Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

No gypsy, slut, or clockwork shall win my mad Tom from me

I’ll weep all night, with stars I’ll fight, and the fray shall well become me.

Gavin laughed and joined in for the chorus.

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys, bedlam boys are bonny

For they all go bare and they live by the air, and they want no drink nor money.

The orange sun sank to the horizon and shadows snaked among the trees below. The sputter and hum of the generator continued beneath Gavin’s music as he played and sang his way through “Bedlam” with Alice clapping her hands to the beat beside him. He caught Alice’s eye, letting her know the song was for her. Her face flushed, and he flung her a wide smile. The music cast itself out into the darkening void, sweet as wine, carrying Gavin’s spirit with it.

“That was wonderful,” Alice said softly. She picked up the nightingale and pressed its left eye again. Then she pressed the right eye. Instantly, the little bird opened its beak and the sound of Gavin’s fiddle trilled forth. It was a smaller sound, with a tinny undertone, but otherwise a perfect replica, a recording. Then Gavin’s voice joined the music, and “Tom of Bedlam” again floated across the deck. The sound struck Gavin. He had never heard his own voice before. It sounded different than it did in his own head, but also vaguely familiar. It made him uncomfortable. He tapped the nightingale to stop the music.

“I like the real thing better,” he said.

“I do, too.” Alice kissed him on the cheek, and he smiled again. “Where did you learn to play? You’ve never said.”

“Gramps-my grandfather-started me on the fiddle when I was five or six,” Gavin said. The strangeness of the nightingale’s reproduction stayed with him. “I mostly taught myself. It’s easier when you have perfect pitch like I do, and when you never forget a song after you’ve heard it, like I don’t.”

“So the fiddle was your grandfather’s?”

Gavin was all set to say yes , when something stopped him. For a moment, a tiny moment, he remembered something else. A man was handing him the fiddle, but it wasn’t Gramps. A much younger man, tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair. The memory hovered in front of him like a reflection in a soap bubble, shiny and distorted.

“You can play just like Daddy. Would you like that?”

Gavin realized Alice was waiting for an answer. “I’m… I’m not sure,” he said. “Gramps used to have it, but…”

“Was Gramps your father’s mother or your mother’s father?”

“Hold the fiddle like this and the bow like this. They’re big now, but you’ll grow. Do it right.”

“My father’s.” Gavin’s voice grew distant. He felt strange, mixed up. “He lived with us, even though Dad… didn’t.”

“Didn’t? What happened to him?”

“This one is D, this one is G, this is A, and this is E.”

Gavin shook his head. “I don’t know. He left when I was very small. Ma refused to talk about him, and she became angry if anyone asked. After a while, I stopped wondering.”

“Good! Keep that up, and you’ll play ‘I See the Moon’ for your ma just like me.”

He raised the bow again. The horsehair was new, but the wood was old, burnished from hours of skin and sweat. He waved it, and the bubble burst, taking the memory with it.

“I’m sorry, darling.” Alice put an arm around his waist. “I didn’t mean to awaken painful memories.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “It was a long time ago, and I don’t really remember. Though,” he added wistfully, “I wonder sometimes what it would be like to have a dad. Gramps was there for me, of course, and Captain Naismith was kind of like a father, but… you know.”

“I know,” Alice said. “I find myself wondering what it would be like to have a mother. Mine died when I was so young.”

“Well, between us we had a full set of parents,” Gavin said with a small laugh to break the heavy mood, and Alice smiled. He buried his face in her hair and smelled her soft scent. “All I really need is you.”

Feng spoke up. “The romantic moment unfortunately will not keep me awake all night. We have to anchor ourselves.”

“I’ll take over.” Gavin took back the nightingale, stowed the fiddle in its case, and accepted the helm from Feng. “I don’t sleep much these days.”

Feng disappeared belowdecks. Alice stood beside Gavin for a moment, her presence warm and solid. Gavin steered with one hand so he could put an arm around her. “We’re alone for the first time in ages,” she said.

“Unless you count the Lady ,” Gavin replied with a smile.

She rested her head on his shoulder. “I want more time with you, Gavin. I feel like we never have enough.”

“No one ever has enough time.” Gavin checked his heading on the compass set into the helm, visible thanks to the soft blue glow of the envelope, and corrected his course. “Especially not clockworkers.”

Eventually, Alice kissed him good night and went below herself, leaving Gavin alone on the deck. He felt her absence, even though she was only a few yards away.

In the morning, everything changed.

Lieutenant Susan Phipps threw her hat onto the rickety table. She had intended to drop into the ladder-back chair next to it, but found she couldn’t, and paced the tiny room instead, her hands clasped behind her. Her brass left hand felt cool and heavy in her fleshy right one, though the sensation was so familiar to her now she barely noticed it.

Glenda Teasdale, her blouse and skirt looking worse for the wear, stood behind the other ladder-back chair while Simon d’Arco, equally disheveled, hovered near the bed. A tiny lamp shed grudging light over the table as the sun slid away. The quarters, part of what passed for a hotel in this little town, were dank and cramped compared to her spacious rooms at Third Ward headquarters back in London, but Phipps refused to voice a single complaint, even to herself. What sort of commander sent her troops into conditions that she herself refused to endure?

“We were close,” Glenda said in that flat voice that was still new to Phipps. “So close. If that bloody Dr. Clef hadn’t shown up-”

“It’s fine,” Phipps interrupted, still pacing. “They’re traveling by airship. Very hard to hide an airship. We will catch them; we will bring them back to London; we will see them put on trial.”

“It’s just… We’re very tired, ma’am,” Simon said.

She suddenly realized what she was doing. They had to remain standing while their commanding officer was on her feet. “Sit, sit,” she ordered. “I think better on my feet.”

Simon dropped onto the bed while Glenda perched on the chair. The woman looked odd in skirts. Ever since she joined the Ward, she had put aside feminine clothing in favor of more practical male attire, like what Phipps wore. However, when female agents traveled abroad, especially in places where the Third Ward had less influence and no actual authority, they typically wore skirts to avoid attracting attention. Phipps continued to wear her uniform, partly because it conveyed authority whether she had it or not, and partly-she admitted only to herself-because it provided her with a wall that made her feel safe.

“They’re heading for Luxembourg, no doubt, judging from the general direction they took and the fact that it’s a major trade city,” Phipps said, thinking out loud. “Alice will want to spread her cure there. And that’s a fine thing for us. The Crown has strong ties with Luxembourg, and I can force a fair amount of cooperation with the local gendarmerie. They’ll help us find Ennock and Michaels in no time. The mechanicals will let us catch them up fairly quickly, so we won’t lose much time.”