The Impossible Cube: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire (40 page)

Susan Phipps had drawn a cutlass of tempered glass—only fools used sparking metal on an airship—and was hacking at one of the loops of tentacle that encircled the ship in a rubbery tunnel. Her mouth was set in a hard line and her graying black hair was coming loose from under her hat and spilling over her blue lieutenant’s uniform. The blade gleamed liquid in the sun and it distorted the black tentacle as Phipps slashed again and again, but the edge made only shallow cuts in the rubbery surface, and if the creature noticed, it gave no indication.

Alice, meanwhile, kicked open a hatchway on deck, and a finger of relief threaded through Gavin’s anger when he saw she wasn’t injured.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“I’m fine,” she barked, then shouted into the hatchway, “Out! Out out out!”

From belowdecks burst a cloud of little brass automatons. Some skittered on spider legs, others flew on whirligig propellers. They sported arms and legs and other limbs of varying sizes and shapes, but most had points, and a little pride fluttered in Gavin’s chest at the way they obeyed Alice. She pointed at the tentacle above Phipps’s head with her gauntleted hand. “Attack!”

Steven Harper Piziks was born in Saginaw, Michigan, but he moved around a lot and has lived in Wisconsin, in Germany, and briefly in Ukraine. Currently he lives with his three sons in southeast 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
www.theclockworkempire.com
, and his Twitter feed at
www.twitter.com/stevenpiziks
.