The Steam Mole Read online

  “How long have I been here?” she asked the nurse watching her.

  “Two weeks. You’ve been unconscious for nearly four days.”

  “My daughter…can you let her know I’m conscious?” asked Mary. Clara must be beside herself with worry.

  The young woman hesitated. “I’ll speak to Sister Beatrice.”

  “She’ll be worried stiff. Please, I’m sure she won’t mind being awakened. And I know I was sick but I am dreadfully thirsty. Can I have some more to drink? I think I just drank too fast.”

  “I’ll ask Sister Beatrice, Mrs. Calland,” said the nurse, getting up.

  “It’s Doctor Calland.”

  “You’re a doctor?” she asked, as if a woman couldn’t possibly be. Mary had found Westralia was odd like that in some ways. Free of the Empire, technologically ahead…socially very conservative.

  “Of chemistry, not medicine.”

  Mary got her drink of water. She took it very slowly, it stayed down, and she felt considerably better. The sister took it on herself to offer her patient a little custard. And that, too, eaten very cautiously, stayed down and seemed to give her a little strength.

  A little later Mary had a visitor. Without a mask or a cap, but with a very worried expression, she recognized him: a major figure in their government, the minister for science and agriculture. Maxwell Darlington was a mine engineer who had originally built the desalination plants. The man who had escorted her to that dinner.

  “Dr. Calland, I am relieved to hear that you’re doing somewhat better,” he said.

  “So am I, Mr. Darlington. I wanted to at least send a message to my daughter Clara.”

  Darlington bit his lip. “That’s…rather what I’ve come to talk to you about, ma’am.”

  “Don’t say she got this disease, too. My God, is she…?” Mary thought she was going to faint, but still tried to get up.

  Darlington put a strong hand on her and pushed her gently down onto the pillows. “She has not been sick. And, Ma’am, evidence is emerging that you may not have been either. You may have been poisoned.”

  “What?”

  “When you vomited up the pills you’d been given, the hospital attempted to call Dr. Foster. When they failed to find him, they put out a call to the Westralian Mounted Police. His gig was spotted at a premises and two of our men went to ask him to attend to you. The one officer involved happens to be involved in counterespionage work. When they entered the premises, armed and in uniform, they caused, shall we say, some consternation. Foster and the individual he was closeted with did not know the officers were merely wanting him for an emergency call to the hospital. And the police officer recognized the man Foster was with as an Imperial agent. Shooting followed, ma’am. Foster won’t be attending anymore patients.”

  He drew a deep breath, then continued, “In the midst of all of this, I had received a call that you were awake and looking for your daughter. You see, while you were ill, my wife and I fostered her in our home with our own daughter.”

  “That was very kind of you, Mr. Darlington.”

  “It seemed the least I could do. But I have…more to tell you, ma’am. When I got the call, I attempted to contact Dr. Foster, too, to check on your condition before speaking to you. Which is why I got to hear about the death of Foster from the commissioner of the Westralian Mounted Police. Evidence of blackmail had emerged, and although Foster and the Imperial agent are dead, and one of ours wounded, we, um, began to suspect you had been poisoned. British Imperial spies have been very busy. And I’m afraid…please try and take this calmly, Dr. Calland, they may have kidnapped your daughter.”

  Mary tried to stand up again. She nearly fell over, only to be caught by Darlington, who sat her down and handed her some water. She drank a little and calmed slightly, though her heart still hammered in her chest. “Tell me all of it.”

  “There is no evidence to show that she’s been hurt, and it is not easy to leave Westralia. We control the metal smuggling routes, which are how most people enter and leave Westralia. We don’t mind them doing so, but the British do. So our side is well controlled. Other than that, we’ve been hunting night and day. I’m afraid I took the liberty of looking in your belongings, and hers—those she left behind. It appears she left of her own will. There was a letter from Jack Calland—I believe he is her father? We think the girl was tricked into meeting an Imperial agent.”

  Mary blinked. “Why? I mean…I was dying. Being poisoned by them.”

  “Er. We don’t know. Perhaps something of a delay, and the left hand not knowing what the right was doing? The letter from Jack Calland claimed to have been from a prison in Queensland.”

  “Jack is in prison, but in Ireland. And we have a code…so that I can know that what he wrote was not forced out of him.”

  “I will get it for you to look at, ma’am.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Nearly three days ago. The day after you lapsed into unconsciousness.” Darlington pulled a face. “It’s…actually more complicated, ma’am. You see, we’re not absolutely sure she has been kidnapped. A bandbox of her possessions was recovered from a very bad area.”

  Mary felt faint again. “Just tell me. Are you saying my daughter…”

  Darlington shook his head awkwardly. “No. I’m saying we just don’t know. Look, ma’am, generally speaking a girl or a woman out here is safer than anywhere else in the world. There are three men to every woman in Westralia, and the result has been, shall we say, a degree of chivalry you don’t see much of in the Dominion. Touch a respectable woman against her will here, and you’re likely to get lynched. Touch a young girl and you will be. Of course there are always exceptions, ma’am, but, well, it’s not something we worry about a lot.” He grimaced. “Which is why when her bandbox was found it caused such consternation.”

  Mary Calland clutched the brass headboard. “Go on.”

  “The bandbox was found on Solitude Beach. It’s a place the tramps and metho drinkers hang out. The police have been searching and questioning. They eventually got some answers out of a half-blackfeller called Hans. He’s trouble, but he swears she dropped it when she ran away from him. Not even calling on some of the elders from his tribe got him to change his story,” explained Maxwell Darlington.

  Mary had warmed to him, slightly, after he’d broken the news to her. He didn’t look like he’d slept much in the interim period either.

  “I’ve been pushing for more effort from the Westralian Mounted Police, ma’am. And for the army to do some searches. But, well, they claim they’re doing all they can. Getting labor in the Republic is a difficult job. Everyone is employing, mining companies and those who deal with them are awash with mineral money, they recruit everyone, and we’re short of policemen as a result.”

  “So does the money not flow into the coffers of the Republic? Surely they can hire more men and keep them?” demanded Mary.

  Darlington shrugged. “A fair bit of the wealth does, yes. But no, ma’am, they’re not going to pay troopers more. My own sector, science and agriculture, gets a far better share than the police do. Westralians don’t have a lot of time for constituted authority. After all, when we were in trouble, it was taken over by the British Empire, and the police got their orders and mostly ran off on us. But we do need it sometimes.”

  “If money is what it takes,” said Mary grimly, “then I will have to make them part with it. Mr. Darlington, I am sitting on a secret that is worth billions, that the British Empire wants to own, and suppress. I wanted to use it to help the people of the world to feed themselves. The Empire wants to keep their dominance over nitrates, as weapons of war. I want my daughter. If the Republic of Westralia wants the secret of ammonia synthesis—beyond the information I have already provided…”

  “Professor Henderson and his team haven’t got very far. The professor claims the work was invalidated by another great German chemist, Nernst.”

  “The professor’s brain is back in
1905, and his mathematics, and Nernst’s, are wrong. I can make it work.”

  “It would appear that the British Empire, or at least Duke Malcolm believes that, Dr. Calland. But we’ll need to convince a few more people.”

  “Are they people with a lot of money, Mr. Darlington? Westralia has some mining and rail magnates who would pay me very well. They’ll see the value in this and be willing to back it. And I need that money in a hurry.”

  He smiled a little, for the first time in that shattering interview. “I can see the value, too, ma’am. I have the agriculture portfolio, too. If there is one thing we need nearly as much as water, it’s fertilizer. And the miners need explosives. I’m not without influence, ma’am. I’ll burn all my bridges and ask the prime minister and the finance minister to an urgent meeting. They’re both in Ceduna right now, busy with other business, but I think I can swing this. And I owe it to you and your daughter. She was in our care when it happened.”

  “Clara, as I have learned, is never in anyone’s care but her own,” sighed Mary Calland. “She’s her own person. And in the meanwhile, if I could have her things—and mine? There may be some clue that I may read into them as to where she’s gone. I would have thought she’d go to the Cuttlefish if there was trouble, or to young Tim Barnabas. But he’s a sensible boy and would have brought her back, or talked to Captain Malkis, if not to me. I assume you have checked with Malkis?”

  “I’ve spoken to him myself on the telephone to Roxby. He’s attempting to get a leave of absence from the work he’s taken on to help the search. A very honorable man, your Captain Malkis. Unfortunately, the mining work contracts are just not flexible. It’s something the government is trying to legislate.”

  “Work? Why is he at this Roxby place? I would have thought he was with the submarine?”

  Darlington pulled a face. “It appears that the crew of the Cuttlefish have taken various jobs to pay for the repairs to the submarine. Someone from the Westralian government ought to have stepped in.”

  Mary was shocked and felt enormously guilty at the same time. The Cuttlefish and her crew had risked so much and had only been that badly damaged because of her. “You should have. I must do something about this.”

  “Westralia’s a very commercial place, ma’am. Government ran away and tried to force us to leave when we were in trouble. There is a balance to be reached, of course, but at the moment the men making money out of minerals are more influential than the politicians. We’re trying to restore that balance.”

  Mary Calland peered over the top of her glasses. “If the magnates who are making money here hand over fist can’t let a man go and look for a young girl, then it’s time to stop trying, and succeed.”

  He smiled properly. “We need you in government, ma’am.”

  “I need to find my daughter.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get onto arranging the meeting, and I’ll have the remaining bag and trunk sent to you, along with the letter. In the meanwhile I suggest trying to get your strength up, ma’am. I’d suggest a little food—”

  She scowled. “When I can think of a way of making sure it hasn’t been poisoned.”

  Linda found this a very difficult tryst. She wanted some advice. Nicky wanted some petting. She pushed him away. “Not now, Nick. Please.”

  “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  He was very elegant, but he smelled a bit of brandy just then. “Yes, but I am so worried about Clara. I think I ought to tell my father.”

  “He’ll lock you in. And then you wouldn’t be able to see me.”

  “I know. But…but she’s my friend. And I ought to tell them. No, Nicky. Stop. I’m…going now.”

  “Don’t go blabbing, Linda,” he said as she got up.

  He sounded very unlike his normal self. Not caressing, but cross. Grown-up. Well, not grown-up. She was that. But old.

  Clara hadn’t been prepared for the wind and the dust. She’d assumed that when she got going it would be relatively easy to work out where to go. That assumption had vanished into a red haze. There was a compass, but while that could tell her which direction she was going, it did nothing to tell her what way she should be going. And in this…well, she could pass Tim ten yards off and not see him.

  She moved the big machine slowly and steadily. That would give her, and him, the best chance of spotting each other. For a little while she indulged in a daydream of finding Tim. But in the dust and dying light, she knew that it was only a daydream. And it was going to be night soon. How could she find anyone in the dark? She didn’t even really know where she was. She started to fiddle. The shriek of the steam horn nearly made her jump through the roof. Surely he must have heard that.

  Clara opened the window in one of her accidental proddings and testings. It told her two things: First, it was blowing half a gale out there. And second, no one would hear anything.

  If Tim was out in this, he’d be sitting down, waiting it out. No one with any common sense would walk in it. No one would be out looking for her or their missing steam mole either. Her next button got her a forward light. That was good. She kept going, slowly. She had no way of measuring how far she’d gone or precisely what ground she’d covered. But by now she’d surely done a lot more than eight miles. She turned and tried a track back the other way, going as slowly as the scout mole would go, avoiding occasional rocks, and sounding the horn in the darkness.

  And then she did it all again. And again. She worked out how to feed steam-biscuits into the machine, and pressed on. The wind dropped and the night sky cleared sometime before morning.

  Dawn found her in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where to go. She decided on looking for the highest point, a range of hills she could see…but as she got closer, they seemed to be floating…and then broke up and vanished with the sun.

  And the steam mole stuttered and…stopped.

  Mary studied the letter from Jack Calland with tears in her eyes. The writing, if it was his, showed a distinct tremor. And the code pattern telling her it was true and trustable…was not there. But the way of expressing things was very like Jack's. He was an insane, dangerous hooligan. But he used to make her laugh.

  She could believe that Clara would have been taken in, though. And Duke Malcolm just might have done that—transported Jack to Australia, where he could be a useful lever.

  She was still looking at the letter, lost in reverie, when someone knocked on the door of the guest house. She was under guard there, and it was, after the attempt on her life, for her own safety. She didn't like it, but it did mean there should be no unwelcome surprises. She still took steps to be ready in case, somehow, they'd got past the guards.

  “Captain Malkis!” she exclaimed upon seeing the bearded, reliable, shrewd submariner who'd safely transported them all the way from London to Westralia. “Oh, I cannot say how glad I am to see you. Come in!”

  A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I'm glad to see you up, Dr. Calland. The letter I had from your daughter was less than hopeful. I went to the hospital first, even before going to see Darlington. Perhaps you would like to put down the carving knife?”

  Mary Calland was enormously embarrassed. “I am so sorry. It's proved to be a lot less safe here than on the Cuttlefish, Captain. I was poisoned. Forgive me for the knife.”

  The captain dismissed it with smile and a wave. “I would prefer it to be a pistol, and I would prefer the guard to be some men I know I could trust to the end of the Earth, ma'am.”

  “I've always been rather nervous about guns, sir. But you are right, as usual,” she admitted as the captain came into the withdrawing room.

  “Believing that remark is likely to get me killed by a Royal Navy drop-mine,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I've come about your daughter, ma'am. I had a letter from her.”

  “Dear heavens, I hope it's got some more clues for us. I know you've been told about her being missing.”

  The captain nodded. “Maxwell Darlington, to give the man credit, seems to
have been trying hard to find her. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get here, though, and I hope I've not taken too much of a liberty coming to search for her, but the crew would not have forgiven me if I hadn't, and I wouldn't have forgiven myself.”

  “Oh, Captain, of course not. I'm so glad to have you. But Mr. Darlington said you were having some trouble with…with your employers in this Roxby place. That's just wrong, Captain.”

  He gave a short laugh. “I've left them with more trouble than they were giving me, and they are glad to see me gone. These Westralian mine owners think they're a law unto themselves, but the men working for them have just about had enough. They're going to find it's a changing world, and oddly enough, it is largely thanks to your daughter. We organized and had a strike. The men on the mine weren't impressed with management, and thanks to Darlington, their government isn't backing the mine owners. The owners demanded the army move in to support them, and didn't get a very good reception. So the owners were very glad to give me a leave of absence to get rid of me, which got rid of their strike. But I don't think that the genie is going back into the bottle. Now, what can I do to help find Clara?”

  “Well, if you don't mind, let me see her letter? And then, well, try to find out what has been done so far. If I succeed with the Westralian government, I am going to need you to buy up the contracts of the Cuttlefish crew, pay for her repairs, and direct your crew in a search for my daughter.”

  “Bravo, ma'am. I can think of nothing I'd rather do. But it is only fair to point out that the repairs are expensive. They could run as high as fifty thousand gold Australian pounds. Even the contracts are worth hundreds.”

  Mary Calland gave the captain a tight smile. “They could have had my grandmother and Fritz's work for nothing, but it's worth millions. So now they will be paying.”