Brilliant Devices: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices) Read online

  John Dunsmuir shook himself and seemed to come to a decision. “We will meet in the office in an hour.”

  Count von Zeppelin stepped forward, and Alice realized that the other occupants of the vehicle had been nudging each other and murmuring among themselves since the great inventor had been introduced. “Once you have concluded your business, I should like to propose dinner on the Margrethe this evening,” he said. “I would be pleased if Herr Penhaven and his officers could join us, as well as your family, Dunsmuir, and the crew of the Stalwart Lass. Shall we say eight o’clock?”

  “I would not hear of it, Count,” Lady Dunsmuir said. “The mess hall here is not ornate, but it will accommodate all of us and more. There is no need to put your crew to any trouble on our account.”

  “It is no trouble, good lady, it is an honor,” he said gallantly. “I insist. I would like to join you on your tour tomorrow, and then the day following, I must lift and make my way back over the sea. I have been away from my home these four months, and the Baroness will be growing anxious. So you see, I must seize my opportunity to issue an invitation while I can.”

  “You are very gracious,” she said. “We would be delighted to join you.”

  Oh, no. Alice leaned over enough to murmur, “Claire, does that mean…?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Full evening dress. Isn’t it fortunate we packed your blue gown so carefully? It will not have had time to become crushed.”

  Alice groaned. She’d had enough of formal occasions this week to last her for the rest of her life. “I’ll just go to the mess hall with the men. No one will miss me, and I need to find out if anyone’s seen my pa.”

  “Indeed you shall not.” Claire gripped the sleeve of her flight jacket as if she thought Alice planned to cut and run that very moment. “Don’t you remember what the count said? He wishes to discuss your automatons more at dinner. I should think he, at least, would miss you. As would I.”

  “Miss you?” Alice’s stomach dipped and steadied at Andrew’s voice behind them. “Are you going somewhere, Alice?”

  “I was going to try,” she said with some asperity. “Th—thank you for your letter, Mr. Malvern. I accept your apology, though none was needed.”

  Lizzie tugged on the skirt of the canvas coat he had bought in Edmonton to replace the one lost in the Texican Territory. “Are you in love with our Alice?”

  “Lizzie!” Claire pulled her away. “That is none of your business.”

  “But we just—”

  “Never mind, Lizzie,” Alice said, and extended a hand. “I wonder if you’d come along with me to the cargo ship? Jake, too. I want a word with the watch, and it seems like this is my only chance.”

  “I’ll escort you,” Andrew said promptly.

  “No, thank you, Mr. Malvern,” she said as steadily as she could. Her heart was jumping in her chest like a fish on a line, but the fact that the very word escort set her teeth on edge went a long way to settling that down. “My navigator will come with me. I don’t want too large a party. Makes it hard to ask questions.”

  “I’m good at ferreting out things,” Lizzie said happily. “Maggie’s coming too, ent she?”

  Alice couldn’t imagine the two of them being separated for any reason. “If she likes.”

  Lady Dunsmuir looked over her shoulder. “Claire, are you coming with us?”

  “I shall catch you up, Davina, in just a moment.” She leaned over and whispered something to Mr. Malvern that made him straighten and put a cautioning hand on her arm. With a shake of the head, she said, “Maggie, would you come with me, please?”

  Maggie hesitated between Claire and Alice, clearly torn. “But Lizzie’s going wiv Alice.”

  “Because Alice needs her. And I need you.” She raised her eyebrows in a way that caused understanding to dawn on Maggie’s face.

  Some wordless communication occurred between the twins, and before you could say Jack Robinson, Maggie was tripping off with Claire and Andrew, meek as a lamb.

  Lizzie looked positively gleeful as she trotted alongside Alice and Jake.

  “What just happened there, young lady?” Alice asked her, only half joking. “Do you have some kind of mental telegraph that lets you talk without words?”

  “No, ’course not. Wot’s a telegraph?”

  “It’s a device for messages,” Jake informed her. Then he said to Alice, “T’Lady wants Maggie for some scoutin’, same as I expect you do for Liz.”

  “I do not,” Alice protested. “I just thought she could come along as some—some cover, you might say. Men tend not to suspect women and children, and I figured they might be freer with their conversation, that’s all.”

  “So why am I going?”

  They were nearly to the cargo ship, and the watch appeared to have figured out they were about to have company.

  “Because you are my crew,” she said simply. “And I need a good hand on the ground as well as in the air.”

  Jake could not have looked more pleased if she had told him he was going to get his own ship.

  “Hallo, the ship!” she called, taking Lizzie’s hand in a sisterly fashion. “Captain Alice Chalmers of the Stalwart Lass, and navigator, at your service.”

  “Bob Grundage, botswain of cargo ship one-oh-seven, at yours,” the man guarding the gangway responded. “This here’s my friend Joe Stanton, and that there is his brother Alan. And who’s this, might I ask?”

  Lizzie gave him a sunny smile. “I’m Lizzie.”

  “Well, Lizzie, you and your captain are a darned sight politer—not to mention prettier—than some folks I could name. What’s your business here?”

  “We came with the Dunsmuirs’ party,” Alice said, releasing Lizzie’s hand. The little girl drifted away, looking up at the cargo ship’s plain canvas fuselage with something akin to awe, as if she’d never seen such a magnificent one. “But my purpose here is a little more personal. You boys been flying the cargo ships long?”

  “Long enough,” Bob said, lighting a cigarillo. Its acrid smoke smelled familiar. Ned Mose had smoked the same kind during his rare moments of leisure. “If you’re looking for a job for your young man there, you’re out of luck. Ships’re crewed out of Edmonton.”

  “Good to know,” Alice said easily. “Matter of fact, I’m looking for a man and wondered if you might have seen him. About your age, with one blind eye. Was a mechanic—a pretty talented one, if my information is right. Ring a bell?”

  Bob glanced at Joe, then released a cloud of smoke and shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Might not be recent. Maybe a year ago or more?”

  Again the glance and the shake of the head. “Nope. Sorry.”

  Alice saw Jake frown and crane his neck, looking for Lizzie, who had managed to drift out of sight.

  Alan hawked and spat on the gravel. “We’re expecting a convoy any day now, to start taking the miners’ families out before the snow flies. You might have better luck then if you’re still around.”

  Joe waved the smoke away as it drifted in front of his face. “What’s your business with him?”

  “He’s my pa, I think.” Alice gave the same story she’d given Mike, which might or might not be true, depending on how events played out. “If you hear of him, maybe you could let them know at the mine, and they’ll get word to me.”

  “Chummy with the Dunsmuirs, are you?” Bob asked. “Ain’t many can say that.”

  “I’m chummy with friends of theirs,” Alice said cautiously. “Can’t have too many friends up in these parts, I’d think.”

  “You’re right there.” Bob tossed his cigarillo to the gravel and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “Well, it’s back to work for us.”

  Alice could take a hint as well as the next person. “Nice talking to you.”

  She moved off, and Jake followed her, his hands in his pants pockets, cool as you please. “Where is she?” Alice murmured out of the side of her mouth.

  “Behind a bunch of crates near t
he gangway. Any minute now …”

  They got halfway across the field between the cargo ship and Lady Lucy when they heard a shout. Turning, they saw Alan leading Lizzie by the hand as if she were four years old and they were learning to cross the street.

  “Captain Chalmers, looks like you forgot something,” he called.

  “Sorry, Alice,” Lizzie said in a breathless voice about five years younger than her normal one. “That ship is just so big I couldn’t resist seeing if it were as grand inside.”

  “Lizzie, you rascal.” Alice shot an apologetic look at Alan. “I appreciate this, sir. She loves the airships. I can’t keep her out of them.”

  He laughed and handed Lizzie over. “She reminds me of my granddaughters back home. Their mother can’t take ’em into the big houses with the laundry, without them running upstairs to see how the rich folks live.”

  Alice laughed, as if she could see it. “You sound like a Texican man. What part? I’m from down Resolution way, myself.”

  “Santa Fe is where I hang my—” He was cut off by a yell from his companions. “Nice talkin’ to you. Good-bye, Lizzie. Stay out of trouble, you hear?” He jogged back the way he had come.

  “Alice, they—”

  “Not yet, Lizzie. Wait until we’re back on the Lass, if you please.”

  She hustled them aboard and made sure the gondola hatch was good and shut.

  “What’s the matter, Alice?” Lizzie wanted to know. “You’re awf’ly pale.”

  Alice chewed the inside of her cheek. “Maybe I’m making a river out of a raindrop. Maybe it’s nothing that don’t happen all the time up here. But I’d sure like to know what Texican men are doing aboard a ship this far north in the Canadas.”

  “I’ll tell you wot they’re doin’,” Lizzie said. “They’re tellin’ you fibs.”

  Alice nodded at her to go on.

  “Soon’s you were out o’ earshot the fat one said to that Bob, ‘Better send word someone’s askin’ about ’im’ and Bob says ‘Maybe she’s kin, maybe she’s not’ and then the one ’oo brought me over, ’e says, ‘We don’t owe them dadburned toffs nothing but a distraction’ and then they saw me sneaking up the gangway an’ that were that. Wot’s dadburned?”

  Alice felt her stomach go cold, and goosebumps broke out on her arms.

  “Summat you don’t need to say,” Jake informed her. “Sounds to me like they’re talking about someone ’oo’s actually ’ere. They know a man wi’ one blind eye.”

  “It does, don’t it?” Alice said slowly. “But send word to who? Him or someone else? Why make such a secret of telling me where he is? And what kind of distraction?”

  “And ’ere’s summat,” Lizzie said, digging in her pocket and removing a small piece of brass. “Look wot I found behind them crates, dadburn it.”

  Jake cuffed her, but there was no energy in it. He took the object and frowned. “This ’ere’s a bullet casing. Not a bitsy engine casing like wot got shot at the count, but look.” He held the object up to the light from the gondola’s viewing windows. “M.A.M.W.”

  “It must be an arms manufacturer, like Colt or Sharps,” Alice said. “But it doesn’t prove anything. Those bullets could be sold all over the territory.”

  “P’raps.” Jake pocketed the casing. “T’Lady ought to know anyhow.”

  Alice nodded slowly. “And I’d give a lot to know what the ‘toffs’ are going to talk about in that meeting.”

  “Just wait,” Jake told her. “Our Maggie won’t let us down.”

  Chapter 14

  It did not take long to learn the lie of the land, but that did not ease Claire’s frustration in the least. On closer inspection, what she had thought to be a town turned out to be a series of long sheds set into the ground, so that one had to descend a staircase in order to enter each one. The mess hall hunkered in the center, and arrayed in neat rows around it were housing for the miners, supply sheds, the mine offices, and management quarters, as well as what she was informed were wash houses, equipment sheds, and storage.

  “There’s no shortage of water here, of course,” said the young engineer who had been seconded by Lady Dunsmuir to show Claire and Andrew around. “Those larger buildings there contain great steam engines that produce heat and electricks for housing and offices.”

  “But why is everything set into the ground?” Andrew asked.

  “Because of the storms and the cold, of course,” the young man said, as if this should have been obvious. “The ground may freeze as hard as iron, but at least it’s some protection from the gales from the north. If we didn’t build this way, homes and offices would be torn from their foundations during the winter, and we’d arrive in the spring to nothing but debris. The Firstwater Mine is like an iceberg, you see—ninety percent underground—and that includes the settlement as well.”

  Claire nibbled on the inside of her lip to stop herself from telling the young man he was boring her to tears, and could they return to the office where the meeting was, please?

  “Lady.” Maggie tugged on her skirt. “Lady, I’ve got to—to—” She rounded her eyes in a wordless plea.

  “Sir, thank you for a most informative tour,” Claire said at once. “But I am very much afraid my ward and I must find a powder room posthaste.”

  He blushed scarlet, and pointed. “L-lady Dunsmuir’s powder room is in that row there, third stair from the end. I’ll take y—”

  “I wonder if I might prevail upon you to tell me more of the engineering side of mining?” Andrew put in smoothly, taking his arm and walking on.

  The young man looked over his shoulder in some distress, but Claire took care that he should see nothing but a lady hustling a child to the nearest facilities. “Well done, Maggie.”

  “I weren’t fibbing. I’m fit to burst.”

  They located the indicated door without difficulty, and found the tastefully appointed powder room empty. And what luck—somewhere in the neighborhood was where the meeting was to be held, if the gentlemen milling about in the square outside were any indication.

  When she and Maggie had completed their ablutions, Claire whispered, “We must find a way to hear what they’re saying. See if we might get into the ceiling.”

  But they could not. On one side, the single window was at ground level, the ceiling not much higher. Other than the door, there was no other exit.

  Behind her, Maggie opened the other lavatory stall, and drew in such a sharp breath that Claire turned. “Lady, look. This ent a loo at all.”

  Expecting to see a sink or cleaning supplies, Claire was intrigued to see an empty cubicle, neatly paneled in wood. “I cannot imagine her ladyship ordering this for mere entertainment. Do you suppose it is something like the hidden closet you found at home?”

  A few taps upon the panels revealed its dimensions, and it was only the work of a moment to spring the latch. A set of steps descended even deeper into the ground. “Maggie, you are a treasure. Where do you suppose these go?”

  “Dunno. Let’s find out.”

  Cold air breathed up from the depths, and Claire was glad once more that they had both worn coats. The steps were clean and well kept, which meant this passage was not secret, and was even regularly used. A thin line of electricks glowed along the ceiling.

  “Lady! A signpost.” Maggie squinted at it in the dimness and spelled out the words slowly. “Managing Director that way. Owner’s soo—syu—”

  “Suite.” Claire turned to gaze down a second passage, equally gently lit.

  “Supplies. Mess Hall.”

  “Good heavens,” Claire said. “These are underground streets. That young man was not exaggerating. It is like the Tube in London, Maggie, so that people—or perhaps only the Dunsmuirs—do not need to venture aboveground in the cold.”

  “I thought everyone left when it got cold.”

  “But if a storm should strike early or late in the season, one must still come and go.”

  “Which way, Lady?”

&nbs
p; “The Managing Director’s office. I wonder where we shall come out?”

  A short distance down the corridor, they found another set of stone steps. “Quietly, now.” At the top, she pressed the latch slowly, and pushed the door open a scant half inch. The two of them pressed one eye to the gap, one above and the other below.

  In the time it had taken them to find the door, the men had gathered around a heavy mahogany table—the Dunsmuirs, Count von Zeppelin, Captain Hollys, and the mine officers. And what she heard during the next half hour made her wish that her corset had not been secured so tightly, because she felt a distinct need to gasp for air.

  Maggie sat on the steps after about ten minutes, and when that proved to be too cold, she got up and went exploring down the tunnel. Claire took this in at some level, but like the iceberg, ninety percent of her mind was taken up with understanding what was going on around that table.

  For the Dunsmuirs were not merely a wealthy couple who dabbled in natural resources in various locations about the world. No, they intended to change it—and for the better, too, as far as Claire could see.

  “Why should all the commerce from Europe be funneled through New York?” the earl asked, indicating a huge map of the continent on one wall. “Any market needs competition to be viable, and since Charlottetown and the Maritime Territory have so recently declared for the Canadas, it makes sense to locate the airfield, port, and seat of government there.”

  “And Zeppelin ships shall be the first to enter the new port,” the count said with satisfaction. “It will be profitable for all concerned when I do not have to pay the tariffs that New York extorts from me.”

  “But we must be cautious,” his first officer warned. “It seems the Texicans may have infiltrated as far into the Canadas as Edmonton. It is my belief that they are responsible for the events of last night, when der Landgraf was attacked.”

  The count nodded. “They are foolish, then, if they believe a single bullet can derail the development of a country’s economy. Whether I had fallen or not, these plans will proceed.”