Alice set her mouth and dived toward them. She knew every one of the machines like another woman might know her lapdogs. A whirligig popped up in front of her, but she grabbed it, twisted its arm upward, and depressed the switch underneath it. The switch released all the tension in the winding spring at once, and the whirligig went limp. With regret, Alice let it go-she had no way to carry it-and the little automaton dropped into the river. By now, she was within arm’s reach of the large ship’s rigging, and she managed to pluck a spider from its work as she passed by and deactivate it. This one she tossed down to the deck.
There was a crack. Below and to Alice’s left, Glenda fired her pistol at a whirligig. A small bolt of lightning hit it dead-on. The whirligig popped and crackled and fell like a stone. Simon had circled around to the other side of the ship, out of sight, but there were still half a dozen spiders in the rigging now, all snipping at the ropes. Fully a third of them had already snapped, and the bow was dipping downward. Shouts and cries rose from the deck. The ship was losing altitude, and Alice didn’t know whether she was crashing or just trying to land. Alice swooped upward, snatched at a spider, and missed. Another rope twanged, and the parting strands slashed across her arm, opening up a biting cut. Alice gritted her teeth and leaned away, trying to decide what to do. Glenda fired at another whirligig, but the shot went wide and vanished into the distance. Another whirligig was converging on her. More ropes snapped on the airship.
Alice’s mouth was dry. What was going on? Her automatons weren’t very intelligent. They could obey fairly simple commands and maintain themselves within limits, but they had no imagination or drive. The idea that they could adapt to new conditions-like the Third Ward showing up in gliders-was laughable. Someone was giving them fresh orders. But who? And where was the person hiding? On the ship itself? That didn’t seem likely. Not when the whole point was to make it crash. The ground? No. Too difficult to see. So where? The answer had to be here somewhere, but her inability to see it itched at her.
Alice swooped past the rigging again and grabbed for another spider, but a whirligig popped up to interfere. Alice snatched it, deactivated it, dropped it. Then Simon popped up from nowhere, nearly hitting Alice’s left wing, and grabbed the spider she had missed. He pried it from the ropes and flung it away, but a whirligig swooped down to rescue it. There were only four spiders left in the rigging now. The humans might be able to win this and let the ship limp to home field. Alice’s heart pounded at the thought of victory. They could solve the mystery later if they just got the ship safely home. She guided her glider toward another snipping spider.
“Help!” Glenda’s thin cry came across the open air. She was struggling with two whirligigs that had landed on her pistol arm. Alice instantly brought her hissing harness around and dived toward the other woman, but even as Alice watched, the two whirligigs managed to pull Glenda’s arm round with aching slowness. Alice tried to speed up, but she was still too far off. Glenda fought the whirligigs, sweat beading on her face, but her treacherous hand was forced to aim the fat pistol at the ship, and a whirligig wrapped its strong metallic fingers around hers.
“No!” Alice screamed. She reached out, even though she was still several yards away.
The pistol fired. A lightning bolt cracked from the barrel and struck the hydrogen envelope full in the center.
The explosion started in the middle and worked outward, like a demon unfurling its wings. It consumed the envelope in fire, and the internal skeleton glowed red. A series of concussions thudded against Alice’s bones, and wave after wave of hot air shoved and tossed her glider about. She fought with fists and feet to keep it steady. Black ash and debris blew in all directions. The last of the airship’s ropes snapped, and the main ship, three stories tall, dropped two hundred feet straight down. It crashed into a warehouse on the Thames and demolished it. Alice grimly fought to keep her glider aloft and was vaguely aware that both Simon and Glenda were in the same predicament. The two whirligigs, their terrible job done, had abandoned Glenda. Below, the dust and ash and bits of flame rose from the wreckage, and fire continued to rain down from above as the remains of the envelope burned away and died. From her position above, Alice got an all-too-excellent view of the wreckage. The ship had cracked open from bow to stern, revealing a glimpse of the giant brass mechanical everyone was so worried about. Alice also caught sight of some of the crewmen’s bodies, their white leathers awash in scarlet. They would never fly again, or kiss their wives or embrace their children, and her machines had done this to them. Black guilt washed over her. Her gorge rose, and she vomited up the remains of her afternoon tea.
“Damn it!” Simon shouted. He was gliding beside her. “Gesu e Maria!”
Glenda, her face pale, swooped over to join them, and they circled tightly over the wreckage like ravens over a battlefield.
“This must have been the thief’s plan from the beginning,” Glenda said. “Destroy the ship so he could get to the war machine. We have to land and guard it before the clockworker can get to it.”
“It’ll be hard.” Simon pointed downward. Ash continued to rain from the sky. “Crowds are gathering, and police. The clockworker could be any one of them.”
“No,” Alice said. “Something’s off. How could he know exactly where the ship would crash-land? What if it had landed in the Thames and he lost the mechanical? And that machine is enormous. What is it-three stories tall? How would he manage to spirit it away without being seen?”
“Clockworkers are insane,” Glenda said. A wind was rising, and they were nearly shouting now.
“This was too carefully planned for someone who’s lost touch,” Alice said. “Look, there’s no way for your anonymous clockworker to actually steal the machine. Not with this plan.”
“So you’re saying the thief doesn’t want the machine at all,” Simon shouted over the wind. “Why do all this, then?”
“A distraction,” Glenda hazarded.
Realization slammed Alice like a rock hammer. “Where’s Gavin?”
She turned back for the little airship without waiting for an answer. Her heart lurched as she scanned the sky. Already the smaller airship had turned away and was flying steadily off, and just visible on the deck were two figures, not one, and the taller figure wore a familiar top hat. Alice’s hands went cold. No, no, no, no. What did the grinning clockworker want with Gavin? Revenge for foiling his attack on the bank? Or something entirely more sinister? She clenched her teeth. The time to ask would be when she had her hands around the lunatic’s throat. But even as the thought crossed her mind, a red indicator light on her left wing’s control bar flashed. Her air bottle was running out. With the airship now so far away, Alice had no hope of catching up. Her heart sank, and she felt sick. She was losing Gavin again, both metaphorically and physically. She would never-
No. Damn it, no. Not this time. Alice turned and dived for the ground.
“What are you doing?” yelled Glenda behind and above her. “Alice!”
But Alice ignored her. The glider shot downward with stomach-dropping speed toward the wreckage. The flames had gone out-hydrogen fires always ended quickly-but the crowd around the massive ruin remained uncertain, giving the area a wide berth. Alice brought the glider lower and, averting her eyes from a gory mess on the splintered deck, managed her first landing without losing her feet. She smelled burned wood and flesh. With shaking hands, she unbuckled the harness, flung the wings aside, and ran toward the gaping fissure that rent the deck from bow to stern. Simon landed a little ways from her.