Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Part 2

"I'm going to tell you some things that I'm not supposed to," she said. "You must tell no one."

I nodded.

"We know what this new disease is," she said. "You remember, I'm on the consulting board to the Republic's Health Policy Quotidian. The disease is airborne. It's caused by a spore, like an infinitesimal seedpod. Somehow, from somewhere, these spores have recently blown into the Republic. Left on their own, the things are harmless. We'd have not known they were there at all if the disease hadn't prompted us to look."

"Spores," I said, picturing tiny green burr b.a.l.l.s raining down upon the city.

She nodded. "Put them under pressure and extreme heat, though, like the conditions found in steam engines and they crack open and release their seed. It's these seeds, no bigger than atoms, that cause the disease. The mist that falls from the Air Ferry or is expelled by a steam carriage, the perspiration of ten thousand turbines, the music of the calliope in the park-all teeming with seed. It's in the steam. Once the disease takes hold in a few individuals, it becomes completely communicable."

I sat quietly for a moment, remembering from when I was a boy, the earliest flights of Capt. Madrigal's Air Ferry. As it flew above our street, I'd run in its shadow, through the mist of its precipitation, waving to those waving on board. Then I came to and said, "The Republic will obviously have to desist from using steam energy for the period of time necessary to quarantine, contain, and destroy the disease."

"Lash, you know that's not going to happen."

"What then?" I asked.

"There is no other answer. The Republic is willing to let the disease run its course, willing to sacrifice a few thousand citizens in order to not miss a day of commerce. That's bad enough, but there's more. We've determined that there's a 60 percent survival rate among those who contract it."

"Good odds," I said.

"Yes, but if you survive the fever stage something far more insidious happens."

"Does it have to do with that green discharge?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Come, I'll show you." She stood up and led me through a door into one of the examination rooms. An attractive young woman sat on a chair by the window. She stood to greet us and shake hands. I introduced myself and learned her name was Harrin. There was small talk exchanged about the weather and the coming holiday. Millicent asked her how she was feeling and she responded that she felt quite well. She looked healthy enough to me.

"And where did you get that ring?" my colleague asked of the young woman.

Harrin held up her hand to show off the red jewel on her middle finger.

"This ring...," she said and stared at it a moment. "Not but two days ago, a very odd fellow appeared at my door, bearing a small package. Upon greeting him, my heart jumped because he had a horn, like a small twisted deer antler, protruding from his left temple. The gnarled tip of it arced back toward the center of his head. He spoke my name in some foreign accent, his voice like the grumblings of a dog. I nodded. He handed me the package, turned, and paced silently into the shadows. Inside the outer wrapping there was a box, and in that box was this ring with a note. It simply read-For you. and was signed, The Prisoner Queen."

Millicent interrupted Harrin's tale and excused us. She took me by the arm and led me back into her office. She told her patient she would return in a moment and then shut the door. In a whisper, she said, "The green liquid initiating from the ear is the boundary between imagination and memory. The disease melts it and even though you survive the fevers you can no longer distinguish between what has happened and what you have dreamed has happened or could have happened or should have. The Republic is going insane."

I was speechless. She led me to the opposite door and out into the corridor. Before I left, she kissed me. In light of what I'd been told, the touch of her lips barely startled me. It took me the rest of the day to recover from that meeting. I cancelled all of my appointments, locked myself in my office with a bottle of Fresnac, and tried to digest that feast of secrets.

I never really got beyond my first question-Why had Millicent told me? An act of love? A professional duty? Perhaps the Republic actually wanted me to know this information since I am a physician but they couldn't officially announce it.

My first reaction was to flee the city, escape to where the Cloud Carriages rarely ventured, where the simply mechanical was still in full gear. But there were the patients, and I was a doctor. So I stayed in the city, ostensibly achieving nothing of medical value. Like my administration of the Margold, my decision to remain was more for me than any patient.

The plague spread and imagination bled into memory, which bled into imagination-hallucinations on the street, citizens locked in furious argument with themselves all over town, and the tales people told in response to the simplest questions were complex knots of wish fulfillment and nightmare. Then the Air Ferry driver remembered that to fly the giant vessel he was to ignore the list of posted protocols and flip b.u.t.tons and depress levers at whim. When the graceful, looming behemoth crashed in a fiery explosion into the city's well-to-do section, wiping out a full third of the Republic's politicos, not to mention a few hundred other citizens, I knew the end had come.

Many of those who had not yet lost their reason fled into the country, and from what I'd heard formed small enclaves that kept all strangers at bay. For my part, I stayed with the sinking ship of state. Still tracking down and doing nothing for those few patients suffering from the onset symptoms of the disease.

Scores of workers remembered that their daily job was something other than what it had been in reality and set forth each day to meddle; renowned experts in delusion. Steam carriages crashed, a dozen a day, into storefronts, pedestrians, each other. A fellow, believing himself one of the gleaming characters at the Hot Air Opera, rushed up on stage and was cut to ribbons by the twirling metal edges of his new brethren. There was an accident in one of the factories on the eastern edge of town-an explosion-and then thick black smoke billowed out of its three stacks, blanketing the city in twilight at mid-day. The police, not quite knowing what to do, and some in their number as deranged as the deranged citizenry, resorted to violence. Shootings had drastically risen.

The gas of the street lamps ran low and the city at night was profoundly black with a rare oasis of flickering light. I was scurrying along through the shadows back to my office from a critical case of fever-an old man on the verge of death who elicited a shot of Margold from me. As I'd administered it, his wife went on about a vacation they'd recently taken on a floating island powered by steam. I'd inquired if she'd had the fever and she stopped in her tale for a moment to nod.

I shivered again, thinking of her, and at that moment rounded a corner and nearly walked into Millicent. She seemed to have just been standing there, staring. The instant I realized it was her, a warmth spread quickly through me. It was I this time who initiated the kiss. She said my name and put her arms around me. This was why I'd stayed in the city.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked her.

"They're after me, Lash," she said. "Everybody even remotely involved with the government is being hunted down. There's something in the collective imagination of those struck by the disease that makes them remember that the Republic is responsible for their low wages and grinding lives."

"How many are after you?" I asked and looked quickly over my shoulder.

"All of them," she said, covering her face with her hand. "I can tell you've not yet succ.u.mbed to the plague because you are not now wrapping your fingers around my throat. They caught the Quotidian of Health Care today and hanged him on the spot. I witnessed it as I fled."

"Come with me. You can hide at my place," I said. I walked with my arm around her and could feel her trembling.

At my quarters, I bled the radiators and made us tea. We sat at the table in my parlor. "We're going to have to get out of the city," I said. "In a little while, we'll go out on the street and steal a steam carriage. Escape to the country. I'm sure they need doctors out among the sane."

"I'll go with you," she said and covered my hand resting on the table with her own.

"There's no reason left here," I said.

"I meant to remember to tell you this," she said, taking a sip of tea. "About a week ago, I was summoned out one night on official business of the Republic. My superior sent me word that I was to go to a certain address and treat, using all my skill and by any means necessary, the woman of the house. The note led me to believe that this individual's well-being was of the utmost importance to the Republic."

"The President's wife?" I asked.

"No, the address was down on the waterfront. A bad area and yet they offered me no escort. I was wary of everything that moved and made a noise. Situated in the middle of a street of grimy drinking establishments and houses of prost.i.tution, I found the place. The structure had at one time been a bank. You could tell by the marble columns out front. There were cracks in its dome and weeds poked through everywhere, but there was a light on inside.

"I knocked on the door and it was answered by a young man in a security uniform, cap, badge, pistol at his side. I gave my name and my business. He showed me inside, and pointed down a hallway whose floor, ceiling, and walls were carpeted-a tunnel through a mandala design of flowers on a red background. Dizzy from it, I stepped into a large room where I saw a woman sitting on a divan. She wore a low-cut blue gown and had a tortoise-sh.e.l.l cigarette holder. Her hair was dark and abundant but disheveled. I introduced myself, and she told me to take a seat in a chair near her. I did. She chewed the tip of tortoise sh.e.l.l for a brief period, and then said, 'Let me introduce myself. I'm the Prisoner Queen.'"

My heart dropped at her words. I wanted to look in Millicent's eyes to see if I could discern whether she'd contracted the plague in recent days and survived to now be mad, but I didn't have the courage.

Although I tried to disguise my reaction, she must have felt me tremble slightly, because she immediately said, "Lash, believe me, I know how odd this sounds. I fully expected you not to believe me, but this really happened." Only then did I look into her face, and she smiled.

"I believe you," I said, "go on. I want to hear the rest."

"What it came to," said Millicent, "was she'd summoned me, not for any illness but to tell me what was about to happen."

"Why you?" I asked.

"She said she admired earnest people. The Prisoner Queen told me that what we have been considering the most terrible part of the disease, the blending of memory and the imagination, is a good thing. 'A force of nature,' was how she put it. There's disorganization and mayhem now, but apparently the new reality will take hold and the process will be repeated over centuries."

"Interesting," I said and slowly slid my hand out from under hers. "You know," I said, rising, "I have to get a newspaper and read up on what's been happening. Make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back." She nodded and took another sip of tea, appearing relaxed for the first time since I'd run into her.

I put on my hat and coat and left the apartment. Out on the street, I ran to the east, down two blocks and a turn south, where earlier that day I'd seen an abandoned steam carriage that had been piloted into a lamp-post. I remembered noticing that there really hadn't been too much damage done to the vehicle.

The carriage was still there where I'd seen it, and I immediately set to starting it, lighting the pilot, pumping the lever next to the driver's seat, igniting the gas to heat the tank of water. All of the gauges read near-full, and when the thing actually started up after a fit of coughing that sounded like the bronchitis of the aged, I laughed even though my heart was broken.

I stopped for nothing but kept my foot on the pedal until I'd pa.s.sed out beyond the city limit. The top was down and I could see the stars and the silhouettes of trees on either side of the road. In struggling to banish the image of Millicent from my mind, I hadn't at first noticed a cloud of steam issuing from under the hood. I realized the carriage's collision with the lamp must have cracked the tank or loosened a valve. I drove on, the steam wafting back over the windshield, enveloping my view.

The constant misty shower made me hot. I began to sweat, but I didn't want to stop, knowing I might not get the carriage moving again. Some miles later, I began to get dizzy, and images flashed through my thoughts like lightning-a stone castle, an island, a garden of poisonous flowers spewing seed. "I've got to get out of the steam," I said aloud to try to revive myself.

"The steam's not going anywhere," said the Prisoner Queen from the pa.s.senger seat. Her voluminous hair was neatly put up in an ornate headdress and her gown was decorated with gold thread. "Steam's the new dream," she said. "Right now I'm inventing a steam-powered s.p.a.ce submarine to travel to the stars, a radiator brain whose exhaust is laughing gas, a steam pig that feeds a family of four for two weeks." She slipped a hand behind my head, and after taking a toke from the tip of the tortoise sh.e.l.l, she leaned over, put her mouth to mine, and showed me the new reality.

_________________.

* Please refer to the Mecha-Ostrich's "A Secret History of Steampunk," and in particular, the "Notes & Queries" for more insight into this story.

The Unblinking Eye.

Stephen Baxter.

Stephen Baxter was born in Liverpool, England. He now lives in Northumberland. Since 1987 he has published over forty books, mostly science fiction novels, and more than a hundred short stories. He has degrees in mathematics, engineering, and business administration. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, President of the British Science Fiction a.s.sociation, a Vice President of the H. G. Wells Society, and he maintains a website at www.stephen-baxter.com. Of "The Unblinking Eye," he writes, "We are shaped by the world we inhabit, to a degree we might not fully understand until we meet the alien. What if, for example, the very sky was different?"

UNDER AN EMPTY night sky, the Inca ship stood proud before the old Roman bridge of Londres.

Jenny and Alphonse pressed their way through grimy mobs of Londrais. Both sixteen years old, as night closed in they had slipped away from the dreary ceremonial rehearsals at Saint Paul's. They couldn't resist escaping to mingle with the excited Festival crowds.

And of course they had been drawn here, to the Viracocha, the most spectacular sight of all.

Beside the Inca ship's dazzling lines, even the domes, spires and pylons of the Festival, erected to mark the anniversary of the Frankish Conquest in this year of Our Lord Christus Ra 1966, looked shabby indeed. Her towering hull was made entirely of metal, clinkered in some seamless way that gave it flexibility, and the sails were llama wool, coloured as brilliantly as the Inca fashions that had been the talk of the Paris fashion houses this season.

Jenny Cook was from a family of ship owners, and the very sight excited her. "Looking at her you can believe she has sailed from the other side of the world, even from the south-"

"That's blasphemy," Alphonse snapped. But he remembered himself and shrugged. What had been blasphemy a year ago, before the first Inca ships had come sailing north around the west coast of Africa, was common knowledge now, and the old reflexes did not apply.

Jenny said, "Surely on such a craft those sails are only for show, or for trim. There must be some mighty engine buried in her guts-but where are the smoke stacks?"

The prince said gloomily, "Well, you and I are going to have months to find that out, Jenny. And where you see a pretty ship," he said darkly, "I see a statement of power." Jenny was to be among the party of friends and tutors who would accompany sixteen-year-old Prince Alphonse during his years-long stay in Cuzco, capital of the Inca. Alphonse had a sense of adventure, even of fun. But as the second son of the Emperor Charlemagne x.x.xII he saw the world differently from Jenny.

She protested, "Oh, you're too suspicious, Alphonse. Why, they say there are whole continents out there we know nothing about! Why should the Inca care about the Frankish empire?"

"Perhaps they have conceived an ambition to own us as we own you Anglais."

Jenny p.r.i.c.kled. However she had learned some diplomacy in her time at court. "Well, I can't agree with you, and that's that," she said.

Suddenly a flight of Inca air machines swept over like soaring silver birds, following the line of the river, their lights blazing against the darkling night. The crowds ducked and gasped, some of them crossing themselves in awe. After all, the Viracocha was only a ship, and the empires of Europe had ships. But none of them, not even the Ottomans, had machines that could fly.

"You see?" Alphonse muttered. "What is that but a naked demonstration of Inca might? And I'll tell you something, those metal birds don't scare me half as much as other tools I've seen. Such as a box that can talk to other boxes a world away-they call it a farspeaker-I don't pretend to understand how it works, they gave one to my father's office so I can talk to him from Cuzco. What else have they got that they haven't shown us...? Well, come on," he said, plucking her arm. "We're going to be late for Atahualpa's ceremony."

Jenny followed reluctantly.

She watched the flying machines until they had pa.s.sed out of sight, heading west up the river. When their lights had gone the night sky was revealed, cloudless and moonless, utterly dark, with no planets visible, an infinite emptiness. As if in response the gas lanterns of Londres burned brighter, defiant.

The Inca caravan was drawn up before the face of Saint Paul's. As grandees pa.s.sed into the building, attendants fed the llamas that had borne the colourful litters. You never saw the Inca use a wheel; they relied entirely on these haughty, exotic beasts.

Inside the cathedral, Jenny and Alphonse found their places hurriedly.

The procession pa.s.sed grandly through the cramped candlelit aisles, led by servants who carried the Orb of the Unblinking Eye. These were followed by George Darwin, archbishop of Londres, who chattered nervously to Atahualpa, commander of the Viracocha and emissary of Huayna Capac XIII, Emperor of the Inca. In the long tail of the procession were representatives from all the great empires of Europe: the Danes, the Germans, the Muscovites, even the Ottomans, grandly bejewelled Muslims in this Christian church. They marched to the gentle playing of Galilean lutes, an ensemble supplied by the Germans. It was remarkable to think, Jenny reflected, that if the Inca had come sailing out of the south three hundred years ago, they would have been met by amba.s.sadors from much the same combination of powers. Though there had always been border disputes and even wars, the political map of Europe had changed little since the Ottoman capture of Vienna had marked the westernmost march of Islam.

But the Inca towered over the European n.o.bility. They wore woollen suits dyed scarlet and electric blue, colours brighter than the cathedral's stained gla.s.s. And they all wore face masks as defence against the "herd diseases" they insultingly claimed infested Europe. The effect was to make these imposing figures even more enigmatic, for the only expression you could see was in their black eyes.

Jenny, at Alphonse's side and mixed in with some of the Inca party, was only a few rows back from Atahualpa and Darwin, and she could clearly hear every word they said.

"My own family has a long a.s.sociation with this old church," the bishop said. "My ancestor Charles Darwin was a country parson who, dedicated to his theology, rose to become dean here. The Anglais built the first Christian church on this site in the year of Christus Ra 604. After the Conquest the emperors were most generous in endowing this magnificent building in our humble, remote city..."

As the interpreter translated this, Atahualpa murmured some reply in Quechua, and the two of them laughed softly.

One of the Inca party, walking beside Jenny, was a boy about her age. He wore an Inca costume like the rest, but without a face mask. He whispered in pa.s.sable Frankish, "The emissary's being a bit rude about your church. He says it's a sandstone heap he wouldn't use to stable his llamas."

"Charming," Jenny whispered back.

"Well, you haven't seen his llamas."

Jenny had to cover her face to keep from giggling. She got a glare from Alphonse, and recovered her composure.

"Sorry," said the boy. He was dark-skinned, with a mop of short-cut, tightly curled black hair. The spiral tattoo on his left cheek made him look a little severe, until he smiled, showing bright teeth. "My name's-well, it's complicated, and the Inca never get it right. You can call me Dreamer."

"h.e.l.lo, Dreamer," she whispered. "I'm Jenny Cook."

"Pretty name."

Jenny raised her eyebrows. "Oh, is it really? You're not Inca, are you?"

"No, I just travel with them. They like to move us around, their subject peoples. I'm from the South Land..."

But she didn't know where that was, and the party had paused before the great altar where the emissary and the archbishop were talking again, and Jenny and Dreamer fell silent.

Atahualpa said to Darwin, "I am intrigued by the G.o.d of this church. Christus Ra? He is a G.o.d who is two G.o.ds."

"In a sense. . . . " Darwin spoke rapidly of the career of Christ. The Romans had conquered Egypt, but had suffered a sort of reverse religious takeover; their pantheon had seemed flimsy before the power and sheer logic of the Egyptians' faith in their sun G.o.d. The sun was the only point of stability in a sky populated by chaotic planets, mankind's only defence against the infinite dark. Who could argue against its worship? Centuries after Christ's execution His cult was adopted as the empire's official religion, and the bishops and theologians had made a formal identification of Christ with Ra, a unity that had outlasted the empire itself.

Atahualpa expressed mild interest in this. He said the worship of the sun was a global phenomenon. The Inca's own sun G.o.d was called Inti. Perhaps Inti and Christ Ra were mere manifestations of the same primal figure...

The procession moved on.

"'Cook'," Dreamer whispered. He was more interested in Jenny than in theology. "That's a funny sort of name. Not Frankish, is it?"

"I don't know. I think it has an Anglais root. My family are Anglais, from the north of Grand Bretagne."

"You must be rich. You've got to be either royal or rich to be in this procession, right?"

She smiled. "Rich enough. I'm at court as part of my education. My grandfathers have been in the coal trade since our ancestor founded the business two hundred years ago. He was called James Cook. My father's called James too. It's a mucky business but lucrative."

"I'll bet. Those Watt engines I see everywhere eat enough coal, don't they?"

"So what do your family do?"

He said simply, "We serve the Inca."