Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

“Split up,” Gavin said.

“Why can’t we just keep hiding behind the calliope?” Alice hissed.

“The wagon’s high enough for her to see our feet.” Gavin brandished the broom. “Hide in plain sight. Smile and wave and tell anyone who asks that Dodd said it was all right.”

Gavin followed the lion cage with the broom over his shoulder, taking care that the bristles blocked Glenda’s view of his face. Behind Gavin, a pair of jugglers tossed clubs and balls. Alice and Feng dropped farther back into the parade, smiling and waving as they went. The parade moved ahead with aching slowness. The horse drawing the lion cage dropped manure onto the street right in front of the spot where Glenda had finally worked her way through the parade audience to the curb. Gavin swallowed hard and kept his head down as he paused and swept the smelly stuff into the bucket. Glenda scanned the street with flat, hard eyes. Gavin felt her gaze rest on him for a moment, and he forced himself to put a jaunty spring into his step, though tension dried his mouth and tightened his knuckles on the bucket. He was just a lowly sweeper clown. Not worth examining closely. Glenda narrowed her eyes and her mechanical took a step forward. Gavin held his breath. Then Glenda turned and stomped away. The crowd cheered and pointed at her, still sure she was part of the parade. Gavin let out his breath and stole a glance over his shoulder. Alice and Feng smiled and waved near a troop of acrobats. The automaton on the calliope finished its song and swung into another one. Gavin continued on his way with the bucket full of manure.

Eventually the parade made its way to a field at the edge of town. The big striped tent-called the Tilt, Gavin remembered-rose up among a number of smaller tents and circus wagons. Off to one side waited the red locomotive and bright boxcars Gavin had seen from the airship earlier just before a clockworker fugue had taken him away. If not for the clockwork plague and the unexpected memory of his father, he might have recognized the train right away instead of recalling it later. He had also seen the flyers for the Kalakos Circus plastered about Luxembourg by the advance man, but they were in French and he hadn’t paid close attention to them. He wasn’t sure how he had missed the name; the French version wasn’t so very different.

The parade continued right up to the complex of tents. Behind the parade came an enormous crowd, all ready to see the show. The performers quickly scattered, some toward the Tilt, some to the sideshow tents, and others to direct the oncoming crowd toward the ticket sellers, who wore stovepipe hats with oversized tickets attached to the top so people could locate them. An intricately decorated mechanical clock at the entrance of the Tilt ran backward, counting down the minutes until the performance began. A life-sized female automaton was attached to the clock, and even as Gavin watched, she jerked to life. She had only head, chest, and arms, and Gavin assumed this made her sufficiently inhuman to make her legal under Luxembourg law.

“Mesdames et messieurs!” she called in a voice that carried from one end of the circus to the other. “Le spectacle commencera dans cinquante-cinq minutes! Mesdames et messieurs! Le spectacle commencera dans cinquante-cinq minutes!” And then she went still.

Nearly an hour before the show, according to the clock. The extra time, Gavin recalled, gave the audience a chance to buy tickets, then get bored and decide to spend money at the sideshow.

A firm grip took Gavin’s elbow. “The ringmaster wants to see you in his car,” said Bonzini, “and you better not have sneezed inside my nose.”

The ringmaster kept an entire train car to himself. Alice took off the red top hat. Feng pulled on his shirt and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. Bonzini ushered the three of them inside, but didn’t enter himself. The car had a large bed, comfortable chairs, two wardrobes, a small stove, full bookshelves, and a perfectly functional bar. It hadn’t changed since Gavin had seen it more than two years ago. Neither had Dodd, who was waiting for them.

“Good God, Gavin,” he said, his face split into a wide grin. “I hope you have a good explanation for nearly wrecking my parade today. Who are these people? And where’s Cousin Felix?”

He pulled Gavin into a warm embrace without waiting for an answer, and Gavin suddenly found himself at the top of an upswell of emotion. His throat thickened, and words wouldn’t come. The memory of Captain Felix Naismith’s last moments slammed through Gavin, and he saw the captain’s expression as a pirate’s glass flechette sliced his flesh and ended his life. He heard the small sound that escaped the captain’s throat and felt the thud as the captain’s body slammed into the deck.

Dodd read Gavin’s expression. “No.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said thickly. “Uh, this may take a while to explain.”

“Mesdames et messieurs! Le spectacle commencera dans cinquante minutes!”

“I have fifty minutes,” Dodd said.

Alice set Gavin’s fiddle and the rucksack with the cure in the corner and everyone sat down. Gavin introduced Alice and Feng and then started in with the loss of the Juniper to pirates, moving to the death of Dodd’s cousin, Captain Felix Naismith. Dodd’s face hardened as the story progressed. Alice went to the little bar and came back with a half-full glass, which Dodd drained with a shaky hand when Gavin finished.

“I haven’t seen him in almost two years,” Dodd said in a hoarse voice. “I had no idea he was dead. Oh, God. What am I going to do?”

Gavin didn’t know what to say. Alice and Feng, who didn’t know Dodd at all, sat in uncomfortable silence.

“Mesdames et messieurs! Le spectacle commencera dans vingt minutes!”

“We go months without contact,” Dodd said, “but that was all right. I was so glad when he got off that stupid scow he played second mate for and got on a real ship, and he was so happy when Boston Mail gave him his own command. Youngest captain in their fleet, he is. Was. Now he’s gone. Shit.”

Alice coughed, and Dodd raised his glass to her in apology, then stared off into space. Dodd was young himself for a circus ringmaster, barely thirty, with large brown eyes that made him look even younger, despite the side whiskers. Gavin glanced at him, then around the little car. Whenever the Juniper was in a European port, Captain Naismith checked to see if the Kalakos Circus was in town too, and if it was, he always took Gavin and Tom with him to visit. The cousins caught up while the cabin boys got free run of the show. After the performance, Dodd gave them treats from the grease wagon, or even a windup toy from his workshop.

“I’m sorry to bring bad news,” Gavin said. “I miss him, too. And Tom. But there’s more.”

Gavin gave a thumbnail sketch of how Alice’s aunt Edwina had used her cure for the clockwork plague to manipulate Gavin and Alice into joining the Third Ward so Edwina could destroy it, and how Lieutenant Phipps was now chasing them-

“Wait,” Dodd interrupted. He pointed at Alice. “You’re a baroness who can cure the clockwork plague?” He pointed at Gavin. “And you’ve become a clockworker?”

Gavin nodded. “Yes. Now we-”

“What do you do?” Dodd interrupted again, this time pointing at Feng. “Walk on water?”

“With a good running start,” Feng replied.

“Mesdames et messieurs! Le spectacle commencera dans cinq minutes!”

A sharp knock came at the door, and a red-haired man with startling blue eyes poked his head into the car. He wore an Arran fisherman’s sweater and a cloth cap. “Dodd? Show’s on. Are you- Gavin! Good Lord, lad, it’s been ages. Where are Tom and Felix?”