Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

And the general certainly didn’t want anyone to forget who his cousin was, Thad mused. “A great man,” Thad repeated.

“And up ahead”-the general pointed with his pipe to where the bridge led-“is the other big island of Saint Petersburg: Petrogradsky. Beside it”-he pointed again, this time to a smaller island ahead and a little to the left and entirely ringed with a high stone wall-“is our destination, the Peter and Paul Fortress. That was also built by-”

“Your cousin Peter the Great?” Thad finished.

The general laughed. “Everything here was built by my cousin Peter. We only build higher on his mighty shoulders.”

They finished crossing to Petrogradsky Island and took another, smaller, pontoon bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress. An arched stone gate within the walls stood open, admitting quite a lot of foot and carriage traffic to a cobblestoned courtyard. A second gate let them into the fortress proper. The general wouldn’t explain anything to Thad about what was going on, which made him tense and frustrated. He wanted to make demands, but of course he couldn’t, not a general related to a tsar.

The fortress was more like a small, wealthy city than a military encampment. Stone streets wound among elaborate building scattered about a cathedral with a golden spire that poked high into the cloudy sky. People were everywhere-richly robed priests and plainly dressed acolytes and ladies in their bell-shaped dresses and men on horses and soldiers on foot. And the automatons! So many, they nearly outnumbered the people-clicking spiders and spindly horses and automatic carriages and automaton servants. Thad hadn’t seen so many automatons in the open since he had come to Russia, though he couldn’t help but notice that none of them moved with the ease and lifelike grace of Nikolai. The general didn’t seem to notice.

“Every tsar in Russia is buried beneath that cathedral over there,” he said proudly. “My family visits Peter’s tomb every year. The cannon that goes off every day at noon fires from the fortress walls, you know.”

At that, Thad noticed the heavy cannons and armaments lining the fortress walls. Huge energy weapons and cannons that could fire halfway to London and crouching automatons that, when they stood, could probably hurl boulders. It looked like enough firepower to level a major city. Thad was impressed. The Russian flag flew at three of the four corners of the fortress walls. At the fourth, a blank green flag was just going up. Parkarov nodded at it.

“That means I’m here,” he said. “When the tsar or his family visits, the flag is red. You can see the arms up on the walls. This place was originally built to defend Saint Petersburg from invasion by the Swedes, though in the end, the cowards never arrived. Best for them in the end, I suppose.”

A trio of dog-sized spiders scampered past, looking tiny after all the enormous war machines. “Why are so many automatons on the street here?” Thad asked.

“That is part of where we are going,” the general answered as they pulled up in front of a blocky, two-story building of stone. “Here we are: the Trubetskoy Bastion, the best prison in all Russia. No one has ever escaped.”

A penny dropped in Thad’s head. “You keep your clockworkers here. And that’s why so many automatons run about on this island.”

“Exactly. Most of Russia’s automatons serve the military, as is proper.” He brought Thad up the steps, through a series of hallways past guards and checkpoints, and down an electric lift that left them in what Thad could only describe as a dungeon. The walls, floors, and ceiling were constructed of solid stone blocks. The ceiling was low. Damp hallways lit by electric lanterns snaked in a dozen directions, and they were faced with small, narrow doors, each with a tiny barred window up top and a hinged food slot below. Human cries and pleas echoed up and down the corridors. The place stank of urine, excrement, and fear. It was horrifying to think that human beings were housed here. Thad cringed inside his own skin. Bile bit the back of his throat, and he forced himself not to vomit.

“What is this place for?” Thad asked faintly.

“I told you-clockworkers. We leave them in the cells where they cannot hurt anyone and give them materials so they can invent for us until they go mad and must be executed.”

An automaton shaped like a low cart trundled past. A spindly arm opened the slot at the bottom of a door and shoved a single bowl of what looked like gray porridge through, though Thad could hear multiple voices within the cell. The automaton moved on to the next door.

“How do they invent anything in here?”

“Well, we keep them under strict observation, of course. You know that clockworkers can build nearly anything, it seems, given the proper materials, and we limit what they have and how much time they can build.”

Which explained why Russian automatons were so clumsy compared to those in the West and in China, Thad added to himself. That Russian clockworkers produced anything at all under such conditions was a miracle. Thad didn’t see clockworkers as victims, despite anything Sofiya said, but there was no reason to torture them, either.

The general took his arm and towed him down the hall. Faces appeared at the tiny windows, some shy and flinching, other imploring. Thad felt sick. “All these people-they can’t be clockworkers. There aren’t this many clockworkers in all Russia, let alone Saint Petersburg.”

“Of course not,” General Parkarov agreed. “That is why we sent for you.”

Thad halted between a set of doors. “I fail to understand my role in any of this, sir.”

“We know a clockworker attempted to assassinate the tsar,” Parkarov explained patiently. “We cannot allow such a monster to run around loose in Saint Petersburg-he might try again, and succeed.”

“My lords!” cried a man between the bars of his window. “My lords, please! I’m not a clockworker! I’m a simple blacksmith! I’ve never had the plague in my life. I have a wife and four children, my lord. They will starve without me. Please, my lords!”

“My lords!” cried a woman from her cell. “I am no clockworker! I help my father in his tin shop, but I am no clockworker. I can’t even read! I have done nothing!”

“My lord…”

“Please, my lords…”

“Good God,” Thad breathed. “You rounded up everyone.”

“Indeed. All we have to do is wait and see which ones go mad. That will show us the clockworker.”

Revulsion swept over Thad in a black wave. He wanted to run, board a fast train and leave Russia and its lunatic rulers behind forever. Forcibly, he straightened his spine.

“What do you want from me, then?” he asked, though he was certain he knew the answer.

The general relit his pipe as if he were in a comfortable study. “With your help, we might find the clockworker more quickly. You’re an expert, after all. Do you see one here?”

The prisoners continued their piteous wail and cry, and pieces of Thad’s heart broke off every moment he stood in this awful place. It was on the tip of his tongue to say none of them could possibly be a clockworker and that the general should release them all immediately, but he had a strong feeling that this would gain him nothing. The general had made up his mind that a clockworker had tried to kill the tsar and this clockworker was among the prisoners, and he would look until he found one.

“I saw children among the prisoners in those cages,” Thad said.

“That is possible.” Parkarov puffed his pipe, adding to the miasma of the dungeon. “My men had instructions to bring in anyone who might possibly be a clockworker-tinsmiths, blacksmiths, watchmakers, machinists, beggars, gypsies, Jews, men who lie with their own sex-”