The Calorium Wars Read online

  Liam laughed gleefully, staring at the wire as he pictured a terrarium he’d seen at the Central Park Zoo, and in the next moment the wire from the earpiece to the apparatus gave a disturbing wriggle. “That’s it,” Liam murmured, “come on, now,” and before the clerk could open his mouth both wire and earpiece had turned into a thick, rosy snake with a rattle at one end and a small, triangular head at the other, the snake wrapped around the clerk’s arm with its head at the end where the earpiece had been. As the totally petrified clerk stared at it in horror, the snake rattled and its tongue flickered out and brushed his chin delicately, evoking a choked little groan.

  “What do you know about that?” Liam asked jovially. “Crotalus ruber, the red rattlesnake. Very rare, not many people get a chance to see them that close up. Don’t make any sudden moves, now, will you? They’re touchy little fellas.”

  A tiny whine of pure misery escaped from the clerk’s nose.

  “What’s that?” Liam asked, bending closer and cocking his ear.

  “Please, sir,” the clerk gasped in a transport of terror, “please don’t let it hurt me! You and your friends may stay in the Presidential Suite for as long as you like compliments of the Arcadia, just make it go away!”

  “Oh, well, in that case,” Liam said in a magnanimous tone, and flicked the ends of his fingers as if he were brushing away a fly. Immediately the snake vanished, leaving the clerk grasping the earpiece of the voicewire apparatus and trembling like a sapling in a gale wind.

  “You were saying …?” Liam said with mild encouragement

  “Oh, yes, sir! Oh, yes, oh yes, oh, yes, right away, sir!”

  The clerk slammed the earpiece back onto its cradle and started scribbling furiously in the registration ledger. Liam turned to the others and gave them an innocent smile. After a moment, Chen spoke, a faint grin turning up the corners of his mouth:

  “Nice snake,” he said to Liam.

  “Yeah,” said Liam with an answering grin, “it was, wasn’t it?”

  In the Air/On the Ground in Little Russia

  October 31, 1877

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Capt. Ubaldo stood gesticulating wildly towards the viewport that ran above the battleship Delta’s control panels, the sky outside filled inexorably with lethal-looking Little Russian attack flyers, their stubby wings and fore-and-aft Gatling gun emplacements filling Becky with dread. If she were going to be blown out of the sky by some anonymous Little Russian aeronaut, she certainly didn’t want to go to the next world bound and gagged.

  “Nnngg!” she moaned. Then, more emphatically, “Rrrrrrrrr!”

  Startled, Capt. Ubaldo turned away from the viewport and gave Becky a contrite look.

  “Forgive me, Becky dearest,” he cried, hurrying over to join her. “I was so excited by the thought of meeting my future colleagues that I completely forgot your predicament!”

  He dropped to his knees next to her and fixed his moist brown eyes on her with a look of supplication that made Becky long passionately to mash a custard pie into his face.

  “Rrrrrrrr!” she groaned with a rising inflection, the underlying threat in her tone sending a little chill of uneasiness along Ubaldo’s spine.

  “Let us reach an agreement, then, darling,” he said with false brightness. “If you’ll promise to think twice before you take issue with my opinions and to remind yourself of the importance of a certain modesty and deference towards my new colleagues when we meet together in social situations, then I can set my mind at ease about removing the gag. Do you think you might agree to that?”

  Becky furrowed her brow into an absolute washboard of earnest wrinkles and nodded up and down in heartfelt pantomime: Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely!

  Ubaldo heaved a sigh of relief and undid the knots on the gag, stepping back out of the way as Becky spat it out in a fury of revulsion.

  “Water!” she croaked, and Ubaldo scurried away and returned a moment later with a carafe, which he held to her lips as she gulped it down thirstily. Once she had drunk her fill she gestured the carafe away with her head and then looked her captor directly in the eyes.

  “Now, my dear Captain Ubaldo,” she said with decisive crispness. “Unless you actually mean to introduce me to your ‘new colleagues’ in chains, I think it might be useful to remove my bonds as well.”

  Ubaldo hesitated for a moment, and Becky picked up on it instantly: “For mercy’s sake,” she said soothingly, “relax!” And opening her blue eyes wide with all the guileless candor she could summon, she added: “Honestly, what harm could a mere girl do to a big, intrepid warrior like you?”

  Blushing with embarrassment, Ubaldo bent over and rapidly undid Becky’s bonds, waiting to speak again until she had finished chafing her wrists and ankles and risen a little unsteadily to her feet.

  “Is there anything I can …” Ubaldo began in his most solicitous tone.

  “As a matter of fact, I absolutely must withdraw to the W. C.” She looked around to remind herself where the Officers’ Quarters were, as Ubaldo blushed again, twice as furiously, at this indelicacy. She patted him gently on the arm:

  “There, there, Captain,” she said, “I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t have a disgraceful accident right here in front of you. We can have a nice talk when I get back.” Hastily, clenching her fists less to control her bladder than to keep herself from turning back and punching Ubaldo squarely in the nose, she took off and trotted up a couple of steps to the passage that led to the Officers’ Quarters.

  The Officers’ water-closet was just as Becky remembered it from her aerial journey with Liam—a surprisingly commodious room, paneled throughout with walnut and rosewood, lit with electric lights and highlighted with brightly polished brass fixtures. But the memory that was uppermost in Becky’s mind just now was of a recessed cabinet located over the marble washbasin; surely if she just rummaged a bit she would find something there she could make use of …

  “Ahhh!” she exhaled with a joyous grin. Incredible, even better than she had dared hope. Humming cheerfully to herself she removed the brown glass flask with the pharmacist’s label and set it on the counter next to the washbasin, then continued searching in the room’s other cabinets until she had the rest of what she needed. She chuckled gleefully. Whoever said that revenge is a dish best served cold must have been some dilettante with too much free time on his hands—for a busy girl the best revenge was one served piping hot and fresh from the oven!

  As Becky returned to the main deck, she found Ubaldo seated in front of the TeslaVox transmitter/receiver unit, talking animatedly into the handset; in the background, she could see that the Little Russian attack flyers had ranged themselves in squadrons on either side of the battleship Delta, clearly intending to escort it to its landing area.

  As he spoke to his unseen listener, Ubaldo gestured with his free hand as if he were painting castles in the air, smiling broadly and oozing a sort of unctuous toadyism:

  “Of course, Your Highness,” he was saying, “both I and the battleship Delta itself are at your service, and any small experience I may have acquired in my fifteen years as a U. S. Aeronaut is yours to make use of as well.”

  Whatever His Highness might have been saying in reply, it was obviously more than satisfactory, as Ubaldo started nodding like a bobble-head doll while his grin spread till it looked like the corners of his mouth were about to meet at the back of his head. After another moment or two, Ubaldo hung the handset back on its hook, breathed out a vast sigh of satisfaction and turned his head to smile at Becky, who had approached him from behind.

  “Imagine that!” Ubaldo began in a euphoric tone …

  “No,” Becky replied, “you imagine this!” And before Ubaldo could utter a word, Becky whipped a sodden washcloth out of the pocket of her gown and slapped it squarely over her persecutor’s nose and mouth.

  “Eeeemmmmph!” Ubaldo wailed, his eyes wild and incredulous. He was trying to rise and extricate himself from Becky’s grip, but wit
hout much success.

  “Yes, you deranged, egomaniacal pervert,” Becky hissed, “it’s chloroform, from the very same bottle you used on me, or I miss my bet!”

  At that, Ubaldo redoubled his efforts, struggling madly to free himself, but Becky was filled with an emotional energy that could have subdued a mountain gorilla.

  “Give it up, Captain,” Becky said with a cheerful grin. “I may be nothing but a girl, but I once wrestled one of the Sultan’s Bashi-Bazouks to the ground for a bottle of arak!”

  Either this bit of news or the chloroform finally proved too much for Ubaldo, who suddenly slumped in his seat and started snoring loudly, his chin sunk on his chest. Resuming her happy hum, Becky picked up the knotted sheets and ropes that had been used to bind her and put them to work trussing up Ubaldo. After a couple of minutes she finished with the last knot, dusted off her hands and curtsied to the totally immobilized and dead-to-the-world Ubaldo:

  “I must say, Captain dear, that this seems the perfect instance for testing the old chestnut about sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander. I only regret that I won’t be here to hear you explain your bonds to your ‘new colleagues.’”

  Turning briskly back to the airship’s controls, Becky took a moment to peer out the view screen to check on their whereabouts.

  “Oh, dear!” she murmured, catching sight of the rapidly approaching sky-line of New Petersburg, the onion domes of its innumerable churches silhouetted against the setting sun. Clearly Ubaldo had been bound for the giant military compound of the Little Russian Aerial Navy from which she and Liam had originally stolen the battleship Delta, and at this speed it wouldn’t be long until they reached it.

  Considering the fact that she should have been on her way to New York with Captain Billy and Liam’s Gran just about now, Ubaldo had already turned her life totally upside down simply by abducting her. But if she actually allowed herself to be taken prisoner by the Little Russians, things would become too complicated to bear thinking about. Fortunately, on this side of New Petersburg there seemed to be an abundance of meadows and fields, some cultivated and some not—possible landing sites whose number was diminishing rapidly as they approached the outskirts.

  That didn’t leave much choice. In the center of the control area two very comfortable kidney-buttoned chairs of dark-green leather were set on shiny brass pedestals that let them swivel in any direction they pleased—probably, she and Liam had decided, meant for the vessel’s captain and an assistant. Seating herself in the chair nearest the central controls, Becky rapidly located a large brass wheel with a rosewood handle affixed to it at right angles. At the left side of the wheel, where the handle was stopped against a peg, was a sign with two-inch letters and a curved arrow pointing clockwise declaring: “DESCEND,” and Becky firmly gripped the handle and spun the wheel all the way around to the right.

  Instantly, there was a change in the sound of the engines and the regular chiming of a bell declaring that a descent was in progress. Becky looked out the view screen again and let go of a pent-up breath that she had been holding without realizing it. They were already low enough that she could tell they’d land in what looked like an alfalfa field, just beyond which began the first ramshackle buildings of the city’s outskirts. Overhead, the Little Russian attack fliers were flitting back and forth in unmilitary disorder, suggesting nothing so much as a hive of giant wasps that had just been kicked. No doubt they had been expecting Ubaldo to fly the Delta directly to the base, and now they were buzzing around in a panic trying to get new orders. That meant there wasn’t much time—Becky jumped up and ran for the Officers’ Quarters again, hoping against hope that no one had moved the things she’d left behind a few months ago.

  On the ground, the battleship Delta seemed far larger than it had in the air, its dark bulk looming menacingly against a luminous orange sunset, and the detachment of Little Russian aeronauts approached the huge craft warily.

  “Are you sure it isn’t a trap, sir?” one of the enlisted men quavered, gripping his carbine so tightly that his knuckles were white.

  “Don’t be such a moron, Vasia,” the officer scoffed, though the knuckles gripping his Nagant service revolver were equally white. “Why would the American turncoat set a trap for us? He expects us to take him to Prince Yurevskii for tea and cakes and hearty backslapping!”

  As the little group drew closer to the edge of the vessel, they slowed down more and more, and it was with a disproportionate sense of relief that the officer in charge welcomed the distraction of a bystander watching curiously from the shadows of the dilapidated buildings.

  “You there, boy!” he called gruffly, pointing to the buildings. “Do you live in that slum?”

  “Yes, your Honor,” the boy said timidly, “I was just watching the big airship as it landed so I thought I’d get a closer look.”

  “Well, then,” the officer continued, “have you seen anybody leave that vessel since it landed there?”

  “Oh, no, your Honor, the boy said vehemently, “I thought there would be someone when those little stairs came out of the thing’s belly, but from where I was standing I couldn’t see another soul.”

  “Hmm!” the officer grunted with an uneasy frown. “Well, you can’t stand here all night, so be off with you before you start getting in the way.”

  The boy nodded and bowed humbly, backing away from the officer as if he were a great personage. “Yes, your Honor, of course, your Honor, thank you, your Honor!”

  And with that the boy spun around and took off towards the dark buildings as if the Devil himself were on his heels.

  The officer, however, was nowhere near as formidable as the boy had seemed to think. In fact, as he and his little party drew nearer to the set of metal stairs which descended to the field from the battleship’s belly, he slowed more and more until he came to a halt a dozen feet away from it. He turned to his men:

  “You, Vasia,” he said brusquely, gesturing towards the stairs with his pistol, “and you, Ippolit! Get up those stairs at once! And don’t come back till you have a full report on what’s happening in there!”

  The two men exchanged the mute “can you believe this clown?” look of enlisted men everywhere and began their grudging ascent, jumping at every unexpected sound and cursing their chicken-hearted commander. Not to mention the American himself, who obviously thought himself too high and mighty to come out and say hello to a handful of lowly Russians.

  Vasia, who’d had the misfortune to be deputed first, stopped warily at the very last stair-step between himself and the ugly necessity of sticking his head up into the interior, cocking his rifle as he did so just to make himself feel better. No two ways about it … whoever this mysterious American was, he had better turn out to be worth all this fuss!

  Chapter Sixteen

  The boy, meanwhile, was trotting briskly through the shadowy neighborhoods at the very edge of town towards a dim halo of illumination that rose from a quarter not far ahead of him.

  “Thank goodness,” the boy said cheerfully, “that wretch Ubaldo didn’t throw out any of my working costumes.”

  Becky—for the boy was indeed Becky in one of her favorite disguises, her “newsboy” getup—felt totally secure in her incognito. Between the tweed cap that covered her curls, the shapeless brown suit that covered the rest of her, the fluent Russian she’d picked up while reporting on the Russo-Turkish war and the Hopkins & Allen pocket revolver she’d pinched from Ubaldo she felt ready for any adventures that might arise. After all, she mused, why not use the opportunity to put together a nice little article for Harpers along the lines of “Undercover in New Petersburg”?

  Exiting from a narrow alleyway onto the fully electric-lit main street of New Petersburg’s business district, Becky basked gratefully for a moment in the piquant sense of total anonymity that any busy downtown street gives a born city-dweller. The sidewalks were crowded with Peterburzhtsy of every class, the well-to-do suited and cloaked against the early autumn ch
ill and the lower classes dressed in layers and warmed by vodka. Somewhere nearby buskers were playing Russian folk songs on a balalaika and a squeezebox called a garmoshka, everyone cheerfully (if a bit doggedly) ignoring the taciturn presence of Secret Police watchers pretending to study storefront windows while keeping an eye on the reflected crowds.

  Suddenly, a real newsboy (dressed pretty much like Becky, she thought with a touch of self-satisfaction) stepped out into the street ahead and started waving a handful of freshly printed evening papers:

  “ПОСЛЕДНИЕ НОВОСТИ!!!” he bellowed. “ДОГОВОР СО ШТАТАМИ!!!”

  Becky hurried towards the newsboy: A treaty with the States? she marveled to herself. Now what?

  Giving the delighted newsboy a handful of U.S. silver, she grabbed a paper and stood aside to read it: incredible! Apparently, after the bombing of New York, Stanton had actually flown to New Petersburg on a U. S. Aerial Navy battle cruiser to meet with the Little Russian Regent, Prince Yurevskii, (whom she remembered with an ironic grin as the mad scientist and totally bent schemer Dr. Lukas), as a result of which the two leaders, effusively protesting eternal friendship, had just concluded a mutual non-aggression pact.

  “Surely,” she muttered to herself in English, “we are about to see pigs flying!”

  “My dear Becky …” a familiar voice murmured into her ear in Russian.

  Starting so sharply that she almost dropped the paper, Becky turned to see a slender, dapper gentleman wearing a dark overcoat and hat, a neat little Vandyke beard and an amused expression. Standing next to him was an absolutely enormous man muffled up in a heavy overcoat, a fur shapka pulled down over his head and a woolen scarf wound around his face.