Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

The audience, pleased that Dodd spoke their language, burst into more applause just as a troupe of clowns somersaulted into the ring. Dodd got out of the way, and the show began in earnest. He caught sight of Nathan and his entourage lurking at the edge of the bleachers and trotted over.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin said before he could speak. “We clockworkers do stupid things sometimes. It’s not an excuse, just an explanation. I’m sorry.”

Dodd nodded. “You’re my last link to Felix, Gavin. I can’t be angry with you.”

“I need help, Dodd,” Gavin told him. The audience laughed. “And only you can give it.”

The ringmaster looked wary. “How?”

In the ring, a clown pedaled around on a unicycle with a bucket of whitewash, which he threatened to toss over the audience. Gavin swallowed, suddenly nervous. Dodd was part of the idea he’d gotten earlier, when Glenda was chasing them with the mechanical. He hadn’t had time to think about it further since the chase had started, and now that everything had slowed down, the day’s events were catching up with him. He glanced at Alice. She and Feng were counting on him. If Dodd refused to help, they’d be in serious trouble.

“We found out that plague cures have been invented or discovered more than once,” Gavin said, “but England and China have suppressed them. English cures were never able to cure clockworkers, only regular victims, but the Chinese ambassador told us the Dragon Men-Chinese clockworkers-might have a full cure.”

The clown flung his bucket, but turned it aside at the last moment. The audience whooped at him, half laughing, half fearful.

“So you need to get to China,” Dodd said. “I’m sorry, Gavin. We aren’t going to China.”

Gavin shook his head. “We don’t need to go that far. I have an airship, but she’s easy to spot and track. It’s how Phipps and the others followed us to Luxembourg. We need to lose them and earn enough money to fuel the ship for a flight to Peking.”

“What’s that to do with me?”

“The circus is a perfect cover,” Gavin blurted out. “You’re heading east. I can hide the ship on the train, and we can hide among you, do some work to earn money. Once we get far enough along, we’ll leave.”

“Oh, Gavin-I don’t know,” Dodd said. “I like you. Hell, you’re almost like a little brother to me. But the coppers already give us the hairy eye when we come to town.”

Feng muttered something in Chinese that sounded like a swear word, and Gavin’s heart sank. The clown drew his bucket back one more time. “Phipps has no real jurisdiction outside England,” Gavin said, still trying.

“Doesn’t seem to stop her. And I don’t know that I have any paying work for you. Look, I want to help, but-”

“How long has that elephant been lurching like that?” Alice interrupted. The clown threw the bucket’s contents, but all that came out was confetti. The audience laughed and cheered.

“What?” Dodd said. “Uh… two months, perhaps three. We bought it from a clockworker several years ago, but it seems to be breaking down. No one knows how to fix it.”

“Is that so?” Alice said.

“I was that close, Lieutenant,” Glenda fretted. “I practically had them in my hands.”

“So did I,” Phipps reminded her. “And I am not worried. There are only so many places they can run to, and Alice is on a mission.”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked. Once again, they were in a hotel room, though this one was rather better than the previous one. Clean, airy, with fresh linens on the beds and flowers on the nightstand, and a water closet on every floor. Once again, Glenda perched on a chair, Simon sprawled on the bed, and Phipps paced the floor.

“Haven’t you been listening to the talk on the street? She’s curing people, one by one, with that gauntlet of hers.” Phipps unconsciously flexed her own brass hand. “They break local laws about entering houses of plague, Gavin Ennock sings, Alice Michaels scratches people with that ‘sword’ of hers, and people call them angels for breaking the law.”

“They managed to hide the airship,” Glenda growled. “There’s been no sign of the thing.”

“There’s also been no sign of Dr. Clef since the affair at the greenhouse,” Simon put in. “That worries me a little.”

“It worries me, too,” Phipps admitted. “Though it may mean he has died.”

Glenda muttered, “Life is never so easy.”

“You do have a point.” Phipps sighed. “We must operate on the assumption that Dr. Clef is still alive and very dangerous. The trouble is, we’ve been underestimating them. All of them. Gavin is a clockworker, with all a clockworker’s requisite cunning.”

“And madness.” Glenda poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher on the table. “I’ll wager Alice is enjoying herself. At any rate, we’ll never find them at hotels now. They’re going to be wary of public houses. Unfortunately, they could hide any number of other places, including the homes of grateful plague victims.”

Already the pieces were falling together. Strategy and planning, three and four steps ahead. If this happens, then that. If that happens, then this. Though it was difficult to think through the anger-and the fear. She wasn’t afraid of what Gavin and Dr. Clef might do-not really. She was afraid of failing and earning that tiny shake of her father’s head, the one that tormented her every night when she went to bed.

Phipps drummed metal fingers on the windowsill, as was fast becoming her habit. Was she doing the right thing? The just thing? Was she pursuing Gavin and Alice and Dr. Clef out of true justice, or because her father-

No. She couldn’t afford doubt now. Aloud, she said, “The smart thing would be for them to hide, true, but they won’t do the smart thing. I repeat to you: Alice is on a mission, and she can’t accomplish it in hiding. That’s how we’ll get her.”

“You mean to set up an ambush,” Simon said.

“Absolutely. I believe now is also the time to visit the gendarmes and cash in some Crown influence. They can search the city while we set a trap at the appropriate place.”

“What’s the appropriate place?” Glenda asked.

“At the highest concentration of plague victims, of course.” Phipps gave a grim smile. “I want to run a check on the mechanicals first thing in the morning. And then we’re going to shop for bread and wine.”

Chapter Five

Alice shut the huge access panel on the elephant’s left side and set the spanner on the workbench with a clank. Grease stained her face and blouse. The Tilt felt big and empty now, with its rows of vacant bleachers and high canvas roof. All the sawdust was trampled into the ground, and the bleacher rows were littered with dead peanut bags. Dodd stood nearby, watching closely, while Gavin and Feng occupied front-row bleachers.

“That was fascinating ,” Alice said. “I even made some improvements on the memory wheels and increased the visual acuity.”

“Meaning what?” Dodd asked.

“It doesn’t necessarily need a rider. Look.” With a sidelong glance at Gavin and a certain amount of pride, she gestured at the big brass elephant, which came smoothly to its feet and plodded steadily around the ring, hissing and puffing steam. Alice gestured again, and it stopped. She felt like a sorceress who had conjured a steaming elemental from the depths of the earth.

Gavin applauded, and Alice turned a little pink. She had to admit that she had done this in no small part to impress him. After everything he had done this morning-rescuing her from Phipps, getting them away from Simon’s mechanical, and ingeniously hiding them in a circus-she felt a need to impress him.