Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

“I hope so,” Gavin said through clenched teeth. “For her sake.”

“We just need to wait until- Eep!” Alice whuffed her parasol open and twirled it, effectively blocking Gavin’s view of the banqueters. “Don’t look.”

“At what?” Gavin’s muscles tensed. The calliope continued to play. Some of the clowns waved and made faces at the banqueters while they waited for a signal from Dodd to begin. “What’s wrong? I can’t see a thing.”

“On a count of three,” Alice murmured, face pale, “we’ll climb out the back of the gondola, slide off the elephant’s back, and sneak to the rear to get Kemp.”

“Why?” Gavin demanded in a whisper. “What is it?”

“Look, but do it quick. In the center, a little to the left. What would be Ivana Gonta’s right-hand place at her table.”

Gavin poked his head just high enough over the parasol to get a look, then dropped back down behind it and the gondola wall. “Shit,” he said. “Shit shit shit.”

Sitting at the place Alice had described were three familiar figures: Simon d’Arco, Glenda Teasdale, and Lieutenant Susan Phipps.

“Quick!” Gavin took Alice’s hand, and they slid down the elephant’s backside even as Dodd called forward the Great Mordovo, Magician Extraordinaire. The circus had spread throughout the courtyard, leaving a wide space in front in an impromptu ring. Gavin wove his way to the rear of the waiting performers, his heart in his mouth. Bonzini, the clown whose wig and nose Gavin had borrowed back in Luxembourg, gave him a quizzical look as the banqueters gave light applause to Mordovo’s first trick.

“Did she see us?” Alice asked. She clutched at the whistle hanging from its chain from around her neck.

“I doubt it. Phipps wouldn’t have let us get away if she had.”

At the back, near the closed gate, they found Kemp standing not far from the automaton guard in his guard house. He came forward when he saw Alice. The animal cages and other performers hid them from view. The people stood around, waiting quietly for their turn. It wasn’t the entire circus, just the performers whose acts didn’t require much in the way of setup-clowns, the magician, acrobats, animal acts both living and mechanical, horse girls, and the calliope. The latter played bright, happy music, which had the effect of covering noise and conversation. The acts themselves were silent, anyway. No traveling circus depended on an audience being able to hear or understand the language.

“Madam,” Kemp said, “I don’t think I approve of-”

“I know,” Alice said, “but it’s necessary.” She faced the guard and gave the handle of her parasol a single turn. “You. I need to talk to you.”

The automaton took a single step forward. “Peasants are not allowed to-”

Alice touched its chest with the end of her parasol. Electricity crackled. The guard sputtered and sparked while energy coruscated up and down its body. Then it went stiff and tipped over with small crash. The lion tamer and his wife turned and stared. Alice put a finger to her lips while Gavin extracted a tool kit from his rucksack. The smell of oil and feel of metal brought a strange taste to his mouth, and he felt the clockwork fugue descending on him. Very little mattered now except the machines. In no time at all, he had the automaton’s head off. Alice turned back to Kemp.

“Kemp,” she said.

“Madam,” he said with resignation.

Alice took up the tools herself and also removed Kemp’s head. The lights that made up his eyes glowed with indignation, but he didn’t speak. His black-and-white body remained eerily upright. Gavin swiftly unbuttoned the front of the guard’s jacket and shirt to expose and open the access panel, where he saw frozen pistons and unmoving gears. Automatically he traced the line of machinery. It was simple to understand, easy as reading a navigation chart, though a part of him was aware that only a few months ago it would have been a meaningless tangle to him. While Alice set Kemp’s head on the automaton’s neck, Gavin set to work resetting power. He was vaguely aware that Alice was touching his tools, and he didn’t like it.

“It’s not a perfect fit,” she muttered, “but it’ll do for now.”

“That’s my wrench,” he said shortly.

“It’s called a spanner,” she replied, “and you need to keep control, please. You’re not a mad clockworker. You’re Gavin Ennock, and you love me.”

Her words and voice penetrated the fugue and pulled him back a bit. He shook his head. “Right,” he said. “Sorry. Thanks.”

“I am not at all comfortable with this,” Kemp complained as they worked.

“It’s for a good cause.” Alice connected a set of wires and tightened two bolts. In the background, a lion roared over the music and the banqueters made Ooooo sounds. “That should do it. Can you start the body back up?”

In answer, Gavin cranked up the spark generator and released the spring.

“Oh!” Kemp’s eyes flickered. “Oh dear!”

“Are you functional?” Alice asked, helping him sit up.

“I–I-I–I b-b-believ-v-v-v-ve th-th-th-th-things a-a-a-a-a-a-a-are working at c-c-c-c-c-capacity, M-M-M-M-M-Madam.” Static overlaid his voice, and he spat out a string of Ukrainian words. “I a-a-a-a-a-am adj-j-j-j-j-j-j-justing m-m-m-m-m-my mem-m-m-m-mory wheels.”

“Try this.” Alice reached into his chest cavity with a screwdriver. Something crackled and she jerked her hand back with small oath. “Ow! Is that better?”

“M-much, Madam. Spaceeba. ” Kemp got to his new feet, a little uncertain at first but quickly gaining confidence. “This body is much stronger than my own, and more agile. More advanced, disloyal to my creator as that sounds.”

Gavin’s stomach went into knots as he shoved Kemp’s body into the guard house and set the guard’s lifeless head on the floor with it. As a final touch, he put the guard’s helmet on Kemp’s head. “I really don’t like the fact that Phipps is here,” he growled. “It makes everything too suspicious. The Third Ward has very little influence in Ukraine, but she’s crafty enough to worm her way into the Gontas’ good graces and persuade Ivana to invite the circus into a trap. I just wonder if capturing Feng was her idea or just a lucky coincidence.”

“We can’t call this off,” Alice pointed out. “We have to find Feng.”

“I know,” Gavin said. “And it’s exactly the kind of thing Phipps would count on. Let’s go. Lead the way, Kemp.”

The trio skirted the back edge of the circus and, following the high stone wall, came around to one of the jutting wings of the huge mansion that surrounded the courtyard where the lions were currently performing through the calliope’s incessant hooting. The banqueters were alternately watching and eating and talking. Through the crowd, Gavin could make out Phipps’s ramrod figure sitting next to Ivana Gonta’s plump one on a shared divan. She was holding a crystal goblet in one hand and watching the lion tamer while Ivana talked to her. A polite, attentive smile creased Phipps’s face, and it looked completely wrong on her. She was wearing a scarlet dress uniform with a gold sash that Gavin had never seen before. At any moment, she might turn in their direction and see them. But then they made the corner of the house and she passed out of sight.

“That’s a relief,” Alice sighed. “Crossing that courtyard was like walking on hot knives.”

“We’re only getting started,” Gavin replied. They hurried alongside the house. The windows were small and thick, as if the builders were trying to maintain a fortress wall but had been forced to put glass into it. They finally came to a heavy door. Gavin tried it. Locked.