Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

He gestured at the ring, where a red-haired joey was scampering about the ring with a dripping white bucket.

“We’re a shadow of what we were.” Dodd sighed. “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything until later, but Nathan and I have talked, and we’re thinking that we should cash the whole thing in. It’s time for the Kalakos to end.”

Ice stabbed Thad’s chest. “Good Lord!” He touched the ringmaster’s striped shoulder despite himself. “I knew it was bad, but not that bad.”

Dodd looked away. His expression drooped like a collapsing tent. “We’re not someone who can play for a tsar. There’s no point in going to Russia. Today’s our last performance.”

“I like the clowns,” Nikolai piped up. “That one poured whitewash down his friend’s trousers.”

“You can’t mean that!” Thad forgot about the spiders, forgot about Sofiya, forgot about Mr. Griffin. “The Kalakos is an institution. It dates back to the commedia dell’arte! This was the first circus to use automatons. Your clowns perfected the mirror gag. The Tortellis have flown here for generations. Every carny and circus runner in the world knows the name. You can’t close down!”

“I’m sorry, Thad. Nathan felt the same way at first, but…” Dodd trailed off and Thad held his breath. The ringmaster stared at the ground for a long moment, not knowing he balanced on a knife blade. If Dodd refused, he and everyone in the circus would die today. If he accepted, they were probably only putting off their destruction until later.

“You haven’t even heard the offer yet,” Thad said desperately.

Dodd was still staring at the ground. “One man couldn’t possibly offer enough to-”

Sofiya named a figure. Dodd’s head snapped back up.

“That much?” he breathed.

Sofiya flicked a glance at the watching spiders, then nodded.

Dodd put a hand to his face. “Good Lord. I don’t know, Miss Ekk. That would keep us going even if we played to an empty Tilt for a month, but I’m not sure that it’s worth a trip through difficult territory. And winter’s coming. Saint Petersburg is difficult in winter.”

Another spider had appeared, this time clinging onto the side of a passing wagon. Thad swallowed hard. Black guilt crawled over him. He was bringing a monster into the fold-a whole swarm of them. He was a traitor of the worst sort, offering to save the circus with one hand and feeding it poison with the other. His skin crawled. The words didn’t want to come, but he forced them out.

“A circus is its people,” he said. Half a dozen spiders were now lined up along the slope of the tilt, and their claws gleamed. One of them edged forward. “A circus is art and show and performance. Not machinery.” Come on, Dodd. Swallow the poison.

“Are all these people going to lose their lives?” Nikolai asked.

“Jobs,” Thad said hurriedly. “They’ll lose their jobs. It’s up to Ringmaster Dodd, Nikolai. He can save the Kalakos Circus, if he wants to.”

“Uh…” Dodd said.

“Just take it,” Thad urged.

“Please, mister?” Nikolai said. “We can’t let the circus die. All the elephants would be hungry.”

There was a long pause. Sofiya started to speak, but Thad trod on her foot. At last Dodd said, “All right. Tell this Mr. Griffin it’s a deal. We’ll leave as soon as we pull down the Tilt and buy some coal.”

“Hooray!” Nikolai clapped his hands. “I want to teach the elephants Russian.”

Thad breathed out heavily and glanced at the Tilt. The spiders were gone.

* * *

Within the hour, two boxcars pulled by a team of oxen arrived at the circus grounds. Sofiya paid the drover and a roustabout supervised getting them hitched to the back of the circus train, all without opening either of them. Thad wondered what the hell was inside them. They were clearly locked against prying eyes, at any rate. Piotr Markovich, the strongman roustabout who was hitching the boxcars, appeared incurious, but Thad could see him examining them out of the corner of his eye. Rumors flew around the circus about the true nature of Mr. Griffin, and Thad had been avoiding people and their questions ever since Dodd had made the announcement. Sofiya, for her part, avoided Thad, for all that he tried to corner her for a talk, while Nikolai stuck close to Thad. It made for a strange dance.

The boxcars, plain and brown, stood out among the brightly painted circus cars like a clump of poisoned leaves on a scarlet maple. Their arrival would have commanded rather more attention if everyone hadn’t been so busy. Already the Tilt was coming down, collapsing as gracefully as a duchess fainting in a hoopskirt, and animal cages and circus carts trundled into the train. A sprinkle of rain hurried everyone along. The horses, restless at knowing they would be confined, pranced into the stable car. The performers who lived in tents busily packed them away, and the ones who owned wagons hitched them to horses and hauled them into boxcars. Mama and Papa Berloni, who ran the grease wagons, handed out box lunches to those who wanted them. Most everyone would ride in the passenger car. Dodd had a private car, of course, and Nathan, the red-haired manager, always stayed with him. No one ever commented on that. Thad certainly didn’t.

The spiders had all disappeared, though it seemed to Thad that he could feel their hard eyes on him anyway. He told Nikolai to stay with Sofiya at the boxcars and went back to his wagon, where he managed a quick wash and change of clothes, then set about packing. There wasn’t much to do, really. Smart travelers kept everything put away and ready to go at a moment’s notice, and Thad was tidy by nature. He emptied the stove, ran a quick inventory of weapons and tools, and was heading out to borrow a horse so he could bring his wagon to the train when a quiet voice behind him said, “Can I help?”

Thad jerked around. Nikolai was there. His scarf had slipped, revealing dark hair, and the upper half of his face showed dark eyes. With his lower face still obscured, he looked perfectly human. A masterpiece indeed.

“I don’t need help,” Thad said shortly. “And you shouldn’t be wandering around by yourself. I told you to stay with Sofiya.”

“You’re supposed to give me something to do,” Nikolai said firmly. “Even if it’s little.”

“Little?”

“Unimportant. So I can learn how to do it, too. And to keep me out of trouble.”

Thad cocked his head. “Have you been getting into trouble?”

“You wouldn’t know,” Nikolai countered, “because you haven’t been watching. You’re supposed to watch.”

A sting touched Thad’s heart. “How would you know that?” he said.

But Nikolai just looked at him with relentless brown eyes. A long silence stretched between them.

“Bless my soul,” Dante said at last.

“I am not responsible for you,” Thad blurted out. “I’m not.”

Nikolai still didn’t respond. He merely stood there, wrapped in accusing rags.

A spark of anger crackled inside Thad now. “You’re a machine. You have no right, no right to look at me in that manner!”

“You saved me from the bad man,” Nikolai said in his firm voice. “You’re supposed to take care of me now. That’s the way it is.”

“There’s not any way-”

“I’m hungry,” Nikolai interrupted.

“Hungry,” Dante echoed. “I’m hungry.”

“You aren’t hungry,” Thad said to-well, he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. “I just fed you.”

“Hungry,” Dante repeated. “Hungry.”

“I’m hungry,” Nikolai said.

Something small shifted inside Thad. For a moment he was back in the knife shop in Warsaw, with the smell of metal shavings and mineral oil and old water, with David tugging at his sleeve. But David lay beyond hunger now, beyond fear, beyond embrace. Snow lay cold on his grave in long Warsaw winters. In Thad’s quieter moments he thought perhaps Ekaterina might be holding David in some quiet, gentle place where they waited for him. Perhaps Ekaterina told David stories and sang him songs and he laughed and put his hands on her face. And then he remembered how David’s eyes had become fixed on the clockworker’s table and how his chest had stilled-an automaton shutting down. The warm, gentle place faded and the snow returned.