Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (47 page)

"We have to do something," Brigadier Wilson said. "Given your fragile mental state, we would be remiss in taking your advice at this time."

"We should listen to the Brigadier," Regina said.

A chorus of agreement followed. Aldora turned, and saw nothing but faces filled with concern and pity, but empty of confidence in her. A small seed of panic began to well up from the pit of her soul.

A piercing whistle came from the balcony above. Alton Bartleby stood there, leaning on the railing. "I have a difference of opinion."

"I'm sure that you do," the Brigadier called up to him. "But wine makes fools of us all."

"I can assure you, sir, that after that flight through town, I'm as sober as a church-mouse." Alton idly twiddled his walking stick. "You all saw the destruction wrought by my fiancée's brother's impostor." He started descending the staircase to the others. "Well. I can tell you. The creatures beyond those walls are no less formidable."

"All the more reason to make a rapid withdrawal."

"I'm certain that they've anticipated that, dear Brigadier. As you may recall, they are deployed in a spiral pattern. I choose the term deploy with care; they act in concert with a tactical mind guiding their efforts."

"Are you saying you believe they're acting as a military unit, Mr Bartleby?"

He stopped in front of the Brigadier. "That's Commander, sir. You forget; I am a naval man. Attended the academy in Dartmouth. Served aboard the
Benbow
during the war in Zanzibar. I can assure you, I know a military deployment when I see it."

The Brigadier stroked his moustache absently. Aldora could see that his estimation of her fiancée had shifted abruptly. "So, Commander, you would disagree with a tactical retreat?"

"In this case, yes." Bartleby turned.

Most of those in the crowd were staring at Alton with a shock that Aldora could understand. Alton lived a very public life when it came to his vices, but played his virtues close to his chest. Chief among those was his military service. She knew that her fiancée had witnessed terrible things near the end of his service, things he did not like to speak or even think of.

"We're facing a secret foe with unknown capabilities and superior technology. In his examination of the false-Grayson, Mr. Wainwright discovered wireless telegraphy technology enabling instant communications and coordination between the machine-men."

"It's worse than that," James spoke up. "Don't think of them as individual automatons. Think of them like a colony of ants, acting in unison with a singular drive, goal, and motivating force."

Bartleby nodded. "You see? Whomever controls them controls all of them directly, like the fingers of a single hand."

He whirled, stick pointing towards Regina near the window. "Miss Worth! What are they doing at this moment?"

Regina started, then peered out through the window. "They've gathered at the gate and along the fence. Just... standing there."

"What are they doing?" Penny asked. "Why don't they attack?"

Bartleby gave an unpleasant chuckle and resumed his pacing before the assembled. He was in top form, the showman, drawing his audience into his presentation. This was the man Aldora could trust. This was the man she could marry.

"They're giving us the opportunity to flee. I surmise that should we retreat to the house's northern exposure, we'd see no massed forces near our means of egress."

"So. They do want us to leave," the Brigadier said.

"You owe Aldora an apology," Penny said.

"Being correct doesn't make her nerves any more stable," Regina said.

Aldora caught a look of dark irritation crossing Alton's face, but it vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. She chose to believe that it was a protective impulse, and not just aggravation at the unpleasant Worth woman.

"Regardless, evacuation is not an option -- and they'll soon realise that we've no intent to flee."

"What do you recommend, Commander?" The Brigadier deferred to his technical subordinate without realising it.

"We organise a defence. Mr. Miller, you're the warehouse foreman. Take James, Charles, and some of the larger men and barricade the ground floor's doors and windows. Constable Fuller, Brigadier, take the rest of the men and arm yourselves from whatever you can find. I'll draw up a quick floor-plan and assign defencive positions. The women can either join the menfolk or secure themselves with the young girls in the cellar."

"I want to help--" Penny began.

James stopped on his way to join the others and knelt by the girl. "Penny, I cannot keep an eye on Xin Yan. I need you to do it for me. Can you watch her? Keep her safe?"

Penny looked down at the younger girl. "Okay. Okay, James."

James nodded, tousled the girl's hair awkwardly, then continued briskly on his way.

"And what would you have me do?" Aldora spoke quietly, reaching out to Alton's arm. "You heard the others. They have no confidence in me."

"It doesn't matter what they think," Alton said.

"Until it does. That's why we're here, after all."

"Is it?"

"Alton..."

"Aldora." He clasped her hand. "We have much to speak of, you and I. I... our arrangement... well. This is neither the time nor the place."

"But soon."

"Yes, luv, soon. For now, though, I need to know you're safe. Go and join your parents."

"They're not exactly pleased with me right now."

"I know. Be brave."

A smile quirked at her mouth. "Thank you. For... for taking charge."

A chuckle forced its way out of Alton's throat. "Being a busybody is what I do best. Now get a move on; there's work to be done."

"As you wish, Commander."

***

Lucian Fiske was standing near the glass doors leading out to the bedroom's balcony when Aldora arrived. Her mother rested, still, on the bed.

"Alton says they want us to make a run for it," Aldora said, walking up behind her father. "We're to fortify in the house."

"That will be easier on your mother," Lucian said. "I don't think she could manage any sort of flight."

"How is she?"

"Unwell."

"Father--"

"You have wronged me, daughter."

Aldora stared at the mechanical men waiting on the other side of the gate. "I had no choice."

"You killed your brother."

"He was killing London."

"You killed my heir. You have cut the throat of the Fiske line."

Aldora put a hand on the door's pane, feeling the cool glass under her palm. "This isn't about Grayson. It's about the blood."

"You killed my son, but that I can forgive. As you said, you had reason."

"He was sick," Aldora said. "Poisoned by the venom of Anarchy running through the Parisian cafes he frequented."

"He was always wilful. Ungrateful. But he was of our line, Aldora. The end of our line. You killed the Fiske name, and that I cannot forgive."

She looked at him sharply. "You can forgive the loss of your son but not our name?"

"The world is full of lost young men, Aldora. There is only one Fiske line. Maybe if I'd made you and Grayson study our genealogy as my father forced me, you would understand the magnitude of this loss."

"I know it was important to you, father, but what can I do?"

He looked down at her. "You can give back to me what you've taken."

"What? I can't bring Grayson back from the dead--"

"Not the son. The line."

"What?"

"Give me a child. Oh, Alton isn't an ideal genetic mix, but the Bartleby name isn't without its worth. If you go back far enough. And a Fiske is a Fiske, even if that Fiske is called a Bartleby."

Aldora stared out the window in silence, her heart beating faster. "What if that Fiske is a Robinson?"

"Robinson?" Lucian paused, then slowly turned towards his daughter. "The girl you adopted. She's your--"

"She doesn't know. No one knows, no one but the father, and he's gone."

Lucian turned back towards the window. "I will keep your secret and be satisfied. But if she is a Fiske, then she must be raised as one."

"I understand."

"Penelope." Her father smiled. "She'll do quite nicely."

Aldora rested her forehead against the glass, wondering if her daughter would ever forgive this deception.

***

Last Kidnapped European Returns Home

London, AP --
The nightmare has ended for the last of four European notables to return home from captivity in the Ottoman Empire. Miss Aldora Fiske of Kensington joins the other captives, Comte Montagni of Pisa, Mr. Frank Herbert of Austin, Texas, and Mr. Hans Brugmann of Heinz in their freedom. Miss Fiske declined to comment on the matter, citing a need to rest after her ordeal, but it is reported that she had stayed behind to see the investigation through.

The four European notables were taken while on holiday at the invitation of Ottoman Empire ruling Young Turk party member Cemal Yavuzade Bey. Papers discovered strongly implicated Yavuzade as part of the plot, but he was found innocent by Ottoman courts. Many have criticised this ruling, citing the evidence against him, and some go so far as to suggest that he was freed to prevent implicating the party.

Whatever the true matter, the Bey was assassinated by a woman implicated in the plot herself. Their relation to one another, and to Miss Aldora Fiske herself, is at this stage unknown.

While Miss Fiske declined to give an interview, sources within the London social scene report that Miss Fiske and her long-time fiancée Mr. Alton Bartleby have set a date for their wedding, so one can only assume she has resolved to get on with her life the way a strong British woman should.

Chapter 7

The defenders were armed with whatever they could manage. Charles and a few of the other staff had hunting rifles taken from the study, and some of the men had pistols. The Brigadier had his dress sabre, and a few of the others wielded the estate's decorative swords with variable skill. Most of the guests, however, had to make do with tools and implements pressed into service as weapons. The kitchen had been a trove, providing knives, ladles, rolling pins, and fireplace pokers. So armed, the men stood vigil awaiting the onslaught, while the women and children secured themselves in the cellar.

The cogsmen launched their attack to some unseen signal, the enhanced hydraulics in their legs making bounding the fence a trivial task. The sheer speed of their coordinated rush up the hill to the base of the estate was proof enough that any attempts at escape would have been easily thwarted. The defenders with firearms scarcely had time for a single ineffectual volley before the cogsmen had arrived.

Alton's plan had placed guardians at the most likely points of ingress based on ability; James and Charles were placed at two of the busiest choke-points, the engineer wielding his spanner like a mace while the footman spun his spent rifle like a quarterstaff. Both were skilled enough to keep the cogsmen facing them at bay; it seemed that these cogsmen were individually far less formidable than Grayson had been. Their attacks were rudimentary, wild swings of brass-lined fists that were none-the-less powerful enough to be a threat.

Alton kept on the move, his mind engaged with the tactics of the situation, joining a defender here, moving a man to a different window t here, chess moves made only seconds before they needed to be.

The Brigadier thrust his sabre into the chest cavity of one of the cogsmen. "I keep stabbing but they keep coming!"

It did not falter, reaching for the older man until Bartleby broke its wrist with a swing of his walking stick.

"They've no hearts or organs, just cogs and flanges," he said.

Constable Fuller's truncheon bounced ineffectually off of the skull of the invader at his window. "Mr. Wainwright, how did you stop Grayson?"

"I was angry." James was fighting defensively, bringing his spanner to bear against his attacker, slapping each of its clumsy swings aside.

"We don't need to stop them, just slow them down," Bartleby said.

"For how long?"

"Until the Home Office dispatches military assistance from London," the Brigadier said. "Lucian has wired the Viscount for assistance."

"We're hours from London," Alton said.

"I can't keep this up for hours," Fuller said.

"Strike to disable," Alton lunged past the constable to thrust the brass head of his walking stick against a cogsman's elbow with a crack. The lower half of the invader's arm hung loose from its side.

"The joints are structural weak points," James confirmed. "Elbows. Wrists. Knees."

"If they cannot effectively attack they'll need to regroup for repairs," Alton said. That would buy him the time he needed to come up with another plan. Truthfully, though, things were grim. There was little chance they could keep them at bay until help arrived.

Despite his misgivings, the defenders seemed inspired by his words. They fought with renewed vigour, striking at the joints of their brass-lined foes. The cogsmen made no attempts to defend themselves, and it wasn't long before few were capable of attacking effectively.