn’t touched that she drove me here.”

“You’re all right, then?”

Will nodded. “Just tired of being tired. And thirsty.”

While Donell got him some water, Angelica’s mood turned as she remembered the days of anguish she’d recently suffered.

“You shouldn’t have gotten out of the steemwagon!” she scolded. “I’m very upset about that, Will.”

“Excuse me,” Donell interrupted, puzzled over something. “Where’s the rest o’
what
fish?”

Will cast his eyes at the framed needlepoint. “You’ve only got ‘A fin.’”

“Oh,” Donell laughed. “Lad, that ye can crack a joke after what ye must’ve suffered – thank the Maker!”

“What does it mean?” Angelica said.

“It means your brother’s a tough, resilient young man with the stamina o’ an ox! Three days in tha’ Raz dungeon, and not a scratch on him!”

“I meant why do you have ‘a fin’ on your wall?”

“Och, not ‘a fin.’ It’s Latin and pronounced ‘
Ah Feen
!’” He roared it in a great, deep voice. “Aye, ye have tah do it loud and proud, if yer an Ogilvy like me.

“Means ‘Tah the End!’ Tha’s the Ogilvy Clan motto, which we shout in battle. My ma sewed it with her own hands, in the true colors of our family tartan.”

Forgetting her anger and wiping away her tears, Angelica hugged her brother again.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said.

He reached up and patted her back.

“What happened?” she asked.

***

A torrent of memories flooded his mind, and Will found himself unable to pick a starting point. Also distracting him was the fact that somehow, against all the odds, he was free from that oppressive base on Texel Island and the Rasmussens – back in the Steem Museum with his sister and a distant cousin, Donell.

Noticing a rumbling in his stomach, he said, “Hungry.”

“They didn’t feed you?” Angelica asked, appalled.

“The food looked awful and smelled worse.”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Here, lad,” Donell said, passing him a hefty sack full of rock-like, baked lumps. “Have a groat klonk.” Lost in thought, Will hesitated. “Well, go on. They dinna bite!”

Remembering that Donell’s klonks had a reputation for breaking teeth, Will sucked one like it was hard candy.

“Did the verltgaat open?” he said hopefully.

When they’d come through a world hole from their sub-basement in Old Earth, he’d set the timer wrong, and now they were stuck here until it opened.

“No,” his sister said. “That won’t happen until Thursday morning, if it happens.”

Now he remembered. His aunt figured out that he’d set the timer for a whole week. She was hoping that some sort of automatic system would turn it back on, even if the fire in the boiler were out – and it probably was already cold. Thinking of his aunt and all the family’s difficulties with the Rasmussens, he remembered something urgent.

“Get Tante Stefana now,” he said. “We’re in trouble.” 

Chapter 3

SEEK DEEPER TRUTH

After a couple of groat klonks, which Will was hungry enough to actually chew, Donell led him up a series of hidden staircases and secret hallways deep into the upper part of the Steem Museum. Angelica had not wanted to leave her brother, but since he needed a medical exam, she was persuaded to wait in the office. After a much needed bath, he found fresh clothes waiting for him to change into.  A trusted doctor checked his vital signs, and Will was left alone in a mostly unlit room.

He felt much better now. Donell had stuffed his pockets with groat klonks, and he sucked one, marveling at the dancing flavors of the skirlberries. He wondered if he just needed some food, or did groat klonks really have a restorative power? Maybe being back with his sister and other family members helped, too.

Remembering the repressive darkness of Texel, he opened the heavy curtains to let in bright sunlight and gasped with amazement. The walls, he could now see, were lined with paintings and tapestries showing battles between men wielding old-fashioned steemvaapens –
steam weapons
– and strange monsters. What earned his awe, though, was an intricate diorama on a large table.

It depicted a walled village on a large, flattened shoulder of rock high up in the mountains. A working waterfall flowed over a nearby cliff, plunging down to turn an enormous iron-reinforced waterwheel below. Towers dotted the walls, and puffs of white vapor simulated smoke rising from numerous stacks.

“Beverkenfort!” he said, saying the name of his family’s ancestral home, which had been taken away from them by a Rasmussen surprise attack eleven years ago.

A cold breeze seemed to touch his face as he remembered his lungs stinging from the frigid air and high altitude. The roar of the plunging river echoed dimly in his ears, and he saw smiling adult faces looking down at him. They were wisps of old memories that had come to him over the years like fleeting whispers. Only now did he begin to know what to make of them.

Briefly a distant ringing of bells sounded in his mind, and he recalled the weird hallucination he’d heard at Texel while being interrogated. But this was something else. This was a memory of the alarm being sounded out on that fateful day. A woman’s scream startled him, but he knew it wasn’t real. The memory faded, leaving him chilled.

“Do you have any idea,” a stern voice surprised him, “how much sleep you’ve cost me these past few days?”

His father’s younger sister, Tante Stefana, stepped into view.
Aunt Stefana
. She had sky-blue eyes made large by steel-framed glasses and a slightly bulbous though pretty nose. Her wavy, light brown hair seemed to go in all directions, and she wore a leather apron over her blouse and skirt. Though she tried to maintain a severe demeanor, a warm smile spread across her face.

“By all that grows green and true,” she said, “how did you return to us?”

***

It turned out they were in Stefana’s spacious living quarters, high up in the Steem Museum. Realizing he was hungry, she led him to her kitchen. As he explained the poison and how, ironically, Bram’s kidnapping had saved his life, she reacted with shock and nearly spilled the bowl of broth she’d prepared for him.

Her face clouded over with great concern. “Will, what did they do to you? They must have learned your real name.”

Taking a sip, he shook his head no.

“I convinced them I’m Will Stevens,” he said.

“How? Didn’t they use a truth drug?”

Somehow he knew they had, and then a word he’d overheard suddenly made sense to him.

“Glass Dragon,” he said.

She gasped. “You resisted that?”

Nodding, he grew uncomfortable because her look changed from one of surprise to awe – with a tinge of what seemed like fear. What, he wondered anxiously, did she really think of him?

“Groes Vevardinker,” she declared, “oprecht vloyit de Oude Steem in oo aders!”

He knew enough Dutch to understand she’d just said
Great Maker, truly the Old Steem flows in your veins
!

“If only it were true,” he said miserably.

“What do you mean?”

He started to tell her but stopped. It was too painful, too humiliating.

“I had to lie,” he admitted, realizing it was better to get it out of his system. “I mean, I
really
lied.”

“How? You lied about your name?”

“They assumed Glass Dragon always worked. Somehow I told them I was Will Stevens.”

“They believed you?”

“They must have. Bram himself led me to a boat back to the city.”

Still overwhelmed, she studied him with wonder.

“I understand what you said, now,” he said, wanting to fill the awkward silence.

“What?” she asked.

“That they can poison and twist the mind. If they’d discovered my real name, they could have made me open verltgaats for them.”

“I’m glad you understand and even happier you escaped, but I still don’t see how.”

Putting down his broth, he looked away. “Maybe I didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told us that our difficulty lying is tied to our goot steem, that if we lie too much, we can lose it. Not only did I lie, now that I have, I find I’m tempted to do so all the time.”

“You can stop yourself?”

“Usually.”

Feeling weak, he took another sip of broth.

“What’s really bothering you?” she asked.

“You said,” he said fearfully, “that if we lied, we could harm ourselves. When I was there, I actually hoped it would kill me, so they couldn’t use me to hurt you all. But now...”

She put her hand reassuringly on his arm. “The doctor said you’re weak from going several days without food but otherwise in good health. After a meal or two, you should be back to your old self.”

He took that in. “But I don’t feel right.”

“After what you’ve been through? Of course you wouldn’t. Will, you just did something no one else has ever done. You survived days of interrogation in a major Rasmussen stronghold. Even if your steem’s not as goot, that’s a small price. You should be proud of yourself.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, and then he remembered the reason he’d asked to see her. He told her about encountering a strange, short man with long, greasy hair and what he’d said about the Rasmussens’ efforts to open world holes.

“They know about Tracium,” he explained.

“I highly doubt that,” she replied stiffly.

“He told me it came to Gerardus on Old Earth in a meteorite, and it’s the reason they can’t open world holes, because they can’t mentally access it like we can. I take that to mean that no matter where the Tracium is we somehow make it work. Anyway, if they can get the Tracium and have it touching their machine, he says it will work.”

Her mouth opened wide with astonishment. “
What
?”

“It’s what he told me. They must have found secrets in Beverkenfort.”

She glanced away, angered. “All those years, I wondered what possible significance those old rocks had, and to learn like this, second-hand through some Raz lackey...”

Stopping herself, she cast a wary eye at Will. It was plain she hadn’t meant to open her carefully guarded feelings to him. Clearly, the family had not shared important information with her. It hurt.

“Henry must have thought the sky stones would lead him to the Tracium,” she said, recovering. “As for the Rasmussens, they’ve learned far too much. If Tracium really works that way, it’s a secret that’s been carefully guarded almost 400 years.”

“Not anymore,” Will said grimly.

***

“Och,” Donell grunted, “they could do
what
?”

Tante Stefana had located Donell by calling through a series of bronze speaking tubes hidden behind a panel on the wall, and minutes later he’d arrived, coughing and out of breath from running. As Will rushed through a hurried version of the story he’d just told her, Donell’s eyes opened wider and wider with disbelief.

“You heard him,” she said sternly.

“Ye’re askin’ me tah believe,” he said incredulously, “that if they touch that piece o’ Tracium tah their machine, it will open world holes?”

“Not touch. They’ll have to spin it close by, within the primary fields, but yes. It would probably work.”

“Are ye sure?”

Stefana looked away before continuing. “It explains certain things my brother was doing – some crazy risks he and Deet took.”

“Like breaking intah Beverkenfort?”

She nodded. “Also, it explains cryptic things he said about what the Raz are doing – so yes, I’m fairly certain it’s a present and very real danger.”

Wincing, Donell tugged on his chin as he forced his mind to process this.

“May mah beard turn green and sprout turnips,” he growled.

“Huh?” Will said.

“That little monster, Bram, arrived ten minutes ago. Went straight down tah the basement, and now we know why.”

“Someone’s watching him, right?” Stefana asked nervously. “You could stop him if he found it.”

“A month ago I would’ve said aye, but we just let ‘em get out with this young man. They’re very slippery, these Raz eels.”

“I don’t get it,” Will said. “Why isn’t the Tracium guarded in the safest place possible?”

Tante Stefana and Donell traded glances, seeming to come to a wordless decision before she faced Will.

“It’s hard to admit this, but we don’t know,” she said. “Your father told me the Tracium is unaccounted for, and he was trying to find it before they could. I would have helped him more, but I didn’t believe him.” She looked down and lowered her voice. “Also, I was angry with him for not trusting me fully.”

“Angelica and I are mad, too,” Will confessed, “because if our parents even told us a little about this place, we wouldn’t have done those stupid things. But we have to move past that, right?”

Pressing her hands to either side of her face, Tante Stefana nodded.

“Why doesn’t my dad know where the Tracium is?” Will asked.

“Ye see, lad,” Donell said, “many secrets were passed down over the years from Great Steem Masters tah their heirs, but things happened too suddenly for yer grandfather, Ricardus, tah do so with yer father.”

Stefana spoke softly. “Henry said my Papa – that’s what I called your grandfather - left hints. One was that the Tracium had been hidden – well, it’s too ridiculous to repeat.”

“Let me guess,” Will said. “‘Hidden in plain sight.’”

She fixed him with an alarmed gaze. “How’d you come upon that?”

“Dad’s journal and worse.”

“Worse?”

He sighed. “When we first entered that big storage room, Angie-bee and I heard Bram say it.”

“Bram Rasmussen?”

Will nodded. Troubled expressions clouded their faces.

“Och,” Donell grunted. “They may well be closer tah findin’ it than Henry was.”

“Don’t say that!” she snapped and then softened her tone. “I’m sorry, Donell. Of course, you could be right. We never should have let them in here.”

“It’s mah fault,” Donell admitted. “I said tah let ‘em in so we could keep a close watch on ‘em - maybe learn a thing or two. They outfoxed me.”

“It’s a Steem Museum policy,” Stefana added, “not to turn anyone away. I didn’t want to break that tradition, so the blame is mine.”

Will found himself having to suppress an urge to laugh. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“You find this funny?”

“Actually, yes. If you hadn’t let Bram in, I would have died. He took me to Texel and saved my life!”

She squinted. “Only to have that horrid man torture you with Glass Dragon.”

“Yes, but I had to be alive to be questioned, so it worked out. Now, Bram thinks I’m on his side!”

Will started to say more but stopped himself, feeling ashamed. He’d not wanted to admit that part to them.

“Go on,” his aunt urged.

“He made me,” Will said with difficulty, “a member of the Rasmussen Protectorate. He expects me to find a secret room for him. He must think the Tracium’s there.”

“
What
?”

Will feared they’d yell at him or even kick him out of the family, and he felt like he might throw up. Instead, a bewildered smile crossed his aunt’s face. Donell let out a whoop of delight.

“Wilhelmus, is this true?” she said.

“Laddie,” Donell said with an ear-to-ear grin, “ye actually
joined
tha’ retched gang o’ snake charmers?”

He nodded, and to his surprise, Donell clamped a beefy hand on his back.