Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“I’m sorry,” said Zygmund, “but I don’t speak-”

Sofiya said, “Where did you find-?”

“The main problem lies in keeping the fluids fresh,” Mr. Griffin continued as if no one had spoken. “And at the proper temperature, with nutrients and oxygen and so forth. It takes a great deal of delicate equipment, and the fluid itself must be flushed and refreshed on a regular basis, which requires more volunteers.”

“Sharpe is sharp,” said Dante.

“How many more?” Thad said, thoroughly nauseated by now. Just when he thought he had encountered everything he could about clockworkers, he discovered something even worse. That brain was floating in the fluids of…dozens?…hundreds?…of dead human beings.

“Not a subject you need concern yourself with.” Griffin’s impossibly smooth voice was difficult to read. Thad couldn’t tell if he was calm or annoyed or testy. Through it all, his machines continued to pump and puff and grind while fluids rushed through the pipes. “As I predicted, the benefits were immediate. The progress of the clockwork plague slowed to a near crawl. No clockworker lives longer than three years, but I contracted the disease twelve years ago.”

Here Thad did stare. This entire conversation was unsettling beyond measure, made worse by the fact that he was talking to a brain surrounded by a pile of machinery. There was no face, no eye contact, no body language, nothing but a voice that came from hidden speaker boxes. It was like hearing a demon in church. The news that Mr. Griffin had lived four times longer than any known clockworker only made it worse. Clockworkers were mad geniuses who could create incredibly destructive machines, but at least they died within a relatively short time. This one, this extremely dangerous one, had found a way around that. Thad cast about, trying to keep his desperation under control. He didn’t understand the machinery, and it was heavily guarded by the spiders, in any case. If he tried to damage any of it or shut it down, the spiders would be on him in moments. An explosive would take care of Mr. Griffin-and the other clockworkers-in a trice, but that assumed Thad could find the parts for one, and in any case, the room was also occupied by normal men. Thad couldn’t stomach that idea. Mr. Griffin had chosen his situation well.

“I speak Polish and Russian and some Lithuanian,” Zygmund spoke up again. “Perhaps we could carry on in one of those languages?”

“No!” shouted the clockworker surrounded by plants. “That can’t be wrong! I compensated for the chlorophyll transposition, but the plastids are falling apart at the microscopic level.”

“Shut up,” snarled one another clockworkers who was scribbling equations on a blackboard. “If I hear another word about plastids, I’m going to build the maximal bombardatron pistol and blow your bloody balls off.”

The first clockworker raised a fist, and one of his plants extended a number of thorny tendrils. “Then I’ll-”

“Gentlemen!” A spider raised the volume on one of Mr. Griffin’s speaker boxes. “That will do!”

“Yeah? Maybe this will do!” The equation clockworker picked up a sledgehammer with easy strength and threw it across the room. It struck Mr. Griffin’s jar and bounced off without a scratch.

A sound burst from Mr. Griffin’s speaker boxes. It was a pair of musical notes played together, not quite minor, not quite major. Thad, who knew nothing about music, could only tell it was ugly. The clockworkers howled and clapped their hands over their ears, even though the sound lasted less than half a second. To Thad’s surprise, Sofiya did the same thing, and screamed. The sound ended.

“Don’t make me do it twice, gentlemen,” Mr. Griffin said icily.

Both clockworkers immediately fell silent and went back to work. Sofiya uncovered her ears. She was panting, and her eyes were wide.

“What was that?” Thad demanded.

“Tritone,” Mr. Griffin said. “It’s the only musical interval that has a vibration ratio of one to the square root of two, an irrational number. As a result, clockworkers find the sound…uncomfortable. I, fortunately, no longer experience this difficulty.”

Thad had never heard of this aspect of clockworkers, and it surprised him. A bit of music that hurt clockworkers would be very handy, and he filed the fact away for later with a guilty, sideways glance at Sofiya.

“A tritone does have its use, though as a tool it is rather blunt, which is a reason I’ve brought you here, Mr. Sharpe, and one we’ll discuss later,” Mr. Griffin continued. One of his machines gave a shrill whistle, and a trio of spiders rushed to make adjustments to the dials and switches. “But I was saying that removing my body has brought about a certain…calm. I am not sure why this is. I no longer have adrenal glands to stir up my chemistry, that is certain. I no longer feel pain, nor do I fear tritones, nor do I fall into fugues.”

“So you are able to function in a society,” Sofiya breathed. She smoothed her hair. “This is why you are able to hire me, and bring in these men and these other clockworkers.”

“Exactly.” Here Mr. Griffin sounded extremely pleased. “I am superior to other clockworkers in every way.”

With those words, an analytical wheel clicked in Thad’s mind, and he had to stop the relief from crossing his face. Mr. Griffin did have a weakness, and despite his protestations to the contrary, it was the same one that plagued most other clockworkers.

“Or even French,” Zygmund put in. “I might manage French.”

“I’m impressed,” Thad said aloud. “I’ve never come across a clockworker as advanced as you, sir, and I know clockworkers.”

“I must apologize, Mr. Sharpe. You were outmatched from the moment I learned of you, though I know you had to try to outmaneuver me. I bear you no ill will.”

Thad flexed his brass hand. “Indeed. But your plan, whatever it is, couldn’t possibly be that brilliant. You can’t outwit an entire country. The tsar and his army are quite-”

“You have no idea!” Mr. Griffin boomed, and Zygmund scurried back to the other men at their tables. “The tsar is nothing! I will have my way with Russia, and everything will change because of me!”

There it was: the clockworker ego. Even Mr. Griffin wasn’t immune to that. Thad merely had to find a way to exploit it.

“How are you changing Russia, exactly?” Thad asked reasonably. “Even the tsar himself is encountering opposition, and all he wants to do is free the serfs.”

“My men-that is, my colleagues -and I are working to support the tsar in his campaign to free the serfs,” Mr. Griffin replied, more smoothly this time. “We are also working to change the way Russians treat clockworkers.”

This statement got Sofiya’s attention. “Please explain this.”

Another of Mr. Griffin’s machines abruptly went poot and puffed a noisome cloud of brown smoke. Instantly it was surrounded by spiders that set to work on it with quick claws.

“Mr. Padlewski.” Griffin’s voice had a metallic note to it now. “Perhaps you could explain our plan for the serfs while I am…indisposed.”

Zygmund bowed, looking eager as a puppy. “In Polish or Russian?”

“I’m happy with Polish,” said Thad, trying not to be too obvious about watching the spiders repair the machine. Every scrap of information he could glean about Mr. Griffin was worth having.

“You want to help both the serfs and the clockworkers?” Sofiya prompted, also in Polish.

“Not all the landowners want to keep the peasants as serfs,” Zygmund said brightly. “Several of them would be happy to let the serfs go, provided the mortgages are forgiven. Others want to be paid for their loss. The tsar is still deciding how it will happen-assuming he is not assassinated first. We also have the support of many intellectuals. The Russian Academy of Sciences supports emancipation, as does-”