Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“We should get you back to headquarters,” he said to Alice. “You look half-dead.”

“If that’s the sort of compliment you’re going to give from here on out,” Alice said, yawning, “perhaps I should have stayed with Norbert.”

They left the other agents and went topside, where they found their snorting horses amid a crowd of Ward carts and carriages. The ride back was chilly, partly due to the early-morning mist, and partly due to the fatigue that drained the heat from Gavin’s bones. When they reached Ward headquarters, Kemp met them at the door with two cups of hot tea on a tray.

“Madam and Sir should have taken a hackney cab and let someone else bring the horses,” he fussed. “Shall I bring a warmed wrap for Madam?”

“Thank you, no, Kemp.”

Gavin drank hot tea and felt better as it warmed his insides. “You should go to bed, Alice.”

“I agree, Madam,” Kemp said. “I shall warm your sheets straightaway.”

Alice shook her head. “We still have to report to Phipps, and I want to check on Aunt Edwina.”

Kemp’s eyes flickered. “According to Mrs. Babbage-”

“Mrs. Babbage?” Alice interrupted.

“That is what the Third Ward’s primary Babbage engine prefers to be called,” Kemp said. “We have established an excellent working relationship. At any rate, Mrs. Babbage says Lieutenant Phipps is down on the clockworker level.”

“No doubt with Aunt Edwina,” Alice said. “Let’s go.”

Against Gavin’s better judgment, they headed for the creaking lift. Down in the stony underground, however, they found a pair of guards at the entrance to the hallway. Gavin scrambled to remember their names-Sean Something and Something Donaldson.

“Sorry, ma’am, sir,” Sean said. “Lieutenant Phipps left orders that no one is to enter the clockworker section until further notice.”

“But she’s my aunt!” Alice protested.

“Lieutenant Phipps?” said Donaldson, puzzled.

“No, I-oh, never mind.” She turned to Gavin. “I’m exhausted. Let’s go to bed.”

Despite the events of the day, the phrase went straight through Gavin’s brain to other parts of his body, which too happily responded. “Uh. .”

“Oh, good heavens.” Face flaming, Alice turned and stalked toward the lift. Gavin followed, though not before Sean shot him a small salute. In the lift itself, Alice stared resolutely forward. She was still wearing her cloth cap, though Gavin had taken his off indoors. Should women who wore male clothing remove their hats inside? He had no idea. Maybe some of the rules Alice worried so much about made sense-they told you what to do in a number of situations.

“I don’t like lies,” he said suddenly. Around them, the cage shuddered and creaked. “It bothers me that you lied to me about what you told Kemp.”

“Would you have gone along with it if I hadn’t?” she countered.

“No.”

She shrugged. “That’s why I did it.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Look, I’m not perfect. When I was little, back in Boston, I lied about all kinds of things so people would give me money, and on the Juniper I lied to the pirates, and when I’m on a case for the Ward, I lie to all kinds of people. But I never lied to my family, and I never lied to Captain Naismith, and I never lied to Lieutenant Phipps, and I never lied to you. I can’t do this if I think you might lie to me.”

She thought about that. “Gavin, I lie to survive. I lied to my father about where I was going and what I was doing in order to sell my automatons or to sneak books out of the subscription library so I could read about science instead of poetry. I lied to Norbert about my feelings for him. And there’s more. My title hides who I really am. My clothes hide what I really look like. Even the Third Ward hides its true purpose. Our entire society lies. We give the lie so the truth can live beneath it.”

“You can lie to other people all you want,” Gavin said. “But not to me. I love you for the real you, for the truth.” He took both her hands in his. “I can’t do this if you’re going to lie.”

“Oh, Gavin.” Her eyes grew wet. “I’ve been lying for so long, I’m not sure if I know how to tell the truth all the time. But I’ll try.”

He nodded, disappointed but understanding. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for.”

The lift thumped to a halt, and Gavin opened the gates for them. At the place where the men’s and women’s dormitories diverged, they kissed and went their separate ways.

Two days later, a tap on wood snapped Gavin awake. Gavin always snapped awake, often with the ghost of Madoc Blue’s hands on his body and the first officer’s lash on his back. Months gone and he still lived those moments as if they were yesterday. By now, he had forgotten how to wake up like a normal person.

Doves cooed in the barn rafters far overhead. All around him stood a great expanse of space-the building was an empty wooden shell resting on an ancient fieldstone foundation. On the dirt floor nearby squatted a small electric generator. A heavy cord exited one end and terminated at the large, bulbous form that took up a great deal of the barn’s empty space. Gavin sat at a carpenter’s worktable strewn with drawings and tools, and he remembered deciding to put his head down for just a moment. Sawdust stuck to his cheek. The knock came again, more urgently this time.

“Who is it?” he called.

The barn sported two enormous doors that would allow a piled hay wagon to enter-or a large project to exit-but next to them was a smaller door for more everyday use. It creaked open, and Alice backed in. She wore a dark skirt and white blouse. Her honey brown hair had been pulled back under a small hat, but a few loose tendrils framed her face.

“Alice!” Startled, he leapt to his feet and hurried over to her. “Alice, what are you doing here? I didn’t say come in!”

“It’s only a barn. Besides, I couldn’t wait to tell you. You haven’t been to the main house for almost two days now, and-oh!”

Gavin plunged a hand into his coat pocket and found the silver nightingale. He fiddled with it nervously. His sleeves were pushed to the elbows, and bits of grease and sawdust speckled his forearms, and his hair looked like a haystack. In short, he looked a right mess. But her gaze went over his shoulder to the dirigible.

The dirigible was actually small, as such things went. The envelope, longer and leaner than most, was perhaps the length of two cottages and only as high as one. It barely eclipsed its own gondola, which rested on the floor in the final stages of completion while the envelope hovered overhead. Gavin had been about to set the generator in place when he decided to take a rest.

“Are you building this?” Alice asked in wonder.

“Refitting it, actually. Only the envelope is new. I’ve been working on it off and on for a few months now, but lately the work’s been going faster. Has it really been two days since I’ve been in-?”

“It has. Why didn’t you want me to come in?”

He flushed a little. “I didn’t want you to see it until it was finished.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Well, since the cat’s out of the bag, I may as well have a look.” Alice set the tea tray down on the table and walked slowly around it. The dirigible kept its ropes taut, and a fine mesh seemed to hold the envelope’s fabric together, a thin, loopy lattice that pressed against the cloth from inside, rather like a lacework skeleton.

Gavin watched Alice in silence, turning the clockwork nightingale over and over in his fingers and feeling oddly unsettled at her appearance. At long last, Alice had left her fiance for him. The memory of each kiss they had shared clung to his skin like individual talismans. But the ease with which Alice lied still bothered him.