Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

Klaus glanced at her unlined face. “You are in command. These are things that you need to be aware of.” He looked at the Captain seriously. “Besides—If I decide that she must die, I know that you won’t hesitate to kill her.”

A little frisson of pleasure ran down Bangladesh’s spine. “Why Klaus, you sweet talking flatterer,” she purred. She mulled over the information. “So who else knows?”

“Boris. The Bug Squad commanders, and the Deep Thinkers[61].”

Bangladesh nodded. “What about the Jagers? They’re good fighters, and wasps won’t—” she realized what she was suggesting. “I guess not. You might have to kill them.”

Klaus nodded soberly. “I have considered this.” He looked at DuPree with a hard look in his eye. “They have served us loyally and well these last years. Could you do it? Kill them all? Just because of their misplaced loyalties?”

Bangladesh sat back hard. “I don’t know. It would be really tough.” She shook her head and the admission was torn from between her gritted teeth. “I... I might need help.”

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Keep the possibility in mind. I have taken pains, these last few months, to keep the Jagers busy in distant parts of the Empire. With any luck, this will be done with by the time they get wind of it.”

At this point, a Bosun stepped out onto the “ready” platform that was attached to the nose of the ship and blew his whistle[62], announcing that this ship was ready to leave. They were the first to do so, a fact that Bangladesh appreciated, and always rewarded on the first night out with an extra ration of schnapps.

They had only beaten the other ships by a few minutes however, and the other whistles sounded forth, each ship determined not to be the last to go. Indeed, to Klaus’s ear, the last two whistles came simultaneously, a judgment that was verified by the grins that spontaneously broke out all over the control room. Simultaneous debarkation whistles were seen as a sign of good luck. Klaus smiled[63] .

“Lieutenant Karuna, take us out.” Bangladesh’s First Officer acknowledged the order and within the minute, the airship was sliding out of the side of Castle Wulfenbach. They hovered in place as the great guide poles were retracted and the final lines were cast off.

The remainder of the force, twelve ships in all, slid forth and began maneuvering away from the great mothership towards the rendezvous point a kilometer away.

Bangladesh nodded in satisfaction as her crew performed. She turned back to Klaus as a new thought struck her. “What about Gil? He’ll have an opinion about this.” She rolled her eyes. “He always does.”

Klaus agreed. “At the moment my son is busy repairing and reanimating Punch and Judy, that pair of constructs he thinks I don’t know about.”

He settled back against the rail. “I don’t want to disturb him, or them, more than I already have. If he can establish a sufficient level of trust, they will answer many important questions. They raised this Agatha girl, after all. But it definitely would be best to resolve this before he is ready to interfere. He would find some of these revelations to be... disturbing.”

Bangladesh smiled wickedly. “Awww, c’mon. Let me tell him.”

Klaus cleared his throat. “I think not. At this point, all Gilgamesh knows is that I want her here because, as the last of the Heterodyne family, she is a threat to the peace.”

He sighed. “That’s certainly true enough, and if a Heterodyne is all that she is, that’s fine. But if I have to destroy her—” Klaus paused. “Well, he’s very much in love with her. He is unlikely to be reasonable about all of this, no matter what I say, and I don’t think he’d let me.”

Bangladesh blinked and then looked at Klaus incredulously. “You don’t think he’d let you? Gil?” She let out a burst of laughter that caused everyone in the control room to flinch. She spun about in her chair holding her stomach. “You’re fretting about Herr Sensitive? Klaus, please.”

Klaus frowned in embarrassment. “I assure you, if he allied himself with The Other, it would be very bad indeed. Not just for Europa, but possibly for the entire world.”

Bangladesh tried to control herself and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Oh, I understand, Herr Baron. Heaven forbid I have to face a put-out Gilgamesh.” She broke into another series of giggles.

Klaus studied her in annoyance, but because DuPree was, in her own way, a valuable asset, Klaus felt he had to make an effort to warn her. “You knew Gilgamesh in Paris. While there, he tried to hide everything important about himself. Even from me.” He eyed Bangladesh who tried to look innocent. It didn’t suit her. “The Gilgamesh you think you know is not the real Gilgamesh. Do not underestimate him.”

Bangladesh nodded, and Klaus could almost see his words slide free from her far ear and sail off into space. Mentally, he shrugged. He had done his best, and if worst came to worst, the boy could always use another test.

Lucrezia sat back and tapped the device that sat on the bench before her with a fingernail. The mechanism shivered, and began to spin gently.

She sighed in satisfaction. “There? You see? Place this in the control node, and the main device will be working better than ever.”

Tarvek leaned over her shoulder, a look of rapt attention on his face. “Amazing!” he breathed. “I had no idea! You must teach me more!”

Lucrezia shrugged. The things she was revealing were, in her opinion, elementary advances to existing mechanisms. Tarvek’s reactions suggested that she had progressed more than she had realized.

“Well I certainly had the time,” she conceded to herself. This was good, as it meant that she had more scraps to throw out that would keep the young Spark within her sphere of influence. To Lucrezia, it was patently obvious that Tarvek was an opportunist, one able to ideologically turn on a copper coin when circumstances warranted it, and she was well aware that she would command his loyalty only as long as she looked like she was going to win.

Lucrezia found that she actually enjoyed this. It was a refreshing change from the blind obedience of the Geisterdamen and she realized that once she started dealing with the various powers of Europa, they would be more like Tarvek than not. She was well aware that when it came to dealing with people, she was woefully out of practice.

She patted him gently on the cheek and smiled. He was also rather decorative. When she had the time, there were quite a few of the organic pleasures that she was determined to catch up on. “Of course, dear boy,” she assured him. “You’ll be ever so much more useful to me when...” she swayed, and Tarvek caught her by the shoulders.

“My Lady? Are you well?”

An alarmed Lucrezia shook her head. “I don’t know. I... I feel terrible.”

Tarvek sat her down, fished his watch from his pocket and took her pulse. He frowned. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Aside from a brief period of unconsciousness before you... ah... took over, this body has been without sleep for far longer than is healthy.” He closed the watch with a click. “You’re going to spoil it at this rate.”

Lucrezia closed her eyes, and had to force them open again. “Oh, that tedious sleep business. I can’t say I missed that. So silly of me to forget.”

Tarvek kept his face neutral, but he had to admit that these little snippets of information about Lucrezia’s previous state of existence were filling him with a burning curiosity, as well as a chilling sense of foreboding. What in the world had happened to her?

Lucrezia snapped back to attention. “But I am relieved. I had almost imagined that this body was rejecting me. Or even that the girl herself was fighting back.”

Tarvek looked at her sharply. “That’s impossible.” He paused. “Isn’t it?”

Lucrezia regarded him and frowned. “Oh dear. I do so mistrust it when ‘impossible’ is one’s initial reaction to an idea.”

She stared off into space for a minute. “Your sister—have they found her yet?”

Now Tarvek started to look worried. “No, my Lady. Your priestesses have not returned with her since last you asked, and you’ve already sent them all, so—”

Lucrezia felt a small jolt of fear. “When did I last ask?”