Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“Not until the palace is repaired. It’s terrible, Thad. Already, they are bringing people in with cages.”

“That’s not all the cages are for,” Thad said. “I just came from the Peter and Paul Fortress.”

Sofiya stopped pacing, and her face went pale. “The clockwork prison. Why were you there? Are they coming for…?”

“You?” That actually hadn’t occurred to Thad. “No. If they thought you were a clockworker, you’d be in a cell already. But I know what’s going on, and I know who set the bomb.”

“You do?” She sank down to the wagon steps. “Who? Tell me!”

“General Parkarov.”

Sofiya stared into space for a moment. “I see where you are going. He said that he personally inspected the throne room before the tsar entered and that there was no bomb, which was why he blamed the spiders. But if Mr. Griffin’s spiders did not put it there, perhaps the general did during his inspection.”

“I know he did,” Thad said. “His lands and his serfs are double mortgaged, and if Alexander frees the serfs, Parkarov will have to pay that mortgage off all at once. He doesn’t have the money.”

“That’s not proof.”

“No, but he also kept me at the fortress on a waste of time.” And he described the prison. “Parkarov doesn’t believe a clockworker is running amok in Saint Petersburg. He created all of it-the arrests, the long, careful inspection-as a delaying tactic. The tsarina ordered me to find the clockworker, and Parkarov is afraid I’ll find out there isn’t one, so he created this…decimation to keep me busy. It’s brilliant, really, considering he must have cooked it up only a few minutes after his bomb failed to kill the tsar.”

“And meanwhile, all those innocent people are jailed,” Sofiya said.

“Yes,” Thad said grimly. “We need to prove it was Parkarov and we need to end this clockworker problem.”

“How will we do that?”

“First, I think we need to find Mr. Griffin, the real clockworker, and learn why his spiders were there in the first place.”

“Thad, no.” Sofiya held up her hands. “If we move against Mr. Griffin, his spiders will tear the circus to shreds, and he’ll…you know what he’ll do to my sister.”

“No,” Thad said. “He won’t. Not now. That’s why we have to move right now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sofiya, haven’t you ever wondered why clockworkers don’t rule the world? They’re far more intelligent than normal men, and they can build machines that give them tremendous power.”

She spread her hands. “They go mad in the end and die. No one can rule with that.”

“They could conquer and rule during the period before they go insane. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it could be done. So why hasn’t it been done?” He went on before she could respond. “I’ll tell you-it’s because humans outnumber them, hundreds of thousands to one. Even with death rays or an army of spiders or hypnotic gases, clockworkers can’t defeat enough determined men. It’s why they hide. At this moment, the tsar’s army is actively looking for Mr. Griffin-or for a clockworker, anyway-and if they find him, they will kill him. He doesn’t dare come out of hiding now. That makes this the perfect time to hunt for him ourselves. Once we deal with him, your sister will be free. And so will you.”

Sofiya looked torn. Thad knew exactly how she felt. After a long moment, she nodded. “How do we find him, then?”

He brandished the rolled-up map. “I know clockworkers. Where are Nikolai and Dante?”

“In the wagon. Nikolai is giving Dante his lunchtime winding. He wants to rehearse. You have a show in three hours.”

“In a minute. Come on.”

Nikolai was reading his animal book with Dante on his shoulder. They both looked up when the adults entered.

“Help!” Dante said. “I’ve been changed into a parrot!”

Thad stared, and Sofiya burst out laughing. “You have been saving that one,” she said.

“I taught him that,” Nikolai told them. He plucked a bolt from the bag beside him and crunched it down. “We need to rehearse.”

“Later,” Thad repeated. He unrolled several maps on one of the fold-down shelves that doubled as a bed and weighted down the ends. “We’re going to find Griffin.”

The others peered around him. “How?” Sofiya asked.

“I’ve been doing for this years,” Thad reminded her. “Clockworkers like stone walls and solid, enclosed spaces with few entrances and exits, especially if they’re underground. It makes them feel secure.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Sofiya said.

“Amusing thing to hear from someone who locks herself in the Black Tent instead of using an open-air forge,” Thad said idly. He flipped through the maps. For a moment, just a moment, it felt…cozy here, with the three of them examining papers together, and Nikolai munching a snack and Sofiya next to Thad at the table and the three of them set to appear in the ring later that afternoon. They were very like a normal-

“No,” Thad said.

“What?” Sofiya said.

Thad pursed his lips. He hadn’t meant to speak aloud. But they were nothing like a family. Sofiya was an insane clockworker who went into snarling fugues, and she was no wife to Thad. Nikolai was a machine that mimicked boyhood. Anytime Thad let himself forget that, he set himself up for pain. His life was nothing like normal, could never be normal, and the more he remembered that, the better.

“Never mind,” he said, and turned his attention back to the maps. “Saint Petersburg was built on a swampy area. It had to be drained first-yes, at the cost of thousands of lives, thank you, Sofiya-which means they actually could not build many tunnels. They flood too easily.”

“Which also means,” Sofiya said, “there are no sewers, no underground trams, no tunnels for waste.”

“They could have them,” Thad reminded her. “Such tunnels aren’t impossible, just more expensive. But instead the nobility here put their money into impossible palaces and indoor circus performances. Ah! Look.”

He pointed to one of the maps. “I think we can ignore the Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress. Not even a clockworker is insane enough to try hiding there. But these buildings here, here, and here”-he circled them in pencil-“were built with deep subcellars and tunnels. This older map shows some abandoned tunnels. Clockworkers love those.” He sketched them in on the more current map.

“Are we going to search all of them?” Nikolai asked.

“No. We’re going to narrow it down.” Thad pulled out another map, one that displayed railways. “This is what we need. Griffin had all that equipment in those railroad cars, and a lot of it looked delicate. I’m willing to wager his hiding place is near a rail line. The line that leaves the Field of Mars goes across the city this way.” He sketched that in on the first map.

“I see!” Sofiya followed the line with her finger. “The railway comes quite close to this tunnel here and rather close to that building with a subcellar there.”

“Exactly. Griffin is mostly likely hiding in one of those two places. We should start with the one closest to the railroad line, then search the second. If neither of those reveals anything, we can go on to the others.”

“We have a show in three hours, with a second one right afterward,” Sofiya reminded him. “Tickets are already sold out for both shows, and you haven’t rehearsed.”

“I don’t need to rehearse,” Thad said. “I can dance, and we know Nikolai can imitate me.”

“But-” Sofiya said.

“We have to do this. Now.” Thad opened the trunk where Sofiya had put his equipment and loaded up: sleeve sheaths, pistols, lock picks, extra ammunition, extendable baton, packet of small tools. “Nikolai, you stay here.”