Waistcoats & Weaponry
Page 3

“Professor Braithwope, go after her!” Lady Linette ordered.
“Dear madam,” protested the vampire, “must protect the other young ladies from an equally dire fate.” With which there came the sound of splintering wood.
Sophronia twirled sedately at the end of her rope, eventually able to witness the vampire destroying his former dancing beam with his bare hands.
“Professor, stop that immediately!” instructed Lady Linette.
“Sophronia, are you well? Oh, please answer.” Dimity again.
Sophronia mustered enough breath to yell back, “I’m perfectly fine. However, it appears I am now stranded.” She couldn’t see any way to climb up to the deck or down along the bubble’s scaffolding to return to the ship. Fortunately, the pilot’s bubble remained in place, although it did sway a bit more without the added stabilization of the beam.
“Miss Temminnick,” said Lady Linette. “Where did you get that ingenious hook thing?”
“A friend,” replied Sophronia.
“Unregistered gadgetry is not allowed on school grounds, young lady. Although I find myself pleased you had this particular one to hand. Or to wrist, I should say.”
Sophronia, still spinning serenely through space, replied with, “I do apologize, Lady Linette, but might we discuss this later? Perhaps now we should solve my immediate predicament?”
“Of course, dear,” yelled her teacher, and then, distracted, “No, Professor Braithwope, not the soldier mechanicals. Bad vampire!”
“Lady Linette?” hollered Sophronia, feeling neglected.
“Yes, dear. If you could climb up to the underside of the pilot’s bubble? You’ll find a hatch to get inside just there. We’ll use capsule pipeline eggs to communicate with you once you’re safe. I’ll send Professor Lefoux. She’s better at these sorts of engineering difficulties.”
How, wondered Sophronia, is my dangling off the bubble an engineering difficulty? She said, “Very good, thank you.”
She spun around enough to see back up to the squeak deck, in time to witness Lady Linette dash after the mincing Professor Braithwope. “Now, now, Professor, please!” He was still wearing his potted plant.
She saw Sister Mattie’s round, drab form appear and heard that teacher say, “My dears, have you seen my prize foxglove? Oh, no, Professor, really? I spent weeks on that one!” She bounced up and down, attempting to extract the plant from Professor Braithwope’s head.
The assembled young ladies, with the exception of Dimity, Agatha, and Sidheag, found the spectacle of Sophronia dangling no longer to their taste and turned to follow the hijinks of their teachers.
“Sophronia,” came Dimity’s voice, “will you be all right?” Her face was wrinkled with genuine worry.
“Can we help in any way?” Agatha wanted to know. She, too, worried, but was less aggressive about it.
“Want some company?” said Sidheag. She rarely worried about anything and had complete confidence in Sophronia’s ability to extract herself from any predicament.
“Oh, dear me, no,” replied Sophronia, as if she had a mild case of the sniffles and they had called ’round to inquire after her health. “Thank you for your concern, but don’t linger on my account.”
“Well…” Dimity was hesitant. “If you’re certain?”
“I’ll see you at tea,” said Sophronia, sounding more confident than she felt.
“Either that or we shall come back up here in an hour and toss crumpets to you.”
“Oh, how thoughtful, tossed crumpets. Thank you, Sidheag.”
“Can’t have you starving as you dangle.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Bye for now.” Agatha turned reluctantly away.
Dimity said, lingering, “Are you quite certain?”
“Quite.”
“Carry on, then, Sophronia,” said Sidheag with a grin, before marching off. Her tall, bony form somehow transmitted sarcastic humor even across all the empty space that separated them.
Sophronia was left suspended and alone.
Despite her wrenched shoulder, Sophronia managed to climb up the rope hand over hand—she had indecently large arm muscles for a young lady of quality. By dint of some fancy footwork and the tension from her hurlie, she wiggled around the outside of the bubble to the hatch. It was difficult to open, as if it had not been used in a long time. It was also narrow. Her skirts were so wide she stoppered up the opening like a wine cork. She had to ease herself back out and shed two petticoats, utilizing a one-handed unlacing technique. They fluttered to the moor, doomed to cause confusion to a small herd of shaggy ponies that roamed there. She was resigned to the loss. Espionage, Sophronia had learned, was tough on petticoats. After that she squeezed through, finding herself, with a good deal of relief, inside the pilot’s bubble.
Sophronia didn’t know what she’d expected. Some wizened man who spent his days cooped up in a bathtub? But the bubble was not designed for human occupation at all.
The front had three small portholes, through which, on a rare clear day, all of Dartmoor would be laid out like a tablecloth. Tonight the view was nothing but dark drizzle.
The whole forward half of the bubble was filled with engorged mechanical. Had it been human, it would have been one of those gentlemen who partook too freely of the pudding course and too little of daily exercise. Most mechanicals were human sized and mimicked the shape of a lady’s dress—which is to say smaller on the top, wider on the bottom. Or perhaps it was ladies’ fashion that imitated the shape of mechanicals? Skirts were getting so ridiculously wide, one was hard pressed to walk down a hallway without knocking things over. Mechanicals were more reasonably sized… except this one. This one could give Preshea in her most fashionable ball gown stiff competition. Its lower extremities formed a pile of machinery, not hidden under a respectable carapace but exposed and horribly functional. Perched on top of this was a normal mechanical brain, facing forward. It boasted multiple arms, like a spider. Occasionally, it reached out one clawlike appendage and pulled a lever or twiddled a switch.