Agatha H. and the Airship City

still grasping Zulenna’s clothes.

Zulenna gingerly reached up, and found that she could remove Agatha’s hands without effort. She stepped sideways. Agatha didn’t move.

Zulenna considered slamming Agatha face first into the wall, but at that moment, Agatha’s face turned towards her, and the thought fled. She stepped back and tried to project self-assurance. She jerked her clothes straight.

“Never touch me again.” She braced herself for another attack, but Agatha ignored her and simply shuffled past her to drop onto her bed. “And I want you out of my room.”

Agatha looked at her, and then closed her eyes. As… exhilarating as the rage had been while she was experiencing it, now that it was gone, she felt sick, exhausted and ashamed. “Nothing would please me more,” she whispered, “but tonight I’m sleeping here.”

Zulenna glared at her and stepped forward, then hesitated. With a disdainful sniff, she turned, disrobed and got into her own bed. She reached out to extinguish the light and stopped. Agatha was already asleep. Zulenna began to ease out of her bed, then reached up and touched the tender spot on her face. Agatha made an odd humming noise in her sleep, then began to breathe deeply. Zulenna crept out of bed, selected one of the fencing foils that was on the rack, and carefully climbed back into bed with it placed between her and Agatha. She left the light on. It was quite a while before she slept.

In Agatha’s dreams, the great celestial machine warped itself slightly. The teeth of the gears grew longer and sharper, and began to fly off and chase Von Pinn, and Zulenna, and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, and as they ran squealing in terror, Agatha found herself enjoying the show until she realized that the largest and sharpest gear was bearing down upon herself.

She came awake with a jerk, dropping a jeweler’s wrench upon a benchtop which was littered with parts. She looked around in surprise. She was in an empty machine shop. But it wasn’t Adam’s. Where was she? A voice behind her—

“Miss Clay? Good heavens.”

Swinging about, Agatha saw the Baron’s secretary Boris, and Moloch, both looking rather dumbfounded.

Years of training as Dr. Beetle’s assistant kicked in and she leapt to her feet, smoothed back her hair and stood at attention. “Good morning, sir. I… I was asleep, but I am ready to begin.”

This only seemed to make Boris even more uncomfortable. He glared at Moloch. “I dare say she is.”

Moloch tried to control a grin. “Um… Didn’t you forget something—er— darling?”

Agatha looked at them blankly. “What do you—” belatedly she noticed the direction of Moloch’s gaze. Looking downward she saw that she was dressed in naught but her camisole and pantalets. With a shriek she barreled between the two men and dashed from the room.

Once she had vanished around the corner, Boris rounded on Moloch and shook several fingers at him reprovingly. “You are expected to get work done, Herr von Zinzer. Perhaps a different assistant…”

“No!” The last thing Moloch wanted was someone who could tell he knew nothing. “Um… she’s… it’s just— the science stuff, it… um… it really gets her… excited.”

Boris rolled his eyes. “Ah. One of those.” He shrugged. “Well, as long as you’re discreet and it does not interfere with your work. But—” he warned. “Tell Miss Clay not to flaunt herself in front of the Baron or his son. They have no tolerance for such things.” Satisfied that he had cleared up the matter, he steered Moloch deeper into the lab. “Now the one example we saw of your work was rather crude, but the Baron found aspects of the design quite remarkable. He believes that with access to proper materials, your work might be well worth his full attention.”

Moloch smiled weakly. “Great.”

Boris nodded. “If this is so, you will subsequently report to the Baron directly. For now, however he is interested in seeing what you can produce independently.”

“I’ll bet.”

There followed a quick tour of the lab, ending with Boris indicating a small electric bell. “And finally, whatever you need, be it supplies, assistants or food, simply ring this and it will be provided. We look forward to seeing what you will do.” As he left, he passed a fully dressed Agatha coming the other way. Tactfully, neither said anything.

Agatha entered the lab to find a despondent Moloch rummaging about in the chemical locker. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled out a large carboy of clear liquid and filled a beaker. He swigged fully a third of it down before he sat on the nearest stool.

Agatha examined the label. “That’s supposed to be used for cleaning machine tools,” she pointed out.

“So I’ll die clean.” Moloch saluted her with his glass and polished off another third. “Now what the heck were you doing? Do you always work in your underclothes?”

“No!” Agatha began to pace back and forth in agitation. “I don’t know! I never used to walk in my sleep!”

“Well you sure made a mess of the workbench.” The two of them examined the bench, which did show all the signs of heavy use. “But I don’t see what you were working on.” It was true. Tools and parts littered the area, but there was no device anywhere in sight.

Agatha slumped against the bench. “Probably nothing,” she admitted. She straightened up and turned away. “Well, at least I don’t have another failure staring at me.”

From an upper shelf, a small device paused in its labors. A small lens focused on her, ascertained that she did not require its assistance, and resumed its task.

Moloch finished off his drink just as the beaker began to dissolve. He tossed it into the trash. “So now what?”

Agatha grinned. “Take a look at this!” She turned away and reached into her shirt and hauled out the airship manual and handed it to him.

Moloch looked surprised. “Where’d you get this?”

Agatha shrugged. “Just found it.”

Moloch paged through it, then handed it back. “This has possibilities. There’s a lot of traffic, there’s supply balloons coming and going all day long. Unfortunately, stuff like this will be guarded all the time. But look over here—” He took Agatha’s arm and brought her over to a rack of packages mounted on the wall near the main exit to the lab. A small sign explained how to prepare the devices for use. “This might be easier. These are personal balloon gliders for if they have to abandon the dirigible. You can use these to just glide down to earth, and they’re located throughout the Castle. The problem with these, is that people would see you jumping off the Castle. At night the damn things glow.”

Agatha nodded. “Hmm. Modifying one of them might be our best bet. It glows? We could paint it with tar or something.”

Moloch looked surprised. “That’s a good idea.”

“I want to get out of here too.” She thought for a minute. “I’ll bet they notice if we start messing about with one of these things, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised—” She stepped over to the rack and examined it closely. She gave a grunt of satisfaction and motioned Moloch over. “Look. See this? There’s a wire running through these rings. Probably some sort of tripwire, I’ll bet. When one of these things is pulled off the rack, it sounds an alarm somewhere. Makes sense, really, even if it’s a genuine emergency.” She studied the wire closely. “This is going to be tricky.” She looked at Moloch. “We can’t afford to do it wrong the first time.”

Moloch sat down heavily. “I wouldn’t even have looked for something like that,” he admitted. He brightened up. “On the other hand, I got to be pretty good at disarming booby traps.”

“How good?”

“I’m still here, ain’t I?”

“Fair enough. I think I might be able to build some stuff that could help.”

Moloch looked at her askance. “You said you couldn’t build anything.”

Agatha paused. “Yes, but I… I think I know what I did wrong. I have some ideas…” She shook herself. “But whatever we do, it’s going to take some time, and we’ve got to make it look like you’re doing something.” She looked around. “An inventory.”