had brought along sat down on either side of him and looked up adoringly at the slim, elfin-chested scientist, as if his every aristocratic word contained a new insight into the nature of the universe. 'No, really, don't look at me. I am fascinated to hear what we're being asked to support this year.'
At this, his escort broke into giggles and he rested his polished boots up on the seat in front, prompting an angry glance back from its occupant.
'Go on, man,' whispered the commodore, willing his friend to ignore the most persistent of his scientific antagonists.
Coppertracks began. 'I am before you, seeking your indulgence to reveal the findings of my latest research. Research that has been aided by my fellows back in the Steammen Free State.'
That drew a murmur of appreciation from the assembled scientists. If King Steam was backing Coppertracks' endeavours, then there was as like to be something of note to be heard here this day. The people of the Steammen Free State held to their secrets fast, and getting direct aid from the monarch of the kingdom of the metal was often like pulling teeth.
'As you may be aware,' said Coppertracks, 'the home of my people in the mountains of the Mechancian Spine is both cold and high, constructed at an altitude beyond that of any Jackelian city.'
'A geography lesson,' interrupted Lord Rooksby, his voice carrying from the back of the hall. 'Capital stuff.'
'A geography,' explained Coppertracks, 'which means the procession of the stars and bodies celestial above us can be viewed without hindrance, without the smogs and rains of Jackals. A geography most conducive to astronomical observation, which is why-' Coppertracks paused to wave his iron hands excitedly, 'King Steam sponsored the construction of a new observatory in my homeland, equipped with the latest astronomical apparatus, some of which I myself had the honour of designing.'
Commodore Black grinned to himself and nudged Molly back. So, the old steamer had made good use of his visit to the Free State last summer after all. Lord Rooksby was frowning in his seat. This wasn't the way things were meant to be going at all. It was all running far too smoothly for his adversary.
'This apparatus has allowed my people to peer deeper into the celestial void than ever before,' said Coppertracks. 'To observe the celestial bodies that accompany our own world's procession around the sun at greater clarities than previously thought possible.'
That drew a few dark mutters from the crowd. Coppertracks was taking the side of the radical argument that said that the Earth orbited the sun, rather than the sun and other bodies paying due homage to their home by orbiting the Earth at the centre of all things.
'Not decided, not decided,' groused a few dissenters.
'Well,' called out Lord Rooksby. 'It appears you've already got the support of your great King Steam, so what do you need the aid of mere softbodies like us for?'
'Dear mammal,' said Coppertracks, raising the amplification on his voicebox, 'I am here, among other things, to share the wonders of the universe with you. For instance, many of us have speculated that the number of celestial bodies that share our world's procession around the sun is uncommonly high at forty-six. This new apparatus will help us discover-'
'Discover what?' boomed Lord Rooksby. 'Are we mere astrologers now, or noble leaders of science? Have you, sir, uncovered any new comets with which to unsettle the great unwashed masses?'
This drew a peal of laughter from the crowd. Ashby's Comet just two months gone, had left a trail of broken-in windows and broken-up riots when various factions in the capital had sought to make mischief out of the auguries of ill fortune said to arrive with the crimson harbinger of doom.
Lord Rooksby nodded sagely, as if he exposed a great truth this day. 'If I wish my fortune to be read in the stars, I have a gypsy caravan that calls at my house in the shires each summer. Maybe the gypsies can sharpen your wits while they sharpen my knives, old steamer!'
'This is science,' protested Coppertracks. 'Science of the deepest sort. There is much our neighbouring celestial bodies have to teach us about our own home.' He motioned to the commodore and the hulking u-boatman advanced to the next slide, an image of a fiery red circle captured bright against the darkness of the face of night.
'Behold, Celibra, a world – I believe – of inferno temperatures. This is a celestial body fixed at a distance from the sun almost identical to that of our own world, yet in composition and temperament it seems to be radically different from the systems of life we are familiar with here on Earth, a world that is almost certainly uninhabitable.' The next slide in the rotation clicked forward. 'Now this is an image of our moon: observe the tinges of green we have picked up beneath the cloud cover – could it be that the lunar surface has forests as dense as any found in the jungles of Liongeli?'
'Cheese!' laughed Lord Rooksby. 'Obviously it is nothing but green gas rising from the finest cheese.'
There was more laughter from the audience.
The commodore shook his head in annoyance. Coppertracks was leading the audience in too fast – ploughing ahead at ramming speed. He should have been revealing his findings at a rate of knots the scientists' conservative bent could more readily absorb and adjust to. The crowd were not, for the main, steammen who could share new information between themselves with a joining of cables and the implicit trust that came from such networking. They were minds of slow meat that needed wheedling and convincing.
'Let us gaze next, my colleagues in science, towards our world's nearest neighbour in the dark, cold void: Kaliban.'
The red world came onto the screen, the light from the magic lantern catching the swirl of smoke from mumbleweed pipes as several of the assembly lit up. Coppertracks waved an iron hand at the screen. 'Long linked in song and saga to various gods of war, instead, in reality we find a dead, dry world of crimson dunes and – perhaps – something else.'
The commodore advanced to the next slide, a high-magnification view of the celestial body.
'The shooting stars lighting up our skies of late have not all been debris from the tail of Ashby's Comet. I have traced some of the rocky projectiles back to what I think must be volcanic eruptions on the surface of Kaliban. And see what else I discovered during my explorations. Observe the fine splintering of lines you can see across the celestial sphere's surface. I have analysed the geometry of these lines and come to the conclusion that they are artificial in nature.'
A hush fell over the crowd.
'Yes, artificial. I believe these lines are a series of canals, vaster and far more sophisticated than the waterways of our own Jackals. A universal transport system that may once have rivalled the timetables of the merchant marine of the Royal Aerostatical Navy in its ability to transport cargoes and people around their world.'
'Poppycock,' said Lord Rooksby. 'You see a splintering of rock fissures and detect the hand of intelligence behind it! I have never heard such arrant nonsense. It is well known that you share the roof of your home with an author of celestial fiction, one Molly Templar, whom I see has accompanied you here tonight. I believe you have spent too much time pondering her last tome of facile writings rather than upon serious scientific investigations.'
Molly made to leap up from their projecting lantern, but the commodore pulled her back.
'I'm going to go up there and shove my last tome of facile writings down his smug, grinning-'
'Leave him be, lass,' whispered the commodore. 'Or at least, let's be leaving the long-haired popinjay until later. A fight in here is what he wants, anything to embarrass our old steamer in front of his fellow scientists.'
She saw enough reason in the commodore's words to shrug off his hands and sit down.
'Nonsense is it?' retorted Coppertracks, pointing an iron hand at Lord Rooksby. 'Then by my cogs, how do you explain this?' Commodore Black advanced to the next slide, an amorphous grey mass whose peripheries were tinged with red.
'Sir, I do not even know what that unsightly mess you have so kindly brought before us is.'
'That is because you do not have access to the transaction engines of the Steammen Free State,' said Coppertracks. 'Some of the most advanced thinking engines of their kind in the world. When the geometries and shadow lines are resolved and cleaned using the power of our transaction engines, we see instead…'
The commodore shook his head. That was a terrible mistake, reminding the Jackelian audience that their civil service's great engine rooms beneath Greenhall had a rival high in the mountains of Mechancia – a rival with
