Arachnodactyl Read Free Page A

estates, so the lords get these machines, thinking they’ll replace all their hands. But then the machines break down and no one’s around to fix the blasted things.”
    “Well, how fortunate for you two. Your services must be in high demand,” Admiral Daughton said. “But how is it you can go from working on farm machines to contraptions like this?”
    Uncle Michael adjusted his posture in the chair. “When words gets around that you fix things, people bring you all kinds of things to fix. There’s more money in fixing their stuff than there is in turning them away. Besides, the principles are the same. Same rules that apply to tractors also apply to watches, and dare I say, mechanical arms.”
    “Brilliant,” Admiral Daughton said. “How fortunate for us.”
    He turned to Ikey. “Do you believe you can have this finished before dusk?”
    Ikey nodded. Fortunately, they were far enough into spring that the sunset was a distance off.
    “He’ll have it done,” Uncle Michael said. “You can count on it.”
    “Brilliant,” Admiral Daughton repeated. He took a drink, then regarded Uncle Michael’s chair. “Say, what happened to your leg?”
    Ikey dropped the pliers. They clattered to the table. His dad smacked him on the back of the head.
    “Careful, you dolt!”
    “Fell off the loft,” Uncle Michael mumbled.
    “How unfortunate. Smith here lost his arm in the Battle of Talana Hill. Poor soul charged up the hill. Boer rifle fire took out the men on his left and the men on his right. When he finally got to the top of the hill, he was greeted with British artillery fire.”
    “Is that how he lost his tongue?” Ikey’s dad asked.
    “No. He just can’t speak is all.”
    “And he was in the service?”
    “He could speak at the time. What about you, lad?” Admiral Daughton asked Ikey. “You look old enough for the service. Are you ready for your call-up?”
    Ikey hunched over the arm and pretended to duck under the ability to hear the question.
    “He’ll get it soon enough,” Ikey’s dad said. “His brothers got theirs when it was their turn.”
    “Oh? You have sons in the service?”
    “Had.”
    Ikey glanced at the admiral from the corner of his eyes. He looked over at Uncle Michael, who looked down into his beer.
    Admiral Daughton straightened his posture. “Their sacrifices will not be in vain, my good man. There is no higher honor to an Englishman than to die in defense of the crown.”
    Ikey’s dad took a swallow of beer. “Defense?” He snorted again. “It’s not Germans, but creditors who’ll take my farm when this one leaves for the Continent. He may not know hard work, but he keeps that one out of my way so that I can. I ain’t a bloody nursemaid.”
    “Be that as it may, it is the sacrifices of our youth that have kept the Germans at bay, down on the Continent.”
    “And the airships?” Ikey’s dad asked.
    Ikey looked at the admiral for his response.
    “Not a single German airship has landed on British soil—not intact, anyway—and none shall.” Admiral Daughton glanced at Smith, then to his own beer. He picked it up and took a long swallow.
    “It’s not the landing that causes the trouble, or so I hear,” Ikey’s dad continued. “It’s what they toss overboard as they sail along.”
    “Rest assured,” Admiral Daughton said to the last of the beer in his mug, “British ingenuity will prevail. We will soon have a weapon at our disposal that will turn the tide of this war and send the Germans fleeing back across the Continent.”
    “What kind of weapon is that?” Uncle Michael asked.
    Ikey watched the admiral from the corner of his eyes. A slight flush of color rosied his cheeks. His jaw clenched and his jowl bulged as if the details rested there, stuck in his crop.
    “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” Admiral Daughton said, then glanced over at Smith. “But rest assured, as sure as I am sitting here, the sun will never set on the British empire. We