A Mosaic of Stars: Short Stories From Other Worlds (13 page)

“I own these nags,” he said. “You can’t tell me what to do. In fact…” He grabbed her arm and started dragging her out into the yard. “You can’t be here. This is private property.”

The pain of his fingers digging into Isabelle’s arm was nothing next to the distress she felt at leaving the horses to suffer, or her indignation at being treated this way. But now her passions didn’t block her thoughts, they fuelled them.

“It is private property, isn’t it?” She dug her heels in, no easy feat on manure-smeared cobbles, bringing them both to a halt. “And this whole area is owned by the Duke of Kent, so you must lease from him. I wonder what he would say about letting you continue, if I told him about today.”

Watkins chewed at his lip again, eyes narrowing as he stared at her.

“You don’t know the Duke of Kent,” he muttered.

“Short man, balding a little, dab hand at cribbage.” Isabelle raised her eyebrow. “And he loves horses.”

Watkins looked from her to the stables and then back again.

“Fine.” His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry you were delayed. Let me get my bookkeeper and we’ll talk compensation.”

“And no more machines for the horses,” Isabelle said.

“You’ll ruin me, woman!”

“Not as much as losing your lease will.”

“Fine.” Now it was Watkins’ turn to look indignant. “Not that it’s your business, but no more machines for the horses. Now will you just go away and leave me in peace?”

“Of course. I’ll come back tomorrow for my compensation.” Isabelle smiled and turned to walk away, then looked back one last time toward the odious Watkins. “And to see how much better you’re caring for your horses.”

A Hard and Hollow Sound

Part of Dirk had always longed to be musical. There was something magical about music, something transporting. But he had no instinct for it, and life made so many other demands that he’d never found the time to learn. So he made do with listening.

The music drew him to the heart of the funfair, just as it had so many others. Peering over heads and around top hats, he saw an extraordinary machine. Steam and sound rose together from a cluster of church organ pipes, to which other instruments were connected by fanbelts, cogs and pistons. There were fiddles and banjos, washboards and drums, even an accordion with its low, distinctive drone. Most amazingly, the instruments were playing without any sign of human intervention, apart from the grinning and soot-stained woman shovelling coal into the back of the machine.

It wasn’t just a mass of noisy instruments playing at random. The sound was beautiful to the point of hypnotic. The hard, hollow notes of the banjo transported Dirk back down the path of memory, to long nights out on the plains and journeys taken through the peaks of the Rockies. Without intending to, he found himself taking all the money from his pockets and pouring it into one of the buckets in front of the machine. All the other listeners were doing the same, and more were approaching, drawn by the music. Coins overflowed from the buckets, as seemed only right and proper.

A stubborn corner of Dirk’s mind screamed at him that they weren’t doing this of their own volition. He hadn’t chosen to put a week’s rent in the bucket. The machine was controlling his mind. He had to break free.

Yet the rest of him refused to care. His hand just flopped back down when he lifted it up. There was no need for action, just listening.

What was he worrying about anyway? Something about money and a bucket? Maybe he hadn’t brought any with him. That would make sense. Yes, that was it.

Once again he heard that hollow banjo sound. The funfair faded away, replaced by the plains and the horse drifting along beneath him.

Except that wasn’t how it had been. Those days had been hard work and hunger, not just sunsets and scenery. Like those banjo notes, it was a thing of melancholy, not comfort.

He clung to those notes, clung to the real world and its hard realities. The plains faded back into memory, and he was stood in front of that amazing musical machine, its operator rubbing her hands as she wandered in front of the empty-eyed audience, collecting up the buckets of money.

Dirk grabbed the bucket in front of him, heavy with nickels and dimes, and flung it with all his considerable strength. It hit the heart of the machine with a mighty clang. Coins flew and steam sprayed from buckled pipes. The music went from melodious to discordant. The operator stared around in alarm as the audience blinked their way back to reality.

A pipe hurtled into the air. People ran screaming as another one flew past, demolishing the bearded lady’s tent. Dirk ducked as the whole thing exploded, burst pipes and snapped strings flying every which way.

As the sound faded, a banjo fell with a clunk at Dirk’s feet. He picked it up and turned to walk away. Maybe this time he’d find the time to learn.

Dreaming Skies

The Australian Outback drifted past below the airship, a vast wilderness that glowed with an amber warmth between patches of tenacious scrub. Bolted into the airship’s console was a part of that ancient world, a twisted branch painted in bright colours.

“Only you would do this.” Dirk Dynamo shook his head. “Cross a continent for an artefact, then stick it in your latest machine.”

“But look!” Sir Timothy Blaze-Simms’s top hat almost fell off as he leaned across a row of dials. “It’s like the stories said. The Dreaming Branch can see futures unfolding around it, telling us the most efficient course.”

Suddenly there was a hiss and the airship began to sink.

“I say!” Blaze-Simms yanked a lever and the hissing stopped. “The upper inflation valve must have slipped.”

Another hiss made him whirl around, stopping the sound by grabbing another lever. Then the hissing appeared again, and this time Dirk caught a brief flash of someone pulling a lever before they disappeared and Blaze-Simms turned to set things right.

“Stop that.” Dirk looked around the control room.

“When you give me the Branch.” A little woman with wrinkled brown skin, dressed only in a loin cloth, faced him from the corner. He could have sworn she hadn’t been there before.

“I don’t think so.” He strode across the room, but just as he reached her she waved a hand across her body, took a side-step and disappeared.

“Got you!” Blaze-Simms lunged at the woman as she appeared by the console, but she pulled a lever and disappeared once more, leaving him frantically trying to set things right.

“This is an outrage!” Blaze-Simms exclaimed. “Vandalism. Piracy, even.”

The airship was losing altitude now, heading fast toward the ground.

“All I want is the Branch.” The woman was by the window, smiling at them both.

“Well you can’t have it.” Blaze-Simms folded his arms indignantly. “I bought it fair and square from a man named Jeffrey Two Trees.”

The woman snorted.

“The Dream Branch is of the alcheringa, the eternal dream beyond our waking world.” An angry expression crumpled her face. “It wasn’t Jeffo’s to sell.”

Dirk had been slowly approaching her from one side, and now he leaped, hands outstretched. But again she waved her hand and reappeared across the room.

“I can do this all day.” She turned a wheel and the tone of the engines changed, the airship accelerating in its downward path.

“I can pay you for it.” Blaze-Simms pulled a wallet from his tailcoat pocket. “Cash or cheque.”

“No.” She pulled another lever, disappeared as Dirk grabbed at her, and reappeared to flick a switch. “I don’t know what any of these do, but I bet I’m breaking something.”

An ominous clang somewhere to the aft made Blaze-Simms grimace.

“Perhaps a share of the profits?” he asked. “With a navigation device like this-“

“Ground’s getting close,” the woman said. “I can dream walk away before we crash. Can you?”

“Tim, give her the stick.” Tension knotted Dirk’s guts. He’d escaped crashes before, but they were falling fast and a long way from help.

“Dream walk.” A distant expression crossed Blaze-Simms’s face.

“Tim!” Dirk shouted. “The branch!”

“Oh, yes.” Blaze-Simms pulled a spanner from his tailcoat, hurriedly unfastened the branch and threw it to the woman.

“Nice meeting you.” With one more wave she vanished.

The ground hurtling ever closer, Blaze-Simms rushed between levers and dials, turning, twisting and yanking until the airship levelled out. Dirk breathed a sigh of relief as they drifted a few feet above the outback.

“Sorry about your invention.” He looked over at the navigation panel, with its dead dials and the empty space where the branch had been.

“Hmm?” Blaze-Simms looked up from a notebook. “Oh, never mind that. Didn’t you hear what she said? She was dream walking, stepping from place to place through another realm. Imagine if I could make a whole airship do that!”

Dirk stared out the window at the little old lady waving up at them. He couldn’t see her teaching Blaze-Simms her secrets, no matter how big the cheque.

Mech Seventeen

The ground shook with each falling shell. I crouched in our improvised bunker, worried that a direct hit might breech the earth, shatter our timber walls and blow me to pieces, or worse yet bury me alive.

Even amid this madness, Commandant Corpus was abroad. The door flew open and he strode in, red coat flapping. Behind him came another figure, its heavy tread shaking the floor. It was tall as a man, with two arms, two legs, a head, and rifle at its shoulder. But the smoke stack on its back and the gleam of its metal shell made clear that this was no man.

“Captain Abernathy.” Corpus glared at me.

“Commandant.” I forced myself to my feet and saluted. There were few things I feared worse than the rebels, but Corpus was among them.

“This is Mech Seventeen.” Corpus pointed at the mechanical soldier. “It will be joining your unit for field trials. You will report on its progress. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I avoided looking at my men. We all knew what field trials meant. With Mech Seventeen in our ranks, we were all doomed.

“Back!” I yelled. “Back to the line!”

My men streamed past me. Many were limping. More would never return at all. Our ninth assault in three weeks, and there were fewer and fewer of us left.

Mech Seventeen stamped along at the back of the unit, rebel shots bouncing off its chassis. Beside it, Torvig caught a bullet and fell, blood spraying from the ruin of his throat.

The hatred I felt wasn’t for the men firing those guns. It was for this terrible machine, with its blank eyes and its steaming smokestack, its body that could endure far more than any of my men. It was the reason Corpus was throwing us into every fight, to test the limits of Mech Seventeen. It was the reason so many of my men lay there in the mud, broken and scattered like the parts of some monstrous machine.

I spat at Seventeen as it ran past. The spittle hissed and evaporated from a pipe on its housing. It turned to look at me, and for a moment I imagined there was sadness in its eyes.

But there was no sadness in a waggon, a shovel or a gun. There could be no sadness in Mech Seventeen.

Something had to be done. So far I had separated myself from Seventeen, hoping to survive until it was sent away. For the tenth assault I ordered it to take position beside me.

The moment our artillery stopped firing we leapt from the trenches and raced across the ruined ground. I lost my footing on the edge a shell hole, was caught by Seventeen and righted myself. We kept running.

Just before the enemy lines, things went to hell. The rebels emerged from their bunkers and began firing. Stivins fell screaming. Bock’s head exploded. Habbly’s arm was ripped off at the elbow but he kept going, whether thanks to courage or to shock.

If my plan was to work I had to reach the trenches, and Seventeen with me. I ducked and kept moving, fired my pistol at a man pointing his gun my way, didn’t give myself time to think. Hesitation could kill us all.

Then we were there, looking down on trenches full of green coated soldiers. Their eyes were wide at the sight of Seventeen, this unstoppable mechanical monster. As it raised its rifle, I took a step back. Holstering my pistol, I shoved Seventeen as hard as I could.

It swayed for a moment on the brink of the trench, then fell forward, sliding down the bank. With wild cries the rebels fell upon it, battering at the fallen the machine with spades and rifle butts. It rolled over, and I saw that sadness again in its eyes.

But this was still no time for doubts.

“Back!” I yelled to my men. “Back to safety!”

We ran like madmen, hoping to be back before the rebels were done with Seventeen

As we neared our trenches a terrible sight met our eyes. The lines were full of green coats. Our own emplacements had been seized by the rebels.

I flung myself down in the mud as they opened fire. There was no way out. Even if we weren’t killed by rifle fire, we would be torn apart by the artillery that followed. I would die here, in the mud and horror, the half rotted body of another soldier inches from my face.