The Impossible Cube: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire (19 page)

“Never let an opponent think he has the upper hand, even when he’s handed you a… setback,” she said in an explanation that sounded lame even to herself. “Better to take a small victory.”

“Hm,” said Glenda.

“So what now?” Simon asked, a little warily.

“Once Glenda can travel again, we will follow that circus.”

Simon blinked. “The Kalakos Circus? The gendarmes searched there and found nothing.”

“Of course they didn’t. Alice was out and about on her little mission at the time, and circus performers won’t admit anything to the police.”

“Then how do you know they’re with the circus?” Glenda asked.

“Didn’t you catch the scent of peanuts and cooked sugar on Gavin when we were in the church? It was all over him,” Phipps replied. “He’s hiding there, all right. Unfortunately, we can’t confront them now, not with Glenda injured and the mechanicals destroyed.”

“And the gendarmerie unhappy with us,” Simon put in.

“True. Fortunately, while you were out fetching the steak, Simon, I was able to make some enquiries. The circus plans to spend some time in Berlin, and from there it will travel to Kiev.”

Glenda sat up straighter, and winced. “The Ukrainian Empire? Are they mad?”

“It will be an absolute hell,” Phipps agreed.

T
he world rocked and wobbled. Alice tossed about, trying to make everything settle down, and finally she came fully awake. It came to her that she was lying on her narrow bunk in her stateroom on
The Lady of Liberty.
She wore a nightgown and cap, and the blankets lay heavy atop her. How had she come to be here? The last thing she remembered was Gavin carrying her out of the ruined church.

The room continued to sway, more like a train than the
Lady
’s usual stately glide, and Alice’s sleep-addled mind finally remembered the day she had helped fit the airship with train wheels and hook her up to the circus train. They must be under way. Mindful of the low ceiling, she sat up as the door slid open and Kemp entered with a tea tray.

“So glad to see you awake, Madam,” he said brightly. “I thought you might be hungry.”

The sight of food and drink awoke a leonine appetite, and Alice gratefully accepted the tray. Tea, fresh
bread, butter and jam, soft-boiled eggs, and… liver? Kemp knew very well she hated liver, and it was completely unlike him to serve her food she disliked, but when the smell reached her, something primal took over. She snatched up fork and knife and crammed in mouthfuls, heedless of ladylike manners. The spider gauntlet on her left hand clinked softly against the flatware.

“I noticed the change in your heartbeat and respiration,” Kemp said, answering a question she hadn’t asked, “and stepped out to prepare a meal. Sir said you had lost a fair amount of blood, and the proper remedy for that is tea and liver.”

Alice swallowed a mouthful. “How long was I asleep?”

“Nearly two days, Madam. I urge you to drink as much as you can.”

“Thank you, Kemp. As always, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

His eyes glowed. “You are quite welcome, Madam. In anticipation of your next question, Sir is in the workshop with the doctor. Shall I alert him to your present state?”

“Not if he’s in a fugue.” Alice tapped an egg with her spoon and unwound the shell. “Where are we? What’s been going on?”

“We left Luxembourg late last night. Ringmaster Dodd became nervous at the number of ‘mingers,’ as he calls them, patrolling the streets to look for you. In any case, their presence seemed to have a dampening effect on the number of people who attended performances. So we are moving on to Berlin. I believe the
local baron is giving a birthday party for his son and he wants a circus. Eventually, of course, we will travel on to Kiev.”

Alice glanced out the porthole. Greenery rocked past in a blur, and the engine gave a long, low whistle. Sharp coal smoke and cinders mingled with the scent of liver and eggs. She remembered traveling by rail with her father and mother and brother and eating on tall-sided trays just like this one. Mother always bought a large bag of peppermint candies and shared them with Alice and Brent. Father sniffed that he didn’t care for peppermint, but pinched pieces outrageously and made Alice giggle. Then Mother assigned Alice the task of counting cows in the fields they passed while Brent was to count sheep. Father joked that it was faster to count all their legs and divide by four, which made Alice giggle all over again and lose count. That had been in happier times, in the days before the clockwork plague struck her family, sending her mother and brother to the graveyard and twisting her father’s body into a wheelchair. She held up the dark spider gauntlet for a moment. Her blood still coursed through the tubules. What would happen if she cut the tubes, sliced off its legs until it had nothing to grip with? It wouldn’t be difficult, just time-consuming. But the spider moved with her perfectly, responding to every muscle twitch far more efficiently than a simple glove. How deeply had it bonded to her and how much would it damage her own flesh to cut it off?

She pushed the questions aside to finish her breakfast, wash up, and dress, opting for a simple blouse and skirt and not bothering with a corset. Her legs
were a bit shaky. Sharing the blood cure was difficult, time-consuming, and physically draining, and although the people Alice cured would themselves spread the cure with every cough and sneeze, it took time, time, and more time to get the cure to those who needed it, and every day it took was another day someone else’s mother, father, or brother died. There had to be a faster way. The fireflies would help, of course, since they could fly and spread things even faster, but they had their limitations as well. They couldn’t cross an ocean or mountain range, and chance or nature might destroy all the ones in a particular area before they had the chance to do much good. Still, they were helpful, and would take some of the burden off Alice. She would have to make more use of them in the future.

That decided, Alice left Kemp to tidy up her room while she went off in search of Gavin. Out in the corridor, however, she encountered a seething mass of metal. A brass flock of whirligigs flitted and hovered in the air while spiders scampered back and forth over the corridor floor. They jumped and squeaked when Alice emerged, and crowded around her. She laughed, and put out a hand. Two whirligigs landed on her arm, and spiders crawled up her body to her shoulders and head.

“All right, all right.” She laughed again. “I’m glad to see all of you, too. Good heavens.”

The little automatons refused to leave her sight, so Alice wore them like odd flowers or jewelry as she went off in search of Gavin. She tapped on the laboratory door and slid it open. Gavin, clad in a leather coat
and goggles, turned to glance at her. His eyes widened, and he dodged away with a yelp and snatched up a beaker, ready to throw.

Alice backed away. “Gavin! What’s wrong?”

“Whirliblades chopping the chaos into wrong patterns,” he babbled. “So much fluff.”

Her heart lurched. He wasn’t a snapping, snarling monster, but the nonsense wasn’t much better. “Gavin, it’s
me,”
she pleaded. “Snap out of it!”

His blue eyes swam behind the lenses and he was breathing fast. Gently, she pulled the goggles off and touched his face. When had she last really touched him, just to touch him? His handsome face, so young but so old at the same time, felt warm and a little raspy under her palm. She wanted to take this man’s hand and run with him somewhere safe, to a place where there was no plague, no machinery, no ticking clock. Just the two of them.

He grabbed the back of her hand and pressed it harder against his face. “Alice?”

His voice was normal, and she felt better for it. “It’s me, darling.”

“What are you wearing? You look like a knight who went through a threshing machine.”

She laughed for the third time that day and turned. “Do you like it? Give it time, and whirligigs and spiders will become the latest rage.”

“You’re beautiful in everything, Lady Michaels.”

The sincerity in his voice made her blush. “Well. For that, you may have a kiss.”

She meant it to be a quick peck, but she found herself wrapped in his arms. The whirligigs and spiders
exploded away from her in a startled cloud, and Gavin’s entire body pressed against hers. He ran his hands through her hair and down her back as his mouth came down on hers. The world swirled away, and her entire universe became nothing but him. She felt his muscles move on hers, and felt his hardness press against her. Her body throbbed in response. She ran her own hands over him, touching his jaw, his smooth collarbone, the ripples on his chest and stomach. Her breath quickened as—oh God, how daring could she be—she explored lower and touched his erection. He groaned against her teeth as her hand traced its length through his clothing, and his arms tightened around her. Her skin felt feathery, and she wanted to pull Gavin into her, make him part of her and never let him go.

“Alice,” he whispered hoarsely, “oh God, Alice. I don’t… We have to stop now or…”

“Or what?” she whispered back.

“Or we have to keep going.”

She moved her hand again, fascinated and excited by his length and hardness, by the reactions and gasps of pleasure her touch elicited in Gavin, and she ached for his hands on her, but he was barely moving now, as if he were afraid he might explode. He gave another groan.

“. . . should we keep going?” he murmured. “Can we?”

She knew what he was talking about. A baby. If she got pregnant now, before they found a cure for Gavin, the baby would grow up without a father. That would destroy Gavin, not to mention what it would do to her.
Further, an illegitimate child would also be unable to inherit her title, and despite all the traditions she had flouted, this one she wasn’t willing to give up.

It would be so easy to take him back to her stateroom, put him on the bunk and help him undress. She wanted to see him, feel him, touch him skin to skin, no barriers between them. And no one would know, or care if they did.

Her body hungered for him. But no. She had flouted any number of traditions, but this one… This one she wasn’t ready to forego yet. She dropped her hands and turned aside. Gavin swallowed, then turned his back so he could adjust his clothes. When he turned around again, she couldn’t help reaching out to brush his white-blond hair back into place, and she nearly leaped into his arms again.

“I’m sorry.” With effort, she pulled her hand back. “I wish there was some way we could…”

“We’ll live,” he said.

But you won’t,
she couldn’t help adding to herself.
I can save everyone else. Why can’t I save you?

The little automatons were still hovering in the doorway, some of them literally. Alice shooed them off. “What happened while I was asleep? Kemp told me only a little.”

He turned back to the efficient worktable, upon which perched a new machine the size of a shoe box. A speaking trumpet was affixed to the top, and a crank stuck out of the side. One side of the box was open, and a few stray pieces lay on the table with some tools. Alice craned her neck to see what the machinery inside
was for, but the angle was bad, and Gavin’s body blocked the way.

“Let’s see.” Gavin picked up a screwdriver and set to work with it. “After Phipps broke the firefly jar, we got back to—”

“She
what
?” Alice cried.

He set down the screwdriver. “You didn’t know?”

“No!” Alice’s knees went weak, but there was no place to sit down. She leaned on the worktable instead. “How do you mean it broke?”

“Phipps threw a rock. All the fireflies flew away, though they bit a lot of people first. I’m sorry, Alice. I thought you were still awake when it happened.”

“Dear God.” She looked down at the spider gauntlet on her left hand. No possibility of cutting it off now. The escaped fireflies would infect a number of Flemish, but only a few of them would travel beyond their homes, and it would take years for the cure to reach around the world without artificial means. She had planned to release a few fireflies in every city they passed through, hastening the cure’s movement, but now…

“I’m all of it,” Alice said. “I have to spread the cure as far as I can now.”

Gavin set his face and went back to work with the screwdriver. “You can only do so much, Alice.”

“I have to do what I can. I have to save them, Gavin.”

“It won’t do the world any good if you kill yourself in the process.”

Despair crashed over her, extinguishing her earlier arousal. “What should I do, then? Every day I malinger
in bed, recovering from curing people, someone else dies.”

“I’m working on a way to help.” Gavin tightened the last piece of machinery and closed up the box. “There!”

Alice blew her nose into a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, a little miffed that Gavin wasn’t offering more sympathy, but also curious about the machine. “What is it?”

“I call it a paradox generator. But I can’t actually use it. Not directly.”

“What? Why not?” Alice drew back. “Will it destroy the world or something?”

“I hope not.” Gavin snagged a set of ear protectors similar to the ones Alice had seen Aunt Edwina use back in London. “But if it works, it’ll… Look, I can’t explain it. Let’s take it up top and I’ll show you.”

The wind on the main deck was fierce. It blew Alice’s hair and skirts straight behind her and roared in her ears. The disguised airship was the last and tallest car on the train, so there wasn’t even any shelter from the brightly painted boxcar ahead of them. Far up the track, a plume of black smoke blew from the engine’s stack backward over the rest of the train. Ash and cinders clogged the air. The little automatons, afraid of being blown away, stayed below. Gavin took Alice’s hand and brought her to a three-sided, roofed shanty that had apparently been erected on the deck while she had been asleep. The opening faced the leeward side, allowing them to stand out of the wind but still be outdoors. In the shanty was Dr. Clef, who was scribbling in a notebook. Click sat beside him, but he ran over to
rub against Alice’s legs. Alice picked him up and cooed at him, eliciting his mechanical purr.