Secrets of the Dragon Tomb Read Free Page B

we are savages here!”
    â€œOh, I don’t—”
    â€œI almost traveled to England myself, you know,” Mama said, turning to Freddie. “I was invited. England is so much more civilized than Mars. I am not too proud to admit that the experience did much to refine me. I would not be the lady I am today without it.”
    â€œEr … experience?” Freddie asked, but Mama wasn’t listening. She turned back to Putty.
    â€œIt is bad enough that you are late—”
    â€œMy fault,” Freddie said. “Awfully sorry. Delayed everyone. Couldn’t quite remember where I’d put my spare cravat. A gentleman can never be seen without a properly tied cravat.”
    Papa, whose own attempts at tying a proper cravat rarely lasted more than a few seconds, raised his eyebrows at that.
    â€œIt is remarkably handsome,” Jane said. “Is that the latest London style, Cousin Freddie?”
    Jane might be as sweet as a syrupberry, but as far as I could tell, she’d never had a single thought that wasn’t about fashion or young men.
    Freddie reached for his ridiculous cravat. “Ah, now, well, that is to say, it is a style I am debuting myself. I call it the Winchester Cascade. Do you think it might catch on, Cousin Jane?”
    â€œOh, I’m sure it will!” Jane gushed.
    â€œYou know,” I said, “I’d have thought you’d want to debut your new fashion in London, Freddie. What exactly made you come back to Mars before your university term ended?”
    â€œAh!” Freddie’s eyes lit up. “As I started saying before, what happened was that old Podgy—er, that is, Viscount Podwood—got rather merry one night and he had this fantastic idea that we should all bet on him in, well, it was a boxing match…” He trailed off as Mama, Jane, and Olivia all stared at him.
    â€œRight,” Freddie said. “Not suitable for mixed company. Apologies.” His eyes flicked toward me. I stared back. Had he done that deliberately? He must have known he couldn’t talk about that kind of stuff in front of Mama, Jane, and Olivia. I knew he was an idiot, but even he must have known better.
    Freddie cleared his throat. “Uncle Hugo. Father said you were working on some new invention. Couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was talking about, but it sounded thrilling.”
    Putty bounced in her seat, almost overturning her plate. “The water abacus.”
    â€œA water abacus, eh? Is that to help fish count? Ha-ha.”
    Papa was a mechanician. Like the hundreds of other mechanicians on Mars, Papa took the fantastic mechanical devices found in the dragon tombs of Lunae Planum and turned them into the inventions that had changed the face of both Mars and Earth. But none of the other mechanicians even came close to Papa’s genius.
    Papa’s first great success had been the clockwork automatic servant. Before Papa, automatic servants had been steam-powered, bulky, simplistic machines that were useful only for carrying and lifting. They lumbered around, belching smoke, leaking steam, and horrifying good society. Then Papa invented an automatic servant that was entirely spring driven, completely clean, and totally silent, and he’d turned their brains into delicate things of beauty, capable of carrying out thousands of tasks. He’d set up a manufactory to build the things, and when he brought out his first ro-butler, it was a tremendous hit. Every good family on Mars had wanted one, and Papa had made a fortune. The Tharsis Times had described Papa as “the greatest success story of British Mars.”
    Until a couple of years ago, when he’d started work on his latest invention, the water abacus. He’d left his business to run itself, and the only place it was running itself was into ruin.
    As far as I could tell, the water abacus was just a room full of machinery that added up and subtracted