Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (35 page)

*   *   *

“We don't have to do what Lyle says,” murmured Bent. “We can just tell him to eff off, you know. We were sent to bring back Maria and the dragon. We've done that.”

Gideon looked over at Lyle, standing back a respectful distance with Jeb Hart and Captain Humbert. “He has a letter from the Prime Minister,” he said flatly. “We have fresh orders. We're going to California.”

Lyle, holding his stovepipe hat in his hands, took Gideon's glance as a signal to approach. “I thought, perhaps, Hart and I could travel in the airship. You will be accompanying, uh, Miss Maria in the dragon?”

Gideon looked at Rowena as she walked over from the fresh grave to join them. “You have no jurisdiction over Miss Fanshawe, Governor. She was employed to bring us to New York. She has already completed the task she was paid for.”

“Done more than she was paid for, by all accounts,” said Hart. “Heard you busted up Steamtown real good, Miss Fanshawe.”

Rowena raised an eyebrow at him. “There was a reason for that. Governor Lyle, did you know someone in New York is selling your people into slavery?”

Lyle blinked at her. “Slavery? How so, Miss Fanshawe?”

She took out the manifest from her shirt pocket and handed it to him. “I took a job at North Beach. Secret cargo to Steamtown, in payment for a hold full of coal I was to bring back. Payment was fifty-four men, women, and children press-ganged from your streets, Governor.”

Lyle rubbed his chin as he studied the sheet of paper. “This … this is shocking. These people were all from New York?”

“Kidnapped off the streets in some cases, tricked into bondage in others.”

“But why?”

“For coal, Governor. Someone thought that fifty-four lives were fair payment for a 'stat full of coal to keep the fires burning in Manhattan.”

“You'll look into this?” said Gideon. “Or do we need to come back to New York to sort it out ourselves?”

Lyle folded the paper and put it into his coat pocket. “No, Mr. Smith, there's no need for that. Of course I'll look into it. This … horror must be investigated. I'll get on to it.”

“At once?” asked Gideon.

“After we have dealt with the threat from the Meiji,” said Lyle levelly. “The sooner we sort this out, the quicker I can get back to New York. As I said, perhaps the dirigible…?”

“And as I said, Governor—” began Gideon, but Rowena put a hand on his arm.

“It's all right, Gideon,” she said. “I want to see this out.” She glanced at the sun. “If we have a following wind it will take us seven hours to reach Nyu Edo, and that's with the
Skylady III
flat out. If we want to get there before nightfall, then we should leave now. Otherwise in the morning.”

“Nightfall would be perfect.” Lyle smiled. “Element of surprise and all that.”

Gideon frowned at him. “I take no pleasure in this, Governor. Had you not the backing of the British government I would not be allowing this attack on the Japanese.”

“They started it,” said Lyle, sounding to Gideon like a petulant child. “You were there yourself, Smith, when those ninjas attacked.”

“Yes,” said Gideon, scrutinizing Lyle. “So I was.”

“And you remember I said the Japs were working on a weapon? Who's to say what they're planning with that. They could be getting ready to destroy New York even as we speak.”

“What evidence do you have for this weapon, Lyle?” asked Bent. “And what sort of weapon could destroy a whole effing city?”

Lyle glanced at Hart, who had walked up with Captain Humbert to flank the Governor. “You know Jeb here does a bit of … reconnaissance work for me.”

“Spying,” said Bent.

Lyle shrugged. “If you like. He was raised in what used to be San Francisco; he knows the place well. Sometimes he goes back to visit the old homestead. Last time, he brought back news. The Japs are up to something, something big.”

Gideon waited a moment. “What?”

Lyle pulled a pained face. “I can't say as I can really tell you, Mr. Smith. Classified information, and all that.”

Gideon met Bent's eyes, then Rowena's. He sighed. “We have no choice. All right, Governor. Rowena will take you to Nyu Edo.” He turned to Maria. “Can we fly this distance?”

She smiled. “I flew from London to America, Gideon.”

Rowena said, “The dragon far outran the
Skylady III
when we were in Egypt. I'm not sure how that thing works, Maria, but I can't keep pace with you. Can you slow down enough to run alongside us?”

She nodded. Gideon said, “Then it's time. Let's get this done, and then we can all go home.”

*   *   *

Gideon made himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped cockpit as Maria's hands played over the artifacts and the eldritch engines that powered Apep began to hum into life. He said, “You have everything you need for the journey?”

“All apart from one thing,” she said, turning around in the seat. She reached out and grasped the front of Gideon's shirt, pulling him toward her, not for the first time surprising him with the strength in her metal joints. “This.”

She placed her lips against his, warm lips that thrummed with life. Perhaps not a life that most people would consider conventional, but life nonetheless. And was there something else in her kiss? Love? Gideon felt it, too, felt invisible fingers probing his mind, grasping on to the sensations that threatened to flood him, to overwhelm him.

No. No, he would not turn back the clock, not for all the money in the Bank of England. Not even, he realized, to see Arthur Smith for one more moment. Life was what it was, and for good or ill there was no second chance. He kissed her back.

Maria gently pushed him away, planting a final, tender kiss on his lips, and turned back to the instrument panel, straightening her skirts. “When this is over, Gideon, I shall expect you to take me shopping for some new clothes. I simply cannot be seen in London in these rags.”

“When this is over, Maria, I'll take you anywhere.”

Then the huge metal wings of Apep began to flap and the dragon rose majestically into the blue sky as the
Skylady III,
freed from its moorings, bobbed up alongside them. Gideon peered through the broken porthole at Bent, waving from the observation deck, flanked by Chantico and Inez. He was giving the dragon a thumbs-up.

Gideon returned the gesture, then the airship and the dragon began to rise together, turning north and west, as the soldiers and captured Steamtowners below looked up, shielding their eyes against the sun and the magnificence of their passing.

*   *   *

There was a storeroom at the back of Serizawa's laboratory where no one but he ever went. He'd laid down some tatami matting and hung some floating world prints on the walls. He'd also secreted a few of Michi's toys in his duffel bag at home and brought them to work—including her headless doll, Kashira, which she had wailed about losing. No matter; they were reunited now. The storeroom was quite homey, he thought.

Akiko, of course, had other ideas. “You are crazy, Haruki. How long are we expected to stay here?”

“Just until the danger has passed.”

She folded her arms while Michi sat down on one of the mats. “I'm sleeping here, Mummy.”

“What about school?” hissed Akiko. “Her friends? We are supposed to just abandon our life?”

“Not abandon. Just put on hold.” He took hold of her shoulders. “It might only be a few days. And I will be working right in the laboratory.”

She shrugged him off. “I wish you would tell me what this supposed
danger
is, Haruki.”

The images of the slaughter on the island passed through Serizawa's mind, and he pushed them away. “I am working on a solution. But Nyu Edo is in terrible peril,” he whispered. He turned to Michi and squatted down. “You will like living here? Just for a … a holiday?”

“It will be fun!” she said.

“And you can be quiet when Daddy tells you to? Daddy's boss, Mr. Morioka, he can be fierce!”

Serizawa thrust out his bottom jaw and frowned, making a growling noise. Michi laughed delightedly. “Your boss is a monster?”

“There are no monsters,” said Akiko firmly, glaring at Serizawa. “You want to give her nightmares?”

No
, he wanted to say.
I do not want to give our daughter nightmares. But there are monsters.
Instead he said, “So it is agreed, then? You will stay here for now?”

“For now,” sighed Akiko.

“Good. Then I must go to work.”

“Haruki,” said Akiko, her voice softer. “You are driving yourself into the ground. We came here to the Californian Meiji to start a new life away from your father. Not so you could kill yourself trying to escape his shadow.”

Serizawa smiled sadly at his wife. “My father casts a very long shadow.”

*   *   *

After a moment's pause, Serizawa decided to lock the door to his laboratory. There was a bathroom in there, and he had left Akiko and Michi some basic food that would last until later. The facility on the hills overlooking Nyu Edo was busier than it normally would be so late in the afternoon, and he had to be careful that his family was not discovered. Science Officer Morioka had little enough patience with Serizawa as it was.

He made his way along the corridors to the main hangar, bustling with people and overseen from his glass office by Morioka, who nodded curtly from his desk when Serizawa slid back the doors and entered. Akiko was quite correct, of course; Serizawa was fighting to escape the shadow of his father. And it was people such as Science Officer Morioka who perpetuated the myth that it was somehow all his father's fault that they had been forced to flee Japan and come to start a new shogunate in America in the first place. There were those who said that the Emperor K
ō
mei should rightly be dead by now, and that his son Mutsuhito would have taken his rightful place as the progressive ruler of the old country instead of taking his supporters across the sea to found a new dynasty twenty-three years ago.

And yes, Serizawa supposed that K
ō
mei should be dead. There were few who survived smallpox. But then, not everyone had the benefit of Serizawa's father as their court scientist. The senior Serizawa had contrived a contraption that was quite miraculous, a network of pipes and pumps that, each evening, flushed the emperor's body with fresh blood, ejecting the diseased liquid. There was nothing that could stop each fresh infusion becoming contaminated with smallpox, but the new blood every night ensured that the emperor, though pitted and scarred with pockmarks, continued to survive.

They did not call him the Blood Emperor for nothing. And there was no shortage of willing volunteers who sacrificed their own blood every day in tribute to their beloved emperor.

Or so people said.

Serizawa, of course, being young and idealistic and forward looking, had been as appalled as anyone by his father's work, which was why he had made the pilgrimage with his young wife to the new world. And that was why the Serizawa name must be remembered for reasons other than his father's work. That was why he had to succeed.

As the doors slid closed behind him, Serizawa looked up to behold his work.

Project: Jinzouningen.

Even now, it took his breath away. Oh yes, they would remember Serizawa.

*   *   *

“Where are we going?”

“For a little walk, Prickly Pear,” said Akiko. Curse Haruki for locking them in! She would have harsh words with him later. She stuck her tongue out and closed one eye as she maneuvered the hairpin into the lock chamber.

“Daddy told us to stay here,” said Michi uncertainly.

“Daddy is not the boss of this family; you will learn that,” said Akiko as there was a satisfying click from the lock. She had read how to do this in one of the English novels that sometimes made their way over from the British East Coast. She hadn't been sure it would work, but evidently Haruki wasn't the only one in the family with technical know-how.

There was a white coat, of the type worn by Serizawa when he was working, hanging in the laboratory, and Akiko pulled it on over her kimono. Then she took Michi firmly by the hand and stepped out into the corridor. A blank-faced man pushing a trolley loaded with gears and springs nodded apologetically to her as he steered out of the way, and Akiko fell in behind him, glancing at the notices painted on the walls. They pointed to numbered rooms, occasionally bathrooms and canteens. Most people they passed either ignored them or gave them the merest cursory glance; everyone seemed very preoccupied. Perhaps this danger of Haruki's was something serious, after all.

The largest flow of people seemed to be in the direction of signs indicating a hangar of some description, so Akiko fell in with them. If anyone thought the presence of a small child was unusual, no one voiced it. Eventually they came to a tall set of sliding doors, guarded by two men in pale cotton all-in-one suits in the Western style.

“Mummy,” whispered Michi. “They have
guns
.”

The guards glanced at each other and frowned at the sight of Akiko and Michi. One held out his hand. “Identification papers, please.”

There was a tap at the screen and the other guard turned to slide it back, allowing a scientist to exit as he pored over script on a long scroll. Beyond him, Akiko saw the unmistakable form of her husband.

“Haruki!” she called, but his name died on her lips as she saw what was beyond him, towering over the swarming men in the huge hangar.

*   *   *

Serizawa pinched his nose tightly. The engineers had shored up the knees on Jinzouningen with steel plates riveted to either side of the joint, as he had instructed. But the stress reports were still showing undue pressure. Science Officer Morioka tapped the wooden board on which were clipped the latest figures.