The Impossible Cube: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire (12 page)

“I need help, Dodd,” Gavin told him. The audience laughed. “And only you can give it.”

The ringmaster looked wary. “How?”

In the ring, a clown pedaled around on a unicycle with a bucket of whitewash, which he threatened to toss over the audience. Gavin swallowed, suddenly nervous. Dodd was part of the idea he’d gotten earlier, when Glenda was chasing them with the mechanical.
He hadn’t had time to think about it further since the chase had started, and now that everything had slowed down, the day’s events were catching up with him. He glanced at Alice. She and Feng were counting on him. If Dodd refused to help, they’d be in serious trouble.

“We found out that plague cures have been invented or discovered more than once,” Gavin said, “but England and China have suppressed them. English cures were never able to cure clockworkers, only regular victims, but the Chinese ambassador told us the Dragon Men—Chinese clockworkers—might have a full cure.”

The clown flung his bucket, but turned it aside at the last moment. The audience whooped at him, half laughing, half fearful.

“So you need to get to China,” Dodd said. “I’m sorry, Gavin. We aren’t going to China.”

Gavin shook his head. “We don’t need to go that far. I have an airship, but she’s easy to spot and track. It’s how Phipps and the others followed us to Luxembourg. We need to lose them and earn enough money to fuel the ship for a flight to Peking.”

“What’s that to do with me?”

“The circus is a perfect cover,” Gavin blurted out. “You’re heading east. I can hide the ship on the train, and we can hide among you, do some work to earn money. Once we get far enough along, we’ll leave.”

“Oh, Gavin—I don’t know,” Dodd said. “I like you. Hell, you’re almost like a little brother to me. But the coppers already give us the hairy eye when we come to town.”

Feng muttered something in Chinese that sounded like a swear word, and Gavin’s heart sank. The clown
drew his bucket back one more time. “Phipps has no real jurisdiction outside England,” Gavin said, still trying.

“Doesn’t seem to stop her. And I don’t know that I have any paying work for you. Look, I want to help, but—”

“How long has that elephant been lurching like that?” Alice interrupted. The clown threw the bucket’s contents, but all that came out was confetti. The audience laughed and cheered.

“What?” Dodd said. “Uh… two months, perhaps three. We bought it from a clockworker several years ago, but it seems to be breaking down. No one knows how to fix it.”

“Is that so?” Alice said.

“I
was
that
close, Lieutenant,” Glenda fretted. “I practically had them in my hands.”

“So did I,” Phipps reminded her. “And I am not worried. There are only so many places they can run to, and Alice is on a mission.”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked. Once again, they were in a hotel room, though this one was rather better than the previous one. Clean, airy, with fresh linens on the beds and flowers on the nightstand, and a water closet on every floor. Once again, Glenda perched on a chair, Simon sprawled on the bed, and Phipps paced the floor.

“Haven’t you been listening to the talk on the street? She’s curing people, one by one, with that gauntlet of hers.” Phipps unconsciously flexed her own brass hand. “They break local laws about entering houses of plague, Gavin Ennock sings, Alice Michaels scratches people with that ‘sword’ of hers, and people call them angels for breaking the law.”

“They managed to hide the airship,” Glenda growled. “There’s been no sign of the thing.”

“There’s also been no sign of Dr. Clef since the affair at the greenhouse,” Simon put in. “That worries me a little.”

“It worries me, too,” Phipps admitted. “Though it may mean he has died.”

Glenda muttered, “Life is never so easy.”

“You do have a point.” Phipps sighed. “We must operate on the assumption that Dr. Clef is still alive and very dangerous. The trouble is, we’ve been underestimating them. All of them. Gavin
is
a clockworker, with all a clockworker’s requisite cunning.”

“And madness.” Glenda poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher on the table. “I’ll wager Alice is enjoying herself. At any rate, we’ll never find them at hotels now. They’re going to be wary of public houses. Unfortunately, they could hide any number of other places, including the homes of grateful plague victims.”

Already the pieces were falling together. Strategy and planning, three and four steps ahead. If this happens, then that. If that happens, then this. Though it was difficult to think through the anger—and the fear. She wasn’t afraid of what Gavin and Dr. Clef might do—not really. She was afraid of failing and earning that tiny shake of her father’s head, the one that tormented her every night when she went to bed.

Phipps drummed metal fingers on the windowsill, as was fast becoming her habit. Was she doing the right thing? The just thing? Was she pursuing Gavin and Alice and Dr. Clef out of true justice, or because her father—

No. She couldn’t afford doubt now. Aloud, she said,
“The smart thing would be for them to hide, true, but they won’t do the smart thing. I repeat to you: Alice is on a mission, and she can’t accomplish it in hiding. That’s how we’ll get her.”

“You mean to set up an ambush,” Simon said.

“Absolutely. I believe now is also the time to visit the gendarmes and cash in some Crown influence. They can search the city while we set a trap at the appropriate place.”

“What’s the appropriate place?” Glenda asked.

“At the highest concentration of plague victims, of course.” Phipps gave a grim smile. “I want to run a check on the mechanicals first thing in the morning. And then we’re going to shop for bread and wine.”

A
lice shut the huge access panel on the elephant’s left side and set the spanner on the workbench with a clank. Grease stained her face and blouse. The Tilt felt big and empty now, with its rows of vacant bleachers and high canvas roof. All the sawdust was trampled into the ground, and the bleacher rows were littered with dead peanut bags. Dodd stood nearby, watching closely, while Gavin and Feng occupied front-row bleachers.

“That was
fascinating
,” Alice said. “I even made some improvements on the memory wheels and increased the visual acuity.”

“Meaning what?” Dodd asked.

“It doesn’t necessarily need a rider. Look.” With a sidelong glance at Gavin and a certain amount of pride, she gestured at the big brass elephant, which came smoothly to its feet and plodded steadily around the ring, hissing and puffing steam. Alice gestured again, and it stopped. She felt like a sorceress who had conjured
a steaming elemental from the depths of the earth.

Gavin applauded, and Alice turned a little pink. She had to admit that she had done this in no small part to impress him. After everything he had done this morning—rescuing her from Phipps, getting them away from Simon’s mechanical, and ingeniously hiding them in a circus—she felt a need to impress him.

“All right,” Dodd said. “We have a deal.”

“So you’ll take us with you?” Gavin said. Alice made the elephant sit like an enormous dog. This was fun.

“Absolutely,” Dodd said. “We haven’t had anyone who can service the machines in a long time. That’s why we were heading to Kiev.”

“Kiev?” Feng got to his feet, concerned. “Is that wise? The Ukrainian Empire is the source of the clockwork plague.”

“Is it?” Alice straightened. “I’ve never heard that.”

“It’s never been proven,” Gavin said slowly, “and not something everyone discusses. Kiev does seem to have the earliest cases of plague on record.”

“Earliest cases?” Feng said. “That’s an understatement worthy of my father. According to the histories, in 1750 the Dnepro River boiled in the center of Kiev and the plague rose up like a dragon and devoured the city.”

“The river boiled?” Alice repeated. “What on earth does that mean?”

“No doubt some hyperbole found its way into the history,” Feng said.

“Which only goes to show that the stories are unreliable,” Dodd pointed out. “Boiling rivers indeed!”

“Then the plague rose up again ten years later,” Feng continued, undaunted, “and one more time twenty years after that. Kiev seems to attract the plague. No one has more cases of it, and no one has an earlier source of it.”

“Then why go there?” Gavin said.

“The plague is at an ebb right now,” Dodd told him. “Besides, we have Alice, and everyone in the circus is immune by now. The Ukrainians do have world-class automatons. They do have pots of money. And they love a good circus. If we keep our noses clean, we can sell out two shows a day for a month. We’ve played there a dozen times before with no trouble. It’s true they don’t like Jews or Catholics, but we have neither in the circus.”

“I was thinking we would go south, through Turkey,” Feng said, obviously ill at ease.

“That would be out of our way,” Gavin pointed out. “And the Ukrainians have paraffin oil, don’t they?”

“They practically invented the stuff,” Dodd said. “Russia pays them tribute in petroleum, and they’ve done some incredible things with it. I’ve already arranged to rent space and Linda says she saw us in Ukraine, so—”

“Linda?” Alice interrupted.

“She and her husband, Charlie, tell fortunes in the sideshow,” Dodd answered. “They’re very good, especially since Charlie’s accident.”

“You base this decision on a fortune-teller?” Feng said incredulously.

“And everything else I mentioned,” Dodd said. “Look, I’ve already decided that we’re going. If you want to come along, come. We can use Miss Michaels. The rest of you are dead weight, but—”

“Hey!” Gavin said. “I can play the fiddle!”

“And he sings,” Alice pointed out, feeling defensive.

“I could walk a tightrope, too,” Gavin muttered. “And learn the trapeze. Wouldn’t take more than ten minutes. Stupid clockwork plague gives me stupid extra reflexes. May as well make some extra money out of it before it kills me.”

“The Flying Tortellis would drop something on my head if I put you in the ring,” Dodd said with a grin. “Besides, you’re supposed to be hiding. I was joking about the dead weight. You really do have trouble with British humor, don’t you?”

“Now, look—”

“I’ve never visited the Ukrainian Empire,” Alice interrupted. “But if it’s the center of the plague, I should certainly go there with Gavin. Why are you so unhappy, Feng?”

“They are Cossack barbarians,” Feng spat. “They build and pollute and fight. They care nothing for balance or beauty.”

“
You
worry about balance?” Alice asked archly.

“And the Chinese put them in power,” Gavin said.

“That doesn’t make them any less barbaric,” Feng shot back.

“In any case, I want to go there with Gavin,”Alice repeated. She stood the elephant back up and sent it to
the side of the ring. “But please explain that remark about power.”

Feng crossed his arms. “England had an arrangement with China,” he said. “After the Napoleonic Wars ended, it became clear that parts of Europe—the west—and the Ottoman Empire—the east—could unite and become a threat to Britannia and China. Our governments didn’t want that to happen. So we came to an understanding. Britannia took the west and China the east.”

“I don’t need a history lesson,” Dodd complained. “Will the elephant work for anyone, Miss Michaels, or just you?”

Alice waved him away. “Anyone, Ringmaster. What do you mean by
took
, Feng?”

“Took charge.” Feng was pacing again. “Napoleon’s nephew was supposed to rule France after the old emperor was exiled, but the man died. With no strong ruler, France fell into civil war, and now it is four fragments. Why do you think that was? Prussia is ten tiny kingdoms who never agree. Why is that? Your Calvinists and Lutherans war with each other as well. Why does this happen?”

“You’re going to tell me the Third Ward keeps everyone off balance.”

“Indeed.”

“Up!” Dodd said, gesturing. “Up! Miss Michaels, he isn’t moving.”

“You have to use your left hand, Ringmaster,” Alice replied absently. “I assume China has a role as well?”

“China,” Gavin put in, “destabilized the east. Russia
and Poland had split Ukraine in half and were draining it dry. The resources gave both countries enough power to make China—and Britain—nervous. Then the clockwork plague hit Ukraine again. For some reason, it created more clockworkers than normal in Kiev. A Cossack captain named Ivan Gonta ended up with a special talent for war machines, and his superior Maksym Zalizniak used Gonta’s inventions to start a revolution.”

The elephant got up and lumbered around the ring. It picked up speed, steam trailing from its tusks. Dodd waved frantically at it, but it didn’t slow down.

“Oh! I vaguely remember something about that from a history book, now that you mention specific names,” Alice said. “Gonta and the other clockworkers put together hundreds of war machines and slaughtered thousands of Russians and Poles until they abandoned Ukraine to the Cossacks.”

“Hello there!” Dodd shouted. “Runaway elephant!”

“Did you ever stop to wonder where Gonta and Zalizniak found the money and materials to build all those machines?” Feng asked.

Alice gestured sharply, and the elephant screeched to a halt. “I have the feeling it came from China.”

“Was that a malfunction?” Dodd asked. “Because I swear I did the exact same thing.”

Feng nodded. “The emperor chose wisely—the Cossacks are content to defend their borders without expanding them, and they make an excellent wedge between Russia and Poland.”

“I
am
your boss, Miss Michaels,” Dodd said.

“Of course you are,” Gavin murmured.

“At any rate,” Feng concluded, “the ruling Cassocks are actually crueler to their own people than the Poles or Russians ever were. It’s the nature of the warrior class.”

“And we’re walking right into them?”

“Steaming into them,” Dodd said. “We have a train. But I told you not to worry. They
love
us. Now, show me how to work this damned elephant.”

Alice gave him a wide smile. “What’s the magic word, Ringmaster? As a hint, I’ll tell you that it isn’t
damned.
”