The Calorium Wars Page 9

  “Certainly, ladies,” Ubaldo said urbanely, tipping his cap again, “I’ll be sure to find you after the meeting and let you know how it came out.”

  As he strolled away, Becky looked after him for a moment with a bemused smile. “Did I tell you he had proposed to me?”

  Gran raised her eyebrows: “Did he, now? Well, he’s a handsome lad, sure enough.”

  “Do you think so?” Becky laughed and started walking again. “I’m afraid he’s not quite the sort of man I fancy, but I was at great pains to make him think I took his proposal seriously. He’s a gentleman. And he’s also a brave pilot who has put himself at risk for the Party many times.”

  “Mmm,” Gran said noncommittally. “And Liam is, then?” she added with a twinkle of mischief.

  “Is what?” Becky asked evasively.

  “Is the sort of man you fancy?”

  Becky rolled her eyes and sighed. “God help me, I suppose so.”

  Suddenly the two of them came to a halt, staring across the remaining stretch of grass towards the Bay, where the Straight Up had appeared as if by magic around a wooded promontory.

  “Oh, dear heavens,” Becky said in a faint voice, “there they are.”

  On the Straight Up, Liam was standing at the taffrail gauging the distance he’d have to jump if he didn’t wait for Captain Billy to fool around with all the nautical stuff involved in tying up the boat. They were close enough now for him to see Becky plainly and he really hated to admit just how bad a state he was in at the mere sight of her. She was bareheaded, her long auburn hair gathered up at her neck with a simple ribbon and blowing in the ocean breeze. A sworn enemy of corsets and other “fashionable idiocies,” she was dressed as simply as usual, in a soft blue frock with the bodice open at the throat, and the mere sight of that face was enough to make his heart squeeze up like a baby’s fist.

  “Dammit, McCool, just wait a minute!” Captain Billy shouted from behind him, but he was too late—Liam was already flying through the air, suspended for a split second over the water while everybody on both sides of the gap caught their breath … and then landing with a crash on the boards of the pier, off-balance enough that he staggered and had to run almost to the far edge before he regained his balance.

  Watching from the Straight Up, Mike and Chen both shook their heads incredulously.

  “Is he always that impatient?” Chen asked.

  Mike smiled slightly. “It depends on the woman.”

  On the pier, Gran was studying Liam and Becky with a rapt expression and thinking that one of the best things about being old was being past craziness like this. The two of them were standing not more than six feet apart, absolutely transfixed by emotions they couldn’t quite handle and apparently unable to move another inch closer. Liam opened and closed his mouth several times in futile attempts to say something and succeeded only in imitating a beached fish. Becky didn’t even try to speak, but only stared at Liam with feverish intensity as if she were trying to see into his brain, her upper lip beaded with perspiration and a flush slowly mounting further and further up her throat and into her cheeks until she looked as if she’d run miles to get to the pier. It was Liam who finally broke the silence, clearing his throat desperately before he said:

  “Good afternoon, Miss, ah …”

  Becky looked at him for a long beat and then said: “Oh, Hell!”

  At which both of them leapt towards each other as if they had been shot from cannons, melting into an embrace so intense that the rest of the world had clearly ceased to exist for either of them.

  Chen and Mike had disembarked, leaving Captain Billy aboard to keep up steam, and they approached Gran and the embracing couple cautiously.

  “I’ve read occasional accounts of spontaneous human combustion,” Chen said in a low tone, “but I had always thought them rather silly. Still …”

  “Yeah,” said Mike, “I know what you mean.” He gave Gran a quick hug and then turned to Chen. “Ambrose, this is Liam’s grandmother.” And to Gran: “Mrs. McCool, this is Ambrose Chen, a new pal and, uh …” he smiled a little uncertainly, “… a big-time Chinese sorceror.”

  Chen bowed deeply, then took Gran’s hand and gave it a ceremonious kiss. In answer, Gran looked closely into Chen’s eyes, then nodded after a moment or two and smiled:

  “Welcome, Mr. Chen,” she said. Then she turned towards the house, gesturing for the others to follow her.

  “Come on, boys, those two can catch up when they’re ready.”

  Gran strode away towards the main house, her stride brisk enough to make Mike and Chen hustle to keep up with her. Behind her, the late sun sparkled on the whitecaps in the Bay while the Straight Up bobbed cheerfully at her moorings and Becky and Liam continued to hold each other, motionless and lost in wordless communication. Finally, as if at a signal, they broke apart and started walking towards the house holding hands.

  “I know what’s important now, and none of that other stuff matters,” Liam said, “the old stuff—all that stuff we thought was so important, the people we used to be. From now on it’s just you and me and we start fresh from right here.”

  Becky gave him a little Mona Lisa smile: “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Chapter Nine

  Gran, Mike and Chen were seated comfortably in white-painted wicker armchairs which had been set out in front of the main house. A croquet course had been laid out on the grass in front of them, and a game must have been interrupted by the announcement of the meeting inside, as the mallets and balls were scattered here and there where the players had dropped them.

  What was absorbing the attention of Gran and her companions, however, was a display taking place around one of the wickets just in front of them where an outlandishly-dressed little man no bigger than a chipmunk was doing fancy gymnastic spins around the top of the wicket while an equally tiny woman in spangled tights was standing on the grass waiting to catch him.

  Gran was watching with a wide grin, absolutely fascinated, while Mike scratched his head abstractedly and looked disapproving.

  “My hat’s off to ye, Ambrose,” Gran said, “we’ve plenty of Little People in the ould country, but they’re real folk, citizens of the Land of Faёrie. As near as I could make out, ye made those two out of a couple of pill bugs.”

  Chen was obviously pleased with Gran’s praise and he gestured expansively. “It’s just a bit of elementary alchemy, Mrs. McCool—they’re not human at all, of course, but merely pill bugs in altered forms. I know that the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus made all sorts of extravagant claims about creating actual human homunculi in his book De Natura Rerum, but I’m quite sure he was, ah, inspired by the manuscripts of Marco Polo, who would have seen little creatures like these two on his travels in China.”

  “There’s Liam and Becky,” Mike announced with obvious relief. “Hey,” he called out, “over here!”

  Becky and Liam had been heading straight for the front door, but at Mike’s hail they veered over towards the croquet pitch.

  “Good Lord!” Becky said, “What’s that?”

  Her attention riveted on the tiny acrobats, she tugged Liam after her and bent closer to examine them.

  “Are they real?” she said in a slightly tremulous voice.

  “One might say so,” Chen answered a little evasively.

  “He made them out of a couple of pill bugs,” Mike said, with a reproachful sniff.

  Liam burst out laughing. “That’s just Ambrose putting on the swank, showing Gran what a big uptown magician he is.” He pulled his Gran to her feet and gave her a bear hug. “He did save our lives on the way here,” he told her, “but he had to wait all the way up to the third act curtain so he’d look extra good when he did it.”

  “Hmph!” snorted Chen. He clapped his hands lightly and the little figures vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving a couple of thoroughly terrified pill bugs curled up into balls.

  “Where is everybody?” Liam asked. “Are they still having
that meeting? We need to get moving if we don’t want Cap’n Billy getting all in a lather, and I have to talk to President Lincoln before we leave.”

  Becky tugged on his arm, heading for the front door: “Come on, we’ll just interrupt them if we have to.”

  Inside the main meeting room of the Goodyear mansion, the members of the Freedom Party were seated in rows in front of a cleared space with their leaders sitting in a semicircle facing them. President Lincoln sat in the center, the effect of his shiny, oversized automaton body softened somewhat by a suit of the clothes people were used to seeing Abe Lincoln wear, plain black broadcloth with fresh white linen; while to Lincoln’s right, simply dressed and coiffed, sat Countess Lovelace or Augusta Ada Byron or just plain Ada as the down-to-earth mathematical genius and Party technical adviser insisted. On Lincoln’s left was the shrewd and cheerful Party Chairman Sam Clemens (never Mr. Twain once you’d shaken his hand) in his perennial white suit, and on Clemens’ left the Party’s grand old man and Communications Director Frederick Douglass, looking on with courtly dignity and a look of acute distress as a well-dressed woman harangued the audience.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a patently un-sorry tone, “but I simply cannot fathom how a Party representing some of our country’s finest traditions and best people can possibly lend its imprimatur to a common thief, and an Irish one at that! Surely there’s a reason why establishments throughout New York City display signs saying “No Irish Need Apply”—it’s a well-known fact that the average Irish person is a drunken layabout whose morals are no better than they ought to be!”

  Liam and the others had entered at the back of the room as the woman launched into her diatribe, and by its end Clemens was on his feet looking anguished and waving his hand as if to clear the air:

  “Now, Mrs. Redingote, I expect we all set great store by plain speaking, but even so that’s going beyond the …”

  Liam spoke up from the back of the room: “Don’t fret yourself, Mr. Clemens.”

  Everyone turned around in their seats to see who had spoken and Liam grinned at their obvious discomfiture.

  “Really, folks,” Liam continued with a hint of a grin, “the life of your average Irish thug is one long round of bloodletting and debauchery, so I like to spend a little quiet time every year in solitary confinement—just so I can get in some prayer and meditation. Seeing as how my incarceration was nothing more than simple self-indulgence I couldn’t possibly accept your commendation, though I do want to correct the lady speaker on one point: it hurts my feelings to have people call me a common thief when the fact is I’m an absolute crackerjack, none better if I say so myself.”

  “Well, really!” cried the scandalized Mrs. Redingote, and a wave of sotto voce comment and laughter ran through the crowd.

  Twain was grinning and shaking his head: “Welcome back, Mr. McCool—I’m glad to see that the report of your hanging was an exaggeration.”

  “You and me both,” Liam said emphatically. “Now, if you’ll pardon me for interrupting, I’m pushed for time as we’ve got to race the storm back to the city and I’d like to ask for a private audience with you folks and President Lincoln, no other Party members please.”

  Twain gave President Lincoln an inquiring look and Lincoln got to his feet, holding up one massive steel hand to quiet the crowd’s protesting murmurs.

  “Of course,” he said with the soulful thrum of his artificial vocal cords. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll declare the meeting adjourned if I may and I’ll see you all again at dinner time.”

  Liam and his friends made their way through the departing crowd towards the front of the room, and Lincoln held out both hands in welcome:

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you safe and sound, Liam. It’s been a pure misery to me thinking that my request got you into such awful troubles.”

  Liam shook the President’s enormous metal hand and smiled: “Believe me, sir, it wasn’t your request that got me into trouble, but I’d rather we were in some more private place when I explain.”

  Lincoln opened a door in the wall behind them and beckoned to the others to follow:

  “Come on, folks. Let’s get ourselves comfortable in the library.”

  The library was a spacious room with thick maroon velvet drapes, green-shaded lamps and floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with enough books to keep Liam reading for a lifetime. Someday, he was thinking, when everything’s back to normal, I’m going to come back out here in the middle of the night with a steam van and a couple of the boys and load up—I’ll bet nobody but the maids who dust the books will even miss …

  “Liam?” Lincoln’s tone was politely inquiring.

  “Sorry, sir.” said Liam, snapping back to the moment.“It’s been a long day. But before I head back to the city I want to tell you a couple of important things I’ve learned while I was away. First—and I heard this from a couple of Spanish lads who are close to Fat Willie Pilkington—Stanton has decided that he isn’t going to be comfortable until you’re gone for good. But he wants to milk your going for every drop of propaganda he can squeeze out of it, so before he has you executed he means to stage a huge treason trial where he can put you in the stand and paint you as the worst scoundrel in America’s history.”

  Lincoln shook his head slowly, the uncanny swiveling of the great steel head making Liam feel a bit queasy. “Eddie Stanton is the perfect type of the old-fashioned machine politico, eaten up by vanity and greed till, as the Good Book says, there’s nothing left but sounding brass and the tinkle of cymbals.”

  “Yes, sir. But please don’t think he’s all talk—his gang beats anything I’ve ever seen for numbers and organization, and it’s not going to be long before they come down on you like a hammer on an anvil. And that’s the second thing I wanted to tell you: you’re running out of time fast, because you’ve got a traitor in your midst.”

  For a moment the Freedom Party leaders were stunned into silence, and then they all started talking at once until Frederick Douglass stood up and bowed to Liam:

  “Thank you, young man,” he said with deep feeling, “I have some experience of what you’ve been through and I know how much it cost for you to come here to warn us instead of just thanking your stars for your freedom and going to ground somewhere.” He crossed to Liam and shook his hand warmly. “Bless you, Mr. McCool. Please tell us how you learned this terrible thing.”

  “Well, sir,” Liam said, “I expect you’ll remember that the meeting where my plan was discussed broke up late in the afternoon and that I set off immediately for the city in Cap’n Grogan’s boat. He was able to put me ashore not far from the warehouse district where my target was located, and as it was already dark I was able to make my way there without any delay. It couldn’t have been more than four hours after I left Shelter Island when I approached the door of the warehouse and started to jimmy it open, but the minute I touched the door a good dozen carbon-arc searchlights blazed down from the rooftops around the warehouse and a horde of bluecoats poured out of every doorway and alley and beat me to the ground. As fuddled as I was, it was plain as a pikestaff what had happened—someone who had been at that meeting of ours tipped off Willie Pilkington in time for him to set the trap just as nice as you please.”

  This time the Party leaders sat in stunned silence till Liam got to his feet. “That’s everything I wanted to tell you, and I’m afraid we’ll have to get going right away if we’re going to beat the storm. I surely can’t tell you how to find out who the rotten egg is. All I can say is you need to do it fast. And if you have an emergency hideout you can go to, start getting ready right away, because this place just isn’t safe now. I don’t know why Stanton hasn’t hit you already, but it can’t be long till he does.”

  Slowly and almost grudgingly Lincoln got to his feet, followed by the others as they crowded around to embrace Liam and shake his hand. Ada Lovelace gave Liam a warm embrace:

  “It’s too bad of you to come and go so quickly, Mr. McC
ool, I was hoping we’d have time to argue about poetry, especially since I finally read Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and now I can answer your comparison of Onegin and my father’s Don Juan.”

  Liam gave her a courtly bow and kissed her hand with a flourish: “Nothing would please me more, my lady, but I’m afraid the hurricane won’t wait.”

  “I hope you won’t be taking our Becky away with you,” she continued, trying to cover real concern with a playful tone.

  Becky gave her a hug: “I have to go before long, Ada dear, I must get back to real reporting and I want to work with Liam on his plans for strengthening the opposition. But I’m going to stay long enough to help President Lincoln find a new editor for Freedom.”

  Before anybody else could comment, Ambrose stepped forward, kissed Ada’s hand with operatic panache and murmured in his best continental style: “Ambrose Chen, my lady, your servant. I wanted to compliment you on your Notes to Von Reichenbach’s Researches on Magnetism, which I found far more illuminating than the work itself.” And then, before Ada could recover from her astonishment, Ambrose plucked a perfect, long-stemmed rose out of the air and handed it to her.

  Liam burst out laughing: “Ambrose, if you start pulling coins out of Countess Lovelace’s ear I am going to punch your head for you. Come on, folks, time to go!”

  With that he opened the door back into the meeting room and disappeared through it.

  Outside, the weather had clearly taken a turn for the worse, with dark clouds scudding across what was left of the blue sky and the winds bringing a steamy, sea-weedy smell from somewhere a long way south of Long Island.

  Liam looked up at the sky with a worried frown and started towards the pier, but before he could take another step Gran grabbed him by the arm:

  “Not quite yet, Liam me darlin’!”

  Liam frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but Gran just started dragging him after her as she headed towards the woods.