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“You’ve finally got your pretty dress!” exclaimed Agatha Heterodyne in triumph.
Violetta Mondarev clutched the box she was carrying like a possessive child holding a teddy bear.
“I’ve got the dress, but I still haven’t worn it. It won’t count until I’ve been to a party in it.”
“What, are you afraid that it won’t fit? Don’t worry about that. I examined Claude’s haute couture Engine while he wasn’t looking. I can assure you that it will have measured you and created the dress to his design perfectly.”
“No! Look, it was difficult enough getting him to make me another of those marvellous butterfly wing dresses after… after what happened last time.” She choked back her emotion. Smoke Knights are trained not to show their feelings, but some things are so traumatic that they cannot be suppressed by even the most rigorous mental conditioning. “It’s only that whenever I get a pretty dress something terrible happens to stop me wearing it.”
“Don’t worry, this time you are going to wear the pretty dress and go to the party and dance with all the boys. You’ve got the dress safely packed away in my strongest bomb-proof container – she indicated the box that Violetta was carrying. “That can stop a depleted uranium shell. The Holzauge (editor’s note: Lady Heterodyne’s personal armed transport) is moored at the airship park, guarded by the Boyz and their friends. Zeetha is on patrol to make sure there are no nasty surprises. There are five warships patrolling the skies, waiting to escort us home, and I brought Herr von Zinzer along to make sure there are no mechanical problems. I’ve talked with all the people in charge here and made sure everything is stable and safe now I’ve overthrown the Silver Sheikh and set up a model liberal democracy, free market economy and independent justice system for them.”
Agatha was pleased with her achievements at the Dominion of the Silver Sheikh. Not only had she overthrown the tyrannical Sheikh and brought his hideous slave market to an end, she had created a utopian social system, installed a system of proportional representation, and rebuilt the economy to compensate for the loss of all the income from the slave market. It taken a lot of her time, money and resources, but the result was very satisfying. All the citizens had to do to build a stable, prosperous and progressive society was the follow the instructions she had left them.
Meanwhile the population were impatiently waiting for the Heterodyne to leave so they could start with the internecine strife, based on trivial religious differences and ancient feuds so old that no one could remember why they started, that would rapidly reduce their affluent and civilised country to a smouldering impoverished dark age, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it is better to live in a Hell of your own devising rather than a Heaven that has been created for you by an outsider who knows how to run your country better than you do.
“But Claude said that this is definitely my last chance,” said Violetta. “If his magnificent creation is destroyed again, he said his nerves wouldn’t be able to take the strain. I thought he was going to have hysterics this time.”
“Look everything’s fine. All we have to do is walk back across the desert from the Castle to the airfield. It’s less than a mile and the desert is completely deserted. You can see the airship docking towers from here.” Agatha strode out confidentially from the gate in the city wall into the desert, but Violetta hung back.
“Shouldn’t we follow the road, you know, the way we came in?” she asked nervously.
“Nonsense! That would add another half an hour to the journey. Come on! It’s perfectly safe! Nothing Can Go Wrong!”
“Okay then.” Violetta followed her Mistress out across the desert, towards the docking towers on the horizon. She had to admit, it would save a lot of walking in the heat. Then, as they came over a ridge they found their way blocked by a barbed wire fence. It wasn’t a particularly high fence and it was in bad repair, with several gaps where the posts or the wire netting had collapsed, but it was still a fence, clearly designed to keep people out.
“We should have gone the long way round,” said Violetta. “Come on, if we turn left then we should get to the road soon enough.”
“If it wasn’t safe, there wouldn’t be a gap in the fence, now would there?” Agatha explained.
“Well…” Violetta was unconvinced.
“Look, here’s an old sign.” Agatha picked up a broken piece of wood, still attached to fragments of wire. The left hand half of it was missing, but on the right hand side that remained was written:
…GER
...INE FIELD
“See, it says ‘Badger Quarantine Field’. They must’ve been having problems with their badgers being infected with tuberculosis, so they’ve been keeping them in quarantine. Obviously, it’s not being used anymore. Come on.”
Violetta followed her Mistress through one of the gaps in the fence, but something was worrying her. Other than the study of poisonous plants and animals, natural history didn’t feature highly in Smoke Knight training, but she had a suspicion that you didn’t find many badgers in the middle of a desert. Also, there were several little craters distributed around the fenced-off area of desert. Many of them had a scattering of animal bones surrounding them. Meanwhile, Agatha was striding confidently ahead.
“See, I told you it would be quicker if we took a short cut.”
“I dunno. I still get a bad feeling about this.”
“Oh, what’s this?” A half-buried device suddenly distracted Agatha. She reached down and picked up the round metal object, about the diameter of a large dinner plate and ten centimetres thick.
“Gosh, what interesting tech.”
“M… M… M…,” stammered Violetta. Her face had turned ashen, she was shaking in terror and her voice sounded on the edge of screaming hysteria.
“Violetta, is something the matter?” Agatha asked, pleased that she was getting better at reading the subtle body language when something might be wrong.
“MINE!” screamed Violetta.
Agatha raised her eyebrows in surprise. Violetta wasn’t usually that possessive, but it was encouraging that she was finally starting to appreciate elegant tech.
“Well, okay. Of course, you can have it if you want it. The workmanship is rather good, isn’t it?” She held the device out towards the smoke knight. Violetta flinched away and only just managed to stop herself taking a step backwards.
“NO! IT'S A MINE! A LAND MINE! WE'RE STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF A MINE FIELD!”
“Oh do you think so?”
“THAT SIGN! IT DIDN'T SAY ‘BADGER QUARANTINE FIELD’! IT SAID, ‘DANGER! MINE FIELD’!”
“Hmph. I suppose that is a plausible alternative hypothesis.” No-one, especially a Spark, and most especially The Heterodyne, likes to admit that they might have been wrong.
Violetta took a deep breath, closed her eyes and dug deep into her smoke knight techniques of mental calmness.
‘Smoke does not feel pain,’ she told herself. ‘Smoke does not feel fear. Smoke does not feel anger. In a contemplative fashion and a tranquil frame of mind, free from every kind of passion, some solution let me find’. The familiar mantra calmed her panic. When she opened her eyes again she was calm. She knew what she had to do.
“Okay, we can still get out of this alive. Don’t move. The important thing is not to panic. Just stay calm and AGGHHH!! NO!! DON’T TOUCH THAT!!!”
Agatha paused with her small hammer poised above the landmine’s firing plate. “What? How am I supposed to find out how it works if I don’t dismantle it? Now you’re being totally unreasonable!”
“Please, just hold it still and don’t move. That’s right. Now all we have to do is retrace our footsteps, making sure that we put our feet exactly into each footmark that we made… that we… that…” To her horror she saw that their footprints had already been erased by the wind and the shifting sand. She couldn’t even be sure from which gap in the fence they had entered.
“Right, the first thing we need to do is to get rid of the mine. Now, very carefully put it down on the ground and then we…. WHY IS IT TICKING?!”
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” replied Agatha. “There must be some kind of fail-unsafe mechanism that makes it detonate if disturbed. That’s the way I would design it.”
“What! It’s going to explode! Throw it away!”
“I don’t know. Any properly designed landmine will also have a motion sensor in it so that it explodes immediately it detects sudden movement. But don’t worry. I’m sure my chances of disarming it without it exploding are well over 50%.”
“How well above 50%?! What about over 60%?! Or even 55%?! No, we can’t risk it. If only we had something bomb-proof to put it in, with something soft to wrap around it to stop it getting knocked we could… we could…oh no.”
They both looked at the bomb-proof case containing the pretty dress that Violetta was carrying.
“Um…” began Agatha. Violetta’s shoulders sagged in resignation.
“No, it’s fine, honestly,” she lied. “From the first day of Smoke Knight training I understood that I must be prepared to make any sacrifice, no matter how terrible, for the person I was sworn to guard.”
She undid the pressure clasps on the bomb-proof case and swung open the lid. The iridescent silk shone in the desert sun, just in case she had not realised the full implications of the terrible act she was about to commit.
“You could always take off your clothes to wrap the mine in and put on the dress," suggested Agatha.
“No, there’s no time. We need to get this thing in here and get you safe right now! No, don’t bother trying to blow the sand off! Put it in the box! Gently.”
Agatha, for once, did as she was told. Violetta folded the pretty dress over the mechanism. Only when she closed the lid and sealed the pressure clamps did she breathe a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry,“ Agatha reassured her. “The mechanism looks quite old. Maybe it won’t explode at all. Once I’m back in my lab it should be a simple matter to disarm the mine and create an elegant mechanism to get the sand out of the dress.”
Violetta was not reassured.
“Right,” continued Agatha, “Now the mine is safe it’ll be easy to escape. We’ll fly over to the fence.”
“What, you can grow wings now?”
“No silly, of course not… although now you mention it, that would be a fascinating project. We could start out with golden eagle wings, although of course a lot of additional musculature and skeletal modifications will be necessary to get the necessary power to weight ratio. Then we’ll need to install a small phlogiston furnace that will probably fit under the liver and then reroute the…”
“FOCUS!!” Violetta screamed in her face. She’d been taking lessons from Ardsley Wooster.
“What? Okay. No, I don’t have wings yet, but I do have this little clank,” she took a small mechanism from her tool belt and started to wind it up. It had a large handle beneath and a small propeller blade on top. “This will lift me up above the minefield. Then you hang on to me and together we fly to safety. Simple!” The propeller started to spin and she released the device. It hovered expectantly in front of the two of them. Violetta looked at it dubiously.
“It looks a bit small to carry us both.”
“It worked perfectly well when I saved Professor Ticktoffen from the Happy Fun Ball of Death back when we were fixing the Castle.”
“Hm, I think I missed that bit. But if you’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure! Watch this! Fly to the perimeter wire! Quick as you can!” The little clank sped away towards the fence before Agatha had a chance to take hold of the handle, leaving the two ladies stranded. Agatha scowled at the rapidly departing device.
“NO! STOP!!” Obediently the little clank shut down its motor. It hung in the air for a moment and the plummeted to the ground, straight on to a land mine. There was a dull explosive thud, a small mushroom-shaped plume of black smoke and a shower of brass cogs.
Agatha said a rude word and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes in annoyance.
“Do we have a plan B?” asked Violetta.
“Hmm? Oh look! There are some eagles! Maybe I could fit you with wings after all.”
“Those? Those aren’t eagles. Those are vultures. I expect they’re attracted by the explosion; they’ve learned it means a free meal and… What do you mean, fit me with wings?!”
“I can hardly fit them to myself can I? I can’t reach far enough behind my back. Do have any meat or something that might attract them over here?”
“No! This is the worst idea you’ve had since you bought Professor Mezzasalma socks for Christmas!”
“What was wrong with that?”
“He hasn’t got any feet!”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“I think he said he needed a new torque wrench.”
“No, I mean for getting us out of the minefield.”
Violetta looked around the field in despair.
“There’s only one thing for it. I’ll have to take a jump towards the nearest point of the fence. Then you jump to the same spot.”
“But how will you know where to jump?”
“I won’t. We were lucky to get this far in. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get us out again.”
“Okay, that seems like a logical plan. Go for it.” Agatha gave Violetta an encouraging smile.
“Oh, er, right. I’ll start then should I?” Violetta had been hoping for something more like ‘No! You can’t risk yourself for me! Don’t do it!’ She steeled herself to make the first leap.
“Hey!” shouted a familiar voice. “Are you two okay?”
Violetta turned and her heart leapt at the sight of a familiar bearded figure standing by the fence on the far side of the minefield. She shouted and waved.
“Moloch! Hey Moloch! Over here! Over here!”
“You’re standing in the middle of a mine field!” Moloch von Zinzer shouted back.
“We know!”
“Oh well, fine then.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“Thought I’d go and tell the ship you’ll soon be back.”
”What?! No! Aren’t you going to help us?!”
“Oh, right, sorry. I didn’t realise you needed rescuing.”
“You think we want to be in here? What do you think we’re doing, a statistical analysis of the distribution of the mines?” Violetta remembered too late who she was standing beside. “NO! Don’t even think about it!”
“But look,” exclaimed Agatha, “we can already see where some of the mines were from the little craters. If we can work out what the pattern is, perhaps we’ll be able to predict where they all are and walk out of here.”
“Or perhaps they were all just distributed at random so you can’t guess where they’ll be!”
“Surely not. Where’s the science behind that? Anyway, we could still calculate the probability of stepping on a mine every time we put our foot down, at least we could if we knew the number of mines in the field. If we can just detonate a few more by throwing some stones or something and see how many set off a mine in a given area, we could at least make a good estimate.”
“And that will help us will it?”
“No, but the Maths is fascinating.”
“AGHH!” Violetta almost dropped her precious box in frustration.
Meanwhile Moloch was still waiting on the far side of the field by the fence.
“So, you do need rescuing then?” he shouted.
“No, but a little assistance would be handy,” Agatha shouted back, on the grounds that the Heterodyne never needs rescuing.
“Yes! Please!” called Violetta.
“Hang on! I’ve got the Castle and the Beast here. Maybe they can come up with something.” He reached into his tool belt and pulled out a small metal cube and a small blue sphere. Each had little arms and legs, and a single large mechanical eye. The Portable Castle blinked and looked at Moloch in annoyance.
“What is it now? I haven’t finished recharging yet.”
“Some of us have our own internal power supply, so we don’t have to rely on such outdated tech,” retorted the Beast of the Rails, puffing out a cloud of smoke from its chimney for emphasis.
“Her Sparkiness and Violetta are standing in the middle of a minefield,” Moloch explained, turning the Portable Castle round so it could see.
“The middle of a minefield?” snorted the Beast of the Rails. “What a stupid idea! Why did they do an idiotic thing like that?”
“Dunno, but I suspect that it isn’t a ‘why’ question. So, any ideas on getting them out?”
“There is, of course, a simple solution,” explained the Portable Castle, scrambling up to perch on Moloch’s shoulder.
“That’s lucky,” replied Moloch, “let’s hear it.”
“Why in the days of the Old Masters, we would order minions to walk out to the Heterodyne. Once they have cleared a path by detonating all the mines in the way, it will be a simple matter for the Mistress to walk to safety along the track.”
“Ah, we’ve got some kind of mine detectors and remote detonators you mean?”
“Don’t be silly. That would be a waste of resources. The minions are the mine detectors and detonators.”
“But I’m the only… there aren’t any minions here at all. Only me!”
“A valid point. You would only be able to detonate two, perhaps three mines before you become non-operational, her little purple minion the same. There will likely be far more than that between The Heterodyne and safety. Perhaps you could send a message back to Mechanicsburg to summon some more of your colleagues.”
“No, that would be…” Moloch remembered to what he was talking and changed a mental gear, “that would take far too long. We need to get them out of there now, before her enemies realise how vulnerable she is.”
“Yes, I see. Tricky.”
“We’ve got several Jägers,” suggested Moloch hopefully.
“Hm, a good idea. And most of them would probably survive.”
“You are not sending in the Jägers!” shouted Agatha. “It would be the worst casualties they’ve had in a single day since that time their regimental band played the 1812 Overture. Do you have any idea how long it will take me to fit all those replacement legs?” Moloch thought.
“I’ve got an idea,” he shouted across to Agatha and Violetta. “Hey, I need to go and fetch something. Stay there and don’t move until I get back.”
“What you think we’re going to do, start…” Violetta snapped her mouth shut before she said anything else unwise. “Come back as soon as you can!” she called, ‘before Agatha gets us both killed’, she added under her breath.
Moloch disappeared over the horizon, in the direction of the airship docking towers. Violetta had no choice but to stand and wait to serve the Heterodyne. Then, from the direction of the ex-Sheikh’s castle, they heard the sound of a fine contralto. Zeetha, singing happily, walked into view, carrying a roll of cloth over her shoulder.
“A simple sailor lowly born
Unlettered and unknown
Who toils for bread from early morn
Till half the night has flown,
Till half the night has flown!
No golden rank can he impart
No wealth or house or land
No fortune save his trusty heart
And honest brown … Oh! Hi Agatha! Hi Violetta! What are you doing standing around there for?”
“Hi Zeetha!,” replied Violetta. “Er… we seem to be stuck in a mine field. Any chance of a hand?”
“Ha, you’re in luck. Remember that flying carpet that the Sheikh had?”
“Oh yes! It got left behind in all the confusion,” replied Agatha.
“I know. You said you’d like it, so I went back to the tower, and sure enough, it was still there.” She indicated the roll of cloth she was carrying.
“Oh wonderful! You can just fly over and pick us up!”
“Exactly!”
Zeetha unrolled the flying carpet and sat crossed-legged in the centre. Obediently, it rose until it was hovering three feet above the sand.
“Are you sure you know how to fly it?” asked Agatha.
“No problem. You just pull on these long ropes here, attached to the front of the carpet. It works exactly like the reins of a horse. Hey, you didn’t expect a Skiffandrian Princess not to give her new ride a couple of turns round the paddock first to try it out did you?”
“Never stopped you before,” muttered Violetta nastily under her breath.
Zeetha made a ‘gee-up’ gesture with the reins and the carpet glided silently across the minefield, to where Agatha and Violetta were standing. She brought it round in a curve and couldn’t resist saying ‘whoa’ as she hauled back on the reins to bring it to a stop. Agatha and Violetta climbed on, but immediately the carpet began to lose height. Zeetha pulled on the reins to maintain altitude, but the arcane mechanisms that powered the device struggled to cope. She gee’d up and the carpet began to move towards the gap in the fence and safety. There was a disconcerting smell of burning fabric. The weave began to smoke. Suddenly a brilliant flare of fire flashed through the carpet as its vrilium microtubes overloaded and it disintegrated into to a pile of smoking rags.
All three ladies were unable to suppress a small shriek as they were unceremoniously dumped onto the sand of the minefield. There was a long, tense moment of silence. Nothing exploded. No-one dared to move.
“What just happened?” asked Zeetha.
“Obviously, we exceeded the carpet’s carrying capacity,” explained Agatha. She gave Violetta a reproving look. “I’ve told you before that eating so many cakes would make you fat.”
“Me?!” squeaked Violetta indignantly. “I’m not the one who…”
“Hey,” shouted a voice from the perimeter fence, “are you ready to be rescued?” As usual, Moloch had arrived in the nick of time to save the day, before someone said something in the stress of the moment they might later have cause to regret. “Hello Zeetha. Er, is there any point me asking how you got out there?”
“No!” all three ladies said together.
“Thought not. Anyway, sit tight and I’ll get you out.”
He unfolded a large sheet of paper from his pocket and began to scrutinise it, while the portable Castle, perched on his shoulder, offered helpful advice. On his other shoulder sat the Beast of the Rails, also making helpful, but contradictory suggestions. Moloch waited patiently as the two little clanks bickered like an old married couple.
“Clearly, as a mere piece of mere geography you have no idea what you are talking about,” retorted the Beast of the Rails at last.
“But of course!” replied the Portable Castle. “You are the expert at route finding. After you please.”
“Thank you.” The Beast of the Rails, jumped down from Moloch’s shoulder and strode confidentially out across the mine field, turning left and right at the directions of the Portable Castle still sitting safe on Moloch’s shoulder.
The Beast of the Rails carried a ball of string and let out the thread as it went to indicate the safe path across the minefield. The ladies watched with bated breath, expecting to see it blown apart at any moment. Moloch stepped over the fence and then, slowly, with frequent pauses and careful double-checking of his sheet of paper, he followed the zig-zag path of the string. He worried that the Portable Castle might think it an amusing trick to direct the Beast of the Rails onto a live mine, so he gave his pioneer plenty of space, just in case.
Finally, the rescue party reached the three stranded ladies.
“Thanks, von Zinzer, exclaimed Agatha, “that was really brave of you. But how did you get here without getting blown up?”
“Oh that’s easy.” Moloch tried to keep his voice calm, but Violetta noticed the thin film of sweat on his face and she could smell the fear. It was a smell you learn to recognise when you train as a Smoke Knight. “I just followed this map of the minefield.” He indicated the sheet of paper he was carrying.
“I helped!” chimed in the Portable Castle helpfully.
“It was me! Me I say!” shouted the Beast of the Rails from ankle height, incensed at being overlooked.
“But where did you get a map?” asked Agatha.
“I asked the estate manager and he gave it to me.”
Agatha looked at him in shocked indignation.
“But that’s cheating! Where’s the fun in solving a puzzle by turning to the answers at the back?! That’s no intellectual challenge at all! I am very disappointed.”
“Don’t mention it. Now, do you want to get out of here or not? Just follow the string.”
Violetta insisted on going first, still clutching the bomb-proof box containing her pretty dress and an unexploded mine. She trod the string lying on the sand as though it was a tightrope. Agatha went next with Zeetha right behind, ready to catch her should she trip and fall onto a mine. Moloch, carrying the little clanks, brought up the rear, obsessively double-checking the route on the map as he went. After a tense two minutes, they all reached the edge of the mine field and stepped through a gap in the broken fence to safety. There was a collective sigh of relief.
“Yes!” shouted Violeta. “We did it! We’re still alive. And my pretty dress didn’t get…”
There was a sudden muffled BLAM!! The bomb-proof container in her hands expanded momentarily like an over-inflated balloon. Fortunately, being made in Mechanicsburg, it contained the blast, but the seal leaked just enough to puff out thick smoke and shredded burning silk to give her an amusing blackened face and shower her with ironic confetti.
“Ah…,” Agatha opened her mouth to speak. Violetta silenced her with a glare.
“Do. Not. Say. A. Word.”