The Native Star (25 page)

“What are you doing?” Stanton hurried after her, grabbing her boots and stockings out of the dust. “You’re going
west!”

Emily hardly heard him. The earth was singing in her ears.

Her body, a tiny pinprick on a vast terrain, moved through eons of memory.

But she was no longer in her body, crawling like an insect through dust and sun; rather, she slept in cool dark water flowing in deep channels. She remembered glaciers, great mountains of ice. She dreamed of oceans.

After an eternity and an instant, there was the sound of an old woman’s voice, speaking in Miwok:

Come back now, Basket of Secrets
.

Her consciousness jerked back into her body, slamming back into a hot tiny prison of thirst and exhaustion. She stumbled and fell to the ground, groaning. She tried to pull her mind back together, but it was like trying to refold a map, she couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. She felt Stanton kneeling beside her, a steadying hand resting on her back.

“Miss Edwards,” he said softly.

She tried to move her mouth, tried to make words come out of it, but it was impossible. It was all she could do to open her eyes, to admit the piercing unwelcome brightness. Eyes were such ridiculous things, so limited, all they could see were reflections, never the truth itself …

“You’re exhausted,” Stanton said. “We’ve been walking for miles.”

Emily sat up, coming back to herself bit by bit. Her mouth was bone dry and her head ached. She saw that they had left the road and had crested a little rise. She looked down on a field planted with a winter cover of hairy vetch that bloomed with pretty curves of tiny purple bells. In the center of the field there was a broad spreading tree in full leaf. The cool shade beneath it looked indecently inviting. But as she lifted a mute, trembling hand, it was not the tree that she pointed to.

“What is that?” Stanton said.

An odd machine rested a little ways off from the tree. It wasn’t a farming machine. It was much larger, and unlike any farming machine it had long broad silver wings resting slack on either side. Helping her to her feet, Stanton took two steps forward and shaded his eyes with his hand.

“That looks like … but it can’t be!”

“Can’t be what?”

“If that’s not a Cecil Carpenter, I’ll eat my hat.” Stanton started running down the hill through the field of purple flowers and tangled foliage.

“What’s a Cecil Carpenter?” Emily called after him. Her legs were sore and her feet ached and she wasn’t about to do any running.

“Cecil Carpenter is a designer of biomechanical flying machines,” Stanton began, only to fall into awed silence as he came upon the machine. The thing was even more imposing up close. Its body was as broad as a railcar. Each wing was as long as a hundred-year fir and as wide as a wagon.

“Tail of a serpent, body of a rooster … this is one of his Cockatrices!”

The creature was made of a softish silver metal, dull from oxidation and battered from wear. Its rooster head and sinuous tail had been intricately decorated with smooth hard-fired enamel—now chipped and cracked—in deep shades of lapis lazuli, cherry-heart crimson, and pollen yellow. There was a deep-set passenger compartment scooped out of the back between the wings, which contained a half dozen wide banquettes upholstered in red plush. These also showed signs of hard use; the nap was rubbed off the seats and backs and there were several patches.

Stanton ran his hands over the individually molded wing feathers, each one delicately engraved to look like a real feather.

“All aluminum! That must have set him back a pretty penny.”

“So what’s it doing here?”

Stanton pointed to a place on the Cockatrice’s side, just below the wing. An ornate cartouche bearing the words “Myers & Shorb’s Traveling Carnival of Novelties” had been half painted over.

“It must have been a carnival attraction,” Stanton said. “But why anyone would just leave it sitting out in the middle of a cornfield—”

There was the sound of something clacking shut. Emily and Stanton looked up quickly, found themselves looking down the twin blued-steel barrels of a shotgun.

“Ain’t no one just left nothing sitting nowhere,” said the old man holding the shotgun. “Now get your gol’durn hands off my Cockatrice.”

Emily and Stanton lifted their hands slowly.

“Just who th’ hell are you two?” The old man wore tobacco-stained overalls and a straw hat. He was as thin and hard-tanned as a piece of jerky; the deep wrinkles on his face were lined with grime. “Coupla nice-dressed young people, pokin’ around where you’re not wanted … you two from the
guv’mint?”

“Certainly not!” Emily responded to the question with the same vehemence. “We were just …” She paused. Telling him that the great spirit of the earth had led her here probably wouldn’t cut much ice. “We were just out walking. It’s so hot, and I saw the tree, and … and then we saw this beautiful machine.”

“Ha. Fifty miles from the nearest town. You’re not out on any lover’s stroll. You’re a couple bummers, that’s what you are.” The man made a menacing movement with his shotgun. “Now git off my land. I got important business, and this ain’t no carnival ride no more.”

“Couldn’t we just rest in the shade for a little while?” Emily put as much sweet supplication into her voice as she could reasonably muster. “I’m so tired, and it’s so hot.”

The old man frowned at her thoughtfully. Then he looked over at Stanton, stared at him for a long time, up and down. When he saw the blood on Stanton’s hands, his eyes narrowed.

“What about him?” The old man clutched the shotgun more tightly. “Don’t he talk?”

“I talk,” Stanton said. “I do all kinds of things.”

“I’ll bet you do,” the old man said, still looking at Stanton’s hands. He paused. “I heard you talking about this here contraption like you know something about it.”

“As I was telling Miss … Smith,” Stanton began, “it’s a Cecil Carpenter Cockatrice. One of his older models. Looks like it’s been used hard and not particularly well kept. You said it’s yours?”

“Yep,” the old man said. “Bought it off a traveling carnival show.”

“You intend to fly it?”

“’Course I intend to fly it. Matter o’ fact, I’m gonna fly it out of here tomorrow morning.”

“Ah,” Stanton said. He threw Emily a look that was precisely equal in meaning to an index finger twirled alongside his temple. “Well, I guess it’s still every American man’s right to throw away his life if he chooses.” He took Emily’s arm and turned to go. She made small noises in protest, but he squeezed her elbow and she fell silent.

“Wait!” the old man called after them. “What are you talking about? I don’t aim to throw my life away!”

“You fly in that thing and you will,” Stanton called back without turning. “The men who sold it to you are crooks. You might get it up in the air, but you won’t be able to keep it there. Unless …”

“Unless?”

Stanton smiled, turned slowly.

“Unless you put down that shotgun and let Miss Smith sit in the shade for a while,” he said. “And a drink of water would be nice, too.”

“Name’s Hembry,” the old man said, squatting down some distance from them with the shotgun across his knees. “Ebenezer Hembry.”

Emily and Stanton were sitting under the shade of the big oak tree, and Hembry was watching them closely. Unslinging a canteen from around his shoulder, he tossed it over to Emily. After she’d drunk deep of the warm, stale-tasting water, Hembry fixed his gaze on Stanton.

“Now, Mr….”

“… Jones,” Stanton said, and Hembry gave a little chuckle.

“Yeah. Sure. Well, Mr.
Jones
 … what exactly did you mean about my Cockatrice?”

“It’s a death trap,” Stanton said. “Muscles are probably half rotted away by now.”

“Muscles?” Hembry chuckled louder this time, and slapped a knee, too. “Well, that shows what you know, friend. This thing here, it’s a machine. Machines ain’t got muscles.”

“Biomechanical flying machines do,” Stanton said.

He spoke these words in a tone that Emily had learned to associate with an impending lecture, so she leaned her head back against the tree trunk and considered taking a nap. Hembry, on the other hand, leaned forward.

“What the hell does that mean?” he said. “Biomechanical who-what?”

“Carpenter’s contribution to the world of engineering is his ability to interweave living flesh and machine to exploit the unique advantages of each. By using the long muscles of elephants and blue whales to provide motive power, the system can be fueled with a simple glucose solution as opposed to …”

“Glucose? You mean like sugar?” Hembry said. “The carnies told me I had to fill up the tank with sugar water.”

“Sugar water is all wrong.” Stanton sounded aggrieved. “You need a much richer solution. Pure corn syrup for a preference, barley syrup if you’ve got nothing else.”

Hembry clenched his lips, but said nothing.

“But the syrup is really the least of your problems. To get that Cockatrice into the air, you’re going to need a Warlock.”

Emily opened her eyes.

“A Warlock?” Hembry’s bleat made it sound as if Stanton had said he needed sixteen albino pygmies and a mule.

“The muscles on a Cockatrice have been specially treated to keep them in a state of suspended animation, but even so, they have to be fed and tended and kept limber. The muscles on your Cockatrice haven’t been properly cared for in weeks, maybe months. A Warlock could revive them and repair the damage. Refresh their life force. Then, and only then, you’d be able to fly out of here.”

Hembry let out a long breath. Reaching into his back pocket, he took out a thick green glass-topped jar. Emily recognized it as the kind she used to put up huckleberry preserves. Hembry unlatched the lid, spat tobacco juice into it, then capped the jar again and stuck it back into his pocket.

“Weevils in your bean plants?” Emily asked. Hembry looked at her, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Yes’m, I have the misfortune of that blight,” he said. “Ain’t nothing better to get after ’em with than ’baccy-juice. I guess you ain’t from the guv’mint after all.”

“Mr. Jones.” Emily looked at Stanton. “If Mr. Hembry were able to find a Warlock … which would be an utterly astonishing discovery out here in the middle of nowhere … how far could he fly in his Cockatrice?”

“Why, Miss Smith, he could fly all the way to New York City if he had a mind to,” Stanton said.

“Don’t need to git to New York City.” Hembry’s mouth twisted in distaste. “Need to git to Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia?” both Stanton and Emily said at once. Hembry sighed, reached inside his tea-colored shirt, pulled out a many-times-refolded broadsheet.

“It opens tomorrow,” he said, as Emily smoothed the paper out over her lap.

Philadelphia Centennial Exposition
.

Emily’s eyes scanned the highlights.
Opening May 10, 1876 … President Ulysses S. Grant … the Emperor and Empress of Brazil
…

Something on the broadsheet caught Emily’s eye. Looking at Stanton, she laid a finger next to a small line of type at the bottom of the poster.

“Look who’s going to be at the opening of the Mantic Pavilion,” she breathed.

“Sophos Mirabilis, of the Mirabilis Institute of the Credomantic Arts,” Stanton said.

They both looked up at Hembry in unison.

“Mr. Hembry,” Emily said. “I believe we can help.”

Stanton jumped to his feet and took Hembry by the arm. The old man made a protesting sound, but Stanton gave him no time to reach for his shotgun; he pulled the man several feet away from where Emily was sitting. Even at that distance she heard the finger-snap and the word:
flamma
.

She certainly heard Hembry’s ringing cry of astonishment: “You? A Warlock? What the hell is a Warlock doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Never mind about that,” Stanton said as they walked back to where Emily was. “You need a Warlock. Here I am. I can get your Cockatrice flying again, on one condition. We go with you.”

“What?” Hembry’s voice was a betrayed bray. Frowning, he snatched the straw hat from his head, threw it on the ground for emphasis. “No sir! I ain’t taking passengers. This ain’t a pleasure trip!”

“It isn’t going to be any kind of a trip,” Stanton said, “unless you take us.”

Hembry snorted. He crossed his arms and pressed his lips together as if he was done with conversation entirely. But he did speak again, and when he did, his voice was hushed and his eyes kept darting back and forth as if spies might be hiding in the hairy vetch.

“Listen, you folks don’t know what I’m aiming at,” he said. “Like I say, this ain’t a pleasure trip. This is a rebellion.”

“Rebellion?”

“Yeah,” Hembry said. He reached into his other back pocket, pulled out a plug of tobacco, and took an angry chaw. “I got me a little message for President Ulysses S. Grant and all them thievin’ fat-cat Replug-uglican cronies ’a his. And I aim to deliver that message right there at the opening of that grand goddamn centennial they’all spent so much of my tax money on.”

“What kind of message?” Stanton asked. Hembry lifted his chin.

“A message that honest folk won’t stand for it no more!” he shouted. He gestured around himself broadly. “Look at my land! Used’ta all be planted in corn—corn I used in my own still, for my own customers, just like my pappy did, and his pappy ’afore him. But Grant’s crooked whiskey-ring boys took it all away from me. Busted up my business, sent thugs to skeer my wife and young’uns … I haven’t dared plant so much as a pea for the past five years. So I took my last thousand dollars … the whole of my life’s savings … and I bought this here machine. I’m gonna fly into that exposition, and I’m gonna stand in front of President Ulysses S. Grant, and I’m gonna spit in his eye! If that ain’t my right as an American, I don’t know what is!”

A smile broadened over Stanton’s face with every word Hembry spoke. When the old man fell silent, he clapped Hembry on the shoulder.

“Ebenezer Hembry,” he said, “that has to be the most wonderful plan I’ve ever heard.”

The complete sincerity with which Stanton said it surprised Emily. Hembry heard it, too. The excitement of finding a kindred spirit brightened his features. He seized Stanton’s hand in a grimy clasp.