Waistcoats & Weaponry Read Free

expected. Some wizened man who spent his days cooped up in a bathtub? But the bubble was not designed for human occupation at all.
    The front had three small portholes, through which, on a rare clear day, all of Dartmoor would be laid out like a tablecloth. Tonight the view was nothing but dark drizzle.
    The whole forward half of the bubble was filled withengorged mechanical. Had it been human, it would have been one of those gentlemen who partook too freely of the pudding course and too little of daily exercise. Most mechanicals were human sized and mimicked the shape of a lady’s dress—which is to say smaller on the top, wider on the bottom. Or perhaps it was ladies’ fashion that imitated the shape of mechanicals? Skirts were getting so ridiculously wide, one was hard pressed to walk down a hallway without knocking things over. Mechanicals were more reasonably sized… except this one. This one could give Preshea in her most fashionable ball gown stiff competition. Its lower extremities formed a pile of machinery, not hidden under a respectable carapace but exposed and horribly functional. Perched on top of this was a normal mechanical brain, facing forward. It boasted multiple arms, like a spider. Occasionally, it reached out one clawlike appendage and pulled a lever or twiddled a switch.
    “Pardon me for introducing myself, Mr. Mechanical. I’m Miss Temminnick. Are you equipped with verbal protocols?”
    The pilot ignored her. Perhaps it did not have the ability to see that a wayward student had climbed into its domain. Lacking options, Sophronia explored. There wasn’t much: a few ropes, a cornucopia of tools, and that squatting mechanical. She brushed off her skirts and sat down atop a tall leather hatbox thing. She ran an assessment of her physical condition, finding herself basically unharmed, simply sore. She considered how to retrieve her grappling hook, still embedded on the outside of the bubble. Her only option might be to climb back out, using one of the ropes as a safety line.
    A whooshing noise interrupted her thoughts. An egg-shapedpod spat out of a tube and skidded along a specially designed trough. One of the mechanical’s arms came crashing down and cracked the egg open.
    Sophronia jumped and squeaked at the suddenness of it.
    The mechanical reached out with yet another of its appendages and unrolled the paper within. The paper was perforated with small holes of variable location. This the mechanical rested on a reader that looked like the voice coil of a standard mechanical—music box technology.
    Another arm turned a crank and the paper fed through. Sophronia supposed this would normally issue a set of protocols to the mechanical on how to pilot the ship, but in this case it caused the tinny voice of an underused vocal-quadringer to read instructions.
    “Rope ladder stashed below Pirandellope Probe, near feeding tube for capsule pipeline.”
    Sophronia knew the instructions were for her. Somehow, even though the sound was mechanized and lacked emphasis, the message conveyed Professor Lefoux’s special brand of French disinterest.

O N F ANS AND F LIRTING
    T hat’s it?” Sidheag was disappointed in Sophronia’s desultory description of the pilot’s bubble.
    “When did you get interested in technology?” replied Sophronia.
    “It’s not that; I was hoping that after we left, you would fall to your doom. Something exciting for once.”
    “Thank you kindly, Lady Kingair. The fact that I was initially dropped overboard by a vampire wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
    “Not with you, Sophronia, it wasn’t.” Sidheag passed over the buttered pikelets without having to be asked.
    “I spoil you, that’s the problem.” Sophronia, secretly flattered, deposited a pikelet onto her plate.
    Sidheag’s masculine face lit up with a grin.
    Teatime conversation flowed smoothly among the members of their little band. Over a year and a half’s association andSophronia would have described the