Steampunk Revolution by Ann Vandermeer (ed)

Author:Ann Vandermeer (ed)
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781616960865
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2012-12-02T08:00:00+00:00

We offered Chaff a lift off the mesa, but she rejected it. “The Path of the Earth should remain on the earth,” she said. “I have already sinned once by leaving it.”

Though we were all glad she had done so, none of us was up to debating the philosophy of transgression with her. Instead, Dieterich shepherded us back to our little ship and took off, guiding us through what was left of the wind.

“I followed Chaff at first,” he said finally. “Found the wreck of Phidias’s airship…it hadn’t been shot down at all. No, it looked like they’d tried to take off, only to crash again.” He let out a long breath. “That told me I needed to find you, and I’m just sorry it took so long.”

“You could tell that just from the crash, sir?” It had looked like any other wreck to me.

“I’m insulted you even need to ask, Charles.” He was silent a moment, then began patting his pockets, searching for his pipe. The airship lurched, and he stopped. “Lundqvist—”

“I should be flattered,” she said quietly. “He thought enough of my intellect to let me be the linchpin of his plan to bring Raisa back.” She let out a long sigh—imitated it, I thought, clinging to human mannerisms as if to remind herself what she was. “I should be, but I’m not.”

“It was an insane plan,” Dieterich grumbled.

“Perhaps not, depending on which branch of theory you follow,” the Professora said, a little of her didactic nature reasserting itself. “If he were the man I taught, if he remembered anything of my lessons, then he would have linked himself in as a last effort. But that would have lasted just long enough to be part of the ship, to feel it come apart around him. If I wanted revenge, that would be it.”

I thought of Phidias flinging his head back against the throne, felt the still-raw wound pulse at the back of my neck, and kept silent.

“And if you didn’t?” Dieterich asked.

“If I didn’t.” Her phonograph thrummed with another imitation of a sigh. “If I didn’t, I’d remember how it felt to be—be part of all that. Integrated, even imperfectly. I’m still not sure whether I struck him, or whether....” She caught herself, then began again. “I think if he linked, he found more than he expected.”

“He did,” I said quietly. As had all of us. I put one hand to my forehead, feeling the pressure of lenses behind bone, the glimmer of life in both, the echo of machine in flesh.

Below us, Chaff continued her trek across the mesa, cutting a new path. I watched her go as we descended, down into the lands far from Parch.

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