The Case of the Translocated Jäger
Von Luftschiff woke up slowly and groggily, brushing disjointed bits of bizarre dream out of his mind. He blinked and looked about him.
Something wasn't right. Everything still felt pretty woozy, but he was fairly sure this was not where he had fallen asleep. Then he recalled drinking the bottle of potion he had found, and looked down at his hands. They were a dull green, with long, wickedly sharp claws where his elegantly clipped nails had previously been.
So the gamble had worked. The potion had indeed been the infamous Jägerbräu, and he had survived it and been transformed. Had he not done, he would not have felt at all aggrieved, assuming he had still had anything to feel aggrieved with; von Luftschiff's ideas about the existence of an afterlife were somewhat sketchy. He had known perfectly well what the odds were when he took the potion. He'd had about a one in ten chance of waking up as a Jäger, and if that had failed, he almost certainly wouldn't have woken up at all. Either way, the politicial insanity currently tearing Europa apart was going to be less of a problem, or, quite possibly, no longer a problem. Continuing to cope with it in human form was no longer an option.
But where was he? Certainly nowhere he could remember having been before. He was lying on a comfortably firm bed in a high-ceilinged room with green walls. A fire burned cheerfully in the grate, clearly recently tended. There were china knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, over which hung a mirror in an ornate scroll frame, and opposite the mirror hung a watercolour painting of a lake surrounded by mountains. The other furniture in the room comprised an expensive-looking mahogany wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a washstand and a chair. Through the window, von Luftschiff could see a few upper branches of a tree against a pale blue sky.
He heaved himself stiffly off the bed, thankful that he was still clothed as he had been, although his shirt was now annoyingly tight around the shoulders. He found his boots under the bed, and was not surprised to discover they no longer fitted. He padded barefoot across the thin rug to the door and turned the knob. It was locked.
The anger rose inside him for a split second before realisation caught up with him – the realisation that a mere locked door was unlikely to be enough to stop his new body. He laughed, and put his shoulder to it. The painted oak creaked and split, showering splinters onto the landing outside the room. A dark-clad man standing just by the door leapt backwards and fumbled desperately to draw his pistol, but von Luftschiff was too quick for him. Grabbing him, he twisted away the weapon. It clattered to the floor as the man screamed in pain.
“Oh,” said von Luftschiff, in German. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break your wrist.”
The guard stared at him in mute terror. Von Luftschiff tried again. “I'm sorry. I don't yet know my own strength. But you should not draw a gun on a Jäger. That is stupid.”
“Ich... spreche... nicht... Deutsch,” the guard stammered, clutching his wrist.
Von Luftschiff sighed. “English?”
“Yes! English. Please don't hurt me any more.”
“Schtupid,” said von Luftschiff, reproachfully. “Hyu draw a gun on a Jäger, hyu get hurt. It heppens. Hy didn't mean to hurt hyu. Now, let me look.”
The guard drew further back in alarm. “Hy said let me look,” repeated von Luftschiff, who was not in the mood for any more nonsense. “Hy not going to bite hyu. Hy Vegetariarjäger.”
Whether or not the guard managed to translate that last word was open to question, but von Luftschiff gave him no choice. He prised the man's other hand effortlessly away from his injured wrist, to further screams, and examined it. “Ho yes,” he said. “Dat is broken. Hyu need a splint. Come in here, und ve see vot ve find, hey?”
He propelled the terrified guard into the bedroom and sat him down on the bed, then picked up a piece of door and broke it carefully down to a suitable size and shape. Then he methodically tore up one of the pillowcases to make a set of bandages, with which he strapped the improvised splint in place with a little difficulty. Tying knots with those claws was harder than he had anticipated. “Better?” he asked.
The guard nodded, white-faced.
“Goot! Now hyu answer some qvestions. First, vhere are ve?”
“England,” stammered the guard.
“Dat is a bit fague,” said von Luftschiff, frowning.
“I... think we're somewhere in the north. I was kidnapped too. I don't know much more than you do.”
“Ah? So vy don't hyu yust run avay?”
“Well, once they'd got me here, they offered me a job, and it was better than the one I'd been doing,” the guard explained. “At least, it was until just now. I used to work in an airship parts factory in London. Long hours, noisy, smelly, boring, and the pay was lousy. This job's got shorter hours, better pay, three good meals a day, fresh air and target practice. No contest.”
“So vy did dey hev to kidnap hyu?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Because I don't think they want me to know where I'm working. I think it's the same for you. They want you to work for them, but if you don't know where you are, you can't tell anyone, I suppose.”
“Und dese pipple would be...?”
“I... don't know, exactly. All I know is, they've always treated me well.”
“Hyu know vot? Dat smells of fish to me.” Von Luftschiff was suddenly aware that he was both hungry and thirsty. “Vot hyu got in de kitchen? Hy suppose dere is a kitchen here?”
“Er,” said the guard. “I could make you some cheese sandwiches, I suppose.”
“Not cheese. It gives me Verstopfung. Vell, maybe not now hy be a Jäger, but hy don't vant to risk it. Ve go und see, hey?”
The guard really had no choice in the matter. They went to the kitchen, where von Luftschiff found a huge basket of mushrooms and a number of other ingredients, but unfortunately no garlic. There were, however, plenty of onions, and those would just have to do. He rummaged in the cupboards, found the largest pan in the house, melted half a pound of butter in it, and started gleefully chopping vegetables.
“Are... are you going to eat all that?” asked the guard.
“Turning into a Jäger is hungry vork,” replied von Luftschiff, throwing the onions into the pan. They sizzled fragrantly. The mushrooms followed. “But if hyu vant some, hyu only have to say. Is best with Knoblauch, how hyu call it, but hyu got none.”
“I'm not that hungry,” said the guard, who, despite the splint, was still in considerable pain. It was an improvement on the state he would have been in without the splint, but it had definitely taken the edge off his appetite nonetheless.
“Pity. Dese are going to be goot. Hyu got wine?”
“I think there's some in the cellar, but they don't let me have a key.” The guard paled as he realised what he had just said. “Oh Lord. Please don't break in there. I'm going to be in enough trouble as it is.”
“Ho-kay. Hy find it somevhere else. Hy not schtaying.”
The guard shifted uneasily. “You do know there are more guards at the perimeter?”
Von Luftschiff laughed. “It vosn't so hard to get past hyu. Hy tink dese are ready now. Hyu sure hyu don't vant none?”
“Quite sure. Thanks.”
Von Luftschiff ground in an unfeasible quantity of black pepper, stirred the concoction vigorously, found a fork, and ate everything straight from the pan. “Saves messing up a plate,” he explained cheerfully to the guard's horrified stare. “Mmm, is goot!”
When he had finished, he turned to the guard again. “Vell,” he said, “it vos nize meeting hyu, but hy can't schtay here. Tings to do, Jägers to find. Hy got to go.”
“Those perimeter guards...”
“Ho yes. Hy been tinking about dem. Hy don't vant to hurt any of dem unless hy need to, so ve do it like dis. Hyu come to de perimeter vith me und hyu tell dem hyu got instructions to let me go because dey don't vant me after all. Hy no use. Hy not goot at taking orders.” He grinned, displaying a set of jagged teeth. “Is true. But hyu can tell dem hy too schtupid if hyu vant. Hy von't be offended.”
The guard swallowed. “Do I get a choice about that?”
Von Luftschiff shrugged expressively. “Dey hyu friends, right? Hyu vouldn't vant dem to get hurt, no?”
The guard reluctantly accepted this logic. “I'm going to get into a lot of trouble.”
“No, hyu not. Hy broke hyu wrist, right? Hyu needn't tell dem hy didn't mean to. Come on. Ve going places.”
Defeated, the guard unlocked the back door, and they walked out onto a well-kept gravel path bordered with forget-me-nots and lily of the valley. Lupins, delphiniums and hollyhocks stood against a high wall to their left, mostly not yet in flower; to the right, a neat lawn opened out in front of the house, dotted with rhododendron and laurel bushes.
“Hy don't see no guards,” observed von Luftschiff conversationally.
“No. They're all on the other side of the wall.”
Now that they were in front of the house, it was clear that the wall encompassed the entire property. There was a large wrought-iron gate at the front, with a wide drive leading straight up to the front door. The path they were on joined this drive, which was also gravel. Von Luftschiff glanced back at the house and saw a large, elegant stone building with a wide semicircular area in front of it for turning carriages. It gave no particular clues, but von Luftschiff made an effort to fix it in his memory anyway. He wanted to be certain he would recognise it if he saw it again.
The guard opened the gate with a certain amount of difficulty, since he was having to use his off hand. There were two more guards stationed at the gate, and one of them spoke. “What brings you out here?” she asked, surprised.
“Got word through on the Jäger,” replied the house guard, doing a creditable job of sounding nonchalant. “He's no longer wanted. Seems they got the wrong one.”
“Oh? What happened to your wrist?”
“He broke it. But he calmed down once the message came through that he was to be released.”
The gate guard looked doubtfully at her companion. “What if he tells people where this house is?”
“He won't. He won't know. He's been brought a long way, remember? And it's not as if he knows anything.”
“H'mm.” The gate guard looked von Luftschiff up and down.
“Vot hyu schtaring at?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Never seen one of your sort before.”
Von Luftschiff sighed inwardly. That was a bad sign. He had heard that Jägers were everywhere, but that didn't have to be true; and even if it was true, it didn't necessarily mean that there were many Jägerkin in this particular country. Her Britannic Majesty was said to have her own ways of keeping the peace, and, as far as he knew, they seemed to be a great deal more effective at the moment than anything Baron Wulfenbach had been managing lately.
He summoned a grin. “Hyu take a goot look, lady. Hyu likely never see anyvun so handsome again.”
“I doubt it,” she replied tartly. “Anyway, you'd better go. Try that way.” She pointed.
Von Luftschiff nodded to them all by way of farewell, and set off walking along the quiet rural lane outside the gate. There was not a soul about, with the exception of a few farm animals grazing philosophically in the fields; the house must be miles from anywhere. It was a pleasant spring day, ideal for walking, and to his surprise and relief it turned out to be quite comfortable to go barefoot. Jäger feet are much tougher than human feet, and even the occasional sharp pebble in the road proved to be no more than a minor annoyance.
Nonetheless, questions haunted him over and over as he walked. Where exactly was he? Where was he going? And what on earth was he going to do once he got there? His kidnappers had not robbed him, but he had had very little money in his pockets, and even then it was not English money. He doubted it would get him far. If only he could find some of his own kind!
But for now, at least, it was good to walk through the English countryside in spring, enjoying the relative peace of that land. Something, no doubt, would go badly wrong again soon enough, so, he mused to himself, he might as well appreciate life until it did.
* * * * *
By the time von Luftschiff came within sight of human habitation again, he had long since ditched (in the most literal possible sense) his shirt. Had he still been human, he would have found it a little too chilly to go without it, but his new body had a wider temperature tolerance range than his old one, and besides the thing had been constricting him so much around the shoulders that in the end he had simply lost all patience with it.
It was now starting to occur to him that he might have been a little hasty. There was a village ahead, and it was not too difficult to guess how its inhabitants might react to someone who was green all over, dressed in nothing but a pair of ill-fitting trousers and a shako hat, and sporting a large spiky set of fangs. He was ruminating on this when he spotted an outlying barn. That might at least provide a bit of help. Barns often contained old sacks, and with some old sacks, his needle-sharp claws and some ingenuity, he might just be able to put together some kind of clothing that would enable him to pass for human in a poor light.
The barn did contain old sacks, but converting them into something wearable was by no means as easy as he had hoped. Like most of his countrymen, he had learned to sew in the Army, but that had been with a proper needle and thread, not with claws and crooked strands of hessian unravelled from the sacks. It had also consisted almost entirely of repairs, not trying to design a garment from scratch out of whatever materials came to hand. Nonetheless, his perseverance paid off, and a little after sunset he emerged triumphantly from the barn wearing a kind of short cloak with a deep hood. With reasonable luck it would get him as far as the village pub without anyone actually screaming. Once he was there, getting a drink, an evening meal and a bed was the next challenge to be overcome, but he was not going to get any of those three things without at least making it as far as the pub.
He passed a little group of women who were engaged in an animated discussion regarding the best place to sell eggs; they greeted him politely but distractedly, and he nodded back and grunted something that might have been “good evening”. It might, he thought, be as well not to be too distinct. Some children were playing a short distance away, rolling marbles around in the lane, and they saw his feet and gazed wonderingly up at him; but he smiled back, and they seemed to understand that despite his odd appearance, he was no threat to them. One of them risked a smile herself, showing a gap in her front teeth.
The village was set around a green, which still had a well in the centre, although it was no longer used and now had a heavy iron cover to prevent accidents. Naturally, this meant that everyone was now using it as a convenient seat. There was a young couple sitting on it when he passed, but they were far too absorbed in each other even to notice him, let alone greet him. The pub, its white walls faintly flushed with the last rosy rays of the sunken sun, stood on the far side of the green. There was a welcoming light in its crown-glass windows, and over the open door hung the sign of the Black Swan.
By this time, von Luftschiff had thought of a strategy, and he ambled up to the bar to put it into practice. Digging into his pocket, he produced the one coin he had in his possession which was real gold. Gold, he reasoned, would have value anywhere, regardless of whose likeness happened to be stamped on it.
He held it up in front of the unsuspecting barmaid, grinning. “Goot evening,” he said. “Hy vould like some red wine, a Cashewnussschnitzel and a room for de night, please.”
“You want a what, love?” The barmaid had seen all sorts in her time; this was certainly one of the more unusual. However, even in a village, you did not tend to keep a bar job if you displayed any surprise at the occasional not-so-human customer. This was the Age of Steam. They happened.
Von Luftschiff repeated his request. The barmaid frowned. “What's a Cashewnussschnitzel?”
“Is, how you call it, a schteak tingy, but made out of cashew nuts. Is delicious.”
“We've got steak,” said the barmaid doubtfully.
“Is no good. Hy don't eat meat.”
The barmaid diplomatically kept her reflections about the purpose of his teeth to herself. “We could do you a nice cauliflower cheese,” she suggested.
“Cheese gives me Ver... ach, vot der hell. Hy try it.” He plonked down the gold coin. “Und make it big. Hy hungry.”
He was suddenly aware of a woman standing at his elbow. She was perhaps about fifty, dressed soberly in grey, with a kindly face and very bright, intelligent green eyes. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, in German. “Would you like some company this evening? My husband and I are sitting over there.” She indicated a table at which a short, wiry, balding man sat playing a game of peg solitaire.
“Thank you,” replied von Luftschiff, in the same language. “How is it that you speak such good German?”
The woman smiled. “Because I am from Switzerland. My name is Hilde Greenwood, and that is my husband Charles. He is English, but I met him when he was working in Switzerland.”
“It is good to meet you,” said von Luftschiff. “I am von Luftschiff. I had a first name before I became a Jäger, but I don't remember it. I've heard that the Jägerkin take new names, but so far I haven't met any more. I'm looking for some of my own kind. Are there any in this country?”
“Yes, there are,” replied Hilde, as they went to join Charles at the table, “and we may be able to help you find them. Are you a new Jäger, then?”
“That's right. I... where I was living, it was very dangerous. All kinds of monsters roaming about, though you may think I'm a fine one to say that. One day there were these mad clanks, a whole army of them, and I ran away without knowing where I was going. I was ready to drop when I saw a building ahead of me. I didn't know what it was, but I was desperate, so I broke in through a window and went and hid in the cellar. I expected the clanks to break in after me, but I was hoping they wouldn't find the trapdoor; but I couldn't hear anything overhead, so I thought perhaps they might not have seen me get in.
“I stayed there for maybe half an hour, and then I decided to come out and look through the window to see if they had gone away. I hadn't taken much notice of the inside of the building when I broke in, other than to look for a way down to the cellar, but now I wasn't in a blind panic I realised this was a pretty strange place. There was a big room that looked like some kind of laboratory, and a library with books in several languages, most of which I couldn't read. And there were lots of store rooms. I'm not normally a thief, but it was starting to dawn on me that maybe if the clanks had avoided attacking this building, that meant it was where they came from, and after the fright they'd given me, maybe I was due some redress. So I thought I'd have a good look round those store rooms and see if there was anything useful I could take as compensation.”
Hilde and Charles both nodded sympathetically. Charles had not yet said a word, but it was clear from his face that he was fluent enough in German to be able to follow the story accurately.
“So I got a cloak. It was a good cloak and I'd have been quite happy with that, and I was just about to leave when I saw a little bottle on one of the shelves, and I was pretty sure it must be the Jägerbräu I'd heard so much about. And I thought it would be a really good idea to take it. Either I'd just die and be out of the situation, or I'd become a Jäger and able to cope with it a lot better. I put the bottle in my pocket, got out the same way I came in, found a quiet spot in the woods, wrapped myself up in my nice new cloak, and swallowed the potion. But when I woke up, I was in a house here in England.”
“A house?” asked Charles, still in German. “Near here?”
“Within walking distance, yes,” replied von Luftschiff, who was in fact a little vague about what that distance might be. He was aware that he could now walk faster than he had previously done and feel less tired for it, but he had not yet done enough walking to be able to calibrate and get an accurate estimate of distance covered.
"What happened to the cloak?” asked Hilde.
“I don't know. I think the people who found me must have taken it. As far as I can tell from talking to the guard, some people kidnapped me while I was still unconscious and brought me here because they wanted me to work for them, but they didn't want me to know who they were or where I was working.”
Charles' good-natured face wrinkled into a frown. “If they took the cloak, it seems likely that they were the people who owned that laboratory place you broke into. If they had the resources to bring you over here just like that, they weren't so poor that they needed a cloak, so they were probably just reclaiming it.”
“And there's something else, dear,” added Hilde. “We have a lot of the Jägerkin where I come from. I know how long the transformation process takes, because I have seen it happen with my own eyes. It would not be possible to get anyone from there to here while they were still unconscious, even with a very fast airship. I'm afraid, Herr von Luftschiff, that you were probably drugged just as you were starting to come round.”
“I felt very strange when I woke up,” von Luftschiff admitted. “But I put that down to the effects of the potion. After all, it is powerful stuff.”
“This house where you woke up,” said Charles, “would it be in that direction?” He gestured with a lean arm.
“Yes. Just that way. Cross over the green and keep walking, and you will come to it. It will be on your left.”
“Can you describe it?”
Von Luftschiff did so. He had a good visual memory, and moreover he liked plants and tended to know their names. Charles nodded sombrely.
“I thought so. You know you've walked about fifteen miles, though?”
Von Luftschiff laughed. “It didn't feel like it!”
Hilde smiled. “I suppose it won't. You're enjoying your new body, then?”
“Oh yes. It's good to be so strong. Lucky for me, or I'd never have escaped.”
“I was just going to ask about that,” said Charles, and von Luftschiff obligingly told the story. To his surprise, Hilde frowned as he explained how he had persuaded the guards to let him go.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“It shouldn't have been as easy as that,” Hilde replied. “Something's not right. They must know something about Jägers, or they wouldn't have taken the trouble to kidnap you in the first place; but anyone who knows anything wouldn't leave only one human guard in the house, because they'd be well aware that one guard, even with a weapon, would be pretty useless against you.”
“Maybe they thought I wouldn't know that,” suggested von Luftschiff thoughtfully.
“Oh, I'm sure they guessed you'd work it out soon enough,” said Charles. “We know something about these people, although not as much yet as we'd like. We don't know exactly who they are, but we do know they're clever. They wouldn't make such an elementary mistake. It looks as if you were allowed to escape.”
“But why?”
“I can think of a possible reason,” said Hilde grimly. “Let's suppose they want an army of Jägers. But they haven't even got one. They get hold of some of the potion somehow, thinking they'll make one, but you break in and drink the potion. They go looking for you, and when they find you, you're well on the way to transforming. So they haul you in, put you on an airship, drug you as soon as you start coming round... and then they implant some kind of tracking device. This is a good country to look for Jägerkin who aren't already in some kind of militia, and if you want to find them, the best way to do it is to send another Jäger out after them. And if you believe you escaped against their will, you won't suspect you're being used as a tracker.”
Von Luftschiff stared at her. “That would be evil. How can we find out if it's true?”
“Come up to our room after dinner, and we'll find out,” said Charles. “We have a few interesting devices of our own.”
“What are you two, exactly?” asked von Luftschiff.
Charles grinned. “Oh, we're all sorts of things. For the purpose of being here at the moment, we're travelling organ repairers. We've been called in to look at the church organ, which is, I must say, a very fine specimen of its kind. It should be even finer when we've finished with it.”
The light of understanding dawned. “You're sparks,” said von Luftschiff.
“Of course we are,” replied Hilde, “but that is who we are, not what we do. We do many things.”
At this point, von Luftschiff's cauliflower cheese arrived. It was, indeed, big. The barmaid must have explained to the cook about the gold coin, or possibly about the teeth and claws, because it was clear that the whole cauliflower had been used, and an unusually big one at that. There were also two bottles of red wine, so von Luftschiff called for two extra glasses so that he could share it with his new friends. As he pitched into the cauliflower, Charles said, “I've been thinking. There's another possibility.”
“What's that?” asked von Luftschiff, with his mouth full of hot cauliflower.
“I agree that the tracking device is the most likely explanation, but maybe you weren't sent to find other Jägerkin. Maybe they want you to find someone that you've got a far better chance of finding than a human has.”
“Who?”
“Well... they do say the Heterodyne heiress may be on her way over here. Could be it's her they want.”
Von Luftschiff dropped his fork. “The Heterodyne heiress? She really exists? I've heard some rumours, but...”
“Oh, the rumours are true,” said Hilde. “We know someone who's met her.”
“Wow! But if she's real, why doesn't she save Europa?”
“She is doing her best,” said Charles. “But you've seen how it is. Quite a lot for one heiress to handle, even a Heterodyne.”
“We're going a little too fast, dear,” warned Hilde. “We don't even know for certain that there is a tracking device yet. If there isn't, we're going to have to come up with a whole new hypothesis.”
“Quite true, darling,” agreed Charles. “At least that's easy enough to check.”
Von Luftschiff finished the cauliflower and let out a contented sigh. “Ah! That was excellent. I wonder if they have dessert?”
They did have dessert, though the choice was only between cherry pie and rhubarb crumble. Von Luftschiff hesitated; he would really have preferred the cherry pie, but he had after all just been eating cheese, and he was well aware of certain natural properties of rhubarb. After a moment or two, an idea struck him, and he ordered both. This seemed like an entirely sensible way out of his dilemma.
“Not to pry unnecessarily,” said Charles, “but how are you for money?”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “I had one gold piece, and at the moment I'm enjoying it. I was thinking maybe someone might take me on as a labourer. I'm very strong.”
“Would you like to work for us instead?” asked Charles. “Some of the work we do can get a little dangerous, and it would be useful to have someone like you around. You could still search for your own kind, and in fact that would probably make it easier, because we travel a lot.”
“Yes,” agreed Hilde. “I was thinking the same thing. We could do with someone who can defend us if necessary, but we don't want someone who uses violence indiscriminately. You clearly don't. I was very impressed when you told us about that man's wrist.”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “Everything in its place. When I meet up with my own kind, I'll be very happy to join in with all the fights. But it's not fair to hurt humans unless you can't stop them doing something stupid any other way.” He paused. “I think I might like to work for you, but I want to know more about what you do first. Even for a pair of sparks, you seem unusual.”
“We'll happily tell you later, when we're looking for the device,” replied Hilde. “In the meantime, we can pay you more than you'd get labouring, and we'll throw in your meals, accommodation and travel expenses. And if you don't decide you want to work for us... well, you've given us some useful information about that house. We should pay you for that, at least.”
Charles nodded. “Yes. It's only fair.”
Once von Luftschiff had finished eating, the barmaid called for the bootboy, who showed him up to a small but comfortable room. The Greenwoods followed, and it turned out that their own room was immediately opposite. As soon as the bootboy was out of sight, they beckoned him into it. Charles got down inelegantly onto his stomach and started foraging under the bed, while Hilde ensured that the door was locked and the curtains were completely drawn. A few minutes later, Charles straightened up, a little dishevelled, with a small black suitcase in his hands. He beamed.
“Now we'll find out what those blighters have been doing to you!” he said, opening the case. “If you'd like to sit down there, I'll do the honours. It won't hurt.” He took out a strange brass device that vaguely resembled a small telescope, but with far more knobs and dials than any self-respecting telescope ought to have. “Keep still, please,” he added, as he waved it in front of von Luftschiff.
It pinged melodiously. Charles frowned, twisted one of the knobs and peered through the end of the device. “A-ha,” he said. “Well, that was clever. Nobody's ever going to notice it there, not even you.”
“You've found it, then?” asked von Luftschiff. “Where is it?”
“It's in one of your teeth. Doesn't have to be very big, since it's just a passive tracker.” He glanced at his wife. “How's your dentistry, sweetheart?”
She smiled. “If they put it in without it hurting, we can get it out without it hurting. Which tooth is it?”
Charles pointed. There was no sign of anything unusual from the front.
“All right,” said Hilde. “Please put your head right back and open your mouth as wide as you can, Herr von Luftschiff. I'll get it out for you.”
“And then we'll need to fill the gap,” added Charles.
“We still have a little of that special ceramic left. It's no good for anything else. We may as well use that.”
“I'm surprised you kept it,” said Charles.
Hilde was already poking carefully at the back of von Luftschiff's fang. “Well, you never know, do you, dear?”
The poking around was uncomfortable, but no worse. A few moments later, he felt something like a flake of metal drop onto his tongue, and at almost the same moment something came out of his tooth. Hilde held it in front of him on the palm of her hand.
“There,” she said. She put down the hatpin she had been using. “They didn't fill the hole very well, but if you had felt any roughness there, you'd just have put it down to the change. Now, we're going to hang on to this for a while, and when we get to the next large town or city we're going to drop it randomly into someone's pocket. With reasonable luck it'll take those people in the building quite a while to discover it's no longer attached to you.”
Charles had been going through the suitcase. “Oh, here it is.” He handed Hilde a tiny packet, well wrapped in tinfoil.
“Thank you. Open wide again, please, Herr von Luftschiff.” And, with a little further assistance from the hatpin, Hilde gently packed the cavity with the soft white material out of the packet.
“That should set hard overnight,” she said, “but don't eat anything for twelve hours. That should see you through till breakfast.”
Von Luftschiff gazed at the tiny device that had come out of his tooth. “They can really use that to track me?”
“That's right,” said Charles. “But not from very far away. I'm not an expert on this kind of device, but as far as I know, the maximum tracking range is about thirty to thirty-five miles. That suggests they've got some kind of network.”
“That's not a good thought,” said Hilde.
“No; but we're ahead of them at the moment,” Charles pointed out. “Now, you wanted to know more about what we do. I think the best way to describe us is this. We are Her Majesty's peacekeepers.”
“Not all of them, of course,” added Hilde, with a smile.
“Indeed, no. But peacekeepers come in many forms. There are the police and the armed forces to deal with ordinary disturbances of the peace. And then there are people like us.”
“And you deal with the extraordinary disturbances?” asked von Luftschiff. “Rogue sparks, revenants, clanks gone haywire?”
“All that kind of thing,” said Hilde.
“And church organs,” added Charles, deadpan.
Von Luftschiff beamed, showing all his teeth. “You know what?” he said. “I think I'd love to work for you.”
* * * * *
Von Luftschiff woke the next morning feeling refreshed, ready to go, and above all hungry. This new body had a lot to be said for it, but it did require fuelling on a lavish scale. He washed, pulled on his trousers, and padded across the corridor, where he tapped as lightly as he could on the Greenwoods' door. Charles opened it at once.
“Ah, good morning, Herr von Luftschiff,” he said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”
“Very well indeed, thank you. Did you?”
“Pretty well, thank you.” Charles put his head on one side, giving a curiously birdlike impression. “H'mm. What happened to that cloak thing you were wearing last night?”
“I didn't want to put it on just yet. It's itchy.”
“I should think it is. We really ought to do something about that. You need some proper clothes.”
Hilde appeared behind him. “Good morning! Yes, Charles is quite right. Those trousers don't look at all comfortable.”
“They're not,” von Luftschiff admitted, “but I'm not sure what to do about it.”
Hilde grinned disconcertingly. “I am. I've just had an idea.”
“Ah,” said Charles. “The immediate future has an invention in it. I know the signs.”
Hilde put her hands on her husband's shoulders. “Charles dear, would you like to go and measure him up in his room? I'm going to need some space.”
“If you've got a tape measure,” said Charles.
“Of course. Just a moment.” She opened a drawer, took out a small portable sewing case, opened that, and handed Charles a tape measure. “I'll call you when I'm ready.”
“She can spark before breakfast,” Charles explained, a little apologetically. “It's her best time. As for me, I'm never properly warmed up until I've had at least three cups of coffee.”
“Yes, but you can spark in the evening, dear, and I can very seldom do that. Now, off you go. Oh, and what are your favourite colours, Herr von Luftschiff?”
“I'm not really fussy. Black and grey will do well for me. They don't show the dirt so much.”
“And could you bring that cloak thing, too?” asked Hilde. “The machine is going to need raw materials, and I've only got one spare petticoat. No, don't look like that. It's not going to look a bit like either sacking or muslin by the time the machine has finished with it.”
In some trepidation, von Luftschiff obligingly went and got the cloak. Charles took a full set of measurements, noting them down in a little black notebook that he carried in an inside pocket, and then perched himself on the end of von Luftschiff's bed. “I hope she won't be too long,” he confessed. “I don't know about you, but I really need coffee.”
“I need breakfast,” said von Luftschiff. “I wonder if they will do an omelette?”
“It seems not unlikely.”
“Good. I want a big omelette. With lots of herbs and tomatoes.”
“I thought all the Jägerkin ate meat?”
“Not this one. I didn't eat meat when I was human, and now I've changed, I still don't want to.”
“You don't mind if I do? I heard they might have devilled kidneys.”
“No problem with that,” von Luftschiff assured him. “You eat what you eat, I eat what I eat.”
They chatted for a little while, but in fact it was not very long before Hilde tapped on the door. She had rolled up the sleeves of her sensible grey dress and donned a big leather work apron over the top. She looked rather like a cross between a blacksmith and a Valkyrie.
“It's ready!” she called cheerfully. “Time to feed it the measurements.”
When they returned to the other room, it was obvious why Hilde had needed the space. The thing she had built took up most of the floor between the bed and the window. Charles raised an eyebrow.
“It looks very impressive, dear, but I hope you didn't use all the spare parts,” he said.
“I did. And a few that weren't strictly spare. But it's all right; once it's done its job, I can take it apart again. Now, have you got the measurements handy?”
Charles produced the notebook, and Hilde adjusted a set of dials on the front of the machine. “There!” she said. “And you wanted monochrome, which made things a lot easier. We'll do the shirt first.”
An additional dial was calibrated from white to black through all the shades of grey. Hilde set it to a mid tone, then pressed a button marked “shirt”. The machine whirred and clanked into action. Pieces of fabric were dragged up from a bin at the bottom, the fibres teased out with hooks, and then everything re-spun together at a dizzying rate. The spun threads were passed through a colouring unit (“it doesn't actually dye them,” explained Hilde proudly, “but what it does do is alter the light-reflecting properties of the surface”), and then woven on a complex network of pins into pre-shaped pieces of fabric. The pins looked suspiciously like the ones out of the portable sewing kit. A multitude of tiny clamps grabbed the pieces and guided them through the sewing machine attachment, which had been threading itself up as the pieces were woven, and assembled them rapidly and neatly. A miniature blade descended from somewhere in the workings and sliced open the buttonholes, which were promptly bound by the sewing machine attachment; finally, the buttons were stitched in place and the finished shirt was delivered in a hopper at the front. Before von Luftschiff had time to say a word, Hilde turned the colour dial to full black, pressed the button marked “trousers”, and set the whole thing clattering off again.
“According to my calculations, there should be just enough to make you a waistcoat as well,” she said, handing him the shirt. “Black for that too, or maybe a darker grey?”
“Oh... black would be fine. Thank you,” said von Luftschiff, a little dazed. The shirt he was holding did not feel exactly like cotton or linen, but on the other hand neither did it feel as though it had just been re-spun from some old sacks and a long muslin petticoat. He tried it on; it fitted perfectly. As he finished buttoning it, the trousers fell into the hopper. These had taken even less time than the shirt; fewer buttons, as Hilde helpfully explained.
For obvious reasons of modesty he returned to his own room to change his trousers, and the thought struck him that his old ones would be no good to anyone now and might as well be fed into the machine. Back in the room opposite, he handed them to Hilde. “Can you use these?” he asked.
“Oh, certainly! I can make up some extra fabric for repairs. Or you could get another waistcoat out of these if you like.”
“Why not make something for yourself? After all, you have given up your petticoat.”
“Thank you! Perhaps I shall have a waistcoat too. But not until after breakfast. I can wait.” Charles looked distinctly relieved at this information.
Hilde gave him the waistcoat that had just popped out of the machine, and he put it on. “You look very good now,” she said, with approval. “Look in the mirror.”
Von Luftschiff did. He had a mirror in his own room, but even so, he was still getting used to the sight of his new face. It had to be said, even allowing for that, that Hilde had a good point. Everyone, regardless of size, shape or species, looks better in well-cut, expertly fitted clothes, and von Luftschiff was no exception.
“Thank you,” said von Luftschiff, with unaccustomed shyness. “These are the best clothes I've ever had.”
Hilde beamed. “You're welcome. Now, shall we go down and have breakfast?”
The Black Swan did indeed offer omelettes, or, at any rate, it was happy to offer an omelette to a huge broad-shouldered green person with formidable claws and teeth. There were half a dozen eggs in it, plenty of herbs, and all the tomatoes they were able to find in the pantry. Charles also got his devilled kidneys, while Hilde was content with a couple of slices of toast and some home-made raspberry jam. They had a pot of tea and a pot of coffee between them. Charles drank at least half of the coffee, and visibly completed his waking-up process under its beneficent influence.
“We've to be at the church at half past ten,” he said. “Then, once the organ is fully repaired, we'll come back here, pay the bill and leave.”
“That should give me plenty of time to take the machine apart and pack away the pieces,” said Hilde. “Which is just as well, because I expect we'll need a few of them for the organ. Herr von Luftschiff, are you interested in church organs?”
“I've never really given them much thought,” he admitted.
“We wouldn't like you to be bored while we're in there,” she said. “Do you like reading?”
This was a surprisingly difficult question. Von Luftschiff had always enjoyed reading in the past, but now...? He glanced down at his claws. While they were undoubtedly excellent for self-defence, holding a book and turning the pages without ripping them to shreds was going to take a little practice.
“Ah,” said Hilde. “I'm going to need to do some more inventing, I think.”
“But not now, please, dear!” Charles almost wailed. “We have a church organ to fix. Listen, for now, would you like to borrow our peg solitaire? It's wood, so you can't tear it up, and it doesn't matter if it gets a little scratched. It's scratched already.”
“That is very kind of you,” said von Luftschiff gratefully. “Yes, thank you. I should like that.”
The church was at one end of the green. It was built of softly weathered yellowish sandstone, with a tower that was just tall enough for at least one of its four clocks to be seen from almost everywhere in the village. The doors were dark oak, embellished with much wrought iron, and they stood open invitingly. The curate, a Mr Frobisher, was waiting for them inside.
“Thank you for arriving so promptly,” he said, with a smile. Then he noticed von Luftschiff, and visibly balked.
“This is Herr von Luftschiff, our assistant,” explained Hilde. “He won't hurt you.”
“Damn right I von't,” said von Luftschiff, and then immediately realised his mistake. “Sorry. Not de ting to say in a place like dis.”
“Well, you did make your point, at least,” observed Mr Frobisher. “The organ is up here, if you'd like to follow me.”
Charles and Hilde followed the curate into the organ loft. Von Luftschiff considered that he would probably do a better job of guarding them if he did not attempt to cram himself in there with them, given that any intruder with malicious intent was likely to walk straight in through the open door. He settled himself in one of the pews and looked round the building. There were the usual stained-glass windows and ornate wall-mounted tombstones, some of the older ones inscribed in Latin, and the usual scent of musty hymnals and beeswax polish. A white cloth with gold embroidery adorned the altar, for it was between Easter and Pentecost, and a tall candle stood close to the font at the back.
It was just a village church, then. Nothing unusual about it. Satisfied at this, von Luftschiff took out the peg solitaire and started playing with it as unobtrusively as possible. He had his own personal brand of faith which had never fitted very neatly into churches, but he had no wish to disrespect the sort of faith that did.
The organ swelled out suddenly, almost causing him to drop the pegs. He looked up and saw Charles sitting at the keyboard. Among his other talents, he was clearly a fine musician, since he was now playing a Bach fugue by ear. After a few minutes, the music stopped almost as abruptly as it had started, and von Luftschiff strained his newly keen hearing to catch what was being said up above.
“Yes,” Charles was saying. “Your problem is that there isn't enough air coming through the pipes on some of the stops. That means that either there's a partial fault with the air delivery system, or there's an obstruction somewhere. I think the latter's more likely, but either way we'll need to do some disassembly.”
“All right. How long will it take?” asked Mr Frobisher.
“Depends what's wrong, but at least the rest of the morning. Maybe the rest of the day,” replied Charles.
“Then I'd better leave you to it,” said the curate. “I'll arrange for refreshments in the vestry. Coffee, and some sandwiches for lunch.”
“Ah,” said Hilde. “Thank you, but could I ask for a separate plate of non-meat ones? Herr von Luftschiff doesn't eat meat.”
“It might be easier to send in some salad instead, then, with cold meat on a plate for those who want it. I'll sort that out. I'm used to people who don't eat meat; my great-aunt doesn't.” He paused. “She's ninety-two, so it clearly hasn't done her any harm.”
“Thank you,” said Hilde. “That would be perfect.”
The curate departed, and the Greenwoods proceeded to roll up their sleeves and get down to business. Despite the occasional snatches of melody from up above, and the peg solitaire, von Luftschiff soon started to get a little bored. After a while, he went to the top of the stairs and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
“Oh, if you wouldn't mind,” said Hilde, from underneath a bewildering conglomeration of pipes. “Could you just hold this for me a moment?”
After that, the time passed quickly enough. Both Hilde and Charles found plenty for him to do, despite the lack of space, and by the time they broke off for lunch the source of the problem had been identified. The organ had apparently at some point been refurbished by a spark with considerably more ingenuity than practical common sense, as a result of which it had a good many more individual bellows than any reasonable organ ought to have. It was one of these small bellows which was causing the problem. The structure was sound, but it kept sticking. Charles and Hilde were still discussing whether to repair it or to take it out altogether and re-route some of the airflow as they came down the stairs.
Lunch proved to be an agreeable distraction. Mr Frobisher had laid on a large bowl of green salad, a smaller bowl of tomatoes and spring onions arranged artistically, a steaming dish of new potatoes fragrant with mint, a plate of cold meat and a large wedge of cheese. Von Luftschiff cautiously took a small slice of cheese, since he felt that the jury was still out on whether it still had unfortunate effects on his lower digestive tract, and helped himself enthusiastically to the vegetables. They were still eating when a maid appeared bearing a blancmange on a tray.
“Excuse me,” said von Luftschiff. “Vot is dot ting?”
The maid curtseyed in a flurry. “Blancmange, sir.”
“But vot ISS it?” von Luftschiff persisted. “Vot is it made of? Hy have never seen such a ting before.”
“It's milk and sugar and cornflour, sir,” explained the maid. “Would you like to try a little?”
“Yust a little, then,” said von Luftschiff doubtfully.
“It's very popular in this country,” said Charles.
The maid dished out a minute helping. Von Luftschiff put aside the salad and gingerly took a spoonful.
“Is not so popular vith me,” he decided. “Sorry.”
As soon as the maid was out of earshot, he reverted to German. “That stuff is weird,” he said, indicating the contentious dessert. “When I get the chance, I'll cook you apple strudel. Now that's a real dessert.”
Hilde's green eyes lit up immediately. “That would be lovely! I haven't had apple strudel for years.”
“Do you enjoy cooking?” asked Charles.
“Oh, yes. Big hobby of mine. I was a cook in the Army.”
“Didn't they make you cook meat?” asked Hilde curiously.
“I don't mind cooking it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Especially not when I've got assistants to help. What other people do is their own business. But I always used to do something with lentils or split peas or that kind of thing. I'd have that as a main course, and other people could have some as a side dish if they wanted. A lot of them did, because I usually spiced it up.” He grinned. “I like spices.”
Hilde finished her salad. “That sounds good to me. Well, I am going to have some of this blancmange. Charles, what about you?”
“Just a little for me, please, dear. I'm quite full. I ate quite a lot of potatoes.” He patted his almost non-existent stomach.
“What are we doing about the bellows?” asked Hilde, as she doled out the blancmange.
“I still say take it out altogether,” replied Charles. “It's a little more work than repairing it, but on the other hand it is one less part to go wrong in future.”
“But then if anything goes wrong with the bellows we pull in to compensate for it...”
“That's a point,” Charles conceded. “Really, what we should do is redesign the whole organ.”
“We haven't time, darling,” Hilde reminded him.
“No, but I'm getting this idea...”
Von Luftschiff sighed inwardly, stretched out a claw, and snagged the last tomato. They were undoubtedly a nice couple, but... well. They were sparks. What could you expect?
* * * * *
In the end, the organ problem was solved just as you might expect two sparks in a long and happy marriage to solve it. They decided to go for both options: repair the problematic bellows, and also set up a back-up system in case of failure. Of course, this inevitably meant that Charles got a little over-excited and insisted on backing up all the other bellows as well, resulting in a most impressively complicated final airflow system, but at least the organ was now pretty much immune to any failure short of actual sabotage.
Mr Frobisher was called in to listen to the results, and was delighted with them. Since it was now nearly four o'clock, he also insisted that they should stay for tea and cake before they left. Von Luftschiff was already clear that there were many drinks he preferred to the British national beverage of choice, but cake was a different matter. Cake was, as far as he was concerned, a good idea. So they all trooped round to the vicarage, which was just behind the church, and tea and cake were served by the same slightly bemused maid, who discovered that the big green gentleman might not be too keen on blancmange, but he was absolutely on board with the concept of gingerbread.
“Well, that was fun,” observed Charles, as they all walked back to the Swan. “That organ had a most beautiful tone.”
“Yes, but it is getting late,” said Hilde. “We may have to stay here another night after all.”
“Oh, we'll be fine,” replied Charles cheerfully. “It's no more than ten miles to the next town. We probably won't even have to burn any fuel.”
“Fuel?” asked von Luftschiff. “How do you travel? By airship?”
“No, but we've got this device we ran up between the two of us,” Hilde explained.
“I wouldn't say so much ran up,” Charles demurred. “It's more that we're perpetually running her up. She's an ongoing project.”
“She's a bit like a carriage,” said Hilde.
“Or a velocipede,” added Charles.
“We call her Bertha,” said Hilde, as if this explained everything.
“She's round here,” said Charles, leading them down a narrow alley between the pub and the adjacent house. This took them to a small cobbled yard behind the pub, with a row of stables at the back and a cart which presumably belonged to the establishment standing close to the door leading to the kitchen. And...
...and, well. There was Bertha.
Von Luftschiff had been expecting something enormous, possibly because both the clothing machine and the organ had been on the large side. In fact, Bertha was not particularly big. Once upon a time, probably many years ago, before any spark had started to tinker with her, it was possible to see that she had been a pony trap. The basic shape was still there. But she now had plum and gold metal cladding, and an improbably large wheel at the front where the pony would originally have gone, and a roof, and windows, and...
“What is that on the top?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Oh, those are the flywheels,” said Hilde. “They're very important because they store energy. The system is set up so that they rotate in opposite directions at about the same speed; that's a safety measure. It means that if for any reason she gets knocked over, she can't be dragged along on her side by the flywheel.”
Charles nodded enthusiastically. “And she's dual-powered. If you look at the driver's seat, you'll see there are pedals. The inside seats have pedals too, if you want to use them. There's also a steam engine. There are controls for the speed and the gearing and so on, and if you generate more energy than you need to move her along at the speed you want, it just gets stored in the flywheels and used when you're generating less energy. And if they're still going round at the end of the journey, you can use the energy to charge up any power cells you happen to have.”
Hilde beamed. “That's how I ran the clothing machine this morning. Half a dozen old but very reliable Sturmvoraus power cells.”
“Remarkable,” said von Luftschiff.
“We are rather proud of her,” said Charles, with a smile. “I wonder, would you mind helping bring the luggage down? The compartment is underneath, and it opens at the back.”
It was quite a big compartment. But then, there was quite a lot of luggage. Charles and Hilde could travel light when it came to clothes and personal effects, but then there was... everything else. Everything else, so far as von Luftschiff could determine, consisted of three boxes of tools (a large shared box, plus two smaller boxes of more specialised tools, one belonging to each); a large wooden trunk with drawers divided into tiny subcompartments, containing every possible kind of nail, screw, washer, tack, hinge, cog, gear, bolt or rivet, to name just the parts he recognised; several pieces of sheet metal, at least one of which appeared to have been carefully unrolled from a galvanised bucket; pieces of wood of various types and in various shapes and sizes; a roll of rubber sheeting (heavier than it looked); a set of stacking boxes containing numerous components which von Luftschiff was at a complete loss to identify; three balls of twine in graduated thicknesses; a can of oil; several rags in various stages of filthiness; and a block of beeswax. How the Greenwoods had carried it all up to their room in the first place was a matter of wonder, but then von Luftschiff had a suspicion that Charles, at any rate, might be surprisingly strong. Small wiry men sometimes were.
The existence of Bertha confirmed another suspicion that von Luftschiff had had. Sparks were not, in general, popular where he came from; it was generally rather grudgingly acknowledged that good ones existed (and he himself came from an area where the Wulfenbach family was normally assigned to this category), but they had also done a great deal of harm, whether through actual malice or simply making mistakes. Going around in something like Bertha at home would have invited a lynch mob. Here, in this far more peaceful land, it was clear that sparks were at least tolerated, even if it did appear to be polite not to mention the fact aloud. Mr Frobisher, he recalled, had not alluded to it once, even though it must have been plain to him that they had used spark genius to repair the organ.
Of course, as far as he was aware, Her Britannic Majesty was not a spark. Maybe that was really all that was needed. Maybe sparks were all right as long as you didn't go letting them be in charge of things. Mind you, once they were in charge, just try stopping them...
His thoughts were interrupted by the realisation that something was wrong. Charles was standing in the yard holding the same gadget that he had used previously to detect the tracer, and his face, always fairly wrinkled, had creased into a road map of worry lines.
“Oh dear,” he said. “I'm afraid we've lost Ashmole.”
Hilde, who was just bustling up with her parasol and a jacket that her husband had forgotten, immediately assumed an equally worried expression. “When you say lost, do you mean mechanical failure or something worse?”
“Given where we sent him, I think we've got to assume something worse,” replied Charles. “This is... really not good.”
“Who is Ashmole?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Ah,” said Charles. “Well, you'll have gathered that the actual reason we were in this area was to investigate that house where you were held, yes? You'll also have noticed that we stayed fifteen miles away and didn't go any closer to the house? Ashmole did.”
“That doesn't really answer Herr von Luftschiff's question, dear, except rather indirectly,” said Hilde. “Ashmole is a mechanical mole. He can travel quite fast underground. We sent him to burrow into the cellar of the house and find out anything he could.”
“That's why he's called Ashmole,” explained Charles, seriously. “The original Ashmole was, ah, an occultist, so it seems an appropriate name for a creature whose job is to discover hidden secrets, even though they're rather more mundane ones.”
“Yes, well, the point, darling, is that he's basically a remote viewing device,” said Hilde. “If he sees anything of interest, the Universal Viewer, which is that gadget there, goes ping, and if we look down the tube we can see what Ashmole is looking at.”
“And we can normally also use the Viewer to contact Ashmole,” added Charles, “except that we can't.” His mouth turned downwards in an inverted U which would have been almost comic if the situation had not been so obviously serious. “I don't know if the people in that house can reverse-engineer Ashmole to track us, but I'm afraid the safest policy from now on is to assume they probably can.”
Von Luftschiff thought about this. “So,” he said. “There's probably going to be trouble?”
“It does rather look like it,” replied Hilde.
“Real trouble? Not just humans-doing-stupid-things trouble?”
“Real trouble,” Charles confirmed, lugubriously.
“I'll get to fight things?”
“That,” said Charles, “seems entirely likely.”
Von Luftschiff beamed, displaying all his fangs. “Wonderful!”
This seemed to cheer both the Greenwoods somewhat, and without further ado they all climbed into Bertha, who was snugly upholstered in plum-coloured velvet. Hilde apologised for being unable to pedal at the moment, as her knee was giving her some trouble; at this point von Luftschiff mentally re-ran the events of the day, and realised that she had been limping slightly since the morning. Charles was sympathetic and unsurprised; the knee was clearly an ongoing problem. Von Luftschiff offered to pedal, since he had no trouble with his knees and it was likely to be better than just sitting there, and Hilde showed him what to do while Charles clambered up into the driver's seat.
“If you've ever ridden a velocipede, the technique is pretty much the same,” she said, “except that you can go at any pace you like, because Charles will be controlling the speed from the front. Any spare energy just goes into the flywheels. And if you get tired, you can take a break or stop altogether at any time.”
Von Luftschiff had tried riding a velocipede only once, and decided it was not for him. It had seemed at the time to be one of those ideas that was excellent in theory, but required a great deal more work on the practical side. However, the Greenwoods had clearly thought very hard about that. Bertha had comfortable seats with a back to them, and there was no way anyone could fall off in the normal course of events. The pedals were set in a deep slot in the floor, and when they were not in use a wooden lid could be placed over them for safety and comfort. And, crucially, there was no need to worry about steering, since Charles was doing all that. Steering had been his undoing on his ill-fated velocipede outing. He had picked himself up regretfully afterwards, thinking that the ride had actually been a lot of fun until this point, and almost wishing he had the spark himself so that he could redesign the machine to be a little more rider-friendly.
So he settled himself in the velvet seat with enthusiasm and began pedalling at a fast, steady rhythm. Bertha hissed, whirred and clanked into action, pulling slowly out of the yard and turning into the alley. Charles steered her into the lane alongside the green, and now she began to pick up speed. By the time they were out of the village, she was doing a steady twenty miles an hour.
Trouble arrived about halfway along the road to the next town. They were passing a field of horses at the time, and in the field were two sturdy men, most likely the farmer and his son, hard at work shovelling manure into sacks. Hilde was just starting to make a remark about one of the horses when a rain of metal shot struck the back window, crazing the glass.
Charles ducked swiftly down through the hatch into the body of the carriage; the driver's seat did have a hood, but nonetheless it was an exposed position. “Flying clanks,” he gasped. “Better start winding out the cannon.”
Hilde peered cautiously through the damaged glass. More shot struck Bertha's metal-plated body. “Is that all the shot they've got?” she asked.
“Probably, but that's not the point,” replied Charles, who was operating a complicated-looking set of levers just below the hatch. “I think the shot's meant to discourage us from getting out and running. They look as though they're going to ram us.”
Von Luftschiff pressed his nose to the window near Hilde. “Where does the cannon fire from?” he asked.
“Just below the roof. Why?”
“I just need to know where to stand,” explained von Luftschiff cheerfully. He wrenched the door open, leapt out, and grabbed the shovel of the astonished farmer, who was still trying to work out whether or not he was personally in danger.
“Scuse me,” he said, companionably. “Hy yust need to borrow dis a minute. Hyu don't mind, do hyu?”
Whether or not the farmer minded, he was too startled to express any opinion. He sprang back as one of the airborne clanks sprayed von Luftschiff with pellets.
“Hoy!” yelled von Luftschiff. “Hyu schpoil my nize waistcoat vot Hilde made yust for me, hyu going to end up in her schpare parts box.”
Shouldering the shovel, he scrambled up to the driver's seat, then looked up at the clanks. They were approaching fast; sharp-nosed, finned things, more like airborne sharks than any kind of bird. The flywheels on the roof were still spinning rapidly. He sized them up, made his decision, and vaulted.
The first of the clanks came within range while Charles and Hilde were still getting the cannon ready. Von Luftschiff, who had already built up a fair amount of angular momentum, whacked it squarely out of the air with the shovel, and it fell in a shower of nuts and bolts at the feet of the bewildered farmer, who finally found his voice.
“What the hell are you doing with my shovel?” he demanded.
Grinning from ear to ear and spinning like a gyroscope, von Luftschiff shouted back, “Hy having FUN!”
A couple more, who were unable to stop or turn in time, succumbed to the shovel before the rest of the fleet drew back. They hovered a little uncertainly, apparently waiting for instructions. It appeared that whoever was controlling them knew about the cannon and had told them to drop straight down onto Bertha from above, thus staying out of its range. They had not, however, bargained for a battle-happy Jäger on the roof.
Von Luftschiff took advantage of their hesitation to leap back for a moment into the driver's seat and call through the hatch. “They're overhead,” he said, reverting to German. “I need something to throw at them.”
“Here,” said Hilde, taking a heavy cannonball from the box. “Can you throw that?”
“You bet,” replied von Luftschiff, grinning. Before he could take it, another of the flying clanks decided to chance it; he leapt to his feet again and sent it to clank limbo with the shovel. He ducked down again, grabbed the cannonball, and pitched it among their adversaries. They scattered backwards, allowing Charles and Hilde to take out a few of them with the cannon.
That left about half as many as had originally attacked, but the rest were still dangerous; already they were regrouping. Hilde stuck her head through the hatch. “Good move, but I don't think it'll work twice,” she warned.
“No. But I've got a plan. Have we got any thin rope?”
“Is the clothes line any good?”
“Sure. If you don't mind it getting a bit messy.”
“It'll wash,” replied Hilde, with the sublime confidence of a spark who knows that if anything ever gets too unpleasant to be washed in the usual way, she can always come up with a device to do the job. “Just a minute. We keep it inside one of the seats. Can you keep them entertained while I find it?”
“I've got the shovel,” said von Luftschiff happily.
“I'll take that as yes, then.”
The next clank didn't waste time trying to ram Bertha. It aimed straight for von Luftschiff, who promptly gave it such a whang with the shovel that its nose went through the centre of the blade. Von Luftschiff waved it around in the air for a few moments, then, noticing that it was still functioning enough to try to extricate itself, finished it off by bashing it with all his strength against the upper flywheel. He then sent the whole lot, shovel and all, whirling back among its cronies. Another one went down.
While they regrouped again, von Luftschiff caught the rope from Hilde, half-climbed and half-slid to the ground, picked up a full sack of manure, and quickly tied it to one end of the rope. “Hoy!” protested the farmer. “That's my mulch, that is!”
“Hey, is no problem. Hy not schtealing it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Hy yust borrowing it.”
“But...”
But von Luftschiff was already scrambling back on top of the carriage. “Now,” he called down to the farmer, “hyu see vot hy do. All above board, ja?”
Jumping back atop the flywheel, he began to pay out the line. It was probably fair to assume that the flying clanks had never seen anyone impart this kind of angular velocity to a heavy sack of finest horse manure before. Spinning at a dizzying rate, he lengthened the line until the sack was orbiting the flywheel like a satellite. Down below, Charles was making some adjustments to the cannon; the clanks hovered, but could not risk crossing the plane of the rushing sack.
Then von Luftschiff slowly and gently raised one hand above the other, tilting the plane of rotation.
The clanks saw what was coming and tried to scatter. They were not fast enough. A split second after von Luftschiff let go, the sack slammed into the leading clank, knocking it out of the air and sending great gobs of manure flying everywhere. The remaining clanks were covered in the stuff. It was impossible to see where their visual sensors were, but, wherever they were, they were now having trouble; the clanks milled about blindly in the air, trying desperately not to bump into one another.
Von Luftschiff put his head through the hatch again. “OK,” he said. “One of you drive, the other one take the rest of them out with the cannon.”
After that, it was simple, except of course for the farmer, who demanded compensation for one shovel and one sack of manure, despite the fact that technically most of the manure was still on his property. Hilde gave him a charming smile and a few shillings, while von Luftschiff helped Charles to salvage any parts of their recent enemies that might come in handy on a future occasion. Bertha needed a few repairs, especially to the back window, but it was nothing that had to be done on the spot; they could easily wait until they reached their destination.
Von Luftschiff shook the last fragments of manure carefully off his hat and climbed back into his seat. He felt exceedingly satisfied. Now this, he thought to himself, was the life of a Jäger!
* * * * *
The town was large enough to boast several places to stay, but finding one proved to be oddly difficult. The first place said it was full, although it looked suspiciously quiet. The second place was terribly sorry, but it had nowhere to accommodate Bertha. The third was in a rough quarter by the river, and smelt indescribable; any lingering traces of manure were nothing by comparison.
By the time they got to the fourth, all of them were hungry and von Luftschiff's previous good mood was rapidly evaporating. He stopped the Greenwoods before they reached the door.
“I'm going to go and look round the back first,” he said.
He did, and was back in a few moments, grinning meaningfully. “There's only one horse in the stables. They're not full, whatever they say.”
“I hope they're not turning us away because of you,” said Hilde severely. “That would be very wrong of them. Perhaps I ought to tell them you saved our lives?”
“We'll see,” said Charles, and knocked on the door.
A woman with a large spotted handkerchief tied under her chin opened the door. She looked them swiftly up and down, then said rather indistinctly, “Sorry, we're full.”
Von Luftschiff put his foot in the door. “Hyu not full. Hy been round de back to have a look. Now, vot's de deal?”
“I can't talk now. I've got toothache.”
“Hy can cure dat,” von Luftschiff offered, brightly.
The woman turned pale. Charles held up a hand. “It's all right. If your tooth does need to come out, we may have more comfortable ways of doing it than having Herr von Luftschiff pull it out for you, although it was kind of him to offer. Now, if you can't talk, perhaps you'd like to go and fetch someone who can?”
The woman disappeared, and presently a slightly older, more substantially built woman in a green gown and a white linen apron arrived at the door. This, clearly, was the innkeeper herself. “Maria did tell you we're full,” she said, in a disapproving tone.
“Und ve don't believe it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Everyvhere, ve get turned avay, so dis place hy vent round de back first und had a look. Hyu not full.”
“We're respectable paying customers,” added Hilde. “And I hope you're not worried about Herr von Luftschiff here. He saved our lives on the way over here.”
The innkeeper narrowed her eyes. “Yes. I heard about that.”
“Ah,” said Charles. “So that would, in fact, be the problem? You don't want to take us in because you know there are people trying to kill us?”
“Well, since you ask, Mr Spark, that'd be about the size of it. Bad news travels pretty fast in these parts. Especially when it's the sort of bad news that involves a pack of flying killer clanks. We don't want to have to deal with anything like that in this town.”
“Greenwood,” Charles corrected her, pleasantly. “Charles Greenwood. And my wife Hilde. At your service.”
“Look, I don't care if you're Her Majesty's special envoys, you're not coming in here. Why don't you sleep in that jalopy of yours?”
“Because, for one thing, we should all like baths,” replied Hilde with dignity. “If you've heard about what happened to us on the road, then you'll be aware that we had rather more to do with a sack of fresh manure than we were originally expecting.”
Charles was fishing in a jacket pocket. “Interesting that you should mention Her Majesty,” he said, and held up a document for the innkeeper's inspection.
The innkeeper goggled. “Oh,” she said.
“Well, yes, quite,” replied Charles, a little apologetically. “I really don't like to have to do this sort of thing to people, but in the circumstances, you know... and I wouldn't want you to end up being charged with a crime.” He said it in such a way that it was clear he genuinely meant it, rather than using it as a threat.
“Hyu needn't vorry about any danger,” said von Luftschiff. “Hyu got me.”
“Well,” said the innkeeper, reluctantly. “That puts a different complexion on things, I suppose. You'd better go and tie up the jalopy in the yard and I'll see about rooms for you. And you'll want dinner, I expect?”
“We should love dinner, thank you,” said Hilde. “No meat for Herr von Luftschiff, please. He is vegetarian.”
“Vegetarian?”
Von Luftschiff sighed. He was already getting tired of people staring hard at his teeth when that particular fact was revealed to them. “Ja. Vegetarian. No meat, no fish, eggs is fine, go a liddle easy vit der cheese. Lentils und beans und all dat kind of schtuff is goot.”
The innkeeper put her head on one side. “We could do you a cauliflower cheese.”
“Is hokay, but hy had vun yesterday,” said von Luftschiff.
“I'm afraid it's the most prominent vegetarian dish in British cuisine,” said Charles. “You're likely to be offered it rather a lot.”
“Omelette?” asked the innkeeper.
“Hy had dat for breakfast. Hyu not got a nize bean und mushroom casserole? Hy could yust murder dat.”
But there were no beans or lentils on offer at the inn, and von Luftschiff resignedly had to settle for cauliflower cheese again. He helped unload Bertha, and by the time that task was finished he was very much hoping that it would at least be a large serving. He was not disappointed in that; this was the kind of establishment that was well used to having to feed hungry farm workers, and sized its platefuls accordingly.
“You know,” said Hilde over dinner, “I've been thinking. And I don't very much like the look of things.”
“What, about bad news getting round fast?” asked Charles.
She nodded. “Exactly. Granted, we did have to stop to placate that farmer, but even so, we were going faster than nearly anything else could travel by the time we'd finished doing that. Someone who saw the whole thing must have gone into town ahead of us on a fast horse.”
“There was the other man in the field,” von Luftschiff pointed out. “The one who looked as though he might be the farmer's son. He disappeared. I don't remember seeing him after I got out of Bertha, and there were several horses there. He could easily have taken one of them and galloped off ahead while we were distracted.”
“But if that was the case, he didn't see you fight,” said Charles. “I'd be very surprised if he'd gone all the way to the town, anyway. If you'd been working in a field before you changed, and you saw a fleet of airborne clanks attacking a carriage on the road, what would you have done? Taken a horse and ridden five miles into town, or taken cover in the farmhouse?”
“Unless he already knew something,” suggested Hilde.
“Possible, but not terribly likely,” said Charles. “We're dealing with rogue sparks here. The only way rogue sparks are going to take a poorly educated farm worker into their plans is if he shows some signs of the talent himself. Which is not impossible, of course, but my own instinct is that if he had even a hint of the spark in him he'd have stayed. He'd have wanted to see how the clanks worked, and if he were in league with the enemy he'd have known they were no danger to him.”
“That makes sense,” agreed Hilde. “Nonetheless, someone certainly got here ahead of us.” She paused, thinking hard. “Or perhaps was here all along. We've been thinking in terms of everything being controlled from that house where Herr von Luftschiff was held, but that needn't be the case, especially since we know they must have some kind of longer-distance network for tracking purposes. The clanks came from the direction of the house, but what if they started there and then control was transferred about halfway to an agent here in the town?”
“That's a disturbing thought, dear,” said Charles.
“Yes, but one of the reasons we're both still alive is that we tend to take the worst assumption and run with it,” Hilde reminded him. “I'd say that was a good candidate.”
Charles pulled his long face again. “I'm afraid you're right,” he sighed. “I wish we could get hold of Ashmole. That would definitely make things safer, at least for now.”
“And I wish we had more of an idea who we were dealing with,” said Hilde. “I'm getting a little tired of fighting shadows.”
“And I'd just like to hit something,” added von Luftschiff. “The cauliflower cheese is terrible. Look at it – the cauliflower is overcooked and the sauce is all watery. First thing tomorrow I'm going out looking for lentils.”
“But it's not fair to hit humans, so you're not actually going to hit the cook?” asked Hilde, with a smile.
“You got it. That's why I need someone it's fair to hit.”
After dinner, baths were brought to their rooms. Von Luftschiff was glad of his, but had a certain amount of unexpected difficulty with it because of his increased size and strength. To his embarrassment, despite his care, he dented it slightly getting out, and had to wait until the Greenwoods had finished their ablutions to go round and borrow a hammer to straighten it again.
Following that minor contretemps, he decided that it might not be a bad idea to go out and explore the town for a while; he could work off any surplus energy that way, and at the same time save some time in the morning. All the shops would be closed by this time, but he could at least find out what there was and where it was located. He suggested this idea to the Greenwoods and asked if there was any way he could remain on call in case of any attack.
“I've actually been thinking about that very thing myself,” said Charles. “It occurs to me that if the rogue sparks can subvert Ashmole, there's no reason why we can't subvert their tracker.”
“Although only in the short term,” Hilde pointed out. “The problem is, it's passive. Whatever we do to allow us to track it, we can't stop the enemy also doing so. But until we can build something better, it's a good option.”
“Yes,” said Charles. “We really only need to rig it to respond to a signal. And since it's small and metallic...” His eyes suddenly gleamed, and for the first time von Luftschiff noticed just how blue they were.
“You see?” said Hilde, looking up from the novel she was reading. “I told you Charles could spark in the evening. I can never manage that.”
“It's the coffee,” explained Charles. “I need a certain amount in my system before I can spark properly.”
He pulled out the black suitcase from under the bed; this, as von Luftschiff was rapidly learning, contained the permanent gadgets and the most useful of the spare parts. The tracker was in a little box inside this, wrapped carefully in cotton wool. Some further searching produced a tiny brass bell. “Shouldn't take long,” said Charles cheerfully. “I'm just going to need a few more bits.”
Von Luftschiff watched the process with fascination. He had heard that all sparks were a little mad, but he had previously found it quite hard to believe this of Charles, even after seeing him at work on the church organ. Now, as the little man bounded around the room like a sprite, collecting various components and assembling them all with an unbelievably rapid dexterity, he had to admit he was convinced. Charles might be mild-mannered and polite most of the time, but when he had an invention on the go, he was as mad as a box of frogs, right down to the wild eyes and the toothy, adrenaline-fuelled grin.
It suddenly occurred to him that this was probably what he himself looked like when he was fighting. Perhaps being a spark was simply another way for someone's brain to go all Jäger. Or the other way round, or something.
“Shazam!” exclaimed Charles triumphantly. Von Luftschiff was fairly certain that word was not in his normal vocabulary. In the palm of his hand he held an exquisite little miniature birdcage with the bell hanging inside it. He shook it vigorously. There was no sound at all.
“Magnetic fields,” explained Charles. “Wonderful things. The tracking device is attached to the clapper of the bell, but it's normally immobilised. Nothing happens until I do this.” He put the cage down on the dressing table, produced a strange-looking metal rod with various wheels and sliders on it, and did something with his hands. The bell immediately started ringing loudly.
“So all you have to do is put that in your pocket, and even if you get into a fight it won't ring,” he concluded. “It will ring only if we call for you, and we won't do that unless we really need your help. There's no reason you should have to sit about indoors just because that's what we're doing.”
“Sounds good to me!” said von Luftschiff.
With the device safely in his pocket, he walked downstairs and out into the street. It had started raining a little and the air was misty in consequence, but rain was no great worry. His hat would stand it.
What it wouldn't stand, as he discovered about fifteen minutes later, was something extremely hard and heavy landing on it from a height. He blinked, momentarily fazed, and then realised that he was standing amid the wreckage of a large potted aspidistra. He looked up. A window slammed, and a white face hurriedly disappeared from view.
“Hoy!” he yelled. “Hyu ruined my hat!”
The building seemed to be some kind of business premises, perhaps a lawyer's or an accountant's, with a dwelling over the top. Von Luftschiff unceremoniously wrenched the door off its hinges and stormed in. It opened into a narrow corridor, with the entrance to the business on the right and the staircase at the far end. A figure in shirt sleeves was running downstairs at full tilt; it stopped in its tracks as soon as it saw him, and went into reverse. Von Luftschiff charged after the figure and caught him by the arm with one powerful hand.
“Hyu,” he said, “owe me a hat. Hats are impawtent.”
The man gibbered. Von Luftschiff sighed, caught him gently but firmly with the other hand, and swung him round so that they were face to face.
“Schpeak up,” he suggested.
“Aaargh,” moaned his erstwhile assailant.
“Now, hy not going to make dis hard for hyu,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vant two tings. Hy vant a new hat, und hy vant some answers. Hyu choose vhich happens first.”
“P... p... please don't hurt me!” stammered the man frantically. “I don't even know why I did that. Honest.”
“Hyu don't know? Hyu mean hyu yust go round dropping ugly houseplants on pipple's heads for no reason? Hy vasn't born yesterday.”
“I didn't mean to!” the man wailed.
“Ho, yes, dey all say dat,” said von Luftschiff. “If hyu can't decide, ve have de questions first. Vot's your name?”
“Davenport. Ezekiel Davenport. Could you, er... would you mind awfully putting me down? It's a bit difficult to think when I'm dangling in the air.”
“Oh. Sorry. Didn't notice hy'd picked hyu up.” Von Luftschiff set Davenport down again on the stairs, but did not relax his grip. “Now, who hyu vork for?”
Davenport looked genuinely puzzled. “Myself. I'm a solicitor. This is my shop. Why?”
“Hy not in de mood to appreciate a good yoke right now,” von Luftschiff warned him. “Hy don't mean vot hyu do for a living. Hy mean who pays hyu to drop tings on pipple out of vindows?”
“But I'm telling you, I don't know! Please, believe me. When I walked into that room, I hadn't the slightest intention of even opening the window, let alone dropping a plant on a complete stranger. And then when you looked up, I realised what I'd done and I panicked. This is all like a horrible dream.”
Von Luftschiff stared at him, making up his mind. Then he said, “Hokay. Someting veird is going on here. Hy taking hyu to meet some friends of mine. Don't vorry. Dey von't hurt hyu. Actually dey really nize. But first of all, hy need a new hat.”
Davenport considered. “Does it have to be a new new hat, or will an old new hat be all right?”
“Any old new hat is goot, so long as it schtays on my head,” replied von Luftschiff.
“Er... well, if you'll let me go upstairs, I'll find you one.”
“Sure. Hy come vith hyu. Vouldn't vant hyu to panic und do someting schtupid like try to yump out of der vindow. Hyu could get hurt.”
He followed Davenport up the stairs, keeping one hand on his arm. The door to the rooms above was still open, and just inside it, on the right, there was a cupboard. The solicitor opened this and showed him a selection of hats.
“You're welcome to take any one you like, except this one,” he said, pointing to a black top hat. “That's my work hat.”
“Is too tall for me anyvay,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vould hit it on door frames. Dis vun is goot... vot now?”
For the solicitor had gone rigid, his eyes glassy with terror. Von Luftschiff released his arm. It was a terrible mistake. Davenport toppled like a ninepin and clattered head over heels down the stairs, not a muscle in his body bending on the way down. Von Luftschiff rushed after him, but he was too late. Whether or not Davenport had been dead when he started to fall was impossible to tell, but there was absolutely no question that he was dead by the time he reached the bottom.
Von Luftschiff crouched next to the corpse and respectfully doffed the hat he had just put on.
“Damn,” he observed, to nobody in particular. “Dis is getting complicated.”
* * * * *
It took a few minutes for it to dawn on von Luftschiff that he was in a distinctly compromising situation. Even the dullest forensic investigator would be able to tell that the plant had been dropped on his head, and would deduce, quite correctly, that this had annoyed him. Equally obvious was the fact that he had broken into the premises. And now there was a corpse whose cause of death looked just as clear-cut, given the previous two facts. Never mind the fact that it was nothing of the kind, and in fact, as far as von Luftschiff was concerned, it would have been a grievous inconvenience even had he not been personally implicated. His experience of police officers in general was that they did not tend to be overly concerned with subtleties. Someone had just died in suspicious circumstances, and they would want to arrest the principal suspect.
He used a somewhat stronger word this time, then went and sat on the stairs, trying to decide on the best course of action. It was a pity, to say the least, that his little bell communicator worked in only one direction; it would have been extremely useful to have Charles and Hilde here right now. His first idea was to call the police himself, but he decided against it. That would be too risky. They would just think it was a daring but not very well-executed bluff. No; he was going to have to do better than that.
Incredible as it seemed, he had a gut feeling that Davenport had been telling the truth. He had walked into the room upstairs with no violent intentions towards anyone, and then something had made him open the window and drop a plant on a passer-by. The plant had hit him squarely, and the impact would have easily killed a human.
Someone wanted to kill him. Well, that was hardly surprising after the events on the road. Someone who had been using Davenport without his knowledge or consent. But how? Some kind of temporary mind control? It had to be temporary, since Davenport had been shocked the moment he realised what he had done. And how exactly had he died? Was that some kind of mind control too?
A head poked very cautiously round the broken door. It was not the head of a police officer, unless the usual helmet had suddenly been replaced by an elegant flowery hat.
“Papa?” said a voice, tensely.
“Gott in Himmel,” muttered von Luftschiff. He stood up and went to the door. “Scuse me, miss. Hyu Mister Davenport's daughter?”
“Yes, that's right. What's going on? And who are you?”
“Hy be von Luftschiff. Hy very sorry. Is bad news.”
Miss Davenport looked up at him. She took in the green skin, the enormous teeth and the wild dark hair; but she also registered the tone of his voice and the compassionate expression with which he was regarding her. “Are you... a doctor?” she asked, uncertainly.
“Fraid not. Just a Jäger. Hyu better come in, but hy varn hyu, is not going to be so nize.”
Miss Davenport entered cautiously. “Oh,” she said.
“Ja. Hy couldn't save him. He fell down de schtairs.”
Miss Davenport stood in silence for so long that von Luftschiff began to fear that she might share her father's fate. Instead, she finally rallied herself with an effort, and said, “Well, we can't just leave him lying there. Can you do anything to fix the door? I need to collect myself a little, but I'm sure at least I can manage to go and call the maid. No, not the maid. She'll scream. I can't cope with someone screaming.”
“Hokay,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy fix de door. Is easy enough. Den, hyu yust tell me vhere hyu vant him, hy fix dat too. Hyu don't need to go calling de maid.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Davenport gratefully. “I'm sure you appreciate what a dreadful shock this is. What happened to the door, by the way? Did someone break in?”
“Hy did,” replied von Luftschiff honestly. “But dere vas a goot reason. Hy explain vhen ve get everyting in order.”
“Oh! Well...”
“Hy didn't kill him, if dat's vot hyu vorried about,” said von Luftschiff earnestly. “Hy don't hurt humans. Now, vhere hyu vant him?”
Miss Davenport decided that it might be sensible to lay out her father's mortal remains in his bedroom, where the door could be shut at least until she had fully recovered from the initial shock. While von Luftschiff was attending to this and to the door, she went into the parlour to sit down, where she discovered the open window and the missing aspidistra. There was something so immediately stressful about not knowing the cause of these deviations from normality that she slammed the window, drew the curtains, and sat with her back firmly turned towards the spot where the aspidistra used to be.
Von Luftschiff returned. “Hokay,” he said. “De door is fixed und hyu father is in his bed, vhere hyu vanted him. Hy make him nize und tidy. Hy even put his favourite hat on his head.”
Miss Davenport's eyes filled with tears, but at the same moment she did something unexpected. She got up, strode across to the fireplace and seized the poker. She thrust it into the fire and held it there for a couple of minutes, then withdrew it with a purposeful air. But as she raised it, she suddenly seemed to realise for the first time that she was holding it. She stared at it.
“What am I doing?” she asked, in complete bewilderment.
“Hy don't know,” replied von Luftschiff slowly, “but hy got some ideas. Hyu better rest dat on de grate vhile it cools down.”
“But this is scary,” said Miss Davenport, wide-eyed. “I know I've just had the most terrible shock, but for a moment I really didn't know what I was doing there. Maybe I ought to see a doctor.”
“Hy don't think it's hyu,” replied von Luftschiff. “Hyu sit down. Now, vy don't hy go und make hyu a nize cup of tea? Und if anyting else schtrange happens, yust call me.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Davenport, on the verge of tears again. “You're very kind.”
Von Luftschiff ambled into the kitchen, thinking furiously. He continued to think as he made a pot of tea and went rummaging through the cupboards for biscuits or cake. The British seemed to consider their national drink to be therapeutic, and even more so if something sweet could be had with it. In the end he found a tin of shortbread, which he felt was a little boring, but it would do at a pinch. He arranged everything on a tray and carried it carefully back through to the parlour, where Miss Davenport was now looking red-eyed but a little calmer.
“Thank you again,” she said. “I really don't know what I would have done if I'd come home and found him like that on my own.”
“Is no problem. Und now hy got to tell hyu some schtuff, like hy promised. Hyu need an explanation about tings like vy hy broke in.”
She nodded. “I'm listening. Oh, I'm sorry! I'm forgetting my manners. Please do sit down.”
Von Luftschiff eased himself into an overstuffed armchair opposite her, and told the story from the moment the plant had hit him on the head. She listened with growing wonder, but said nothing until it was clear that he had finished.
“You know,” she said, at last, “I'm not sure I'd have believed you, even after you've been so kind, if it hadn't been for what happened just now with the poker. But now you've told me all that, I do believe you, and I feel a little better. You know how in novels people go mad with grief? I never quite believed that really happened, but when I found I was standing there with the poker and couldn't work out how I had got there, I started to think it was happening to me. But in fact, the same thing must have happened to my poor papa.”
“Ja. But you could resist better dan he could. Ve don't know vy.”
“Maybe because I already knew you a little by the time it happened?” she suggested. “Whatever it is, it wants to kill you. But maybe it can't use someone who would be upset if you were killed.”
“Or maybe hyu yust better at resisting,” said von Luftschiff, with a shrug. “Ve already know it doesn't vork on everyvun.”
She frowned. “How do we know that?”
“Is simple. Hyu got mind control dat vorks on everyvun, hyu vant to kill somevun, all hyu do is make dem yump off a bridge. Nobody asks any questions. Hy don't yump off a bridge, so it can't vork on me.”
“I can't fault that logic,” agreed Miss Davenport. “But then... forgive me for saying so... you're not, ah, quite like the rest of us.”
“Is all right hyu mention it. Hy not human. Is fine. Hy got fed up vith being human. Too dangerous, vhere hy come from,” replied von Luftschiff frankly. “Even so, hy got a mind.”
“Again, I can't argue with that.” Miss Davenport managed a weak smile. “But I'm really not making a lot of sense out of what's happening, except that there's someone really unpleasant out there.”
“Und hy tink,” said von Luftschiff, “dat may not be de only place. Vas hyu father a tidy man?”
Miss Davenport was taken aback. “Well, yes, of course. I mean, just look round this room. Everything's perfectly in order, except for that plant, naturally.”
“Nearly everyting.” Without warning, von Luftschiff leapt to his feet and plunged a hand into the coal scuttle. There was a frantic mechanical whirring noise, and an instant later he pulled out his hand, covered in soot, but clutching a little device with a viciously sharp set of rotating blades at its front end.
Miss Davenport blanched. “What is it? That could have had your finger off!”
“Ja, but ve mend easy. Hy not certain vot it is, but hy got a yolly goot idea.” The device whirred and struggled in his hand.
“How did you know where it was?” asked Miss Davenport.
“Hy figured it had to be somevhere close, und dere vas a lump of coal beside de scuttle. Hy didn't tink hyu father vould have left it dere.” He glared at the gadget in his hand. “Hyu! Schtop trying to eschcape, or hy bend all hyu cogs out of shape.”
It reluctantly subsided. “Now,” he said. “Hy tink hy need to take dis ting back to Charles und Hilde. Vill hyu be all right, or hyu vant to come vit me? Dey goot pipple.”
“I... I think if the door is secure, I'd like to come with you,” she decided. “Do you mind if I finish my tea?”
“Is fine, but be quick if hyu can. Ve may not have much time. Dis ting may have sent for reinforcements.”
Miss Davenport looked alarmed for a moment, then did a quick mental calculation and concluded that imminent danger was probably preferable at this stage to being left alone with her grief. At least danger tended to require action. “Very well,” she said.
Within the space of half an hour, von Luftschiff was back at the inn with Miss Davenport in tow and knocking on the Greenwoods' door. This time it was Hilde who answered it.
“Oh, Herr von Luftschiff! You weren't out for very long. Did you...?” She broke off, seeing first the pale face of the bereaved Miss Davenport and then the object in von Luftschiff's hand.
“Charles!” she called. “Charles, he's found Ashmole!”
Von Luftschiff grinned. “Dat's vot I taught.”
“And who is the young lady?” asked Hilde.
“Dis is Miss Davenport. She yust lost her father, very sad.”
“Alice,” said Miss Davenport.
“Oh, I'm so sorry!” said Hilde, instantly maternal. “Do please come in and sit down.”
Charles bustled up. “Lost your father? I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do to help?”
Hilde took charge. “Charles, dear,” she said, “while Miss Davenport is clearly in need of a sympathetic ear and may also need some more substantial help, it takes only one of us. The most useful thing you could possibly be doing at the moment is sparking, if you can. Ashmole is almost certainly very dangerous until you can reverse whatever was done to him.”
“Hyu bet,” said von Luftschiff. “It tried to kill me, den it killed Mr Davenport, den it tried to kill me again. Hyu need to get some sense into its gears.”
“I can't just spark to order,” Charles demurred. “I'm tired. All I can do for the moment is to shut him down. That should help.”
“Vot if hy go down to de kitchen und get hyu a nize big pot of black coffee?” suggested von Luftschiff.
“He won't sleep,” said Hilde. “He'll spend the entire night bouncing around and trying not to wake me up talking about science, and then he'll be completely useless in the morning.”
“I think,” said Charles seriously, “perhaps I ought to risk that. After all, we don't know exactly what Ashmole is capable of at the moment, and it's quite possible we may end up having a very disturbed night in any case.”
“Hokay. Hy get de coffee,” said von Luftschiff, and vanished downstairs.
When he returned bearing the precious brew, he found Alice Davenport installed in an armchair being consoled by Hilde, having just finished telling as much of the story as she knew. Charles, meanwhile, had deactivated Ashmole and was peering into its internal workings with a frown.
“It's no good,” he said mournfully. “I can't make any sense of this at the moment.”
“Hyu drink some of dis,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy got dem to make it extra schtrong.”
Charles poured himself a large cup of coffee, and von Luftschiff went over to explain the rest of the story to Hilde. When he had finished, she said, “You are pretty clever, you know.”
“Hy yust remembered hy schtill had de tracker tingy,” replied von Luftschiff. He took the little bell device out of his pocket. “And, like hyu said, de enemy could schtill use it. So ven hy got a plant dropped on my head, hy knew dey had somevun or someting very close, probably in de house, or dey could never have aimed right. Und ven hy found it vasn't a somevun, dat meant it had to be a someting. Und I taught, dis Ashmole, it goes very fast under de ground, ja? It probably been following de tracker about, und ven hy go out into de street, de person vot is controlling it tinks dis is a goot time to crack my schkull.” He grinned. “It takes more dan dat.”
“I'm still amazed you knew he was in the coal scuttle,” said Hilde. “Even given the fact that there was a coal out of place, that's not where I'd have expected to find him, and I know him. I'd probably have suspected he was in the house, but I'd have gone down to look in the cellar. That's where he normally hides out, because he can always dig his way out if there's any trouble. He can certainly climb stairs, but it would have been a risky thing for him to do.”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “De only times anyvun got deir mind controlled, dey vere in dat room or very near it. De mind control is at de moment veak und unreliable. Votever vas doing it needed to be as close to de victims as possible. Derefore it vas in de parlour.”
“Weak and unreliable,” repeated Charles thoughtfully, sipping his coffee. “Yes. What if they were actually testing it?”
“Testing it?” asked Hilde. “How?”
“Well, think of it this way,” explained Charles. “Imagine you're an evil genius with a rudimentary mind control device which you hope to refine and use for your mad plans of world domination. You'd need to do some testing. You've probably got some minions and henchbeings, but if you're an evil genius worth your salt, you're going to realise that testing it on them is going to give you bad results, because you won't know whether they're doing what you want because of the device or just because they know what you want them to do and they're scared of you. So you need to test it in the wild, as it were.”
“Go on,” said Hilde.
“All right. Now it just so happens that you've brought a Jäger over here and fitted him with a tracking device, but that Jäger is now, very inconveniently, going round with two of the people who are trying to track you down, and protecting them very efficiently. You need to test your mind control, and at the same time you are very keen to separate this Jäger from your pursuers. So you have a bright idea. The first thing you do is to send a drone after them, instructing it to lock onto the tracker. Then you wait till the Jäger is separate from the others, and you use the drone to find someone on the route who shows signs of being especially sensitive to being controlled. You send the drone into his house and use it to make him drop the nearest heavy object on the Jäger. You know this won't do any real harm, but it will make the Jäger very annoyed. You bank on the fact that he'll break into the house and cause mayhem.
“And that, in fact, is exactly what happens... up to a point. He does break in. But he doesn't cause any damage apart from that, and he doesn't hurt the man who dropped the plant on his head. At this point, you panic, and you do something with the mind control that, if there is any justice in the world, nobody is ever going to need to know about because neither you nor anyone else will ever do it again. You kill your catspaw.
“So now the plan is on track again; if the police show up, the Jäger will be arrested for murder, and although you know they won't hang him because it's a waste of time, you're pretty sure they'll lock him up for a good long time. Except that it's not the police. It's the man's daughter. And because the Jäger is kind and understanding, she doesn't swallow the story you've tried to set up.
“You panic again, because this is going to ruin it. So you try controlling her, only to discover she's not as easy to manipulate. You make her pick up the poker and heat it in the fire, but as soon as she pulls it out, the control breaks. You can't get her mind again, because now she knows something is wrong and she's on the alert.”
“Do you think they wanted to make me attack Herr von Luftschiff?” asked Alice.
“No,” replied Charles gently. “They'd tried that once and seen how he reacted. No, I'm afraid they probably wanted to make you kill yourself, so that it would look as though he'd done it.”
Alice shuddered. “That's horrible!”
“Yes, it is, and we're here to stop it,” said Hilde firmly. “Charles dear, everything you've just said makes perfect sense. I just have one question.”
“What's that, darling?” asked Charles.
“Is that coffee working yet?”
“You know,” said Charles, looking at Ashmole, “I do believe it is.”
Hilde smiled. “I think perhaps in that case I should take Miss Davenport down to the parlour. You'll need a bit of space. Herr von Luftschiff, could you assist Charles if he needs you?”
“Is my very great pleasure,” replied von Luftschiff.
Von Luftschiff never remembered the next half-hour very clearly afterwards. It was just a blur filled with assorted components, the scent of coffee, and Charles rushing around the room like one of those clockwork toy mice, but, unlike the toy, never at any point ending up under any of the furniture. Finally, though, the little spark beamed and held up a visibly redesigned Ashmole.
“I think we may just have won now,” he announced; and then he rather took the wind out of this news by adding conscientiously, “if we're quick.”
* * * * *
When Hilde and Alice rejoined the party, there was a great deal of rapid talking, but from it all von Luftschiff was able to gather that Charles had been able to locate the person who had been controlling Ashmole, and this person was here in the town, not at the house. That made perfect sense from von Luftschiff's point of view, since he had not seen anyone there other than the guards. For that matter, he had not even seen any servants, whether clank or human. In a house that size, anyone going down to the kitchen would normally have expected to find a cook and probably a few other servants, but they had not been in evidence; clearly the guards were expected to look after themselves.
“So you know where they are?” asked Alice. “Then hadn't we better go and get them?”
“Well, we know where they were when I shut down Ashmole,” Charles clarified. “They're not necessarily still there. In fact, if they have any sense, they will be leaving town as fast as they can. There are several directions they could have taken, so we need to investigate a little further.”
“And besides,” said Hilde, “don't you think it would be safer if you stayed here? This is a rogue spark we're dealing with.”
“Mrs Greenwood,” said Alice firmly, “whoever or whatever they are, they killed my father. I want to help bring them to justice.”
“That's a very laudable attitude,” said Hilde, “but you have no experience of dealing with this sort of thing. I'd hate to put you at risk.”
“She not going to get experience if nobody let her fight,” said von Luftschiff. “I say ve don't take dis avay from her. Ve got veapons und schtuff she can use, don't ve?”
“Anyway,” said Charles, skilfully diverting them back to the main point, “we can't fight anyone until we can find them. Knowing they were near here is a good start, but if we go off after them in the wrong direction we'll lose them.”
“So how are we going to find them?” asked Hilde. “I assume, from the expression on your face, that we are going to find them.”
Charles' grin broadened. “Oh yes, dear. We're going to find them. After all, we now have someone here who knows who they are.”
“You're going to risk Ashmole again?” asked Hilde doubtfully. “I know you've done some adjustments, but that really didn't go well last time.”
“Ashmole,” said Charles, “show your mamma what you can do.”
The mechanical mole whirred its blades in acknowledgement, slid open a pair of side panels, and put forth a batlike pair of leather wings, reinforced with brass rods. It flapped them gently, took off, and did a little circuit around Charles' head.
Charles opened the window. “Now, off you go and find them. Stay as high as you can, out of reach, and if there's any danger get well clear. But when you find them, get directly above them or as close as you can, and then signal. We'll do the rest.”
Ashmole flew off. “That's all very well if they're on the open road,” Hilde objected, “but what if they're hiding in a building? Ashmole could be flying around all night.”
“Not if they try any more mind control,” replied Charles, with a pardonable hint of smugness. “You see, previously they were doing it through Ashmole. And that did rather narrow down the ways they could have been doing it. It didn't take long to work out that they were piggybacking an O'Shaughnessy transformation on top of an oscillating psychotemporal field. I mean, no wonder it was unstable.”
“No idea vot dat is, but it sounds pretty vonky yust listening to it,” said von Luftschiff.
Charles' eyes lit up. “Well, you see, an O'Shaughnessy transformation...”
“...is definitely a matter for another time,” Hilde interrupted, with a smoothness born of long practice. “What you were going to say, dear, is that Ashmole can detect if anyone's doing something like that, is that right?”
“Oh, absolutely! And since only one person in the locality is likely to be messing around with psychotemporal vector dynamics, there should be no danger of a false positive. We just need to catch them before they work out how to stabilise it, because that would be quite dangerous.”
“Can it be stabilised?” asked Hilde.
“Yes, I'm afraid it can,” Charles replied. “Much as I should prefer it to be otherwise.”
“Goot ting hyu a goot schpark,” observed von Luftschiff. “Hyu vould be seriously dangerous if hyu vasn't.”
“Yes. There are some things that probably shouldn't be touched even for the sake of science. But it is very tempting. The idea of controlling, say, clanks in that way...”
“...would be immediate grounds for divorce,” said Hilde, simply.
There was an uncomfortable silence, which was eventually broken by Charles saying in an apologetic voice, “I would never really do it, darling.”
“Of course you wouldn't,” agreed Hilde. “So I won't have to divorce you, which I must admit I would be absolutely heartbroken about. That means we'll both be happy.”
“I think,” said Charles, “I need another cup of coffee. Would anyone else care for one?”
“I... know it's not really my business,” said Alice, “but wasn't that a little strong?”
“Oh, he'd do the same for me if it came to it,” replied Hilde pragmatically. “When you spark, no matter how decent and reasonable a person you are the rest of the time, you go a little mad. Usually, that's harmless enough; it just gives you the energy and the inspiration you need to invent something beautiful. But just once in a while, a temptation comes along to go somewhere in your work that it really isn't safe to go, and because all of it is science, you're vulnerable to it. When you're sparking, you see, it's hard to think of anything else other than science. Considering the possible real-world consequences tends to take something of a back seat.”
“In dat case, is amazing more schparks don't go rogue,” said von Luftschiff.
“Well, we can usually stop ourselves; you heard Charles arguing with himself. Even so, it can take a long time and be a distraction. Generally speaking, the best thing any spark can do for any other spark is to recognise when that's starting to happen and shock them out of it.” She lowered her voice so that Charles would not hear. “And between the three of us, if I ever really had to divorce him I think I should have a breakdown. That's why I keep the threat for moments like this.”
As Charles was finishing his coffee, the Universal Viewer emitted a melodious ping. Charles grabbed it and looked through the lens. “We've found them!” he announced. “Can't see any detail, but they seem to be in some kind of warehouse by the river. I'll locate it soon enough on the map.”
“Oh, dear,” said Hilde. “I do hate dramatic battles in buildings. They always leave such a mess.”
“Possibly better than night fighting in open country, though,” Charles pointed out. “It's so embarrassing when you hit your own clanks.”
“Hy don't care,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy yust happy to fight.”
“And besides,” said Hilde, “we've only got one clank at the moment, and that's Ashmole. I doubt we'll hit him, now that he can fly as well as burrow.”
“You think we need a few more?” asked Charles hopefully.
“Having seen what Herr von Luftschiff can do, I very much doubt it,” replied Hilde. “I know you want to build things now you're sparking, dear, but we've got work to do.” She stood up and took down her parasol.
“But it's dark out there!” said Alice.
“This isn't just a parasol,” replied Hilde.
“Miss Davenport vill need veapons too,” said von Luftschiff doggedly.
“But most of the weapons we've got are spark weapons,” said Hilde.
“Hyu don't have to be a schpark to bang a few schpikes into a bit of vood und hit pipple vit it,” said von Luftschiff.
“I'm not really a hitter, but I do have a good aim,” said Alice. “How about a slingshot?”
“Ve got some rubber sheeting,” said von Luftschiff triumphantly.
“I'd better help,” offered Charles. “We don't have much time.”
Hilde, now clearly outvoted, gave in gracefully. The slingshot, being a very simple device, somehow got cobbled together on the way down the stairs, and a few minutes later they were all out in the street and heading rapidly towards the river. Ashmole buzzed down and joined them, landing on the brim of Charles' hat.
It was very dark. Most of the town was gaslit, but there was generally no reason for anyone to be down here at night. A mist-blurred splinter of moon gave just enough of a hint of light for them to avoid actually bumping into buildings, and now and then was reflected in passing glints on the dark water. A drowsy gull, sheltering inland, quarked reproachfully at the sound of their footsteps.
Alice shivered. “It's chilly down here by the river. I should have brought a warmer jacket.”
“We'll be in the building soon,” replied Hilde. “It is near here, isn't it, Charles?”
“Yes... it's just that I can't read the map in the dark and I'm rather reluctant to use the glowbug, so I'm working from memory here,” he said. “Let's see. I'm pretty sure it's this next one. Ashmole?”
Ashmole whirred affirmatively.
“Hyu vant me to schmash de door down?” asked von Luftschiff.
“That's probably as good a tactic as any other,” said Hilde.
Von Luftschiff obligingly drew back a muscular arm, then froze for a split second. The door was already starting to crack... from the inside.
“All of hyu! Get back!” he roared, following his own advice.
They all jumped. The door burst open, and a huge squat six-legged battle clank tore its way ponderously through the fabric of the building. Through a window in the front, it was just possible to glimpse someone controlling it from within, but it was inadvisable to stand and stare. Inadvisable, and very probably also fatal.
Charles and Hilde had jumped towards the river, and von Luftschiff and Alice in the opposite direction. Whether the clank was aware that Charles and Hilde were the sparks here or it simply attacked randomly, it went for them first. “Damn,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy afraid hyu going to need more than a schlingshot here.”
“Can we distract it?” asked Alice. “If the railings break, it'll have them in the river!”
“Dey got veapons. All de same...”
A bolt of flame zipped through the darkness with a tearing sound. Hilde was demonstrating her not-just-a-parasol with considerable flair; one of the six legs, caught directly on a joint, buckled and twisted. An answering bolt shot from the clank's body, and Hilde flipped open the parasol and parried it neatly. But the clank was advancing on them all the time, and they were trapped between it and the railings. No matter how well armed they were, there seemed to be no way they could counter the sheer physical power of the thing.
Von Luftschiff considered for a moment. “Hokay. Hyu aim for de window. Looks like de veakest point. Und vatch out for Ashmole, cos hy tink Charles has had de same idea.”
“I can do that,” said Alice. “What about you?”
“Hy going to annoy it,” replied von Luftschiff simply.
Ashmole had flown up to the window and was now trying to bore a hole in it. While this was certainly a good distraction, it would take some time to achieve; if you want to make a hole in glass quickly, it is far better to hit it than to go at it with a set of rotating knives. Von Luftschiff grabbed the nearest leg and started shinning up it. It kicked powerfully, but a Jäger, once attached, is very hard to dislodge. As he gained height, the clank tried to pick him off with a huge arm, but he was ready for that. He caught its wrist as it came down and clung to that. The arm swung dizzyingly in the air, but anyone who could fight a fleet of airborne clanks from a rotating flywheel was hardly going to be put out by that. As fast as he could, he pulled himself along the arm until he reached the shoulder. The clank made the grave tactical error of turning to look at this annoyance. He punched it with all his strength, right in the eye.
That was enough to save Charles and Hilde; but the clank still had another eye, to say nothing of its operator looking through the window in its belly. The two sparks had just time to take advantage of the distraction by running directly underneath the clank, where they could not be seen. There, they were also safe from the fire, but that was not entirely a consolation given that they now had to dart and dive to keep clear of the powerful legs. The clank turned on Alice, who was keeping a steady stream of stones flying at the window.
“Get under here!” yelled Hilde.
Alice did, just in time to avoid being fried, and had an equally narrow escape from being flattened as she did so. The clank was dancing about like a goaded elephant, kicking its legs viciously under its body at random in the hope of connecting with a target. Von Luftschiff was still clinging to what for want of a better word ought to be called its ear, although it was really a temperature control vent. It shook its head from side to side, intent on preventing him from getting enough purchase anywhere with his feet to let go and punch out the other eye.
The window shattered. Ashmole had done his work, and now fluttered upwards in the hope of reinforcing the section of the troops which was currently attached to the clank's ear. “Hey, hyu, Ashmole,” called von Luftschiff. “Get vhere it can't see hyu.”
Ashmole shot up to a point immediately above the clank's head, appeared to think for a few moments, and then flew round the back of its neck, where it latched on and started drilling. Sensible, thought von Luftschiff, if it can get through. All the connections from the eyes will have to go through there.
The clank started desperately trying to scratch Ashmole off like a flea, but it was not really equipped to do so. To scratch, you need fingernails, not stubby metallic finger ends. Von Luftschiff seized his opportunity, grabbed the clank's nose with one hand, swung through the air, and brought the other fist firmly into contact with the remaining eye.
Good. Now whoever was operating this thing would have to rely on what they could see out of the wreckage of the window. That was useful. He swung back onto its shoulder, scrabbling for a grip, and then began making his way down the torso. The thing clearly had sensors which indicated when it was actually damaged, but with a bit of luck it wouldn't have the equivalent of nerves, and it would not be able to feel where he was. Besides, it was still doing its best to get rid of Ashmole, who might take quite a while to make a hole through solid metal, but was not going to be bludgeoned out of doing it once he had made up his mind.
Meanwhile, the two sparks and Alice were keeping things busy on the ground. Hilde had managed to do some fairly significant damage with her parasol, to the extent that two of the legs were now barely functional and the rest looked decidedly battered. Charles, still under the influence of the coffee, had found enough odd spare parts in his pocket to jury-rig the Universal Viewer to discern the internal workings of the flamethrowers in the hope of disabling them, based on known information about the properties of various different substances in some rather obscure kinds of field. And Alice had found a coil of rope, and with great skill and nerve was threading it around the stamping legs with the intention of getting it properly tangled and then tying both ends to something solid. That stood a fair chance of bringing the whole clank down.
Von Luftschiff, who could not see what was happening below, found himself in a dilemma. Should he go all the way down and try to help his friends directly, or should he try to get into the control room and tackle the villain? After a little debate, he decided to do the former. You really needed a spark to deal with another spark. Von Luftschiff was strong, and he knew he was far from stupid, but if the rogue spark had anything even remotely resembling Ashmole it could get nasty in there. And Ashmole was by no means the worst thing a spark could come up with.
So he scrambled down one of the legs. “Hy got both its eyes,” he announced. “And dat Ashmole is keeping it busy.”
“Well done!” said Hilde, taking another shot at a leg.
“Ho!” exclaimed von Luftschiff, noticing the rope for the first time. “Ho, Miss Davenport, hyu pretty schmot. Give me de ends. Hy finish tings here.”
“I was going to tie them to something,” said Alice, rather breathlessly. She was no longer used to quite such vigorous exercise.
“Dis vay even better. All of hyu, get clear. Dat vay,” said von Luftschiff. “It can't see vhere it's firing.”
They obediently ran. Von Luftschiff got a firm grip on the ends of the rope, positioned himself carefully, took a deep breath... and pulled.
The crash was impressive. People, some of them already in night attire and a couple of them in police uniforms, came running from all directions to see what on earth was going on. They arrived to find the clank flat on its back in the ruins of the warehouse, the front of which had completely collapsed under the impact and taken most of the roof with it. Von Luftschiff had already lifted up the Greenwoods and Alice so that they could climb into the remains of the control room, and then gone in after them.
There was a figure in the wreckage, dressed in a long striped coat and a curious black felt shako adorned with many weathered brass studs. Charles picked his way through the chaos, which was not easy since he was in effect walking on the back wall of the room, and it was somewhat curved. He crouched down by the figure and lifted the hat.
“Oh,” he said, in dismay. “Oh, no. Worthington minor. How could you?”
The figure opened his eyes. “Greenwood,” he snarled. “I might have known.”
“You're even wearing the old school tie,” said Charles. This, clearly, made murder and mayhem at least ten times more reprehensible than they already were. “How perfectly beastly of you!”
“I suppose you'll be calling me a rotter next,” said Worthington.
“Why on earth not? You are a rotter,” retorted Charles.
“Can we please stop all this public school stuff?” demanded Alice, who had made her way to the scene. “Rotter doesn't even begin to cover it. You there on the floor, you killed my father. What have you to say about that?”
“Science!” snapped Worthington. “It was unfortunate, but I needed to test my invention.”
“Unfortunate? UNFORTUNATE? Is that all you can say? If you weren't on the ground and injured already, I'd kick you.”
“Hyu a nize young lady,” said von Luftschiff. “Hyu probably don't know vhere to kick. Hy show hyu, if hyu like.”
Worthington turned white. “Er. Herr Jäger. I'm very sorry about the misunderstanding.”
“Vhich vun?” asked von Luftschiff. “Vould dat be der vun vhere hyu kidnapped me und put a liddle ting in my fang to track me? Or maybe der vun vhere hyu made dis lady's father drop a plant on my head und schpoil my hat? Or, vait, dere vos de flying clanks. Dose vere a pretty big mizunderstanding, hey?”
“I was only trying to gather a Jäger army!” wailed Worthington. “I wasn't to know you were going to meet up with these two and start helping them to make my life difficult, was I?”
“Hyu don't get no Jäger army,” said von Luftschiff. “But hy get dis.” He leaned forward and grabbed the shako from Worthington's head. “Ah, dat's better! Now hy be a real Jäger.”
“What?” asked Alice.
“Is goot old Jäger tradition. Hyu defeat an enemy, hyu get to keep deir hat.”
“What if they don't wear one?” asked Alice.
“Den hyu improvise,” replied von Luftschiff, setting the hat happily on his head. “Does dat look goot?”
“It looks perfect,” said Hilde. “Now, Mr Worthington, we're going to have to put you into the hands of the regular police, who I imagine, from the commotion I can hear outside, are probably waiting none too patiently. But first of all, we'd like you to answer a few questions.”
“And you'd better answer them truthfully,” said Alice, “or I'll get Herr von Luftschiff to show me the best place to kick you.”
Hilde had estimated the patience of Her Majesty's constabulary quite accurately. They had already found one of the more substantial pieces of warehouse and dragged it into place to form a ramp. As a result, the next half an hour or so was a little confused and involved a certain amount of shouting (from the police and Alice), unflappable politeness and production of official documents (from the Greenwoods), and whimpering (from Worthington, who was very much afraid that Alice was bright enough to work out exactly where to kick him without any help from von Luftschiff). The arrival of Ashmole only muddied the waters further until he could be satisfactorily explained. The police did not appear to think “Is goot liddle clank!” was sufficient.
Nevertheless, it all got straightened out in the end, even though Charles made some additional difficulties by insisting on the removal and confiscation of Worthington's tie. After a considerable amount of wrangling, it was finally agreed that Charles should exchange his own neat bow tie for the offending article, a concession which he made very reluctantly. Worthington, who was not very badly hurt (he had been winded when the clank fell, and he thought he might have a sprained wrist, but that was all), was handcuffed and led away by the officers.
While Hilde was apologising to Alice for having doubted her, and Alice was explaining with a smile that she'd been made to play lacrosse at school, and if you could handle lacrosse you could handle most other forms of violence, von Luftschiff stood thoughtfully piecing together everything he had just been hearing. Worthington's main aim, it seemed, had been to turn the isles into his idea of a Power, regardless of the fact that they were one anyway. To do this, he had considered it essential to take the helm himself, and he had had two main goals for this purpose: to develop his mind control technique until it was thoroughly reliable, so that he could use it on Her Majesty (which explained the charge of high treason the officers had slapped on him), and secondly to build up a Jäger militia which would remain loyal to him in case of any insurrection in the regular ranks. He had some communication with rogue sparks on the Continent, about whose identities he managed to remain evasive, and one of them had suggested to him that the best way to unite the scattered and generally independent British Jäger population would be to release a strange one into the country and send them out to look for others.
The same friend of Worthington's had found von Luftschiff in the process of transforming, drugged him, and sent him to Britain with instructions. Worthington, as it happened, was in the process of quietly selling his house, since he was aware that it had begun to gather too much attention; he had already bought a smaller, much less obtrusive house in the town and a large warehouse where he could conduct his experiments undetected. He therefore arranged for von Luftschiff to be sent to the house, knowing that if he should find it again in future there would be nobody there he might recognise, and gave orders to the remaining guards in such a way as to ensure that von Luftschiff would have to be released. He himself visited briefly to fit the tracker, but he was well on his way back to the town when von Luftschiff recovered consciousness.
And that covered all the gaps in the story except for one: Ashmole. Charles and Hilde had told him that Ashmole had been sent to investigate the house. Yet they had not lost contact with the little clank until well after they met von Luftschiff, by which time Worthington had returned to the town. Surely none of the guards at the house could have caught and re-engineered him?
Charles noticed the expression on his face. “Something bothering you?” he asked.
“Ja! Ashmole. How did Mister Vorthington get hold of Ashmole?”
Charles smiled. “I was wondering exactly the same thing. But I think I know the answer. When we get out of this clank, I suggest we light the glowbug, wander into what's left of the warehouse, and look for a hole in the floor.”
“Hyu tink he came all de vay here?” asked von Luftschiff, stunned. “But is best part of five und tventy miles!”
“Well, you've seen those rotating blades. Just imagine how fast he can bore through soft earth. My guess is that he heard something at the house about where the master had gone, and decided on his own initiative to go after him. And he couldn't really tell us that; all he can do is ping us when he sees something interesting.”
“A pity Ashmole didn't happen to burrow up immediately under his feet,” said Alice, who was feeling understandably vindictive. “I'm not normally one for hangings, but I'll go to his.”
“That may depend on when they hang him,” said Hilde.
“What do you mean, exactly?” asked Alice.
“Well. I don't know if you've given a lot of thought yet to how you are to manage?”
Alice frowned. “I imagine papa will have left me something, but it won't be a fortune. I'll probably be able to manage if I let the shop, although I'm not sure I really want to live above someone else's business.”
“Quite understandable,” said Hilde. “Now, obviously that isn't a question I would have raised in the ordinary course of things, but as it happens, there is an alternative option open to you if you should be interested. Her Majesty's Special Operations Forces are recruiting at the moment...”
“When aren't they?” Charles put in.
“Well, quite so, dear, but that's because they can never get enough of the right kind of people,” said Hilde. “And you, Miss Davenport, have just demonstrated beyond all doubt that you are very much the right kind of people. If you're interested, I'll write a letter of recommendation to them. I would expect that after I explain your role in Mr Worthington's arrest, they will take you without question.”
Alice smiled. “Now that does sound like a whole lot more fun than anything I might be able to do if I stay put. Thank you, Mrs Greenwood. I'd like to take you up on that offer.”
“And I'd like to get back to the inn,” said Charles.
“Any reason in particular, dear?” asked Hilde.
“Yes. I'd like them to reheat that pot of coffee. I've just had an idea for a device that will protect people against any further mind control attacks by this method. I think we should send one to Her Majesty, just as a precaution.”
“Und hy hungry after all dat climbing about,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vant a sandvich.”
“Just a sandwich?” asked Hilde.
“Ja. De sort vhere hyu slice up a whole loaf und put schtuff between de slices. Hyu never had vun of dose? Dey goot.”
“Oh, speaking of food,” said Alice, “did I hear correctly that you don't eat meat, Herr von Luftschiff?”
“Ja. Dat is right,” replied von Luftschiff.
“Oh, good! Because Papa tried that for a while, but then he gave up. We've... I've... still got some big tins of dried beans and lentils, but they're up in the attic now. Would you like them?”
“Beans?” asked von Luftschiff, wide-eyed. “Lentils?”
“Exactly that. Oh, and some spices I'm never going to use. They're well sealed, so I expect they're still fresh.”
Von Luftschiff grinned from ear to ear.
“Hy tink hy luff hyu,” he replied.
THE END
* * * * *
Epilogue (by Hilde Greenwood)
The above account is a third-person version which I collated and translated from Herr von Luftschiff's later diary notes, with, of course, his full co-operation. It accompanied the report I sent to Head Office, since I thought it reasonable that our new assistant should be allowed to introduce himself in his own words as far as possible without putting him under the stress of trying to write his own official report. The claws do not make it easy for him to write, though I have now managed to come up with a little gadget to help him with that.
Many people, especially those outside these isles, have expressed some surprise regarding Herr von Luftschiff. It is certainly true that he is not a typical Jäger, although his healthy appetite for both food and a fair fight are recognisable enough traits. I think there are two principal reasons for this. One is simply the fact that he woke up in what is, and hopefully will long remain, a generally peaceful and orderly realm. Herr von Luftschiff, as he often reveals in the text, is highly astute. He remarks at one point on the fact that sparks are much better accepted here than in his country of origin, and implies more than once that the same is usually true for anyone perceived to be odd or different. He is quite correct in this, and the reason is that such people do not tend to be seen as a threat. We have a fine tradition of eccentrics here, into which sparks, Jägerkin and others who are not entirely run-of-the-mill are normally accepted.
But the second, and I think the more important, reason is in the nature and circumstances of Herr von Luftschiff himself. It can be summed up neatly by saying that most Jägers drank the potion because they liked fighting and wanted to become better at it, whereas Herr von Luftschiff did it because he liked peace and wanted to be able to enforce it. He is already proving to be good at this. His insistence that a fight should be fair, even when he is under provocation, stems from the fact that he has spent so many years unfairly matched against forces well beyond his strength. Now that he has the strength, a basic key to understanding his character is that he feels sorry for the humans. He has such recent and traumatic knowledge of what it is like to be one.
Herr von Luftschiff does not go into great detail about his background during the narrative, but, with his permission, I think it is not unreasonable to fill in some of those blanks. He eventually did recall his original name, which was Matthias. Born to two well-respected and reasonably prosperous doctors, he had a good school education, and later went away to a university to study mathematics. While he was away, his village was attacked, although there is a certain amount of confusion about exactly what did the attacking; all that is clear is that it was animals of some sort, though the nature of the attack makes it apparent that they were not ordinary wild animals, but the result of some ill-advised experiment. Young Matthias lost his parents and both his sisters in this tragedy, and consequently, lacking support, was forced to abandon his studies and join the Army.
By this time, he had been a vegetarian for two or three years, which had forced him to become good at cooking for himself. With this in mind, he signed up as a cook. He enjoyed the work, but as the surrounding country became more and more chaotic, he eventually left the Army, reasoning that it was completely useless against the forces they were trying to deal with. With the money he had managed to save, he set up a little school in a village not far from where he had grown up. As he liked to put it at the time, even if the world is going to hell, people will always need an education.
When the clanks attacked the village, Matthias was caught out in the open, walking back from the school to his lodgings. He fled into the forest, and the rest of the story he has already recounted. Although he now knows his old name, he wishes to be called Herr von Luftschiff until he has a new Jäger name of his own, and that is a matter he needs to discuss with his own kind.
As for Miss Davenport, I naturally kept my promise and wrote a glowing letter of recommendation to Mr Ardsley Wooster and the administrator who helps him to run his division. Mr Wooster replied by return, suggesting that if everyone was willing she should continue to work with us until he could arrange another agent to take her on for more formal training. This proved acceptable to all concerned, and Mr Wooster says that we can probably expect to have her with us for a couple of months, depending on what happens with the agent he has in mind. In the meantime, he has arranged for us to charge all her expenses to the usual account, including a small fixed weekly personal allowance. It is not a great deal, but she has her inheritance and I have no doubt that she will very soon be earning a full agent's salary.
Oh, and there was one other thing. Mr Wooster sent a small enclosure with his letter, which he requested me to give to Herr von Luftschiff. I have, needless to say, no idea how he managed to obtain such a thing, and I will firmly refrain from indulging in any idle speculation. It was a brass shako plate in the shape of the Heterodyne trilobite. I have absolutely no idea why he should send such a thing, but Herr von Luftschiff, as you can no doubt imagine, is quite delighted with it. He fastened it proudly to his hat, which I understand he now never takes off, even to sleep. Delicacy forbids me to enquire how he washes his hair.
And now I must finish in haste, for it seems that Charles has been at the coffee again. I fear he took things to the logical conclusion and invented a device which would provide him with a fresh supply whenever he wanted it, which is wonderfully good for his spark abilities, but distinctly detrimental to his sleep. If this goes on I may have to come up with a counter-invention, which is a terrible thing to have to do to one's own husband, but I hate to see him looking so exhausted in the morning.
Or, of course, I could always do what Miss Davenport suggests and persuade him to take valerian at night. But somehow, that's just not a satisfying solution. I need to use...
SCIENCE!
* * * * *
Von Luftschiff woke up slowly and groggily, brushing disjointed bits of bizarre dream out of his mind. He blinked and looked about him.
Something wasn't right. Everything still felt pretty woozy, but he was fairly sure this was not where he had fallen asleep. Then he recalled drinking the bottle of potion he had found, and looked down at his hands. They were a dull green, with long, wickedly sharp claws where his elegantly clipped nails had previously been.
So the gamble had worked. The potion had indeed been the infamous Jägerbräu, and he had survived it and been transformed. Had he not done, he would not have felt at all aggrieved, assuming he had still had anything to feel aggrieved with; von Luftschiff's ideas about the existence of an afterlife were somewhat sketchy. He had known perfectly well what the odds were when he took the potion. He'd had about a one in ten chance of waking up as a Jäger, and if that had failed, he almost certainly wouldn't have woken up at all. Either way, the politicial insanity currently tearing Europa apart was going to be less of a problem, or, quite possibly, no longer a problem. Continuing to cope with it in human form was no longer an option.
But where was he? Certainly nowhere he could remember having been before. He was lying on a comfortably firm bed in a high-ceilinged room with green walls. A fire burned cheerfully in the grate, clearly recently tended. There were china knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, over which hung a mirror in an ornate scroll frame, and opposite the mirror hung a watercolour painting of a lake surrounded by mountains. The other furniture in the room comprised an expensive-looking mahogany wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a washstand and a chair. Through the window, von Luftschiff could see a few upper branches of a tree against a pale blue sky.
He heaved himself stiffly off the bed, thankful that he was still clothed as he had been, although his shirt was now annoyingly tight around the shoulders. He found his boots under the bed, and was not surprised to discover they no longer fitted. He padded barefoot across the thin rug to the door and turned the knob. It was locked.
The anger rose inside him for a split second before realisation caught up with him – the realisation that a mere locked door was unlikely to be enough to stop his new body. He laughed, and put his shoulder to it. The painted oak creaked and split, showering splinters onto the landing outside the room. A dark-clad man standing just by the door leapt backwards and fumbled desperately to draw his pistol, but von Luftschiff was too quick for him. Grabbing him, he twisted away the weapon. It clattered to the floor as the man screamed in pain.
“Oh,” said von Luftschiff, in German. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break your wrist.”
The guard stared at him in mute terror. Von Luftschiff tried again. “I'm sorry. I don't yet know my own strength. But you should not draw a gun on a Jäger. That is stupid.”
“Ich... spreche... nicht... Deutsch,” the guard stammered, clutching his wrist.
Von Luftschiff sighed. “English?”
“Yes! English. Please don't hurt me any more.”
“Schtupid,” said von Luftschiff, reproachfully. “Hyu draw a gun on a Jäger, hyu get hurt. It heppens. Hy didn't mean to hurt hyu. Now, let me look.”
The guard drew further back in alarm. “Hy said let me look,” repeated von Luftschiff, who was not in the mood for any more nonsense. “Hy not going to bite hyu. Hy Vegetariarjäger.”
Whether or not the guard managed to translate that last word was open to question, but von Luftschiff gave him no choice. He prised the man's other hand effortlessly away from his injured wrist, to further screams, and examined it. “Ho yes,” he said. “Dat is broken. Hyu need a splint. Come in here, und ve see vot ve find, hey?”
He propelled the terrified guard into the bedroom and sat him down on the bed, then picked up a piece of door and broke it carefully down to a suitable size and shape. Then he methodically tore up one of the pillowcases to make a set of bandages, with which he strapped the improvised splint in place with a little difficulty. Tying knots with those claws was harder than he had anticipated. “Better?” he asked.
The guard nodded, white-faced.
“Goot! Now hyu answer some qvestions. First, vhere are ve?”
“England,” stammered the guard.
“Dat is a bit fague,” said von Luftschiff, frowning.
“I... think we're somewhere in the north. I was kidnapped too. I don't know much more than you do.”
“Ah? So vy don't hyu yust run avay?”
“Well, once they'd got me here, they offered me a job, and it was better than the one I'd been doing,” the guard explained. “At least, it was until just now. I used to work in an airship parts factory in London. Long hours, noisy, smelly, boring, and the pay was lousy. This job's got shorter hours, better pay, three good meals a day, fresh air and target practice. No contest.”
“So vy did dey hev to kidnap hyu?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Because I don't think they want me to know where I'm working. I think it's the same for you. They want you to work for them, but if you don't know where you are, you can't tell anyone, I suppose.”
“Und dese pipple would be...?”
“I... don't know, exactly. All I know is, they've always treated me well.”
“Hyu know vot? Dat smells of fish to me.” Von Luftschiff was suddenly aware that he was both hungry and thirsty. “Vot hyu got in de kitchen? Hy suppose dere is a kitchen here?”
“Er,” said the guard. “I could make you some cheese sandwiches, I suppose.”
“Not cheese. It gives me Verstopfung. Vell, maybe not now hy be a Jäger, but hy don't vant to risk it. Ve go und see, hey?”
The guard really had no choice in the matter. They went to the kitchen, where von Luftschiff found a huge basket of mushrooms and a number of other ingredients, but unfortunately no garlic. There were, however, plenty of onions, and those would just have to do. He rummaged in the cupboards, found the largest pan in the house, melted half a pound of butter in it, and started gleefully chopping vegetables.
“Are... are you going to eat all that?” asked the guard.
“Turning into a Jäger is hungry vork,” replied von Luftschiff, throwing the onions into the pan. They sizzled fragrantly. The mushrooms followed. “But if hyu vant some, hyu only have to say. Is best with Knoblauch, how hyu call it, but hyu got none.”
“I'm not that hungry,” said the guard, who, despite the splint, was still in considerable pain. It was an improvement on the state he would have been in without the splint, but it had definitely taken the edge off his appetite nonetheless.
“Pity. Dese are going to be goot. Hyu got wine?”
“I think there's some in the cellar, but they don't let me have a key.” The guard paled as he realised what he had just said. “Oh Lord. Please don't break in there. I'm going to be in enough trouble as it is.”
“Ho-kay. Hy find it somevhere else. Hy not schtaying.”
The guard shifted uneasily. “You do know there are more guards at the perimeter?”
Von Luftschiff laughed. “It vosn't so hard to get past hyu. Hy tink dese are ready now. Hyu sure hyu don't vant none?”
“Quite sure. Thanks.”
Von Luftschiff ground in an unfeasible quantity of black pepper, stirred the concoction vigorously, found a fork, and ate everything straight from the pan. “Saves messing up a plate,” he explained cheerfully to the guard's horrified stare. “Mmm, is goot!”
When he had finished, he turned to the guard again. “Vell,” he said, “it vos nize meeting hyu, but hy can't schtay here. Tings to do, Jägers to find. Hy got to go.”
“Those perimeter guards...”
“Ho yes. Hy been tinking about dem. Hy don't vant to hurt any of dem unless hy need to, so ve do it like dis. Hyu come to de perimeter vith me und hyu tell dem hyu got instructions to let me go because dey don't vant me after all. Hy no use. Hy not goot at taking orders.” He grinned, displaying a set of jagged teeth. “Is true. But hyu can tell dem hy too schtupid if hyu vant. Hy von't be offended.”
The guard swallowed. “Do I get a choice about that?”
Von Luftschiff shrugged expressively. “Dey hyu friends, right? Hyu vouldn't vant dem to get hurt, no?”
The guard reluctantly accepted this logic. “I'm going to get into a lot of trouble.”
“No, hyu not. Hy broke hyu wrist, right? Hyu needn't tell dem hy didn't mean to. Come on. Ve going places.”
Defeated, the guard unlocked the back door, and they walked out onto a well-kept gravel path bordered with forget-me-nots and lily of the valley. Lupins, delphiniums and hollyhocks stood against a high wall to their left, mostly not yet in flower; to the right, a neat lawn opened out in front of the house, dotted with rhododendron and laurel bushes.
“Hy don't see no guards,” observed von Luftschiff conversationally.
“No. They're all on the other side of the wall.”
Now that they were in front of the house, it was clear that the wall encompassed the entire property. There was a large wrought-iron gate at the front, with a wide drive leading straight up to the front door. The path they were on joined this drive, which was also gravel. Von Luftschiff glanced back at the house and saw a large, elegant stone building with a wide semicircular area in front of it for turning carriages. It gave no particular clues, but von Luftschiff made an effort to fix it in his memory anyway. He wanted to be certain he would recognise it if he saw it again.
The guard opened the gate with a certain amount of difficulty, since he was having to use his off hand. There were two more guards stationed at the gate, and one of them spoke. “What brings you out here?” she asked, surprised.
“Got word through on the Jäger,” replied the house guard, doing a creditable job of sounding nonchalant. “He's no longer wanted. Seems they got the wrong one.”
“Oh? What happened to your wrist?”
“He broke it. But he calmed down once the message came through that he was to be released.”
The gate guard looked doubtfully at her companion. “What if he tells people where this house is?”
“He won't. He won't know. He's been brought a long way, remember? And it's not as if he knows anything.”
“H'mm.” The gate guard looked von Luftschiff up and down.
“Vot hyu schtaring at?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Never seen one of your sort before.”
Von Luftschiff sighed inwardly. That was a bad sign. He had heard that Jägers were everywhere, but that didn't have to be true; and even if it was true, it didn't necessarily mean that there were many Jägerkin in this particular country. Her Britannic Majesty was said to have her own ways of keeping the peace, and, as far as he knew, they seemed to be a great deal more effective at the moment than anything Baron Wulfenbach had been managing lately.
He summoned a grin. “Hyu take a goot look, lady. Hyu likely never see anyvun so handsome again.”
“I doubt it,” she replied tartly. “Anyway, you'd better go. Try that way.” She pointed.
Von Luftschiff nodded to them all by way of farewell, and set off walking along the quiet rural lane outside the gate. There was not a soul about, with the exception of a few farm animals grazing philosophically in the fields; the house must be miles from anywhere. It was a pleasant spring day, ideal for walking, and to his surprise and relief it turned out to be quite comfortable to go barefoot. Jäger feet are much tougher than human feet, and even the occasional sharp pebble in the road proved to be no more than a minor annoyance.
Nonetheless, questions haunted him over and over as he walked. Where exactly was he? Where was he going? And what on earth was he going to do once he got there? His kidnappers had not robbed him, but he had had very little money in his pockets, and even then it was not English money. He doubted it would get him far. If only he could find some of his own kind!
But for now, at least, it was good to walk through the English countryside in spring, enjoying the relative peace of that land. Something, no doubt, would go badly wrong again soon enough, so, he mused to himself, he might as well appreciate life until it did.
* * * * *
By the time von Luftschiff came within sight of human habitation again, he had long since ditched (in the most literal possible sense) his shirt. Had he still been human, he would have found it a little too chilly to go without it, but his new body had a wider temperature tolerance range than his old one, and besides the thing had been constricting him so much around the shoulders that in the end he had simply lost all patience with it.
It was now starting to occur to him that he might have been a little hasty. There was a village ahead, and it was not too difficult to guess how its inhabitants might react to someone who was green all over, dressed in nothing but a pair of ill-fitting trousers and a shako hat, and sporting a large spiky set of fangs. He was ruminating on this when he spotted an outlying barn. That might at least provide a bit of help. Barns often contained old sacks, and with some old sacks, his needle-sharp claws and some ingenuity, he might just be able to put together some kind of clothing that would enable him to pass for human in a poor light.
The barn did contain old sacks, but converting them into something wearable was by no means as easy as he had hoped. Like most of his countrymen, he had learned to sew in the Army, but that had been with a proper needle and thread, not with claws and crooked strands of hessian unravelled from the sacks. It had also consisted almost entirely of repairs, not trying to design a garment from scratch out of whatever materials came to hand. Nonetheless, his perseverance paid off, and a little after sunset he emerged triumphantly from the barn wearing a kind of short cloak with a deep hood. With reasonable luck it would get him as far as the village pub without anyone actually screaming. Once he was there, getting a drink, an evening meal and a bed was the next challenge to be overcome, but he was not going to get any of those three things without at least making it as far as the pub.
He passed a little group of women who were engaged in an animated discussion regarding the best place to sell eggs; they greeted him politely but distractedly, and he nodded back and grunted something that might have been “good evening”. It might, he thought, be as well not to be too distinct. Some children were playing a short distance away, rolling marbles around in the lane, and they saw his feet and gazed wonderingly up at him; but he smiled back, and they seemed to understand that despite his odd appearance, he was no threat to them. One of them risked a smile herself, showing a gap in her front teeth.
The village was set around a green, which still had a well in the centre, although it was no longer used and now had a heavy iron cover to prevent accidents. Naturally, this meant that everyone was now using it as a convenient seat. There was a young couple sitting on it when he passed, but they were far too absorbed in each other even to notice him, let alone greet him. The pub, its white walls faintly flushed with the last rosy rays of the sunken sun, stood on the far side of the green. There was a welcoming light in its crown-glass windows, and over the open door hung the sign of the Black Swan.
By this time, von Luftschiff had thought of a strategy, and he ambled up to the bar to put it into practice. Digging into his pocket, he produced the one coin he had in his possession which was real gold. Gold, he reasoned, would have value anywhere, regardless of whose likeness happened to be stamped on it.
He held it up in front of the unsuspecting barmaid, grinning. “Goot evening,” he said. “Hy vould like some red wine, a Cashewnussschnitzel and a room for de night, please.”
“You want a what, love?” The barmaid had seen all sorts in her time; this was certainly one of the more unusual. However, even in a village, you did not tend to keep a bar job if you displayed any surprise at the occasional not-so-human customer. This was the Age of Steam. They happened.
Von Luftschiff repeated his request. The barmaid frowned. “What's a Cashewnussschnitzel?”
“Is, how you call it, a schteak tingy, but made out of cashew nuts. Is delicious.”
“We've got steak,” said the barmaid doubtfully.
“Is no good. Hy don't eat meat.”
The barmaid diplomatically kept her reflections about the purpose of his teeth to herself. “We could do you a nice cauliflower cheese,” she suggested.
“Cheese gives me Ver... ach, vot der hell. Hy try it.” He plonked down the gold coin. “Und make it big. Hy hungry.”
He was suddenly aware of a woman standing at his elbow. She was perhaps about fifty, dressed soberly in grey, with a kindly face and very bright, intelligent green eyes. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, in German. “Would you like some company this evening? My husband and I are sitting over there.” She indicated a table at which a short, wiry, balding man sat playing a game of peg solitaire.
“Thank you,” replied von Luftschiff, in the same language. “How is it that you speak such good German?”
The woman smiled. “Because I am from Switzerland. My name is Hilde Greenwood, and that is my husband Charles. He is English, but I met him when he was working in Switzerland.”
“It is good to meet you,” said von Luftschiff. “I am von Luftschiff. I had a first name before I became a Jäger, but I don't remember it. I've heard that the Jägerkin take new names, but so far I haven't met any more. I'm looking for some of my own kind. Are there any in this country?”
“Yes, there are,” replied Hilde, as they went to join Charles at the table, “and we may be able to help you find them. Are you a new Jäger, then?”
“That's right. I... where I was living, it was very dangerous. All kinds of monsters roaming about, though you may think I'm a fine one to say that. One day there were these mad clanks, a whole army of them, and I ran away without knowing where I was going. I was ready to drop when I saw a building ahead of me. I didn't know what it was, but I was desperate, so I broke in through a window and went and hid in the cellar. I expected the clanks to break in after me, but I was hoping they wouldn't find the trapdoor; but I couldn't hear anything overhead, so I thought perhaps they might not have seen me get in.
“I stayed there for maybe half an hour, and then I decided to come out and look through the window to see if they had gone away. I hadn't taken much notice of the inside of the building when I broke in, other than to look for a way down to the cellar, but now I wasn't in a blind panic I realised this was a pretty strange place. There was a big room that looked like some kind of laboratory, and a library with books in several languages, most of which I couldn't read. And there were lots of store rooms. I'm not normally a thief, but it was starting to dawn on me that maybe if the clanks had avoided attacking this building, that meant it was where they came from, and after the fright they'd given me, maybe I was due some redress. So I thought I'd have a good look round those store rooms and see if there was anything useful I could take as compensation.”
Hilde and Charles both nodded sympathetically. Charles had not yet said a word, but it was clear from his face that he was fluent enough in German to be able to follow the story accurately.
“So I got a cloak. It was a good cloak and I'd have been quite happy with that, and I was just about to leave when I saw a little bottle on one of the shelves, and I was pretty sure it must be the Jägerbräu I'd heard so much about. And I thought it would be a really good idea to take it. Either I'd just die and be out of the situation, or I'd become a Jäger and able to cope with it a lot better. I put the bottle in my pocket, got out the same way I came in, found a quiet spot in the woods, wrapped myself up in my nice new cloak, and swallowed the potion. But when I woke up, I was in a house here in England.”
“A house?” asked Charles, still in German. “Near here?”
“Within walking distance, yes,” replied von Luftschiff, who was in fact a little vague about what that distance might be. He was aware that he could now walk faster than he had previously done and feel less tired for it, but he had not yet done enough walking to be able to calibrate and get an accurate estimate of distance covered.
"What happened to the cloak?” asked Hilde.
“I don't know. I think the people who found me must have taken it. As far as I can tell from talking to the guard, some people kidnapped me while I was still unconscious and brought me here because they wanted me to work for them, but they didn't want me to know who they were or where I was working.”
Charles' good-natured face wrinkled into a frown. “If they took the cloak, it seems likely that they were the people who owned that laboratory place you broke into. If they had the resources to bring you over here just like that, they weren't so poor that they needed a cloak, so they were probably just reclaiming it.”
“And there's something else, dear,” added Hilde. “We have a lot of the Jägerkin where I come from. I know how long the transformation process takes, because I have seen it happen with my own eyes. It would not be possible to get anyone from there to here while they were still unconscious, even with a very fast airship. I'm afraid, Herr von Luftschiff, that you were probably drugged just as you were starting to come round.”
“I felt very strange when I woke up,” von Luftschiff admitted. “But I put that down to the effects of the potion. After all, it is powerful stuff.”
“This house where you woke up,” said Charles, “would it be in that direction?” He gestured with a lean arm.
“Yes. Just that way. Cross over the green and keep walking, and you will come to it. It will be on your left.”
“Can you describe it?”
Von Luftschiff did so. He had a good visual memory, and moreover he liked plants and tended to know their names. Charles nodded sombrely.
“I thought so. You know you've walked about fifteen miles, though?”
Von Luftschiff laughed. “It didn't feel like it!”
Hilde smiled. “I suppose it won't. You're enjoying your new body, then?”
“Oh yes. It's good to be so strong. Lucky for me, or I'd never have escaped.”
“I was just going to ask about that,” said Charles, and von Luftschiff obligingly told the story. To his surprise, Hilde frowned as he explained how he had persuaded the guards to let him go.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“It shouldn't have been as easy as that,” Hilde replied. “Something's not right. They must know something about Jägers, or they wouldn't have taken the trouble to kidnap you in the first place; but anyone who knows anything wouldn't leave only one human guard in the house, because they'd be well aware that one guard, even with a weapon, would be pretty useless against you.”
“Maybe they thought I wouldn't know that,” suggested von Luftschiff thoughtfully.
“Oh, I'm sure they guessed you'd work it out soon enough,” said Charles. “We know something about these people, although not as much yet as we'd like. We don't know exactly who they are, but we do know they're clever. They wouldn't make such an elementary mistake. It looks as if you were allowed to escape.”
“But why?”
“I can think of a possible reason,” said Hilde grimly. “Let's suppose they want an army of Jägers. But they haven't even got one. They get hold of some of the potion somehow, thinking they'll make one, but you break in and drink the potion. They go looking for you, and when they find you, you're well on the way to transforming. So they haul you in, put you on an airship, drug you as soon as you start coming round... and then they implant some kind of tracking device. This is a good country to look for Jägerkin who aren't already in some kind of militia, and if you want to find them, the best way to do it is to send another Jäger out after them. And if you believe you escaped against their will, you won't suspect you're being used as a tracker.”
Von Luftschiff stared at her. “That would be evil. How can we find out if it's true?”
“Come up to our room after dinner, and we'll find out,” said Charles. “We have a few interesting devices of our own.”
“What are you two, exactly?” asked von Luftschiff.
Charles grinned. “Oh, we're all sorts of things. For the purpose of being here at the moment, we're travelling organ repairers. We've been called in to look at the church organ, which is, I must say, a very fine specimen of its kind. It should be even finer when we've finished with it.”
The light of understanding dawned. “You're sparks,” said von Luftschiff.
“Of course we are,” replied Hilde, “but that is who we are, not what we do. We do many things.”
At this point, von Luftschiff's cauliflower cheese arrived. It was, indeed, big. The barmaid must have explained to the cook about the gold coin, or possibly about the teeth and claws, because it was clear that the whole cauliflower had been used, and an unusually big one at that. There were also two bottles of red wine, so von Luftschiff called for two extra glasses so that he could share it with his new friends. As he pitched into the cauliflower, Charles said, “I've been thinking. There's another possibility.”
“What's that?” asked von Luftschiff, with his mouth full of hot cauliflower.
“I agree that the tracking device is the most likely explanation, but maybe you weren't sent to find other Jägerkin. Maybe they want you to find someone that you've got a far better chance of finding than a human has.”
“Who?”
“Well... they do say the Heterodyne heiress may be on her way over here. Could be it's her they want.”
Von Luftschiff dropped his fork. “The Heterodyne heiress? She really exists? I've heard some rumours, but...”
“Oh, the rumours are true,” said Hilde. “We know someone who's met her.”
“Wow! But if she's real, why doesn't she save Europa?”
“She is doing her best,” said Charles. “But you've seen how it is. Quite a lot for one heiress to handle, even a Heterodyne.”
“We're going a little too fast, dear,” warned Hilde. “We don't even know for certain that there is a tracking device yet. If there isn't, we're going to have to come up with a whole new hypothesis.”
“Quite true, darling,” agreed Charles. “At least that's easy enough to check.”
Von Luftschiff finished the cauliflower and let out a contented sigh. “Ah! That was excellent. I wonder if they have dessert?”
They did have dessert, though the choice was only between cherry pie and rhubarb crumble. Von Luftschiff hesitated; he would really have preferred the cherry pie, but he had after all just been eating cheese, and he was well aware of certain natural properties of rhubarb. After a moment or two, an idea struck him, and he ordered both. This seemed like an entirely sensible way out of his dilemma.
“Not to pry unnecessarily,” said Charles, “but how are you for money?”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “I had one gold piece, and at the moment I'm enjoying it. I was thinking maybe someone might take me on as a labourer. I'm very strong.”
“Would you like to work for us instead?” asked Charles. “Some of the work we do can get a little dangerous, and it would be useful to have someone like you around. You could still search for your own kind, and in fact that would probably make it easier, because we travel a lot.”
“Yes,” agreed Hilde. “I was thinking the same thing. We could do with someone who can defend us if necessary, but we don't want someone who uses violence indiscriminately. You clearly don't. I was very impressed when you told us about that man's wrist.”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “Everything in its place. When I meet up with my own kind, I'll be very happy to join in with all the fights. But it's not fair to hurt humans unless you can't stop them doing something stupid any other way.” He paused. “I think I might like to work for you, but I want to know more about what you do first. Even for a pair of sparks, you seem unusual.”
“We'll happily tell you later, when we're looking for the device,” replied Hilde. “In the meantime, we can pay you more than you'd get labouring, and we'll throw in your meals, accommodation and travel expenses. And if you don't decide you want to work for us... well, you've given us some useful information about that house. We should pay you for that, at least.”
Charles nodded. “Yes. It's only fair.”
Once von Luftschiff had finished eating, the barmaid called for the bootboy, who showed him up to a small but comfortable room. The Greenwoods followed, and it turned out that their own room was immediately opposite. As soon as the bootboy was out of sight, they beckoned him into it. Charles got down inelegantly onto his stomach and started foraging under the bed, while Hilde ensured that the door was locked and the curtains were completely drawn. A few minutes later, Charles straightened up, a little dishevelled, with a small black suitcase in his hands. He beamed.
“Now we'll find out what those blighters have been doing to you!” he said, opening the case. “If you'd like to sit down there, I'll do the honours. It won't hurt.” He took out a strange brass device that vaguely resembled a small telescope, but with far more knobs and dials than any self-respecting telescope ought to have. “Keep still, please,” he added, as he waved it in front of von Luftschiff.
It pinged melodiously. Charles frowned, twisted one of the knobs and peered through the end of the device. “A-ha,” he said. “Well, that was clever. Nobody's ever going to notice it there, not even you.”
“You've found it, then?” asked von Luftschiff. “Where is it?”
“It's in one of your teeth. Doesn't have to be very big, since it's just a passive tracker.” He glanced at his wife. “How's your dentistry, sweetheart?”
She smiled. “If they put it in without it hurting, we can get it out without it hurting. Which tooth is it?”
Charles pointed. There was no sign of anything unusual from the front.
“All right,” said Hilde. “Please put your head right back and open your mouth as wide as you can, Herr von Luftschiff. I'll get it out for you.”
“And then we'll need to fill the gap,” added Charles.
“We still have a little of that special ceramic left. It's no good for anything else. We may as well use that.”
“I'm surprised you kept it,” said Charles.
Hilde was already poking carefully at the back of von Luftschiff's fang. “Well, you never know, do you, dear?”
The poking around was uncomfortable, but no worse. A few moments later, he felt something like a flake of metal drop onto his tongue, and at almost the same moment something came out of his tooth. Hilde held it in front of him on the palm of her hand.
“There,” she said. She put down the hatpin she had been using. “They didn't fill the hole very well, but if you had felt any roughness there, you'd just have put it down to the change. Now, we're going to hang on to this for a while, and when we get to the next large town or city we're going to drop it randomly into someone's pocket. With reasonable luck it'll take those people in the building quite a while to discover it's no longer attached to you.”
Charles had been going through the suitcase. “Oh, here it is.” He handed Hilde a tiny packet, well wrapped in tinfoil.
“Thank you. Open wide again, please, Herr von Luftschiff.” And, with a little further assistance from the hatpin, Hilde gently packed the cavity with the soft white material out of the packet.
“That should set hard overnight,” she said, “but don't eat anything for twelve hours. That should see you through till breakfast.”
Von Luftschiff gazed at the tiny device that had come out of his tooth. “They can really use that to track me?”
“That's right,” said Charles. “But not from very far away. I'm not an expert on this kind of device, but as far as I know, the maximum tracking range is about thirty to thirty-five miles. That suggests they've got some kind of network.”
“That's not a good thought,” said Hilde.
“No; but we're ahead of them at the moment,” Charles pointed out. “Now, you wanted to know more about what we do. I think the best way to describe us is this. We are Her Majesty's peacekeepers.”
“Not all of them, of course,” added Hilde, with a smile.
“Indeed, no. But peacekeepers come in many forms. There are the police and the armed forces to deal with ordinary disturbances of the peace. And then there are people like us.”
“And you deal with the extraordinary disturbances?” asked von Luftschiff. “Rogue sparks, revenants, clanks gone haywire?”
“All that kind of thing,” said Hilde.
“And church organs,” added Charles, deadpan.
Von Luftschiff beamed, showing all his teeth. “You know what?” he said. “I think I'd love to work for you.”
* * * * *
Von Luftschiff woke the next morning feeling refreshed, ready to go, and above all hungry. This new body had a lot to be said for it, but it did require fuelling on a lavish scale. He washed, pulled on his trousers, and padded across the corridor, where he tapped as lightly as he could on the Greenwoods' door. Charles opened it at once.
“Ah, good morning, Herr von Luftschiff,” he said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”
“Very well indeed, thank you. Did you?”
“Pretty well, thank you.” Charles put his head on one side, giving a curiously birdlike impression. “H'mm. What happened to that cloak thing you were wearing last night?”
“I didn't want to put it on just yet. It's itchy.”
“I should think it is. We really ought to do something about that. You need some proper clothes.”
Hilde appeared behind him. “Good morning! Yes, Charles is quite right. Those trousers don't look at all comfortable.”
“They're not,” von Luftschiff admitted, “but I'm not sure what to do about it.”
Hilde grinned disconcertingly. “I am. I've just had an idea.”
“Ah,” said Charles. “The immediate future has an invention in it. I know the signs.”
Hilde put her hands on her husband's shoulders. “Charles dear, would you like to go and measure him up in his room? I'm going to need some space.”
“If you've got a tape measure,” said Charles.
“Of course. Just a moment.” She opened a drawer, took out a small portable sewing case, opened that, and handed Charles a tape measure. “I'll call you when I'm ready.”
“She can spark before breakfast,” Charles explained, a little apologetically. “It's her best time. As for me, I'm never properly warmed up until I've had at least three cups of coffee.”
“Yes, but you can spark in the evening, dear, and I can very seldom do that. Now, off you go. Oh, and what are your favourite colours, Herr von Luftschiff?”
“I'm not really fussy. Black and grey will do well for me. They don't show the dirt so much.”
“And could you bring that cloak thing, too?” asked Hilde. “The machine is going to need raw materials, and I've only got one spare petticoat. No, don't look like that. It's not going to look a bit like either sacking or muslin by the time the machine has finished with it.”
In some trepidation, von Luftschiff obligingly went and got the cloak. Charles took a full set of measurements, noting them down in a little black notebook that he carried in an inside pocket, and then perched himself on the end of von Luftschiff's bed. “I hope she won't be too long,” he confessed. “I don't know about you, but I really need coffee.”
“I need breakfast,” said von Luftschiff. “I wonder if they will do an omelette?”
“It seems not unlikely.”
“Good. I want a big omelette. With lots of herbs and tomatoes.”
“I thought all the Jägerkin ate meat?”
“Not this one. I didn't eat meat when I was human, and now I've changed, I still don't want to.”
“You don't mind if I do? I heard they might have devilled kidneys.”
“No problem with that,” von Luftschiff assured him. “You eat what you eat, I eat what I eat.”
They chatted for a little while, but in fact it was not very long before Hilde tapped on the door. She had rolled up the sleeves of her sensible grey dress and donned a big leather work apron over the top. She looked rather like a cross between a blacksmith and a Valkyrie.
“It's ready!” she called cheerfully. “Time to feed it the measurements.”
When they returned to the other room, it was obvious why Hilde had needed the space. The thing she had built took up most of the floor between the bed and the window. Charles raised an eyebrow.
“It looks very impressive, dear, but I hope you didn't use all the spare parts,” he said.
“I did. And a few that weren't strictly spare. But it's all right; once it's done its job, I can take it apart again. Now, have you got the measurements handy?”
Charles produced the notebook, and Hilde adjusted a set of dials on the front of the machine. “There!” she said. “And you wanted monochrome, which made things a lot easier. We'll do the shirt first.”
An additional dial was calibrated from white to black through all the shades of grey. Hilde set it to a mid tone, then pressed a button marked “shirt”. The machine whirred and clanked into action. Pieces of fabric were dragged up from a bin at the bottom, the fibres teased out with hooks, and then everything re-spun together at a dizzying rate. The spun threads were passed through a colouring unit (“it doesn't actually dye them,” explained Hilde proudly, “but what it does do is alter the light-reflecting properties of the surface”), and then woven on a complex network of pins into pre-shaped pieces of fabric. The pins looked suspiciously like the ones out of the portable sewing kit. A multitude of tiny clamps grabbed the pieces and guided them through the sewing machine attachment, which had been threading itself up as the pieces were woven, and assembled them rapidly and neatly. A miniature blade descended from somewhere in the workings and sliced open the buttonholes, which were promptly bound by the sewing machine attachment; finally, the buttons were stitched in place and the finished shirt was delivered in a hopper at the front. Before von Luftschiff had time to say a word, Hilde turned the colour dial to full black, pressed the button marked “trousers”, and set the whole thing clattering off again.
“According to my calculations, there should be just enough to make you a waistcoat as well,” she said, handing him the shirt. “Black for that too, or maybe a darker grey?”
“Oh... black would be fine. Thank you,” said von Luftschiff, a little dazed. The shirt he was holding did not feel exactly like cotton or linen, but on the other hand neither did it feel as though it had just been re-spun from some old sacks and a long muslin petticoat. He tried it on; it fitted perfectly. As he finished buttoning it, the trousers fell into the hopper. These had taken even less time than the shirt; fewer buttons, as Hilde helpfully explained.
For obvious reasons of modesty he returned to his own room to change his trousers, and the thought struck him that his old ones would be no good to anyone now and might as well be fed into the machine. Back in the room opposite, he handed them to Hilde. “Can you use these?” he asked.
“Oh, certainly! I can make up some extra fabric for repairs. Or you could get another waistcoat out of these if you like.”
“Why not make something for yourself? After all, you have given up your petticoat.”
“Thank you! Perhaps I shall have a waistcoat too. But not until after breakfast. I can wait.” Charles looked distinctly relieved at this information.
Hilde gave him the waistcoat that had just popped out of the machine, and he put it on. “You look very good now,” she said, with approval. “Look in the mirror.”
Von Luftschiff did. He had a mirror in his own room, but even so, he was still getting used to the sight of his new face. It had to be said, even allowing for that, that Hilde had a good point. Everyone, regardless of size, shape or species, looks better in well-cut, expertly fitted clothes, and von Luftschiff was no exception.
“Thank you,” said von Luftschiff, with unaccustomed shyness. “These are the best clothes I've ever had.”
Hilde beamed. “You're welcome. Now, shall we go down and have breakfast?”
The Black Swan did indeed offer omelettes, or, at any rate, it was happy to offer an omelette to a huge broad-shouldered green person with formidable claws and teeth. There were half a dozen eggs in it, plenty of herbs, and all the tomatoes they were able to find in the pantry. Charles also got his devilled kidneys, while Hilde was content with a couple of slices of toast and some home-made raspberry jam. They had a pot of tea and a pot of coffee between them. Charles drank at least half of the coffee, and visibly completed his waking-up process under its beneficent influence.
“We've to be at the church at half past ten,” he said. “Then, once the organ is fully repaired, we'll come back here, pay the bill and leave.”
“That should give me plenty of time to take the machine apart and pack away the pieces,” said Hilde. “Which is just as well, because I expect we'll need a few of them for the organ. Herr von Luftschiff, are you interested in church organs?”
“I've never really given them much thought,” he admitted.
“We wouldn't like you to be bored while we're in there,” she said. “Do you like reading?”
This was a surprisingly difficult question. Von Luftschiff had always enjoyed reading in the past, but now...? He glanced down at his claws. While they were undoubtedly excellent for self-defence, holding a book and turning the pages without ripping them to shreds was going to take a little practice.
“Ah,” said Hilde. “I'm going to need to do some more inventing, I think.”
“But not now, please, dear!” Charles almost wailed. “We have a church organ to fix. Listen, for now, would you like to borrow our peg solitaire? It's wood, so you can't tear it up, and it doesn't matter if it gets a little scratched. It's scratched already.”
“That is very kind of you,” said von Luftschiff gratefully. “Yes, thank you. I should like that.”
The church was at one end of the green. It was built of softly weathered yellowish sandstone, with a tower that was just tall enough for at least one of its four clocks to be seen from almost everywhere in the village. The doors were dark oak, embellished with much wrought iron, and they stood open invitingly. The curate, a Mr Frobisher, was waiting for them inside.
“Thank you for arriving so promptly,” he said, with a smile. Then he noticed von Luftschiff, and visibly balked.
“This is Herr von Luftschiff, our assistant,” explained Hilde. “He won't hurt you.”
“Damn right I von't,” said von Luftschiff, and then immediately realised his mistake. “Sorry. Not de ting to say in a place like dis.”
“Well, you did make your point, at least,” observed Mr Frobisher. “The organ is up here, if you'd like to follow me.”
Charles and Hilde followed the curate into the organ loft. Von Luftschiff considered that he would probably do a better job of guarding them if he did not attempt to cram himself in there with them, given that any intruder with malicious intent was likely to walk straight in through the open door. He settled himself in one of the pews and looked round the building. There were the usual stained-glass windows and ornate wall-mounted tombstones, some of the older ones inscribed in Latin, and the usual scent of musty hymnals and beeswax polish. A white cloth with gold embroidery adorned the altar, for it was between Easter and Pentecost, and a tall candle stood close to the font at the back.
It was just a village church, then. Nothing unusual about it. Satisfied at this, von Luftschiff took out the peg solitaire and started playing with it as unobtrusively as possible. He had his own personal brand of faith which had never fitted very neatly into churches, but he had no wish to disrespect the sort of faith that did.
The organ swelled out suddenly, almost causing him to drop the pegs. He looked up and saw Charles sitting at the keyboard. Among his other talents, he was clearly a fine musician, since he was now playing a Bach fugue by ear. After a few minutes, the music stopped almost as abruptly as it had started, and von Luftschiff strained his newly keen hearing to catch what was being said up above.
“Yes,” Charles was saying. “Your problem is that there isn't enough air coming through the pipes on some of the stops. That means that either there's a partial fault with the air delivery system, or there's an obstruction somewhere. I think the latter's more likely, but either way we'll need to do some disassembly.”
“All right. How long will it take?” asked Mr Frobisher.
“Depends what's wrong, but at least the rest of the morning. Maybe the rest of the day,” replied Charles.
“Then I'd better leave you to it,” said the curate. “I'll arrange for refreshments in the vestry. Coffee, and some sandwiches for lunch.”
“Ah,” said Hilde. “Thank you, but could I ask for a separate plate of non-meat ones? Herr von Luftschiff doesn't eat meat.”
“It might be easier to send in some salad instead, then, with cold meat on a plate for those who want it. I'll sort that out. I'm used to people who don't eat meat; my great-aunt doesn't.” He paused. “She's ninety-two, so it clearly hasn't done her any harm.”
“Thank you,” said Hilde. “That would be perfect.”
The curate departed, and the Greenwoods proceeded to roll up their sleeves and get down to business. Despite the occasional snatches of melody from up above, and the peg solitaire, von Luftschiff soon started to get a little bored. After a while, he went to the top of the stairs and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
“Oh, if you wouldn't mind,” said Hilde, from underneath a bewildering conglomeration of pipes. “Could you just hold this for me a moment?”
After that, the time passed quickly enough. Both Hilde and Charles found plenty for him to do, despite the lack of space, and by the time they broke off for lunch the source of the problem had been identified. The organ had apparently at some point been refurbished by a spark with considerably more ingenuity than practical common sense, as a result of which it had a good many more individual bellows than any reasonable organ ought to have. It was one of these small bellows which was causing the problem. The structure was sound, but it kept sticking. Charles and Hilde were still discussing whether to repair it or to take it out altogether and re-route some of the airflow as they came down the stairs.
Lunch proved to be an agreeable distraction. Mr Frobisher had laid on a large bowl of green salad, a smaller bowl of tomatoes and spring onions arranged artistically, a steaming dish of new potatoes fragrant with mint, a plate of cold meat and a large wedge of cheese. Von Luftschiff cautiously took a small slice of cheese, since he felt that the jury was still out on whether it still had unfortunate effects on his lower digestive tract, and helped himself enthusiastically to the vegetables. They were still eating when a maid appeared bearing a blancmange on a tray.
“Excuse me,” said von Luftschiff. “Vot is dot ting?”
The maid curtseyed in a flurry. “Blancmange, sir.”
“But vot ISS it?” von Luftschiff persisted. “Vot is it made of? Hy have never seen such a ting before.”
“It's milk and sugar and cornflour, sir,” explained the maid. “Would you like to try a little?”
“Yust a little, then,” said von Luftschiff doubtfully.
“It's very popular in this country,” said Charles.
The maid dished out a minute helping. Von Luftschiff put aside the salad and gingerly took a spoonful.
“Is not so popular vith me,” he decided. “Sorry.”
As soon as the maid was out of earshot, he reverted to German. “That stuff is weird,” he said, indicating the contentious dessert. “When I get the chance, I'll cook you apple strudel. Now that's a real dessert.”
Hilde's green eyes lit up immediately. “That would be lovely! I haven't had apple strudel for years.”
“Do you enjoy cooking?” asked Charles.
“Oh, yes. Big hobby of mine. I was a cook in the Army.”
“Didn't they make you cook meat?” asked Hilde curiously.
“I don't mind cooking it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Especially not when I've got assistants to help. What other people do is their own business. But I always used to do something with lentils or split peas or that kind of thing. I'd have that as a main course, and other people could have some as a side dish if they wanted. A lot of them did, because I usually spiced it up.” He grinned. “I like spices.”
Hilde finished her salad. “That sounds good to me. Well, I am going to have some of this blancmange. Charles, what about you?”
“Just a little for me, please, dear. I'm quite full. I ate quite a lot of potatoes.” He patted his almost non-existent stomach.
“What are we doing about the bellows?” asked Hilde, as she doled out the blancmange.
“I still say take it out altogether,” replied Charles. “It's a little more work than repairing it, but on the other hand it is one less part to go wrong in future.”
“But then if anything goes wrong with the bellows we pull in to compensate for it...”
“That's a point,” Charles conceded. “Really, what we should do is redesign the whole organ.”
“We haven't time, darling,” Hilde reminded him.
“No, but I'm getting this idea...”
Von Luftschiff sighed inwardly, stretched out a claw, and snagged the last tomato. They were undoubtedly a nice couple, but... well. They were sparks. What could you expect?
* * * * *
In the end, the organ problem was solved just as you might expect two sparks in a long and happy marriage to solve it. They decided to go for both options: repair the problematic bellows, and also set up a back-up system in case of failure. Of course, this inevitably meant that Charles got a little over-excited and insisted on backing up all the other bellows as well, resulting in a most impressively complicated final airflow system, but at least the organ was now pretty much immune to any failure short of actual sabotage.
Mr Frobisher was called in to listen to the results, and was delighted with them. Since it was now nearly four o'clock, he also insisted that they should stay for tea and cake before they left. Von Luftschiff was already clear that there were many drinks he preferred to the British national beverage of choice, but cake was a different matter. Cake was, as far as he was concerned, a good idea. So they all trooped round to the vicarage, which was just behind the church, and tea and cake were served by the same slightly bemused maid, who discovered that the big green gentleman might not be too keen on blancmange, but he was absolutely on board with the concept of gingerbread.
“Well, that was fun,” observed Charles, as they all walked back to the Swan. “That organ had a most beautiful tone.”
“Yes, but it is getting late,” said Hilde. “We may have to stay here another night after all.”
“Oh, we'll be fine,” replied Charles cheerfully. “It's no more than ten miles to the next town. We probably won't even have to burn any fuel.”
“Fuel?” asked von Luftschiff. “How do you travel? By airship?”
“No, but we've got this device we ran up between the two of us,” Hilde explained.
“I wouldn't say so much ran up,” Charles demurred. “It's more that we're perpetually running her up. She's an ongoing project.”
“She's a bit like a carriage,” said Hilde.
“Or a velocipede,” added Charles.
“We call her Bertha,” said Hilde, as if this explained everything.
“She's round here,” said Charles, leading them down a narrow alley between the pub and the adjacent house. This took them to a small cobbled yard behind the pub, with a row of stables at the back and a cart which presumably belonged to the establishment standing close to the door leading to the kitchen. And...
...and, well. There was Bertha.
Von Luftschiff had been expecting something enormous, possibly because both the clothing machine and the organ had been on the large side. In fact, Bertha was not particularly big. Once upon a time, probably many years ago, before any spark had started to tinker with her, it was possible to see that she had been a pony trap. The basic shape was still there. But she now had plum and gold metal cladding, and an improbably large wheel at the front where the pony would originally have gone, and a roof, and windows, and...
“What is that on the top?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Oh, those are the flywheels,” said Hilde. “They're very important because they store energy. The system is set up so that they rotate in opposite directions at about the same speed; that's a safety measure. It means that if for any reason she gets knocked over, she can't be dragged along on her side by the flywheel.”
Charles nodded enthusiastically. “And she's dual-powered. If you look at the driver's seat, you'll see there are pedals. The inside seats have pedals too, if you want to use them. There's also a steam engine. There are controls for the speed and the gearing and so on, and if you generate more energy than you need to move her along at the speed you want, it just gets stored in the flywheels and used when you're generating less energy. And if they're still going round at the end of the journey, you can use the energy to charge up any power cells you happen to have.”
Hilde beamed. “That's how I ran the clothing machine this morning. Half a dozen old but very reliable Sturmvoraus power cells.”
“Remarkable,” said von Luftschiff.
“We are rather proud of her,” said Charles, with a smile. “I wonder, would you mind helping bring the luggage down? The compartment is underneath, and it opens at the back.”
It was quite a big compartment. But then, there was quite a lot of luggage. Charles and Hilde could travel light when it came to clothes and personal effects, but then there was... everything else. Everything else, so far as von Luftschiff could determine, consisted of three boxes of tools (a large shared box, plus two smaller boxes of more specialised tools, one belonging to each); a large wooden trunk with drawers divided into tiny subcompartments, containing every possible kind of nail, screw, washer, tack, hinge, cog, gear, bolt or rivet, to name just the parts he recognised; several pieces of sheet metal, at least one of which appeared to have been carefully unrolled from a galvanised bucket; pieces of wood of various types and in various shapes and sizes; a roll of rubber sheeting (heavier than it looked); a set of stacking boxes containing numerous components which von Luftschiff was at a complete loss to identify; three balls of twine in graduated thicknesses; a can of oil; several rags in various stages of filthiness; and a block of beeswax. How the Greenwoods had carried it all up to their room in the first place was a matter of wonder, but then von Luftschiff had a suspicion that Charles, at any rate, might be surprisingly strong. Small wiry men sometimes were.
The existence of Bertha confirmed another suspicion that von Luftschiff had had. Sparks were not, in general, popular where he came from; it was generally rather grudgingly acknowledged that good ones existed (and he himself came from an area where the Wulfenbach family was normally assigned to this category), but they had also done a great deal of harm, whether through actual malice or simply making mistakes. Going around in something like Bertha at home would have invited a lynch mob. Here, in this far more peaceful land, it was clear that sparks were at least tolerated, even if it did appear to be polite not to mention the fact aloud. Mr Frobisher, he recalled, had not alluded to it once, even though it must have been plain to him that they had used spark genius to repair the organ.
Of course, as far as he was aware, Her Britannic Majesty was not a spark. Maybe that was really all that was needed. Maybe sparks were all right as long as you didn't go letting them be in charge of things. Mind you, once they were in charge, just try stopping them...
His thoughts were interrupted by the realisation that something was wrong. Charles was standing in the yard holding the same gadget that he had used previously to detect the tracer, and his face, always fairly wrinkled, had creased into a road map of worry lines.
“Oh dear,” he said. “I'm afraid we've lost Ashmole.”
Hilde, who was just bustling up with her parasol and a jacket that her husband had forgotten, immediately assumed an equally worried expression. “When you say lost, do you mean mechanical failure or something worse?”
“Given where we sent him, I think we've got to assume something worse,” replied Charles. “This is... really not good.”
“Who is Ashmole?” asked von Luftschiff.
“Ah,” said Charles. “Well, you'll have gathered that the actual reason we were in this area was to investigate that house where you were held, yes? You'll also have noticed that we stayed fifteen miles away and didn't go any closer to the house? Ashmole did.”
“That doesn't really answer Herr von Luftschiff's question, dear, except rather indirectly,” said Hilde. “Ashmole is a mechanical mole. He can travel quite fast underground. We sent him to burrow into the cellar of the house and find out anything he could.”
“That's why he's called Ashmole,” explained Charles, seriously. “The original Ashmole was, ah, an occultist, so it seems an appropriate name for a creature whose job is to discover hidden secrets, even though they're rather more mundane ones.”
“Yes, well, the point, darling, is that he's basically a remote viewing device,” said Hilde. “If he sees anything of interest, the Universal Viewer, which is that gadget there, goes ping, and if we look down the tube we can see what Ashmole is looking at.”
“And we can normally also use the Viewer to contact Ashmole,” added Charles, “except that we can't.” His mouth turned downwards in an inverted U which would have been almost comic if the situation had not been so obviously serious. “I don't know if the people in that house can reverse-engineer Ashmole to track us, but I'm afraid the safest policy from now on is to assume they probably can.”
Von Luftschiff thought about this. “So,” he said. “There's probably going to be trouble?”
“It does rather look like it,” replied Hilde.
“Real trouble? Not just humans-doing-stupid-things trouble?”
“Real trouble,” Charles confirmed, lugubriously.
“I'll get to fight things?”
“That,” said Charles, “seems entirely likely.”
Von Luftschiff beamed, displaying all his fangs. “Wonderful!”
This seemed to cheer both the Greenwoods somewhat, and without further ado they all climbed into Bertha, who was snugly upholstered in plum-coloured velvet. Hilde apologised for being unable to pedal at the moment, as her knee was giving her some trouble; at this point von Luftschiff mentally re-ran the events of the day, and realised that she had been limping slightly since the morning. Charles was sympathetic and unsurprised; the knee was clearly an ongoing problem. Von Luftschiff offered to pedal, since he had no trouble with his knees and it was likely to be better than just sitting there, and Hilde showed him what to do while Charles clambered up into the driver's seat.
“If you've ever ridden a velocipede, the technique is pretty much the same,” she said, “except that you can go at any pace you like, because Charles will be controlling the speed from the front. Any spare energy just goes into the flywheels. And if you get tired, you can take a break or stop altogether at any time.”
Von Luftschiff had tried riding a velocipede only once, and decided it was not for him. It had seemed at the time to be one of those ideas that was excellent in theory, but required a great deal more work on the practical side. However, the Greenwoods had clearly thought very hard about that. Bertha had comfortable seats with a back to them, and there was no way anyone could fall off in the normal course of events. The pedals were set in a deep slot in the floor, and when they were not in use a wooden lid could be placed over them for safety and comfort. And, crucially, there was no need to worry about steering, since Charles was doing all that. Steering had been his undoing on his ill-fated velocipede outing. He had picked himself up regretfully afterwards, thinking that the ride had actually been a lot of fun until this point, and almost wishing he had the spark himself so that he could redesign the machine to be a little more rider-friendly.
So he settled himself in the velvet seat with enthusiasm and began pedalling at a fast, steady rhythm. Bertha hissed, whirred and clanked into action, pulling slowly out of the yard and turning into the alley. Charles steered her into the lane alongside the green, and now she began to pick up speed. By the time they were out of the village, she was doing a steady twenty miles an hour.
Trouble arrived about halfway along the road to the next town. They were passing a field of horses at the time, and in the field were two sturdy men, most likely the farmer and his son, hard at work shovelling manure into sacks. Hilde was just starting to make a remark about one of the horses when a rain of metal shot struck the back window, crazing the glass.
Charles ducked swiftly down through the hatch into the body of the carriage; the driver's seat did have a hood, but nonetheless it was an exposed position. “Flying clanks,” he gasped. “Better start winding out the cannon.”
Hilde peered cautiously through the damaged glass. More shot struck Bertha's metal-plated body. “Is that all the shot they've got?” she asked.
“Probably, but that's not the point,” replied Charles, who was operating a complicated-looking set of levers just below the hatch. “I think the shot's meant to discourage us from getting out and running. They look as though they're going to ram us.”
Von Luftschiff pressed his nose to the window near Hilde. “Where does the cannon fire from?” he asked.
“Just below the roof. Why?”
“I just need to know where to stand,” explained von Luftschiff cheerfully. He wrenched the door open, leapt out, and grabbed the shovel of the astonished farmer, who was still trying to work out whether or not he was personally in danger.
“Scuse me,” he said, companionably. “Hy yust need to borrow dis a minute. Hyu don't mind, do hyu?”
Whether or not the farmer minded, he was too startled to express any opinion. He sprang back as one of the airborne clanks sprayed von Luftschiff with pellets.
“Hoy!” yelled von Luftschiff. “Hyu schpoil my nize waistcoat vot Hilde made yust for me, hyu going to end up in her schpare parts box.”
Shouldering the shovel, he scrambled up to the driver's seat, then looked up at the clanks. They were approaching fast; sharp-nosed, finned things, more like airborne sharks than any kind of bird. The flywheels on the roof were still spinning rapidly. He sized them up, made his decision, and vaulted.
The first of the clanks came within range while Charles and Hilde were still getting the cannon ready. Von Luftschiff, who had already built up a fair amount of angular momentum, whacked it squarely out of the air with the shovel, and it fell in a shower of nuts and bolts at the feet of the bewildered farmer, who finally found his voice.
“What the hell are you doing with my shovel?” he demanded.
Grinning from ear to ear and spinning like a gyroscope, von Luftschiff shouted back, “Hy having FUN!”
A couple more, who were unable to stop or turn in time, succumbed to the shovel before the rest of the fleet drew back. They hovered a little uncertainly, apparently waiting for instructions. It appeared that whoever was controlling them knew about the cannon and had told them to drop straight down onto Bertha from above, thus staying out of its range. They had not, however, bargained for a battle-happy Jäger on the roof.
Von Luftschiff took advantage of their hesitation to leap back for a moment into the driver's seat and call through the hatch. “They're overhead,” he said, reverting to German. “I need something to throw at them.”
“Here,” said Hilde, taking a heavy cannonball from the box. “Can you throw that?”
“You bet,” replied von Luftschiff, grinning. Before he could take it, another of the flying clanks decided to chance it; he leapt to his feet again and sent it to clank limbo with the shovel. He ducked down again, grabbed the cannonball, and pitched it among their adversaries. They scattered backwards, allowing Charles and Hilde to take out a few of them with the cannon.
That left about half as many as had originally attacked, but the rest were still dangerous; already they were regrouping. Hilde stuck her head through the hatch. “Good move, but I don't think it'll work twice,” she warned.
“No. But I've got a plan. Have we got any thin rope?”
“Is the clothes line any good?”
“Sure. If you don't mind it getting a bit messy.”
“It'll wash,” replied Hilde, with the sublime confidence of a spark who knows that if anything ever gets too unpleasant to be washed in the usual way, she can always come up with a device to do the job. “Just a minute. We keep it inside one of the seats. Can you keep them entertained while I find it?”
“I've got the shovel,” said von Luftschiff happily.
“I'll take that as yes, then.”
The next clank didn't waste time trying to ram Bertha. It aimed straight for von Luftschiff, who promptly gave it such a whang with the shovel that its nose went through the centre of the blade. Von Luftschiff waved it around in the air for a few moments, then, noticing that it was still functioning enough to try to extricate itself, finished it off by bashing it with all his strength against the upper flywheel. He then sent the whole lot, shovel and all, whirling back among its cronies. Another one went down.
While they regrouped again, von Luftschiff caught the rope from Hilde, half-climbed and half-slid to the ground, picked up a full sack of manure, and quickly tied it to one end of the rope. “Hoy!” protested the farmer. “That's my mulch, that is!”
“Hey, is no problem. Hy not schtealing it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Hy yust borrowing it.”
“But...”
But von Luftschiff was already scrambling back on top of the carriage. “Now,” he called down to the farmer, “hyu see vot hy do. All above board, ja?”
Jumping back atop the flywheel, he began to pay out the line. It was probably fair to assume that the flying clanks had never seen anyone impart this kind of angular velocity to a heavy sack of finest horse manure before. Spinning at a dizzying rate, he lengthened the line until the sack was orbiting the flywheel like a satellite. Down below, Charles was making some adjustments to the cannon; the clanks hovered, but could not risk crossing the plane of the rushing sack.
Then von Luftschiff slowly and gently raised one hand above the other, tilting the plane of rotation.
The clanks saw what was coming and tried to scatter. They were not fast enough. A split second after von Luftschiff let go, the sack slammed into the leading clank, knocking it out of the air and sending great gobs of manure flying everywhere. The remaining clanks were covered in the stuff. It was impossible to see where their visual sensors were, but, wherever they were, they were now having trouble; the clanks milled about blindly in the air, trying desperately not to bump into one another.
Von Luftschiff put his head through the hatch again. “OK,” he said. “One of you drive, the other one take the rest of them out with the cannon.”
After that, it was simple, except of course for the farmer, who demanded compensation for one shovel and one sack of manure, despite the fact that technically most of the manure was still on his property. Hilde gave him a charming smile and a few shillings, while von Luftschiff helped Charles to salvage any parts of their recent enemies that might come in handy on a future occasion. Bertha needed a few repairs, especially to the back window, but it was nothing that had to be done on the spot; they could easily wait until they reached their destination.
Von Luftschiff shook the last fragments of manure carefully off his hat and climbed back into his seat. He felt exceedingly satisfied. Now this, he thought to himself, was the life of a Jäger!
* * * * *
The town was large enough to boast several places to stay, but finding one proved to be oddly difficult. The first place said it was full, although it looked suspiciously quiet. The second place was terribly sorry, but it had nowhere to accommodate Bertha. The third was in a rough quarter by the river, and smelt indescribable; any lingering traces of manure were nothing by comparison.
By the time they got to the fourth, all of them were hungry and von Luftschiff's previous good mood was rapidly evaporating. He stopped the Greenwoods before they reached the door.
“I'm going to go and look round the back first,” he said.
He did, and was back in a few moments, grinning meaningfully. “There's only one horse in the stables. They're not full, whatever they say.”
“I hope they're not turning us away because of you,” said Hilde severely. “That would be very wrong of them. Perhaps I ought to tell them you saved our lives?”
“We'll see,” said Charles, and knocked on the door.
A woman with a large spotted handkerchief tied under her chin opened the door. She looked them swiftly up and down, then said rather indistinctly, “Sorry, we're full.”
Von Luftschiff put his foot in the door. “Hyu not full. Hy been round de back to have a look. Now, vot's de deal?”
“I can't talk now. I've got toothache.”
“Hy can cure dat,” von Luftschiff offered, brightly.
The woman turned pale. Charles held up a hand. “It's all right. If your tooth does need to come out, we may have more comfortable ways of doing it than having Herr von Luftschiff pull it out for you, although it was kind of him to offer. Now, if you can't talk, perhaps you'd like to go and fetch someone who can?”
The woman disappeared, and presently a slightly older, more substantially built woman in a green gown and a white linen apron arrived at the door. This, clearly, was the innkeeper herself. “Maria did tell you we're full,” she said, in a disapproving tone.
“Und ve don't believe it,” replied von Luftschiff. “Everyvhere, ve get turned avay, so dis place hy vent round de back first und had a look. Hyu not full.”
“We're respectable paying customers,” added Hilde. “And I hope you're not worried about Herr von Luftschiff here. He saved our lives on the way over here.”
The innkeeper narrowed her eyes. “Yes. I heard about that.”
“Ah,” said Charles. “So that would, in fact, be the problem? You don't want to take us in because you know there are people trying to kill us?”
“Well, since you ask, Mr Spark, that'd be about the size of it. Bad news travels pretty fast in these parts. Especially when it's the sort of bad news that involves a pack of flying killer clanks. We don't want to have to deal with anything like that in this town.”
“Greenwood,” Charles corrected her, pleasantly. “Charles Greenwood. And my wife Hilde. At your service.”
“Look, I don't care if you're Her Majesty's special envoys, you're not coming in here. Why don't you sleep in that jalopy of yours?”
“Because, for one thing, we should all like baths,” replied Hilde with dignity. “If you've heard about what happened to us on the road, then you'll be aware that we had rather more to do with a sack of fresh manure than we were originally expecting.”
Charles was fishing in a jacket pocket. “Interesting that you should mention Her Majesty,” he said, and held up a document for the innkeeper's inspection.
The innkeeper goggled. “Oh,” she said.
“Well, yes, quite,” replied Charles, a little apologetically. “I really don't like to have to do this sort of thing to people, but in the circumstances, you know... and I wouldn't want you to end up being charged with a crime.” He said it in such a way that it was clear he genuinely meant it, rather than using it as a threat.
“Hyu needn't vorry about any danger,” said von Luftschiff. “Hyu got me.”
“Well,” said the innkeeper, reluctantly. “That puts a different complexion on things, I suppose. You'd better go and tie up the jalopy in the yard and I'll see about rooms for you. And you'll want dinner, I expect?”
“We should love dinner, thank you,” said Hilde. “No meat for Herr von Luftschiff, please. He is vegetarian.”
“Vegetarian?”
Von Luftschiff sighed. He was already getting tired of people staring hard at his teeth when that particular fact was revealed to them. “Ja. Vegetarian. No meat, no fish, eggs is fine, go a liddle easy vit der cheese. Lentils und beans und all dat kind of schtuff is goot.”
The innkeeper put her head on one side. “We could do you a cauliflower cheese.”
“Is hokay, but hy had vun yesterday,” said von Luftschiff.
“I'm afraid it's the most prominent vegetarian dish in British cuisine,” said Charles. “You're likely to be offered it rather a lot.”
“Omelette?” asked the innkeeper.
“Hy had dat for breakfast. Hyu not got a nize bean und mushroom casserole? Hy could yust murder dat.”
But there were no beans or lentils on offer at the inn, and von Luftschiff resignedly had to settle for cauliflower cheese again. He helped unload Bertha, and by the time that task was finished he was very much hoping that it would at least be a large serving. He was not disappointed in that; this was the kind of establishment that was well used to having to feed hungry farm workers, and sized its platefuls accordingly.
“You know,” said Hilde over dinner, “I've been thinking. And I don't very much like the look of things.”
“What, about bad news getting round fast?” asked Charles.
She nodded. “Exactly. Granted, we did have to stop to placate that farmer, but even so, we were going faster than nearly anything else could travel by the time we'd finished doing that. Someone who saw the whole thing must have gone into town ahead of us on a fast horse.”
“There was the other man in the field,” von Luftschiff pointed out. “The one who looked as though he might be the farmer's son. He disappeared. I don't remember seeing him after I got out of Bertha, and there were several horses there. He could easily have taken one of them and galloped off ahead while we were distracted.”
“But if that was the case, he didn't see you fight,” said Charles. “I'd be very surprised if he'd gone all the way to the town, anyway. If you'd been working in a field before you changed, and you saw a fleet of airborne clanks attacking a carriage on the road, what would you have done? Taken a horse and ridden five miles into town, or taken cover in the farmhouse?”
“Unless he already knew something,” suggested Hilde.
“Possible, but not terribly likely,” said Charles. “We're dealing with rogue sparks here. The only way rogue sparks are going to take a poorly educated farm worker into their plans is if he shows some signs of the talent himself. Which is not impossible, of course, but my own instinct is that if he had even a hint of the spark in him he'd have stayed. He'd have wanted to see how the clanks worked, and if he were in league with the enemy he'd have known they were no danger to him.”
“That makes sense,” agreed Hilde. “Nonetheless, someone certainly got here ahead of us.” She paused, thinking hard. “Or perhaps was here all along. We've been thinking in terms of everything being controlled from that house where Herr von Luftschiff was held, but that needn't be the case, especially since we know they must have some kind of longer-distance network for tracking purposes. The clanks came from the direction of the house, but what if they started there and then control was transferred about halfway to an agent here in the town?”
“That's a disturbing thought, dear,” said Charles.
“Yes, but one of the reasons we're both still alive is that we tend to take the worst assumption and run with it,” Hilde reminded him. “I'd say that was a good candidate.”
Charles pulled his long face again. “I'm afraid you're right,” he sighed. “I wish we could get hold of Ashmole. That would definitely make things safer, at least for now.”
“And I wish we had more of an idea who we were dealing with,” said Hilde. “I'm getting a little tired of fighting shadows.”
“And I'd just like to hit something,” added von Luftschiff. “The cauliflower cheese is terrible. Look at it – the cauliflower is overcooked and the sauce is all watery. First thing tomorrow I'm going out looking for lentils.”
“But it's not fair to hit humans, so you're not actually going to hit the cook?” asked Hilde, with a smile.
“You got it. That's why I need someone it's fair to hit.”
After dinner, baths were brought to their rooms. Von Luftschiff was glad of his, but had a certain amount of unexpected difficulty with it because of his increased size and strength. To his embarrassment, despite his care, he dented it slightly getting out, and had to wait until the Greenwoods had finished their ablutions to go round and borrow a hammer to straighten it again.
Following that minor contretemps, he decided that it might not be a bad idea to go out and explore the town for a while; he could work off any surplus energy that way, and at the same time save some time in the morning. All the shops would be closed by this time, but he could at least find out what there was and where it was located. He suggested this idea to the Greenwoods and asked if there was any way he could remain on call in case of any attack.
“I've actually been thinking about that very thing myself,” said Charles. “It occurs to me that if the rogue sparks can subvert Ashmole, there's no reason why we can't subvert their tracker.”
“Although only in the short term,” Hilde pointed out. “The problem is, it's passive. Whatever we do to allow us to track it, we can't stop the enemy also doing so. But until we can build something better, it's a good option.”
“Yes,” said Charles. “We really only need to rig it to respond to a signal. And since it's small and metallic...” His eyes suddenly gleamed, and for the first time von Luftschiff noticed just how blue they were.
“You see?” said Hilde, looking up from the novel she was reading. “I told you Charles could spark in the evening. I can never manage that.”
“It's the coffee,” explained Charles. “I need a certain amount in my system before I can spark properly.”
He pulled out the black suitcase from under the bed; this, as von Luftschiff was rapidly learning, contained the permanent gadgets and the most useful of the spare parts. The tracker was in a little box inside this, wrapped carefully in cotton wool. Some further searching produced a tiny brass bell. “Shouldn't take long,” said Charles cheerfully. “I'm just going to need a few more bits.”
Von Luftschiff watched the process with fascination. He had heard that all sparks were a little mad, but he had previously found it quite hard to believe this of Charles, even after seeing him at work on the church organ. Now, as the little man bounded around the room like a sprite, collecting various components and assembling them all with an unbelievably rapid dexterity, he had to admit he was convinced. Charles might be mild-mannered and polite most of the time, but when he had an invention on the go, he was as mad as a box of frogs, right down to the wild eyes and the toothy, adrenaline-fuelled grin.
It suddenly occurred to him that this was probably what he himself looked like when he was fighting. Perhaps being a spark was simply another way for someone's brain to go all Jäger. Or the other way round, or something.
“Shazam!” exclaimed Charles triumphantly. Von Luftschiff was fairly certain that word was not in his normal vocabulary. In the palm of his hand he held an exquisite little miniature birdcage with the bell hanging inside it. He shook it vigorously. There was no sound at all.
“Magnetic fields,” explained Charles. “Wonderful things. The tracking device is attached to the clapper of the bell, but it's normally immobilised. Nothing happens until I do this.” He put the cage down on the dressing table, produced a strange-looking metal rod with various wheels and sliders on it, and did something with his hands. The bell immediately started ringing loudly.
“So all you have to do is put that in your pocket, and even if you get into a fight it won't ring,” he concluded. “It will ring only if we call for you, and we won't do that unless we really need your help. There's no reason you should have to sit about indoors just because that's what we're doing.”
“Sounds good to me!” said von Luftschiff.
With the device safely in his pocket, he walked downstairs and out into the street. It had started raining a little and the air was misty in consequence, but rain was no great worry. His hat would stand it.
What it wouldn't stand, as he discovered about fifteen minutes later, was something extremely hard and heavy landing on it from a height. He blinked, momentarily fazed, and then realised that he was standing amid the wreckage of a large potted aspidistra. He looked up. A window slammed, and a white face hurriedly disappeared from view.
“Hoy!” he yelled. “Hyu ruined my hat!”
The building seemed to be some kind of business premises, perhaps a lawyer's or an accountant's, with a dwelling over the top. Von Luftschiff unceremoniously wrenched the door off its hinges and stormed in. It opened into a narrow corridor, with the entrance to the business on the right and the staircase at the far end. A figure in shirt sleeves was running downstairs at full tilt; it stopped in its tracks as soon as it saw him, and went into reverse. Von Luftschiff charged after the figure and caught him by the arm with one powerful hand.
“Hyu,” he said, “owe me a hat. Hats are impawtent.”
The man gibbered. Von Luftschiff sighed, caught him gently but firmly with the other hand, and swung him round so that they were face to face.
“Schpeak up,” he suggested.
“Aaargh,” moaned his erstwhile assailant.
“Now, hy not going to make dis hard for hyu,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vant two tings. Hy vant a new hat, und hy vant some answers. Hyu choose vhich happens first.”
“P... p... please don't hurt me!” stammered the man frantically. “I don't even know why I did that. Honest.”
“Hyu don't know? Hyu mean hyu yust go round dropping ugly houseplants on pipple's heads for no reason? Hy vasn't born yesterday.”
“I didn't mean to!” the man wailed.
“Ho, yes, dey all say dat,” said von Luftschiff. “If hyu can't decide, ve have de questions first. Vot's your name?”
“Davenport. Ezekiel Davenport. Could you, er... would you mind awfully putting me down? It's a bit difficult to think when I'm dangling in the air.”
“Oh. Sorry. Didn't notice hy'd picked hyu up.” Von Luftschiff set Davenport down again on the stairs, but did not relax his grip. “Now, who hyu vork for?”
Davenport looked genuinely puzzled. “Myself. I'm a solicitor. This is my shop. Why?”
“Hy not in de mood to appreciate a good yoke right now,” von Luftschiff warned him. “Hy don't mean vot hyu do for a living. Hy mean who pays hyu to drop tings on pipple out of vindows?”
“But I'm telling you, I don't know! Please, believe me. When I walked into that room, I hadn't the slightest intention of even opening the window, let alone dropping a plant on a complete stranger. And then when you looked up, I realised what I'd done and I panicked. This is all like a horrible dream.”
Von Luftschiff stared at him, making up his mind. Then he said, “Hokay. Someting veird is going on here. Hy taking hyu to meet some friends of mine. Don't vorry. Dey von't hurt hyu. Actually dey really nize. But first of all, hy need a new hat.”
Davenport considered. “Does it have to be a new new hat, or will an old new hat be all right?”
“Any old new hat is goot, so long as it schtays on my head,” replied von Luftschiff.
“Er... well, if you'll let me go upstairs, I'll find you one.”
“Sure. Hy come vith hyu. Vouldn't vant hyu to panic und do someting schtupid like try to yump out of der vindow. Hyu could get hurt.”
He followed Davenport up the stairs, keeping one hand on his arm. The door to the rooms above was still open, and just inside it, on the right, there was a cupboard. The solicitor opened this and showed him a selection of hats.
“You're welcome to take any one you like, except this one,” he said, pointing to a black top hat. “That's my work hat.”
“Is too tall for me anyvay,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vould hit it on door frames. Dis vun is goot... vot now?”
For the solicitor had gone rigid, his eyes glassy with terror. Von Luftschiff released his arm. It was a terrible mistake. Davenport toppled like a ninepin and clattered head over heels down the stairs, not a muscle in his body bending on the way down. Von Luftschiff rushed after him, but he was too late. Whether or not Davenport had been dead when he started to fall was impossible to tell, but there was absolutely no question that he was dead by the time he reached the bottom.
Von Luftschiff crouched next to the corpse and respectfully doffed the hat he had just put on.
“Damn,” he observed, to nobody in particular. “Dis is getting complicated.”
* * * * *
It took a few minutes for it to dawn on von Luftschiff that he was in a distinctly compromising situation. Even the dullest forensic investigator would be able to tell that the plant had been dropped on his head, and would deduce, quite correctly, that this had annoyed him. Equally obvious was the fact that he had broken into the premises. And now there was a corpse whose cause of death looked just as clear-cut, given the previous two facts. Never mind the fact that it was nothing of the kind, and in fact, as far as von Luftschiff was concerned, it would have been a grievous inconvenience even had he not been personally implicated. His experience of police officers in general was that they did not tend to be overly concerned with subtleties. Someone had just died in suspicious circumstances, and they would want to arrest the principal suspect.
He used a somewhat stronger word this time, then went and sat on the stairs, trying to decide on the best course of action. It was a pity, to say the least, that his little bell communicator worked in only one direction; it would have been extremely useful to have Charles and Hilde here right now. His first idea was to call the police himself, but he decided against it. That would be too risky. They would just think it was a daring but not very well-executed bluff. No; he was going to have to do better than that.
Incredible as it seemed, he had a gut feeling that Davenport had been telling the truth. He had walked into the room upstairs with no violent intentions towards anyone, and then something had made him open the window and drop a plant on a passer-by. The plant had hit him squarely, and the impact would have easily killed a human.
Someone wanted to kill him. Well, that was hardly surprising after the events on the road. Someone who had been using Davenport without his knowledge or consent. But how? Some kind of temporary mind control? It had to be temporary, since Davenport had been shocked the moment he realised what he had done. And how exactly had he died? Was that some kind of mind control too?
A head poked very cautiously round the broken door. It was not the head of a police officer, unless the usual helmet had suddenly been replaced by an elegant flowery hat.
“Papa?” said a voice, tensely.
“Gott in Himmel,” muttered von Luftschiff. He stood up and went to the door. “Scuse me, miss. Hyu Mister Davenport's daughter?”
“Yes, that's right. What's going on? And who are you?”
“Hy be von Luftschiff. Hy very sorry. Is bad news.”
Miss Davenport looked up at him. She took in the green skin, the enormous teeth and the wild dark hair; but she also registered the tone of his voice and the compassionate expression with which he was regarding her. “Are you... a doctor?” she asked, uncertainly.
“Fraid not. Just a Jäger. Hyu better come in, but hy varn hyu, is not going to be so nize.”
Miss Davenport entered cautiously. “Oh,” she said.
“Ja. Hy couldn't save him. He fell down de schtairs.”
Miss Davenport stood in silence for so long that von Luftschiff began to fear that she might share her father's fate. Instead, she finally rallied herself with an effort, and said, “Well, we can't just leave him lying there. Can you do anything to fix the door? I need to collect myself a little, but I'm sure at least I can manage to go and call the maid. No, not the maid. She'll scream. I can't cope with someone screaming.”
“Hokay,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy fix de door. Is easy enough. Den, hyu yust tell me vhere hyu vant him, hy fix dat too. Hyu don't need to go calling de maid.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Davenport gratefully. “I'm sure you appreciate what a dreadful shock this is. What happened to the door, by the way? Did someone break in?”
“Hy did,” replied von Luftschiff honestly. “But dere vas a goot reason. Hy explain vhen ve get everyting in order.”
“Oh! Well...”
“Hy didn't kill him, if dat's vot hyu vorried about,” said von Luftschiff earnestly. “Hy don't hurt humans. Now, vhere hyu vant him?”
Miss Davenport decided that it might be sensible to lay out her father's mortal remains in his bedroom, where the door could be shut at least until she had fully recovered from the initial shock. While von Luftschiff was attending to this and to the door, she went into the parlour to sit down, where she discovered the open window and the missing aspidistra. There was something so immediately stressful about not knowing the cause of these deviations from normality that she slammed the window, drew the curtains, and sat with her back firmly turned towards the spot where the aspidistra used to be.
Von Luftschiff returned. “Hokay,” he said. “De door is fixed und hyu father is in his bed, vhere hyu vanted him. Hy make him nize und tidy. Hy even put his favourite hat on his head.”
Miss Davenport's eyes filled with tears, but at the same moment she did something unexpected. She got up, strode across to the fireplace and seized the poker. She thrust it into the fire and held it there for a couple of minutes, then withdrew it with a purposeful air. But as she raised it, she suddenly seemed to realise for the first time that she was holding it. She stared at it.
“What am I doing?” she asked, in complete bewilderment.
“Hy don't know,” replied von Luftschiff slowly, “but hy got some ideas. Hyu better rest dat on de grate vhile it cools down.”
“But this is scary,” said Miss Davenport, wide-eyed. “I know I've just had the most terrible shock, but for a moment I really didn't know what I was doing there. Maybe I ought to see a doctor.”
“Hy don't think it's hyu,” replied von Luftschiff. “Hyu sit down. Now, vy don't hy go und make hyu a nize cup of tea? Und if anyting else schtrange happens, yust call me.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Davenport, on the verge of tears again. “You're very kind.”
Von Luftschiff ambled into the kitchen, thinking furiously. He continued to think as he made a pot of tea and went rummaging through the cupboards for biscuits or cake. The British seemed to consider their national drink to be therapeutic, and even more so if something sweet could be had with it. In the end he found a tin of shortbread, which he felt was a little boring, but it would do at a pinch. He arranged everything on a tray and carried it carefully back through to the parlour, where Miss Davenport was now looking red-eyed but a little calmer.
“Thank you again,” she said. “I really don't know what I would have done if I'd come home and found him like that on my own.”
“Is no problem. Und now hy got to tell hyu some schtuff, like hy promised. Hyu need an explanation about tings like vy hy broke in.”
She nodded. “I'm listening. Oh, I'm sorry! I'm forgetting my manners. Please do sit down.”
Von Luftschiff eased himself into an overstuffed armchair opposite her, and told the story from the moment the plant had hit him on the head. She listened with growing wonder, but said nothing until it was clear that he had finished.
“You know,” she said, at last, “I'm not sure I'd have believed you, even after you've been so kind, if it hadn't been for what happened just now with the poker. But now you've told me all that, I do believe you, and I feel a little better. You know how in novels people go mad with grief? I never quite believed that really happened, but when I found I was standing there with the poker and couldn't work out how I had got there, I started to think it was happening to me. But in fact, the same thing must have happened to my poor papa.”
“Ja. But you could resist better dan he could. Ve don't know vy.”
“Maybe because I already knew you a little by the time it happened?” she suggested. “Whatever it is, it wants to kill you. But maybe it can't use someone who would be upset if you were killed.”
“Or maybe hyu yust better at resisting,” said von Luftschiff, with a shrug. “Ve already know it doesn't vork on everyvun.”
She frowned. “How do we know that?”
“Is simple. Hyu got mind control dat vorks on everyvun, hyu vant to kill somevun, all hyu do is make dem yump off a bridge. Nobody asks any questions. Hy don't yump off a bridge, so it can't vork on me.”
“I can't fault that logic,” agreed Miss Davenport. “But then... forgive me for saying so... you're not, ah, quite like the rest of us.”
“Is all right hyu mention it. Hy not human. Is fine. Hy got fed up vith being human. Too dangerous, vhere hy come from,” replied von Luftschiff frankly. “Even so, hy got a mind.”
“Again, I can't argue with that.” Miss Davenport managed a weak smile. “But I'm really not making a lot of sense out of what's happening, except that there's someone really unpleasant out there.”
“Und hy tink,” said von Luftschiff, “dat may not be de only place. Vas hyu father a tidy man?”
Miss Davenport was taken aback. “Well, yes, of course. I mean, just look round this room. Everything's perfectly in order, except for that plant, naturally.”
“Nearly everyting.” Without warning, von Luftschiff leapt to his feet and plunged a hand into the coal scuttle. There was a frantic mechanical whirring noise, and an instant later he pulled out his hand, covered in soot, but clutching a little device with a viciously sharp set of rotating blades at its front end.
Miss Davenport blanched. “What is it? That could have had your finger off!”
“Ja, but ve mend easy. Hy not certain vot it is, but hy got a yolly goot idea.” The device whirred and struggled in his hand.
“How did you know where it was?” asked Miss Davenport.
“Hy figured it had to be somevhere close, und dere vas a lump of coal beside de scuttle. Hy didn't tink hyu father vould have left it dere.” He glared at the gadget in his hand. “Hyu! Schtop trying to eschcape, or hy bend all hyu cogs out of shape.”
It reluctantly subsided. “Now,” he said. “Hy tink hy need to take dis ting back to Charles und Hilde. Vill hyu be all right, or hyu vant to come vit me? Dey goot pipple.”
“I... I think if the door is secure, I'd like to come with you,” she decided. “Do you mind if I finish my tea?”
“Is fine, but be quick if hyu can. Ve may not have much time. Dis ting may have sent for reinforcements.”
Miss Davenport looked alarmed for a moment, then did a quick mental calculation and concluded that imminent danger was probably preferable at this stage to being left alone with her grief. At least danger tended to require action. “Very well,” she said.
Within the space of half an hour, von Luftschiff was back at the inn with Miss Davenport in tow and knocking on the Greenwoods' door. This time it was Hilde who answered it.
“Oh, Herr von Luftschiff! You weren't out for very long. Did you...?” She broke off, seeing first the pale face of the bereaved Miss Davenport and then the object in von Luftschiff's hand.
“Charles!” she called. “Charles, he's found Ashmole!”
Von Luftschiff grinned. “Dat's vot I taught.”
“And who is the young lady?” asked Hilde.
“Dis is Miss Davenport. She yust lost her father, very sad.”
“Alice,” said Miss Davenport.
“Oh, I'm so sorry!” said Hilde, instantly maternal. “Do please come in and sit down.”
Charles bustled up. “Lost your father? I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do to help?”
Hilde took charge. “Charles, dear,” she said, “while Miss Davenport is clearly in need of a sympathetic ear and may also need some more substantial help, it takes only one of us. The most useful thing you could possibly be doing at the moment is sparking, if you can. Ashmole is almost certainly very dangerous until you can reverse whatever was done to him.”
“Hyu bet,” said von Luftschiff. “It tried to kill me, den it killed Mr Davenport, den it tried to kill me again. Hyu need to get some sense into its gears.”
“I can't just spark to order,” Charles demurred. “I'm tired. All I can do for the moment is to shut him down. That should help.”
“Vot if hy go down to de kitchen und get hyu a nize big pot of black coffee?” suggested von Luftschiff.
“He won't sleep,” said Hilde. “He'll spend the entire night bouncing around and trying not to wake me up talking about science, and then he'll be completely useless in the morning.”
“I think,” said Charles seriously, “perhaps I ought to risk that. After all, we don't know exactly what Ashmole is capable of at the moment, and it's quite possible we may end up having a very disturbed night in any case.”
“Hokay. Hy get de coffee,” said von Luftschiff, and vanished downstairs.
When he returned bearing the precious brew, he found Alice Davenport installed in an armchair being consoled by Hilde, having just finished telling as much of the story as she knew. Charles, meanwhile, had deactivated Ashmole and was peering into its internal workings with a frown.
“It's no good,” he said mournfully. “I can't make any sense of this at the moment.”
“Hyu drink some of dis,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy got dem to make it extra schtrong.”
Charles poured himself a large cup of coffee, and von Luftschiff went over to explain the rest of the story to Hilde. When he had finished, she said, “You are pretty clever, you know.”
“Hy yust remembered hy schtill had de tracker tingy,” replied von Luftschiff. He took the little bell device out of his pocket. “And, like hyu said, de enemy could schtill use it. So ven hy got a plant dropped on my head, hy knew dey had somevun or someting very close, probably in de house, or dey could never have aimed right. Und ven hy found it vasn't a somevun, dat meant it had to be a someting. Und I taught, dis Ashmole, it goes very fast under de ground, ja? It probably been following de tracker about, und ven hy go out into de street, de person vot is controlling it tinks dis is a goot time to crack my schkull.” He grinned. “It takes more dan dat.”
“I'm still amazed you knew he was in the coal scuttle,” said Hilde. “Even given the fact that there was a coal out of place, that's not where I'd have expected to find him, and I know him. I'd probably have suspected he was in the house, but I'd have gone down to look in the cellar. That's where he normally hides out, because he can always dig his way out if there's any trouble. He can certainly climb stairs, but it would have been a risky thing for him to do.”
Von Luftschiff shrugged. “De only times anyvun got deir mind controlled, dey vere in dat room or very near it. De mind control is at de moment veak und unreliable. Votever vas doing it needed to be as close to de victims as possible. Derefore it vas in de parlour.”
“Weak and unreliable,” repeated Charles thoughtfully, sipping his coffee. “Yes. What if they were actually testing it?”
“Testing it?” asked Hilde. “How?”
“Well, think of it this way,” explained Charles. “Imagine you're an evil genius with a rudimentary mind control device which you hope to refine and use for your mad plans of world domination. You'd need to do some testing. You've probably got some minions and henchbeings, but if you're an evil genius worth your salt, you're going to realise that testing it on them is going to give you bad results, because you won't know whether they're doing what you want because of the device or just because they know what you want them to do and they're scared of you. So you need to test it in the wild, as it were.”
“Go on,” said Hilde.
“All right. Now it just so happens that you've brought a Jäger over here and fitted him with a tracking device, but that Jäger is now, very inconveniently, going round with two of the people who are trying to track you down, and protecting them very efficiently. You need to test your mind control, and at the same time you are very keen to separate this Jäger from your pursuers. So you have a bright idea. The first thing you do is to send a drone after them, instructing it to lock onto the tracker. Then you wait till the Jäger is separate from the others, and you use the drone to find someone on the route who shows signs of being especially sensitive to being controlled. You send the drone into his house and use it to make him drop the nearest heavy object on the Jäger. You know this won't do any real harm, but it will make the Jäger very annoyed. You bank on the fact that he'll break into the house and cause mayhem.
“And that, in fact, is exactly what happens... up to a point. He does break in. But he doesn't cause any damage apart from that, and he doesn't hurt the man who dropped the plant on his head. At this point, you panic, and you do something with the mind control that, if there is any justice in the world, nobody is ever going to need to know about because neither you nor anyone else will ever do it again. You kill your catspaw.
“So now the plan is on track again; if the police show up, the Jäger will be arrested for murder, and although you know they won't hang him because it's a waste of time, you're pretty sure they'll lock him up for a good long time. Except that it's not the police. It's the man's daughter. And because the Jäger is kind and understanding, she doesn't swallow the story you've tried to set up.
“You panic again, because this is going to ruin it. So you try controlling her, only to discover she's not as easy to manipulate. You make her pick up the poker and heat it in the fire, but as soon as she pulls it out, the control breaks. You can't get her mind again, because now she knows something is wrong and she's on the alert.”
“Do you think they wanted to make me attack Herr von Luftschiff?” asked Alice.
“No,” replied Charles gently. “They'd tried that once and seen how he reacted. No, I'm afraid they probably wanted to make you kill yourself, so that it would look as though he'd done it.”
Alice shuddered. “That's horrible!”
“Yes, it is, and we're here to stop it,” said Hilde firmly. “Charles dear, everything you've just said makes perfect sense. I just have one question.”
“What's that, darling?” asked Charles.
“Is that coffee working yet?”
“You know,” said Charles, looking at Ashmole, “I do believe it is.”
Hilde smiled. “I think perhaps in that case I should take Miss Davenport down to the parlour. You'll need a bit of space. Herr von Luftschiff, could you assist Charles if he needs you?”
“Is my very great pleasure,” replied von Luftschiff.
Von Luftschiff never remembered the next half-hour very clearly afterwards. It was just a blur filled with assorted components, the scent of coffee, and Charles rushing around the room like one of those clockwork toy mice, but, unlike the toy, never at any point ending up under any of the furniture. Finally, though, the little spark beamed and held up a visibly redesigned Ashmole.
“I think we may just have won now,” he announced; and then he rather took the wind out of this news by adding conscientiously, “if we're quick.”
* * * * *
When Hilde and Alice rejoined the party, there was a great deal of rapid talking, but from it all von Luftschiff was able to gather that Charles had been able to locate the person who had been controlling Ashmole, and this person was here in the town, not at the house. That made perfect sense from von Luftschiff's point of view, since he had not seen anyone there other than the guards. For that matter, he had not even seen any servants, whether clank or human. In a house that size, anyone going down to the kitchen would normally have expected to find a cook and probably a few other servants, but they had not been in evidence; clearly the guards were expected to look after themselves.
“So you know where they are?” asked Alice. “Then hadn't we better go and get them?”
“Well, we know where they were when I shut down Ashmole,” Charles clarified. “They're not necessarily still there. In fact, if they have any sense, they will be leaving town as fast as they can. There are several directions they could have taken, so we need to investigate a little further.”
“And besides,” said Hilde, “don't you think it would be safer if you stayed here? This is a rogue spark we're dealing with.”
“Mrs Greenwood,” said Alice firmly, “whoever or whatever they are, they killed my father. I want to help bring them to justice.”
“That's a very laudable attitude,” said Hilde, “but you have no experience of dealing with this sort of thing. I'd hate to put you at risk.”
“She not going to get experience if nobody let her fight,” said von Luftschiff. “I say ve don't take dis avay from her. Ve got veapons und schtuff she can use, don't ve?”
“Anyway,” said Charles, skilfully diverting them back to the main point, “we can't fight anyone until we can find them. Knowing they were near here is a good start, but if we go off after them in the wrong direction we'll lose them.”
“So how are we going to find them?” asked Hilde. “I assume, from the expression on your face, that we are going to find them.”
Charles' grin broadened. “Oh yes, dear. We're going to find them. After all, we now have someone here who knows who they are.”
“You're going to risk Ashmole again?” asked Hilde doubtfully. “I know you've done some adjustments, but that really didn't go well last time.”
“Ashmole,” said Charles, “show your mamma what you can do.”
The mechanical mole whirred its blades in acknowledgement, slid open a pair of side panels, and put forth a batlike pair of leather wings, reinforced with brass rods. It flapped them gently, took off, and did a little circuit around Charles' head.
Charles opened the window. “Now, off you go and find them. Stay as high as you can, out of reach, and if there's any danger get well clear. But when you find them, get directly above them or as close as you can, and then signal. We'll do the rest.”
Ashmole flew off. “That's all very well if they're on the open road,” Hilde objected, “but what if they're hiding in a building? Ashmole could be flying around all night.”
“Not if they try any more mind control,” replied Charles, with a pardonable hint of smugness. “You see, previously they were doing it through Ashmole. And that did rather narrow down the ways they could have been doing it. It didn't take long to work out that they were piggybacking an O'Shaughnessy transformation on top of an oscillating psychotemporal field. I mean, no wonder it was unstable.”
“No idea vot dat is, but it sounds pretty vonky yust listening to it,” said von Luftschiff.
Charles' eyes lit up. “Well, you see, an O'Shaughnessy transformation...”
“...is definitely a matter for another time,” Hilde interrupted, with a smoothness born of long practice. “What you were going to say, dear, is that Ashmole can detect if anyone's doing something like that, is that right?”
“Oh, absolutely! And since only one person in the locality is likely to be messing around with psychotemporal vector dynamics, there should be no danger of a false positive. We just need to catch them before they work out how to stabilise it, because that would be quite dangerous.”
“Can it be stabilised?” asked Hilde.
“Yes, I'm afraid it can,” Charles replied. “Much as I should prefer it to be otherwise.”
“Goot ting hyu a goot schpark,” observed von Luftschiff. “Hyu vould be seriously dangerous if hyu vasn't.”
“Yes. There are some things that probably shouldn't be touched even for the sake of science. But it is very tempting. The idea of controlling, say, clanks in that way...”
“...would be immediate grounds for divorce,” said Hilde, simply.
There was an uncomfortable silence, which was eventually broken by Charles saying in an apologetic voice, “I would never really do it, darling.”
“Of course you wouldn't,” agreed Hilde. “So I won't have to divorce you, which I must admit I would be absolutely heartbroken about. That means we'll both be happy.”
“I think,” said Charles, “I need another cup of coffee. Would anyone else care for one?”
“I... know it's not really my business,” said Alice, “but wasn't that a little strong?”
“Oh, he'd do the same for me if it came to it,” replied Hilde pragmatically. “When you spark, no matter how decent and reasonable a person you are the rest of the time, you go a little mad. Usually, that's harmless enough; it just gives you the energy and the inspiration you need to invent something beautiful. But just once in a while, a temptation comes along to go somewhere in your work that it really isn't safe to go, and because all of it is science, you're vulnerable to it. When you're sparking, you see, it's hard to think of anything else other than science. Considering the possible real-world consequences tends to take something of a back seat.”
“In dat case, is amazing more schparks don't go rogue,” said von Luftschiff.
“Well, we can usually stop ourselves; you heard Charles arguing with himself. Even so, it can take a long time and be a distraction. Generally speaking, the best thing any spark can do for any other spark is to recognise when that's starting to happen and shock them out of it.” She lowered her voice so that Charles would not hear. “And between the three of us, if I ever really had to divorce him I think I should have a breakdown. That's why I keep the threat for moments like this.”
As Charles was finishing his coffee, the Universal Viewer emitted a melodious ping. Charles grabbed it and looked through the lens. “We've found them!” he announced. “Can't see any detail, but they seem to be in some kind of warehouse by the river. I'll locate it soon enough on the map.”
“Oh, dear,” said Hilde. “I do hate dramatic battles in buildings. They always leave such a mess.”
“Possibly better than night fighting in open country, though,” Charles pointed out. “It's so embarrassing when you hit your own clanks.”
“Hy don't care,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy yust happy to fight.”
“And besides,” said Hilde, “we've only got one clank at the moment, and that's Ashmole. I doubt we'll hit him, now that he can fly as well as burrow.”
“You think we need a few more?” asked Charles hopefully.
“Having seen what Herr von Luftschiff can do, I very much doubt it,” replied Hilde. “I know you want to build things now you're sparking, dear, but we've got work to do.” She stood up and took down her parasol.
“But it's dark out there!” said Alice.
“This isn't just a parasol,” replied Hilde.
“Miss Davenport vill need veapons too,” said von Luftschiff doggedly.
“But most of the weapons we've got are spark weapons,” said Hilde.
“Hyu don't have to be a schpark to bang a few schpikes into a bit of vood und hit pipple vit it,” said von Luftschiff.
“I'm not really a hitter, but I do have a good aim,” said Alice. “How about a slingshot?”
“Ve got some rubber sheeting,” said von Luftschiff triumphantly.
“I'd better help,” offered Charles. “We don't have much time.”
Hilde, now clearly outvoted, gave in gracefully. The slingshot, being a very simple device, somehow got cobbled together on the way down the stairs, and a few minutes later they were all out in the street and heading rapidly towards the river. Ashmole buzzed down and joined them, landing on the brim of Charles' hat.
It was very dark. Most of the town was gaslit, but there was generally no reason for anyone to be down here at night. A mist-blurred splinter of moon gave just enough of a hint of light for them to avoid actually bumping into buildings, and now and then was reflected in passing glints on the dark water. A drowsy gull, sheltering inland, quarked reproachfully at the sound of their footsteps.
Alice shivered. “It's chilly down here by the river. I should have brought a warmer jacket.”
“We'll be in the building soon,” replied Hilde. “It is near here, isn't it, Charles?”
“Yes... it's just that I can't read the map in the dark and I'm rather reluctant to use the glowbug, so I'm working from memory here,” he said. “Let's see. I'm pretty sure it's this next one. Ashmole?”
Ashmole whirred affirmatively.
“Hyu vant me to schmash de door down?” asked von Luftschiff.
“That's probably as good a tactic as any other,” said Hilde.
Von Luftschiff obligingly drew back a muscular arm, then froze for a split second. The door was already starting to crack... from the inside.
“All of hyu! Get back!” he roared, following his own advice.
They all jumped. The door burst open, and a huge squat six-legged battle clank tore its way ponderously through the fabric of the building. Through a window in the front, it was just possible to glimpse someone controlling it from within, but it was inadvisable to stand and stare. Inadvisable, and very probably also fatal.
Charles and Hilde had jumped towards the river, and von Luftschiff and Alice in the opposite direction. Whether the clank was aware that Charles and Hilde were the sparks here or it simply attacked randomly, it went for them first. “Damn,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy afraid hyu going to need more than a schlingshot here.”
“Can we distract it?” asked Alice. “If the railings break, it'll have them in the river!”
“Dey got veapons. All de same...”
A bolt of flame zipped through the darkness with a tearing sound. Hilde was demonstrating her not-just-a-parasol with considerable flair; one of the six legs, caught directly on a joint, buckled and twisted. An answering bolt shot from the clank's body, and Hilde flipped open the parasol and parried it neatly. But the clank was advancing on them all the time, and they were trapped between it and the railings. No matter how well armed they were, there seemed to be no way they could counter the sheer physical power of the thing.
Von Luftschiff considered for a moment. “Hokay. Hyu aim for de window. Looks like de veakest point. Und vatch out for Ashmole, cos hy tink Charles has had de same idea.”
“I can do that,” said Alice. “What about you?”
“Hy going to annoy it,” replied von Luftschiff simply.
Ashmole had flown up to the window and was now trying to bore a hole in it. While this was certainly a good distraction, it would take some time to achieve; if you want to make a hole in glass quickly, it is far better to hit it than to go at it with a set of rotating knives. Von Luftschiff grabbed the nearest leg and started shinning up it. It kicked powerfully, but a Jäger, once attached, is very hard to dislodge. As he gained height, the clank tried to pick him off with a huge arm, but he was ready for that. He caught its wrist as it came down and clung to that. The arm swung dizzyingly in the air, but anyone who could fight a fleet of airborne clanks from a rotating flywheel was hardly going to be put out by that. As fast as he could, he pulled himself along the arm until he reached the shoulder. The clank made the grave tactical error of turning to look at this annoyance. He punched it with all his strength, right in the eye.
That was enough to save Charles and Hilde; but the clank still had another eye, to say nothing of its operator looking through the window in its belly. The two sparks had just time to take advantage of the distraction by running directly underneath the clank, where they could not be seen. There, they were also safe from the fire, but that was not entirely a consolation given that they now had to dart and dive to keep clear of the powerful legs. The clank turned on Alice, who was keeping a steady stream of stones flying at the window.
“Get under here!” yelled Hilde.
Alice did, just in time to avoid being fried, and had an equally narrow escape from being flattened as she did so. The clank was dancing about like a goaded elephant, kicking its legs viciously under its body at random in the hope of connecting with a target. Von Luftschiff was still clinging to what for want of a better word ought to be called its ear, although it was really a temperature control vent. It shook its head from side to side, intent on preventing him from getting enough purchase anywhere with his feet to let go and punch out the other eye.
The window shattered. Ashmole had done his work, and now fluttered upwards in the hope of reinforcing the section of the troops which was currently attached to the clank's ear. “Hey, hyu, Ashmole,” called von Luftschiff. “Get vhere it can't see hyu.”
Ashmole shot up to a point immediately above the clank's head, appeared to think for a few moments, and then flew round the back of its neck, where it latched on and started drilling. Sensible, thought von Luftschiff, if it can get through. All the connections from the eyes will have to go through there.
The clank started desperately trying to scratch Ashmole off like a flea, but it was not really equipped to do so. To scratch, you need fingernails, not stubby metallic finger ends. Von Luftschiff seized his opportunity, grabbed the clank's nose with one hand, swung through the air, and brought the other fist firmly into contact with the remaining eye.
Good. Now whoever was operating this thing would have to rely on what they could see out of the wreckage of the window. That was useful. He swung back onto its shoulder, scrabbling for a grip, and then began making his way down the torso. The thing clearly had sensors which indicated when it was actually damaged, but with a bit of luck it wouldn't have the equivalent of nerves, and it would not be able to feel where he was. Besides, it was still doing its best to get rid of Ashmole, who might take quite a while to make a hole through solid metal, but was not going to be bludgeoned out of doing it once he had made up his mind.
Meanwhile, the two sparks and Alice were keeping things busy on the ground. Hilde had managed to do some fairly significant damage with her parasol, to the extent that two of the legs were now barely functional and the rest looked decidedly battered. Charles, still under the influence of the coffee, had found enough odd spare parts in his pocket to jury-rig the Universal Viewer to discern the internal workings of the flamethrowers in the hope of disabling them, based on known information about the properties of various different substances in some rather obscure kinds of field. And Alice had found a coil of rope, and with great skill and nerve was threading it around the stamping legs with the intention of getting it properly tangled and then tying both ends to something solid. That stood a fair chance of bringing the whole clank down.
Von Luftschiff, who could not see what was happening below, found himself in a dilemma. Should he go all the way down and try to help his friends directly, or should he try to get into the control room and tackle the villain? After a little debate, he decided to do the former. You really needed a spark to deal with another spark. Von Luftschiff was strong, and he knew he was far from stupid, but if the rogue spark had anything even remotely resembling Ashmole it could get nasty in there. And Ashmole was by no means the worst thing a spark could come up with.
So he scrambled down one of the legs. “Hy got both its eyes,” he announced. “And dat Ashmole is keeping it busy.”
“Well done!” said Hilde, taking another shot at a leg.
“Ho!” exclaimed von Luftschiff, noticing the rope for the first time. “Ho, Miss Davenport, hyu pretty schmot. Give me de ends. Hy finish tings here.”
“I was going to tie them to something,” said Alice, rather breathlessly. She was no longer used to quite such vigorous exercise.
“Dis vay even better. All of hyu, get clear. Dat vay,” said von Luftschiff. “It can't see vhere it's firing.”
They obediently ran. Von Luftschiff got a firm grip on the ends of the rope, positioned himself carefully, took a deep breath... and pulled.
The crash was impressive. People, some of them already in night attire and a couple of them in police uniforms, came running from all directions to see what on earth was going on. They arrived to find the clank flat on its back in the ruins of the warehouse, the front of which had completely collapsed under the impact and taken most of the roof with it. Von Luftschiff had already lifted up the Greenwoods and Alice so that they could climb into the remains of the control room, and then gone in after them.
There was a figure in the wreckage, dressed in a long striped coat and a curious black felt shako adorned with many weathered brass studs. Charles picked his way through the chaos, which was not easy since he was in effect walking on the back wall of the room, and it was somewhat curved. He crouched down by the figure and lifted the hat.
“Oh,” he said, in dismay. “Oh, no. Worthington minor. How could you?”
The figure opened his eyes. “Greenwood,” he snarled. “I might have known.”
“You're even wearing the old school tie,” said Charles. This, clearly, made murder and mayhem at least ten times more reprehensible than they already were. “How perfectly beastly of you!”
“I suppose you'll be calling me a rotter next,” said Worthington.
“Why on earth not? You are a rotter,” retorted Charles.
“Can we please stop all this public school stuff?” demanded Alice, who had made her way to the scene. “Rotter doesn't even begin to cover it. You there on the floor, you killed my father. What have you to say about that?”
“Science!” snapped Worthington. “It was unfortunate, but I needed to test my invention.”
“Unfortunate? UNFORTUNATE? Is that all you can say? If you weren't on the ground and injured already, I'd kick you.”
“Hyu a nize young lady,” said von Luftschiff. “Hyu probably don't know vhere to kick. Hy show hyu, if hyu like.”
Worthington turned white. “Er. Herr Jäger. I'm very sorry about the misunderstanding.”
“Vhich vun?” asked von Luftschiff. “Vould dat be der vun vhere hyu kidnapped me und put a liddle ting in my fang to track me? Or maybe der vun vhere hyu made dis lady's father drop a plant on my head und schpoil my hat? Or, vait, dere vos de flying clanks. Dose vere a pretty big mizunderstanding, hey?”
“I was only trying to gather a Jäger army!” wailed Worthington. “I wasn't to know you were going to meet up with these two and start helping them to make my life difficult, was I?”
“Hyu don't get no Jäger army,” said von Luftschiff. “But hy get dis.” He leaned forward and grabbed the shako from Worthington's head. “Ah, dat's better! Now hy be a real Jäger.”
“What?” asked Alice.
“Is goot old Jäger tradition. Hyu defeat an enemy, hyu get to keep deir hat.”
“What if they don't wear one?” asked Alice.
“Den hyu improvise,” replied von Luftschiff, setting the hat happily on his head. “Does dat look goot?”
“It looks perfect,” said Hilde. “Now, Mr Worthington, we're going to have to put you into the hands of the regular police, who I imagine, from the commotion I can hear outside, are probably waiting none too patiently. But first of all, we'd like you to answer a few questions.”
“And you'd better answer them truthfully,” said Alice, “or I'll get Herr von Luftschiff to show me the best place to kick you.”
Hilde had estimated the patience of Her Majesty's constabulary quite accurately. They had already found one of the more substantial pieces of warehouse and dragged it into place to form a ramp. As a result, the next half an hour or so was a little confused and involved a certain amount of shouting (from the police and Alice), unflappable politeness and production of official documents (from the Greenwoods), and whimpering (from Worthington, who was very much afraid that Alice was bright enough to work out exactly where to kick him without any help from von Luftschiff). The arrival of Ashmole only muddied the waters further until he could be satisfactorily explained. The police did not appear to think “Is goot liddle clank!” was sufficient.
Nevertheless, it all got straightened out in the end, even though Charles made some additional difficulties by insisting on the removal and confiscation of Worthington's tie. After a considerable amount of wrangling, it was finally agreed that Charles should exchange his own neat bow tie for the offending article, a concession which he made very reluctantly. Worthington, who was not very badly hurt (he had been winded when the clank fell, and he thought he might have a sprained wrist, but that was all), was handcuffed and led away by the officers.
While Hilde was apologising to Alice for having doubted her, and Alice was explaining with a smile that she'd been made to play lacrosse at school, and if you could handle lacrosse you could handle most other forms of violence, von Luftschiff stood thoughtfully piecing together everything he had just been hearing. Worthington's main aim, it seemed, had been to turn the isles into his idea of a Power, regardless of the fact that they were one anyway. To do this, he had considered it essential to take the helm himself, and he had had two main goals for this purpose: to develop his mind control technique until it was thoroughly reliable, so that he could use it on Her Majesty (which explained the charge of high treason the officers had slapped on him), and secondly to build up a Jäger militia which would remain loyal to him in case of any insurrection in the regular ranks. He had some communication with rogue sparks on the Continent, about whose identities he managed to remain evasive, and one of them had suggested to him that the best way to unite the scattered and generally independent British Jäger population would be to release a strange one into the country and send them out to look for others.
The same friend of Worthington's had found von Luftschiff in the process of transforming, drugged him, and sent him to Britain with instructions. Worthington, as it happened, was in the process of quietly selling his house, since he was aware that it had begun to gather too much attention; he had already bought a smaller, much less obtrusive house in the town and a large warehouse where he could conduct his experiments undetected. He therefore arranged for von Luftschiff to be sent to the house, knowing that if he should find it again in future there would be nobody there he might recognise, and gave orders to the remaining guards in such a way as to ensure that von Luftschiff would have to be released. He himself visited briefly to fit the tracker, but he was well on his way back to the town when von Luftschiff recovered consciousness.
And that covered all the gaps in the story except for one: Ashmole. Charles and Hilde had told him that Ashmole had been sent to investigate the house. Yet they had not lost contact with the little clank until well after they met von Luftschiff, by which time Worthington had returned to the town. Surely none of the guards at the house could have caught and re-engineered him?
Charles noticed the expression on his face. “Something bothering you?” he asked.
“Ja! Ashmole. How did Mister Vorthington get hold of Ashmole?”
Charles smiled. “I was wondering exactly the same thing. But I think I know the answer. When we get out of this clank, I suggest we light the glowbug, wander into what's left of the warehouse, and look for a hole in the floor.”
“Hyu tink he came all de vay here?” asked von Luftschiff, stunned. “But is best part of five und tventy miles!”
“Well, you've seen those rotating blades. Just imagine how fast he can bore through soft earth. My guess is that he heard something at the house about where the master had gone, and decided on his own initiative to go after him. And he couldn't really tell us that; all he can do is ping us when he sees something interesting.”
“A pity Ashmole didn't happen to burrow up immediately under his feet,” said Alice, who was feeling understandably vindictive. “I'm not normally one for hangings, but I'll go to his.”
“That may depend on when they hang him,” said Hilde.
“What do you mean, exactly?” asked Alice.
“Well. I don't know if you've given a lot of thought yet to how you are to manage?”
Alice frowned. “I imagine papa will have left me something, but it won't be a fortune. I'll probably be able to manage if I let the shop, although I'm not sure I really want to live above someone else's business.”
“Quite understandable,” said Hilde. “Now, obviously that isn't a question I would have raised in the ordinary course of things, but as it happens, there is an alternative option open to you if you should be interested. Her Majesty's Special Operations Forces are recruiting at the moment...”
“When aren't they?” Charles put in.
“Well, quite so, dear, but that's because they can never get enough of the right kind of people,” said Hilde. “And you, Miss Davenport, have just demonstrated beyond all doubt that you are very much the right kind of people. If you're interested, I'll write a letter of recommendation to them. I would expect that after I explain your role in Mr Worthington's arrest, they will take you without question.”
Alice smiled. “Now that does sound like a whole lot more fun than anything I might be able to do if I stay put. Thank you, Mrs Greenwood. I'd like to take you up on that offer.”
“And I'd like to get back to the inn,” said Charles.
“Any reason in particular, dear?” asked Hilde.
“Yes. I'd like them to reheat that pot of coffee. I've just had an idea for a device that will protect people against any further mind control attacks by this method. I think we should send one to Her Majesty, just as a precaution.”
“Und hy hungry after all dat climbing about,” said von Luftschiff. “Hy vant a sandvich.”
“Just a sandwich?” asked Hilde.
“Ja. De sort vhere hyu slice up a whole loaf und put schtuff between de slices. Hyu never had vun of dose? Dey goot.”
“Oh, speaking of food,” said Alice, “did I hear correctly that you don't eat meat, Herr von Luftschiff?”
“Ja. Dat is right,” replied von Luftschiff.
“Oh, good! Because Papa tried that for a while, but then he gave up. We've... I've... still got some big tins of dried beans and lentils, but they're up in the attic now. Would you like them?”
“Beans?” asked von Luftschiff, wide-eyed. “Lentils?”
“Exactly that. Oh, and some spices I'm never going to use. They're well sealed, so I expect they're still fresh.”
Von Luftschiff grinned from ear to ear.
“Hy tink hy luff hyu,” he replied.
THE END
* * * * *
Epilogue (by Hilde Greenwood)
The above account is a third-person version which I collated and translated from Herr von Luftschiff's later diary notes, with, of course, his full co-operation. It accompanied the report I sent to Head Office, since I thought it reasonable that our new assistant should be allowed to introduce himself in his own words as far as possible without putting him under the stress of trying to write his own official report. The claws do not make it easy for him to write, though I have now managed to come up with a little gadget to help him with that.
Many people, especially those outside these isles, have expressed some surprise regarding Herr von Luftschiff. It is certainly true that he is not a typical Jäger, although his healthy appetite for both food and a fair fight are recognisable enough traits. I think there are two principal reasons for this. One is simply the fact that he woke up in what is, and hopefully will long remain, a generally peaceful and orderly realm. Herr von Luftschiff, as he often reveals in the text, is highly astute. He remarks at one point on the fact that sparks are much better accepted here than in his country of origin, and implies more than once that the same is usually true for anyone perceived to be odd or different. He is quite correct in this, and the reason is that such people do not tend to be seen as a threat. We have a fine tradition of eccentrics here, into which sparks, Jägerkin and others who are not entirely run-of-the-mill are normally accepted.
But the second, and I think the more important, reason is in the nature and circumstances of Herr von Luftschiff himself. It can be summed up neatly by saying that most Jägers drank the potion because they liked fighting and wanted to become better at it, whereas Herr von Luftschiff did it because he liked peace and wanted to be able to enforce it. He is already proving to be good at this. His insistence that a fight should be fair, even when he is under provocation, stems from the fact that he has spent so many years unfairly matched against forces well beyond his strength. Now that he has the strength, a basic key to understanding his character is that he feels sorry for the humans. He has such recent and traumatic knowledge of what it is like to be one.
Herr von Luftschiff does not go into great detail about his background during the narrative, but, with his permission, I think it is not unreasonable to fill in some of those blanks. He eventually did recall his original name, which was Matthias. Born to two well-respected and reasonably prosperous doctors, he had a good school education, and later went away to a university to study mathematics. While he was away, his village was attacked, although there is a certain amount of confusion about exactly what did the attacking; all that is clear is that it was animals of some sort, though the nature of the attack makes it apparent that they were not ordinary wild animals, but the result of some ill-advised experiment. Young Matthias lost his parents and both his sisters in this tragedy, and consequently, lacking support, was forced to abandon his studies and join the Army.
By this time, he had been a vegetarian for two or three years, which had forced him to become good at cooking for himself. With this in mind, he signed up as a cook. He enjoyed the work, but as the surrounding country became more and more chaotic, he eventually left the Army, reasoning that it was completely useless against the forces they were trying to deal with. With the money he had managed to save, he set up a little school in a village not far from where he had grown up. As he liked to put it at the time, even if the world is going to hell, people will always need an education.
When the clanks attacked the village, Matthias was caught out in the open, walking back from the school to his lodgings. He fled into the forest, and the rest of the story he has already recounted. Although he now knows his old name, he wishes to be called Herr von Luftschiff until he has a new Jäger name of his own, and that is a matter he needs to discuss with his own kind.
As for Miss Davenport, I naturally kept my promise and wrote a glowing letter of recommendation to Mr Ardsley Wooster and the administrator who helps him to run his division. Mr Wooster replied by return, suggesting that if everyone was willing she should continue to work with us until he could arrange another agent to take her on for more formal training. This proved acceptable to all concerned, and Mr Wooster says that we can probably expect to have her with us for a couple of months, depending on what happens with the agent he has in mind. In the meantime, he has arranged for us to charge all her expenses to the usual account, including a small fixed weekly personal allowance. It is not a great deal, but she has her inheritance and I have no doubt that she will very soon be earning a full agent's salary.
Oh, and there was one other thing. Mr Wooster sent a small enclosure with his letter, which he requested me to give to Herr von Luftschiff. I have, needless to say, no idea how he managed to obtain such a thing, and I will firmly refrain from indulging in any idle speculation. It was a brass shako plate in the shape of the Heterodyne trilobite. I have absolutely no idea why he should send such a thing, but Herr von Luftschiff, as you can no doubt imagine, is quite delighted with it. He fastened it proudly to his hat, which I understand he now never takes off, even to sleep. Delicacy forbids me to enquire how he washes his hair.
And now I must finish in haste, for it seems that Charles has been at the coffee again. I fear he took things to the logical conclusion and invented a device which would provide him with a fresh supply whenever he wanted it, which is wonderfully good for his spark abilities, but distinctly detrimental to his sleep. If this goes on I may have to come up with a counter-invention, which is a terrible thing to have to do to one's own husband, but I hate to see him looking so exhausted in the morning.
Or, of course, I could always do what Miss Davenport suggests and persuade him to take valerian at night. But somehow, that's just not a satisfying solution. I need to use...
SCIENCE!
* * * * *