Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

He sat up and groaned as fire tore through every muscle. Aching and sore, he forced his feet around to the edge of the bed and realized he was naked. And clean. Hissing with every movement, he found a chamber pot under the bed, used it, and replaced it. The fiery ache continued when he stood up. A soft white dressing gown hung from the door, and he gingerly tied it on, which made him feel a little more secure. To his immense relief, he found his fiddle case next to the door. Carefully, he picked it up and opened it on the bed. The fiddle inside gleamed at him, undamaged. He sighed heavily.

A quick knock made him turn. The knock repeated.

“Uh… hello?” he called. “Who is it?”

The door burst open and Alice rushed in with a tray of food. Click trotted in behind her. “You’re awake! Thank God!”

She set the tray on the table and caught Gavin in a hug that made him howl. She instantly released him. “I’m so sorry! I should have realized-when I stopped moving, everything started to hurt worse, too, and you’ve been asleep for a long time.”

He hobbled to an easy chair next to the table and, gritting his teeth, eased himself into it. Alice hovered over him, offering help, but he waved her away. Click jumped onto the bed and settled into a pillow, his phosphorescent eyes gleaming green.

“How long was I asleep?” Gavin asked.

“You were unconscious, not asleep.” Alice took up the chair opposite his. She wore a white blouse, a pale blue skirt, and a straw hat with peacock feathers on it. All of it made her look free and bright, and Gavin was so glad to see her. “It’s been three full days. I was so worried. I thought the smell of food might bring you out.”

The mention of the food brought his head around to it. There was tea and some kind of dumpling in a cream sauce and peppered roast pork and dark bread and cucumbers with onions. Gavin was ravenous, and, ignoring the pain, pulled the tray toward him so he could eat. The dumplings were stuffed with soft cheese, and the tender pork was seasoned perfectly. Alice took a paper packet from her pocket and handed him two pills from it.

“Take these,” she said. “They’ll help with the pain.”

He swallowed them and kept eating. “Where are we?”

“The mayor’s house. So much has happened, I don’t know where to begin.”

“The last thing I remember is singing on the train.”

She nodded. “Part of the dam held, so the river destroyed less than we feared-a section a quarter of a mile wide and about five miles long. We got nearly everyone within that zone to safety. We lost some people, but… almost everyone survived. Except the Gonta-Zalizniaks. They’re all missing, presumed dead. Their house was at the bottom of the valley, you know, and it’s completely underwater now. The river is returning to its original bed. Some of the city will be flooded permanently, but most of it can be reclaimed. We’re being hailed as heroes.”

“We are?” Gavin paused with a fork halfway to his mouth. “We destroyed the dam and killed a bunch of people.”

“That’s not the way the Ukrainians see it,” Alice said. “The dam fed power to their hated Cossack rulers, you see. We, on the other hand, rescued their children, led the Cossacks down to the horrible dam, blew it up, and swept them away forever. The mayor-his name is Serhiy Hrushevsky-has taken over the city. He’s a very nice man who used to be a professor at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Seminary but became mayor because he wanted to soften what the Cossacks were doing. His son Mykhailo is extremely intelligent as well and will probably succeed him in politics, and- Oh! I’m babbling. I’m just so relieved that you’re all right, darling.”

“I’m happy to see you, too,” he said. “But what next?”

“Well, once the whole story came out, Mayor Hrushevsky brought us here to rest and recover as honored guests. I cured the rest of the plague zombies in the city, which only made everyone even happier, and they want to have a city-wide ball in our honor.”

The medicine Alice had given him started to work, and Gavin’s muscles relaxed. “I’ve never been a hero before. I don’t know how to react.”

“I don’t either, to be honest. I’m letting Phipps handle most of it.”

“Phipps! I’d forgotten all about her. She’s still with us?”

“Oh yes.” Alice folded her arms. “She insists upon coming to China with us. Glenda has already slipped off, back for London. We haven’t heard from Simon, either.”

“And we won’t.” Gavin drained his teacup, then paused. “I have to say… I was hoping…”

Alice grew more serious. “For what?”

“That we might be able to search the laboratory in the Gonta-Zalizniak house. To see if they had found… you know.”

“I do know.” She reached across the table and took his flesh hand in her metal one. “We’ll find a cure. You have time yet, no matter what Dr. Clef thought. We will cure you, we will get married”-her voice began to choke-“and we will have lots of children who will get very, very tired of hearing the same stories of their parents’ adventures over and over again.”

“‘Aw, Dad, not that boring story about Feng at the dam again,’” Gavin said, trying to lighten the mood by imitating a child, except his own voice grew thick. “‘We’ve heard it a million times.’”

“Will they speak with an American accent, do you think? Or a proper English one?”

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with a good Boston accent,” Gavin said, laughing now. Click raised his head. “Don’t forget that we perfected baked beans so you beefeaters could put them on toast.”

Alice was laughing too, and she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Good heavens. I haven’t even told you the best part.”

“There’s more?”

“The paraffin refineries are nowhere near the dam and weren’t touched. Mayor Hrushevsky is insisting we take all the oil we need. The Lady has been restored by his own men, and she is ready to fly when we are.”

Gavin spent three more days recovering. He tired easily and slept a great deal, though he insisted on spending as much time as possible on the Lady , which was tethered just above the mayor’s modest house. It was easier to rest amid the familiar, homey creak of wood and hemp. It also seemed to Gavin that the Lady was pleased to see him. The ship appeared to float more freely, hold herself more steadily when Gavin was aboard, though he didn’t say anything about this to Alice.

When Gavin checked the Lady ’s workshop, he was gratified to find the metal project he’d been working on had been moved there from the train, and he spent some time fiddling with it. It was nice to work on something that wasn’t a weapon. The Impossible Cube was locked away in a cupboard. Alice, Gavin, and Phipps didn’t see any need to tell anyone else the particulars of how they had led everyone out of danger. The paradox generator, of course, had been destroyed along with the dam, though Gavin still felt a small twinge at its loss.

Dr. Clef’s notes about the danger of time, space, and energy were also gone, burned by Phipps. Gavin didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had read them and, with a clockworker’s precision, memorized every numeral and symbol. He didn’t intend to use the information, of course. After everything that had happened, it would be foolish in the extreme. Much more interesting to work on his little project.

Now that Gavin was out of danger, Alice set about playing the part of the baroness to the hilt, making speeches and attending parties. Phipps attended most of these events as well, moving easily among the people, pointedly making friends and contacts. Once Gavin had recovered sufficiently to travel-and appear in public-Mayor Hrushevsky declared an entire day of celebration for their send-off to China. He presented Gavin with a new outfit-white airman’s leathers. Gavin found he couldn’t speak.