Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

I have a ship, my ship must flee.

Sailing o’er the clouds and on the silver sea

The moon picked you from all the rest

For I loved you best.

The memory vanished when the song ended. The boy’s twitching eased. His breathing evened out, and the fever faded. He opened his eyes and looked straight at Gavin for a long moment. A connection between them held for a second that lasted an age, and Gavin felt that the boy somehow understood what had just happened. Then the boy smiled and dropped back into sleep. Tears wet and refreshed Gavin’s cheeks, and he felt both exhausted and exhilarated. The boy’s mother flung her arms around him, weeping with joy, and his father swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. He said something to Alice in a choked voice, and she answered gracefully. They spoke at some length, and Alice nodded.

“What’s going on?” Gavin wiped his own face and put his fiddle away as the father padded quickly out of the room.

“He knows of someone else who has the plague,” Alice said. “Do you think I should refuse?”

Gavin put a hand on her shoulder. “I never wanted you to stop helping, Alice,” he said. “I just don’t want you to get hurt because you don’t know when to stop. Look at you-you didn’t even take a wrap, and you’re shivering.”

Even though she didn’t speak English, the mother seemed to notice the same thing and with a firm gesture that she was to keep it, gave Alice a quilt to pull around herself. Alice accepted.

“You have to watch yourself,” Gavin added, “or I’ll tell Kemp on you.”

Alice gave a little bark of laughter at that. “Then come with me.”

“Anywhere. You know that.”

The father returned, dressed, and led Alice and Gavin outside to another house, where two adult brothers were down with the plague. Alice, the quilt still pulled around her, cured both of them while Gavin played, and one of them begged Alice to go to his niece’s house. Along the way, they encountered a pair of plague zombies rooting through a rubbish heap, and Alice swiped at them as well. At the niece’s house, Gavin stopped Alice and demanded that she be given food and drink, which the newly cured niece was happy to give before asking Alice to visit yet another house. And so it continued. As the night wore on, Alice hurried from home to home under cover of darkness, her quilt drawn around her like a cloak while she cured a number of people with the clockwork plague, and each one seemed to know someone else who was sick. The chain of people took them all through Luxembourg, to homes rich and poor, lonely and crowded, wood and stone. Gavin made sure Alice was given a bite to eat and a sip to drink in every household. Alice cured priests and drunkards, bankers and thieves, doctors and patients. Some offered money, always hesitantly, as if they might offend. Alice tried to turn them down, but Gavin stepped in and accepted.

“If they can spare it, we can take it,” he said, fiddle in hand.

“I won’t turn down someone who can’t-”

“Of course not,” Gavin said. “But even saints have to eat. And get to China.”

When dawn checkered the eastern sky, they left the final house. The air was crisp and clean and bright. Morning noises-horse traffic, food sellers, factory whistles, doors opening and closing, people shouting and talking-filled the street. Housewives and storekeepers swept the cobblestones in front of their homes and shops. Gavin noticed with a start that Alice was pale and shaky from the slow but steady blood loss, and she kept the quilt wrapped tightly around her body and head. Gavin himself didn’t feel tired in the least-clockworkers entering the later stage of the plague often went days without sleep-and he mentally kicked himself for not remembering earlier that Alice did need rest, especially after everything she’d been doing.

He flagged down a cab and gave directions back to the pub where he’d been drinking the night before. Alice leaned against him and dozed off, and he was surprised at how light she felt.

The pub was closed, but Gavin found the cheap hotel where Feng had gotten a room and used the money Alice had earned to get them a room while Alice collapsed into a lobby chair. At the last second he remembered not to give his real name and signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Danforth, in honor of his late friend. He had no intention of actually sharing a room with Alice-Feng’s room would have to do when Gavin finally felt a need for sleep and he would have to hope Feng didn’t have a woman with him-but it was easier to fabricate a married relationship than explain to the clerk, who only spoke a few words of English.

They met Feng, alone, on the way up the dark and creaking stairs, which saved Gavin the trouble of tracking him down. Explanations followed, and Alice went into her room without further discussion.

“You will not follow her?” Feng said. He was wearing his scarf and goggles and on his back he wore the pack with the precious jar of fireflies in it. “My lady friend last night enjoyed herself immensely, and I can give you advice, if you need it.”

Gavin sighed as they squeaked back downstairs on threadbare carpet. Although he was getting used to Feng’s forthrightness and his interest in… romance, it was still a little unsettling, and he could understand why Feng’s father had despaired of him ever becoming a diplomat. Feng’s undeniably exotic good looks doubtless made matters worse-Gavin imagined he found it easy to sweet talk his way into any number of beds. Fortunately, he did seem to understand that showing even the slightest interest in Alice would result in a personal and rather brief experiment with the force of gravity from the deck of the Lady of Liberty , either at Gavin’s hands or Alice’s.

“I won’t share… quarters with her,” Gavin said. “Not until I can make an honest woman of her.”

“And when will that be?”

They reached the little lobby again and a glimmer of brass caught Gavin’s eye. His blood went cold and he nearly dropped his fiddle case. Susan Phipps and Simon d’Arco were talking to the clerk.

“Run,” he whispered hoarsely, and bolted back up the steps.

They both smashed straight into Alice’s door. It splintered open. She lay on the bed and she was still dressed, a fact for which Gavin felt grateful. He scooped Alice up while Feng grabbed the bedspread from underneath her. Alice squawked as footsteps pounded on the stairs leading up to their floor. Gavin glanced at the window, but they were three stories up. No escape that way. They would have to fight their way out. He frantically assessed the room. Bed. Bare wood floor. Window. Thin curtains. Chamber pot. Washstand. Mirror. Light. Feng. Bedspread. Sheets. Fiddle case.

“Put me down!” Alice barked.

Gavin flung her back on the bed along with his fiddle case. He ripped the curtains off the wall with one hand and snatched up the room’s paraffin oil lamp in the other. Then he dug into his pockets for a match. Simon burst into the room, and Feng, who was standing beside the door, flung the bedspread over him like a net and kicked his legs out from under him. Simon went down with a muffled yelp. Phipps appeared in the doorway, more cautious. She held a pair of tuning forks in her hands.

“You!” Alice cried from the bed.

“Caught you,” Phipps said, “you son of a-”

Gavin threw the lamp at her. She automatically parried it with her metal arm, and the cheap glass shattered, covering both her and the bedspread with lamp oil. Gavin popped the match alight with his thumbnail and applied it to the sheer curtain he was holding. Fear clenched his every nerve as it began to burn. Fire was the enemy of every airship, and to die in flame was the secret nightmare of every airman. He remembered Captain Naismith aiming a blazing crossbow bolt at the envelope of the Juniper , and how close he had come to dying in an inferno. His hands shook, making the fire dance.