The Doomsday Vault (51 page)

“I hope Madam doesn't mind,” Kemp said.

“Thank you, Kemp,” Alice told him. “You always know what to do.”

“Madam,” Kemp said.

Gavin took up his place at the helm again. “Where should we go?”

“China,” Alice said. “We need to go to China.”

The propellers started up again, and the airship glided forward. “Why China?”

“Phipps said the cure had been discovered and suppressed more than once, and China has its own clockworkers—Dragon Men. They may have a cure for clockworkers.” She managed a smile, though it came out sickly. “We must remain optimistic.”

“I can do that,” Gavin said, “if I'm with you.”

“How will we go to China?” Dr. Clef asked. “I do not think even I can learn Chinese so quickly.”

“We have a friend.” Gavin produced the silver nightingale from his pocket. “Feng Lung was the last person to touch this besides me. I hope it works.” He pressed the bird's left eye. “Ambassador Lung and Feng Lung, this is an emergency. I need to invoke the favor you owe me. Meet us where Feng Lung and I first became friends.”

Gavin tossed the nightingale into the air. The tiny messenger angel fluttered its wings and skimmed away.

 

“To tell you the truth, I find myself relieved,” said Ambassador Jun Lung. “Your difficulty solves a problem for me.”

They were standing at the crossed pathways where Gavin had first rescued Feng from trouble all those months ago. Alice and Gavin faced Jun and Feng while Kemp busied himself with a shovel near Edwina's canvas-wrapped body. For once, he didn't complain. Click stayed on the airship, which had landed on a nearby field. Dr. Clef stood a few feet away, clutching the sack he had salvaged from the Third Ward. He had offered to stay on the ship as well, but Alice didn't trust him enough to leave him alone. Night was lifting like raven wings, revealing soft light beneath. The chilly air rang with traffic sounds from the distance. London was nearly awake.

“What kind of problem, sir?” Alice asked.

“I have come to the regretful conclusion that my eldest son is unsuited for statecraft.” Jun bowed his head briefly, his hands folded within his sleeves. “He is talented at language, but often fails to choose his words wisely.”

“My father is correct,” Feng said without a trace of embarrassment. “I would start a war between our countries.”

“So you would like us to escort him home,” Gavin said.

“Precisely.” Feng winced and slapped his neck. A bit of green came away on his fingers. “I do not remember London suffering from biting insects at this time of year. Is this normal?”

“We would be pleased to take Feng home, Ambassador,” Alice said, ignoring the question. “Can he leave—”

“Immediately, yes,” the ambassador said. “I believe certain people of ill repute are already seeking him, and diplomatic immunity would not be helpful.”

“We should go ourselves,” Alice said. “I'm sure Phipps is rallying the Third Ward to look for us once the sun rises, and it's still dark enough for plague zombies to—”

“Look!” Dr. Clef pointed.

Half a dozen plague zombies, possibly those once controlled by Edwina, shambled toward them over the grass. Their arms were outstretched, and thin skin hung in tatters ragged as their clothes. One of them was a child, perhaps six or seven years old. Alice and the others backed away, toward the ship. Then the first bright beams of sunlight came over the horizon and struck the zombies full on. They flinched, but, instead of fleeing for the shadows, they stopped. Identical looks of wonder crossed their mottled faces as the sun slipped gold slowly over their bodies and faces. They faced the dawn and let the light wash over them. Even as Alice watched, some of their sores stopped weeping, and their bloody tears ceased. The child jumped once, then twice. Then he smiled.

“It's working,” Alice whispered. “Oh, Aunt Edwina! Oh, Father! It's
working
!” She hugged Gavin, who whirled her around with giddy joy. “It's working!”

“I do not understand,” Feng said. “What is working?”

Tears were streaming down Alice's face. “I didn't think I could be happy again, but I am! Can you forgive me, Gavin?”

“What for?” he asked, laughing.

“For being happy, even when you're . . .”

“Sick? Alice, I never want you to feel sad or guilty. I love you always.” He kissed her. “Let's fly.”

The
Lady of Liberty
skimmed steadily over the English Channel. Gavin stood at the helm, feeling every creak of the ropes, every movement of the deck. The fresh, clean air washed over him, and the sun shone overhead. His back bothered him not at all. He should have been tired, but he wasn't. Alice was sleeping belowdecks, as was Feng. Kemp was in the galley attending to lunch, and Click, perched on the tiny bowsprit, was pointedly ignoring the seagulls that screeched at him. Gavin should have felt frightened or unhappy about the disease rampaging through his brain, but he didn't. He was back where he belonged at last, Alice was with him, and they were heading off to explore a new land. What more did he need? He tipped back his head and sang:

A hatch opened, and Dr. Clef climbed out with a machine under one arm. He stumped over to Gavin and pushed his goggles up to his forehead in a way that reminded Gavin of Old Graf.

“That workshop you have below is primitive and dreadful,” he spat. “How am I going to re-create my poor Impossible Cube without a decent laboratory?”

“You're lucky to have a laboratory at all, Doctor,” Gavin pointed out. “What is that?”

“My first attempt. I have tried to find ways to stretch across to other universes to find my cube, but all I did was reach back to old hypermagnetic frequencies. Look at this nonsense.”

He twisted dials on the machine. Two parabolic reflectors spun, and a square of glass lit up. The machine made eerie pinging noises, and bits of light danced across the glass.

“What am I looking at?” Gavin said.

“Sources of power for automatic machinery,” Dr. Clef said impatiently. “You see? This one is Kemp. It is very close. And this tiny one is the clicky kitty.”

“What's this one?” Gavin pointed. “It's a different color.”

“That one has a different power source than the others.”

Gavin studied the glass a moment. His brow furrowed. “Is it . . . following us?”

“Yes, of course.”

The connection clicked instantly, and a feeling of dread came over Gavin. He knew the answer, but he had to ask the question anyway. “Why is it a different power source?”

“This kind of machinery demands it. It is what happens when one grafts machine parts to human flesh.”

“Like the machine parts grafted to Susan Phipps?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Dr. Clef shut off his machine, and Gavin pushed the
Lady
's engines harder, speeding them toward the Orient.

Steven Harper Piziks was born in Saginaw, Michigan, but he moved around a lot and has lived in Wisconsin, in Germany, and briefly in the Ukraine. Currently he lives with his three sons near Ann Arbor, Michigan.

His novels include
In the Company of Mind
and
Corporate Mentality
, both science fiction published by Baen Books. He has produced the Silent Empire series for Roc and
Writing the Paranormal Novel
for Writer's Digest. He's also written novels based on
Star Trek
,
Battlestar Galactica
, and
The Ghost Whisperer
.

Mr. Piziks currently teaches high school English in southeast Michigan. His students think he's hysterical, which isn't the same as thinking he's hilarious. When not writing, he plays the folk harp, dabbles in oral storytelling, and spends more time online than is probably good for him. Visit his Web page at
http://theclockworkempire.com
, and his Twitter feed at
http://www.twitter.com/stevenpiziks
.

G
avin Ennock snapped awake. His temples pounded, his feet ached, and his arms flopped uselessly above his head. Far above him lay green grass strewn with twigs. It took him several moments to understand he was hanging upside down by his ankles. At least he wasn't naked this time.

“Hello?” he called.

Below him, nothing moved. He shifted in confusion, and the iron shackles around his ankles clinked like little ghosts. How the hell—? The last thing he remembered was walking back to the inn from a much-needed trip to the bathhouse and hearing someone call his name. Now he was hanging head down amid a bunch of trees. Most were little more than saplings, but a few were full sized. Gavin didn't know trees, but these certainly didn't seem . . . normal. Their branches twisted as if with arthritis, and the leaves looked papery. Two or three bloomed with bright blue flowers, with bees bumbling among them.

The forest itself was contained within a domed greenhouse, three or four stories tall. Gavin's head hung fully two of those stories above the ground. Glass walls broken into geometric designs magnified and heated angry summer sunlight. The whole place smelled green. Water trickled somewhere, and humidity made the air heavy. Breathing felt almost the same as drinking.

Poison ivy vines of fear took root and grew in Gavin's stomach. “Hey!” Blood throbbed in his head, and his voice shook more than a little. “Is someone going to tell me what's going on?”

A man limped from around one of the trees. His back was twisted, and his sparse brown hair clumped unevenly against his skull. This and his scarred, gnarled hands gave the initial impression that he was old, but Gavin quickly realized he was barely older than Gavin, who wasn't yet twenty. The man was a clockworker, and the plague had left him with both physical and mental scars.

“Shit,” Gavin muttered.

“Is he awake?” The man had a French accent. “Yes, he is awake.”

“I'm an agent of the Third Ward,” Gavin called down to him, lying. “When I don't report in, they'll send a team to see what happened to me. You don't want that. Let me go, and—”

The twisted man threw a lever Gavin hadn't noticed, and Gavin dropped. The ground rushed up at him. His stomach lurched, and Gavin yelled. At the last moment, the twisted man threw the lever again and Gavin jerked to a stop five feet above the ground. His ankles burned with pain, and the headache sloshed hot lead inside his skull.

“I think he has no idea who I am.” The twisted clockworker pressed a scarred hand to Gavin's upturned cheek in a strangely tender caress. The gesture created an odd convergence of opposites. Gavin's captor stood firmly on the ground. His body was as twisted and warped as his trees; his face was scarred beneath greasy sparse hair, and he wore a filthy robe that looked like it had once belonged to a monk. Muddy hazel eyes peered at his captive. Gavin had even features, white-blond hair, and blue eyes. His black shirt and trousers contrasted sharply with his fair skin and hair, and his fingers were straight and strong.

The clockworker cocked his head, as if hearing a voice—or voices. “Then maybe he should look around and try to remember who I am. Maybe he should.”

Gavin considered socking the clockworker, but discarded the idea—he had bad leverage, and even if he managed to knock the other man unconscious, he would still be trapped in the shackles. His earlier fear gnawed at him again, mingling with the pain.

Now that he was lower, he could see a nearby large stone worktable littered with wicked-looking gardening tools, a large control panel bristling with levers, dials, and lights, and, incongruously, a brass-and-glass pistol. A power cable trailed from the stock and ended in a large battery pack.

“Listen,” Gavin said with growing desperation, “I can help you. I can—”

The man turned Gavin, forcing him to look at the trees. “I don't know if he remembers. Maybe he will if I point out that the forest is old but the greenhouse is new. What do you all think?”

“What are you talking about?” It was useless to argue with clockworkers—the disease that stoked their brains also lubricated their grip on reality—but Gavin couldn't help himself. “You aren't making—”