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Nurse Anne nodded hard and said, “Yes, good. Yes, I’d love to see it—and not only for myself, or for the Southern cause, or for any grand ethical pursuit. ”
“Then why?”
“Because Steen is a wicked bastard. A fiend, and worse—but stronger language I’d shudder to deploy in front of the cat. He’s cruel and vile, and…”
Maria suggested, “Revolting? I understand he’s creating a weapon, applying his scientific prowess to ungodly research, and to the creation of a solar cannon that he intends to fire on our capital. ”
“That’s true,” Anne said, “Though I think you’ve got him a bit confused, or doubled up. Steen isn’t a scientist, himself. He’s a bully and a thug, and a manipulator. ”
“I don’t understand…?”
Anne hopped to her feet. “I’ll show you. Come with me. But don’t touch anything, and if any of the patients try to touch you, do your best to prevent them. They aren’t allowed to take liberties, though the prohibition doesn’t do much to stop them, sometimes. ”
The nurse hastily led Maria down another hallway littered with medical detritus—bedpans, medicine trays, and assorted straps or other restraints. As they walked, Maria sought to clarify, “This is a hospital for the mentally afflicted, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Anne said. “We’ve only been open for a year or two. ”
“I thought perhaps this was only a cover for a weapons laboratory. Or so the intelligence I’d received implied as much. ”
“That’s funny,” Anne said without any humor. “Down here. ” She indicated a set of stairs leading down to the basement, and with a gentle lift of her skirts, she skipped down the steps to a door, which she opened.
She called out, “Doctor Smeeks? Doctor Smeeks, I’ve brought you a visitor. ”
From within, they were answered by a thin voice stretched thinner still by exhaustion. It asked, “A visitor?”
“Yes, Doctor Smeeks. It’s me, Anne. ” She motioned at Maria, drawing her down into the basement. “And this is Maria. She’s…she’s…” Unable to think of anything better or more concise, she finished, “She’s here to help. ”
“Help?”
“Yes sir,” Maria said before she even saw the speaker. “Please, could I…” she looked to Anne for approval, and received it. “Could I speak with you?”
The nurse squeezed Maria’s elbow and whispered, “I beg you, be gentle. ”
He crept around a table like a nervous rodent, eyeing Maria and Anne both with open suspicion. Doctor Smeeks was a white-haired man of an age past seventy, with loose-fitting clothes, a frazzled expression, and a pair of jeweler’s lenses strapped across his forehead. He said, “Hello?” and wrung his hands together. “Oh, Anne. You’re alone. Or rather, you’re not alone, but you’re not…you haven’t brought Steen. Or, or. Or the boy,” he added sadly.
“Sir,” Anne came forward to take his arm, leading him forward to meet Maria. “Sir, I’m so very sorry, but no. However, this is Maria—”
“And she’s here to help?”
“She’s here to help. Would you show her your work? She’s very interested in what you’re doing down here, and I promise you,” she added into his ear. “She is no friend of Steen’s. ”
“No friend of…that man. What was his name again? Anne, I can’t remember his name. ”
“Steen, sir. And it’s all right, don’t worry yourself. Just, could you show us your work?”
“My work?”
“Yes sir, your work. Will you give us a tour of your most recent piece? Remember it, sir? The one you’re building in order to bring back Edwin. ” She patted his forearm and he nodded.
“For Edwin. ” He glared up at Maria. “The army man. He took my assistant,” his lip trembled. “A fine assistant, and a nice boy. He took him away from me, and I do believe he intends to harm the child if I can’t…if I don’t…”
He twisted his fingers into knots.
“Please, come this way. ” He led the women deeper into his laboratory—a dark place brightened by lanterns, lamps, and the few thin windows that ran the length of the wall’s eastern rim. Glass containers of a thousand shapes, sizes, and purposes were stacked and piled from table to table, and tubes made of copper, tin, and steel were bundled like sticks for a fire. The floor was coated with papers covered in tiny, scratchy handwritten notes; and from the ceiling hung models of projects that had been, and projects that were yet to come.
But in the back corner, underneath the longest stretch of skinny window with watery gray afternoon light spilling down into the basement, sat a device almost as massive as the Valkyrie’s primary engine. It had been constructed of pipes, pans, and a vast array of complicated lenses, and it looked like a cross between a microscope and a telescope, melded with the steel-framed corpse of a suspension bridge.
The lenses varied in size from thumbnail-small to windowpane-large, with the biggest mounted before a seat and a console covered with complicated buttons and levers. Maria thought the airship looked like a wind-up toy in comparison to this astonishing machine—all the more astonishing because she had only the vaguest idea of what it was meant to do.
