The Shadow Conspiracy

Phyllis Irene Radford, Editor

Conspiracy Revealed! Deception, Intrigue, Secret Histories, and Steam!

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Sarah Zettel’s “The Persistence of Souls” has been nominated for the Sidewise Award for alternate history. To celebrate, Book View Cafe presents her story on line for a limited time.

THE PERSISTENCE OF SOULS

Sarah Zettel

I

London, England, 1840

Mr. Josiah Abrahams

Quality Gemstones and Jewellery to Select Clientèle

Fletcher tucked the card into the pocket of his coat and nodded to the automatic footman. The automaton did not move. Fletcher grimaced. The creation of bronze and clockwork could not interpret the gesture. It needed a verbal command.

“Bring me the gentleman who gave you the card,” said Fletcher clearly. The clockwork mechanism bowed from its waist with only the slightest chime of metal against metal, and set off down the hallway with a heavy tread.

That we should be reduced to this... Fletcher shook his head at the hotel’s public sitting room. Whereas once he would have sat in his master’s private salon, here he shared a threadbare space with a clerk, a clergyman, and a tradesman with his gaudy waistcoat.

I’m sorry, Master. Fletcher stifled a cough, and the clergyman rattled his paper irritably in response. The automaton returned in short order with Mr. Abrahams, as well-turned-out and respectable as ever, walking calmly behind. Shame burned through Fletcher as he stood. His own blue coat was dusty past all his arts with brush and damp cloth, and his breeches shone at the knees. Upon beholding him, Mr. Abrahams grew distinctly wary.

Fletcher called upon his long years of training and kept his own expression impassive as he made his bow. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Mr. Abrahams.”

“Not at all.” Mr. Abrahams paused. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

“You were acquainted with my master,” Fletcher replied. “Many years ago.” He did not give Abrahams the chance to ask any further questions. “I have engaged a private sitting room. If you would step this way, sir?”

The sitting room was small, without a fireplace. It possessed one window, which was in need of cleaning. Mr. Abrahams betrayed no discomfort, but removed his tall hat and sat down at the chipped and badly painted table.

“Now, Mr. Fletcher, how may I be of service to you?”

“I am under commission to sell some precious gemstones.” Fletcher brought a small green bag out from his coat pocket. “I believe, and my master believes, that you are the man best able to transact such business.”

“I thank you for your confidence.” Abrahams bowed his head. “I am of course most interested in anything you might have to show me.” He produced a piece of black velvet from his own pocket and laid it on the table.

Fletcher opened his bag and tipped the contents onto Mr. Abrahams’ velvet. Three pearls, each as big as a marble, rolled onto the velvet: one pure white, one a delicate pink, the third a deep, lustrous silver-grey.

Abrahams stared at the gems. He pulled a loupe from his inner pocket and screwed it into his eye. One by one he lifted the pearls, scrutinising them in the dim light. Fletcher watched the play of emotions on his face. This was a man who loved beauty and understood the worth of beautiful things. But he was also fundamentally honest.

“You said you were under commission?” enquired Abrahams softly.

“My master acquired these in Greece,” said Fletcher, which was true as far as it went. “I am engaged to sell them on his behalf and have a letter to that effect.” He brought out the carefully folded document.

The jeweler removed his glass and unfolded the paper. He saw the crest and the date and his keen eyes bulged, first with disbelief, then with anger. “This is ridiculous. His lordship has been dead these twenty years.”

“So he wished the world, which hounded him, to believe. But I assure you, the letter is genuine.” I copied his hand often enough when he still had hands of his own, and his wishes have been my life’s mission since.

Abrahams studied the letter stating that the bearer, Armitage Fletcher, had permission to undertake the proffered commission. He stroked the signature once before closing the paper and staring again at the pearls shining pure and beautiful in the ashy London daylight.

Fletcher’s heart throbbed painfully in his chest and a new cough threatened as he waited to see which would win: the lover of beauty or the honest man.

“I believe,” Abrahams said quietly, “we can come to an arrangement on your master’s behalf.”

Fletcher’s chest squeezed so tightly that he coughed twice, requiring he bring his handkerchief to his lips. He hastily tucked it back into his pocket, before the man in front of him could see the blood staining the white linen.

“Excellent.”

II

“Vigilance. Vigilance.”

Gregory Beale stumbled through the French doors of the Lovelace House conservatory, clutching his blackened right arm to the ruin of his chest. Around him, brass and enamel trees glimmered in the moonlight. The scent of smoke and charred flesh he carried with him mingled with the scents of oranges and roses created for this place by a leading Parisian parfumeur. A silver cat stalked past him without pausing as he staggered forward, and a golden stag paced unconcerned behind the lemon trees. Only the jeweled serpents twining through the branches paused to notice the monster he had become, shambling through their jeweled Eden.

Pain lanced through the bones of his face and straight into his brain. The singing of the host of mechanical birds was torture to his remaining ear, and a constant steady ticking as of a thousand pocket watches set his injuries throbbing to its rhythm. He knew if that ticking ever faded, one of the three keymen standing silently against the wall would move to locate the faltering creation and wind it up again, using the proper key from the great ring on its belt.

But not one of them would move to help him. Not without its mistress’ orders.

“Vigilance,” he rasped again as he shambled forward. Please, please, let them recognise me. “Vigilance!”

A bronze mastiff appeared from around the edge of the fountain. Around its feet clustered three black lacquered spiders, each the size of a pigeon.

Beale’s legs would carry him no farther. The impact as he tumbled to the floor felt as if it must shatter his charred bones. A spider scuttled closer. From his one good eye, Beale could see the orange hourglass emblazoned on the mechanism’s belly. It would finish him off in a moment if he didn’t make himself known. For a heartbeat he was of a mind to let it.

“Vigilance,” Beale croaked toward the dog. “I am Gregory Poke Beale. Fetch your mistress.”

The dog’s tail waved twice, steady as a metronome. Then, it turned and padded away, its paws clicking lightly against the mosaic floor.

With the dog’s departure, the spiders folded their legs, becoming little more than black stones. Some odd detached part of his mind was aware that it was a great privilege to be observing these delicate creations so closely, even if it was only through one eye. Even if it was only through a haze of burning pain.

“Mr. Beale.”

Beale tried to lift his head and failed. The Countess Lovelace crouched down beside him. “What has happened?”

“So sorry, my lady.” He turned his face toward her and she gasped as she saw the ravages of the burn, how the brass rim of his flying goggles had been embedded into his flesh.

“Are they here now? The ones who did this to you?”

He shook his head slowly. “Can’t know I survived the crash,” he grated. “Would’ve caught me...so sorry, my lady.”

“Who did this to you? Who is responsible?”

The pain was drifting away. It was all but gone. He tried to think, but he was too filled with wonder. The relief was indescribable. He would be able to sleep now. He could sleep, and all would be better.

“Mr. Beale!”

She was speaking to him, Countess Lovelace. So beautiful. Never had thought she would be so. He wanted to answer her, but he could not. Sleep was so close. Sleep, and the pain would never return.

“Answer me, Mr. Beale! Who did this to you?”

With a supreme effort, Beale made his ruined mouth move. “Your father,” he whispered at last. “Your father.”

But it was too much, the return to the pain and the fear. I’m sorry. Truly, my lady, I am.

Gregory Beale let beautiful oblivion claim him.

###

Trembling, Ada Lovelace stood. She put her hands to her face. When she lowered them again, she was pale but calm.

“Bastion,” she said.

One of the keymen moved forward smoothly.

“Remove Mr. Beale.” She bit her lip. “Take Carriage Number One to the Camden facility.” It would be bad enough to have him found there, but better there than in the house. “Leave him in Alley Number Three. Do you understand?”

The keyman bowed again.

“Gently,” said Ada.

Bastion bent and tenderly scooped up the blackened corpse. Cradling Mr. Beale’s remains, Bastion moved to the open door and walked out into the garden. Ada, with the mastiff pacing beside her, closed the door behind it, turning the three locks.

For a moment she stood there, her palm pressed flat against the cold glass. Ada King, Countess Lovelace was a fashionably slim woman, but unfashionably tall. Her wide-set brown eyes were called intelligent by her friends and cold by her detractors. Her features were regular, even pretty, but her coarse and ink-stained hands were the despair of her family and her lady’s maid.

Ada wanted to pray, to grieve. She wanted to feel anything except the horrible wish that Mr. Beale had waited one more day to die.

Gradually, the familiar steady ticking that filled the garden slipped inside her, calming the riot of thought and emotion. She was able to lift her head, more than a little relieved to find her cheeks were wet.

I remain human after all.

“Come, Vigilance,” she ordered softly.

With the mastiff beside her, Ada left the garden by the interior door. She did not have to look back to know the spiders returned to their hiding places.

###

Lovelace House was a stately edifice of the newest construction. Its beautiful proportions spoke to the care lavished on its design. The airy inside reflected clean lines, furnished in the comfortable, modern style. Ada moved quietly through the harmonious blend of creams and golds, dusky rose, and mint green. Stained glass trimmed the many windows so that rainbows tinted the thick Turkey carpets.

Not really a home, Ada thought. It had the feeling of some grand hotel. A stopping place, a showpiece, empty of meaningful life. Tonight, Ada was grateful for this. It kept the household from being alerted to Mr. Beale’s entrance, and his death. The last thing she needed was for William or Mother to know what had happened in the garden.

Moving carefully so as not to trigger any alarms built into the nightingale floors, Ada climbed to her studio on the third floor. This was the one place in the great house in which Mother had no influence.  Ada thrived in the clutter; blueprints and mechanical drawings covered the walls. The makings of artificial skeletons glimmered in the flame of gaslight turned low; bronze and copper struts forming hands and legs; staring glass eyes; assemblages of gears that were hearts and bellows that were lungs. Jars for Leyden batteries, sheets of metal, and copper piping of various thicknesses occupied the far corner. Cabinets of gleaming tools stood between chests of drawers holding finished drawings or blank paper. Ink permanently stained the wooden floor and the scarred tabletops. She appreciated even a black thundercloud stain sprawling beneath the drawings on the eastern wall. She’d thrown an entire bottle of India ink in a moment of fury. The drawings on the northern wall more perfectly concealed the bullet hole from an invader who forced entry before she created the mastiff and the spiders. Against another wall, two keymen stood waiting in case they were ever needed.

Ada inhaled the calming scents of dust and oil, metal and electricity, as she climbed the short flight of stairs to the library alcove filled with volumes both ancient and modern, covering every possible aspect of the mechanical sciences. Here there were leather chairs made soft and comfortable by much use. On the seat of one lay a loose bundle of ragged, water-stained pages. It was here she had been reading when Vigilance came to tell her of Mr. Beale’s...arrival.

“...stioned P again this morning. Phoebus is a sterner judge than Diana, and what a man says beneath her light he may contradict once morning comes. But P remained steadfast. It can be done, he said, over and over. It can be done.”

Ada’s hands, capable of bringing an assemblage of gears to miraculous life, trembled as she picked up the papers.

“...Bysshe is all for it. Talks of incalculable benefits to mankind, &tc and he may be right, although I suspect he thinks mostly of putting an end to so much of his own fear...”

The edges of the pages were uneven where they had been torn from their book. The handwriting on them alternated between dramatic waves of looped and curled letters and clusters of minuscule, crabbed words where the author was clearly in a hurry. Ada curled up in the chair, tucking her feet under the hem of her skirts, reading the dramatic words and trying to understand.

###

When the morning came, she was still reading.

“...Little Mary looked out of sorts though as Bysshe paced the room declaiming all the greatness to come. Curious, as P insists the initial idea was hers...”

Floorboards creaked outside the workroom. Ada’s head snapped up and she automatically folded her papers away.

But it was only the footman, Hollings, who entered. “Excuse me, m’lady. Mr. Babbage has arrived.”

Yes, of course. It will be time to leave. “Please tell Mr. Babbage I will be with him shortly, and ask him to wait in the blue room.”

When her servant departed, Ada strode across the workroom to a wide writing desk. She laid out the papers and then deftly manipulated the elaborate marquetry pattern on the desk’s right side, causing a drawer to slide smoothly open. She reached inside and pulled out a slim notebook. In her hand, it fell open to a particular page, covered in crabbed, blotted and scratched-out lines.

“Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!

ADA! Sole daughter of my house and heart?”

She laid the open notebook beside the loose sheets. Her eyes flickered from one to the other as her long fingers ran down the paper.

Outside the door, the floorboards sighed.

Ada pulled a sheaf of mechanical drawings across the notebook and the loose sheets. With them out of sight, she turned smoothly, her face a complaisant mask. But when the door opened and Charles Babbage marched across the threshold, the mask fell away.

“Mr. Babbage. You gave me a turn.” Ada pressed her palm to her forehead. “I’m sure I told Hollings to ask you to wait.”

“You did, Lady Lovelace.” Babbage laid his hat and walking stick on the nearest table. “I ignored him, and you. Have you forgotten what day it is?”

“Of course not. As you see.” Ada indicated the spread of her fawn skirts trimmed elegantly with green lace and ribbons. She had taken time to dress, and to eat, although she had ignored her mother’s impatient messages about joining the rest of the household at table. “I am quite ready.”

“Then why, may I ask, was I required to wait?”

The vision of Mr. Beale’s ravaged body rose up in Ada’s mind, but she repressed it. “Something came up at the last moment.”

“A matter of business?”

Ada flicked the folds of her overskirt. “I would prefer not to discuss it at this time, Mr. Babbage.”

Babbage’s craggy brow settled into a deep glower as he frowned at her. “You understand that we are at an exremely delicate stage. If today’s test fails with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister watching...”

“You and I will still be the richest industrialists in the Empire,” replied Ada wearily.

But she might have saved her breath for all the notice Mr. Babbage took. “...Our patrons will begin looking to our competitors. The patents of Babbage & Lovelace will no longer be unrivalled. We will be marooned where we are, making toys for the nobility...”

“Such as myself.”

“ ...instead of creating the machines that will become the backbone of the British Empire for the next hundred years!”

Ada sighed. “Mr. Babbage, you really must learn to do something about your overwhelming modesty.”

“Countess Lovelace, it is that overwhelming modesty which has brought us both to this point.”

“Pardon me,” she snapped back. “I thought it had something to do with your mechanical skills and my mathematical aptitude.”

It was a small outburst, but it was enough. Mr. Babbage’s stance softened. “Tell me what has happened, my lady.”

Ada sighed again. It really was none of his business. But who else do I confide in? My husband? Impossible.

“Someone sent me these today.” She lifted the pages out from beneath impromptu coverings. “They are in my father’s handwriting...and they are not the first.”

Babbage scanned the pages, his dark, clever eyes quickly deciphering the difficult hand. “When did this start?”

“The day we announced we would be developing the automatic steamship.”

“Have you made any attempt to trace...?”

“I have employed several discreet agents. The first two failed absolutely. The third...” She hesitated. If Mr. Babbage knew Mr. Beale had died on the floor of the conservatory and accused her father of the murder, he’d be apoplectic. He’d raise a storm and bring the rest of the house up here. William would find out everything. Worse. Mother would. “My agent is dead. His personal flier crashed just after he took off from Dover.”

Mr. Babbage read the curt telegram and laid it down on the desk beside the other papers. “You should have told me of this before.”

“I suppose I should.” Ada began gathering the papers into a heap. “I had hoped...”

“What?”

“Nothing.” But her gaze drifted to a green baize curtain hanging in the library alcove.

She felt Mr. Babbage watching her as she laid her papers in the secret drawer and closed it sharply. “It is the Luddites,” he announced firmly. “It stinks of their methods. Intimidation, and murder. The cowards have never shown any hesitation about attacking a woman.” He nodded pointedly toward the concealed bullet hole. “I’ll speak with the police and our men so they know to be especially vigilant.”

“The Luddite threats always come with demands. This...” Ada’s hand trembled dangerously and she closed it in a fist. “This is something else.”

“You have no way to know that. The timing of the announcement, the fact that more papers came today. What else could it be but the Luddites seeking to interrupt our demonstration for the Home Secretary?”

Ada met Mr. Babbage’s gaze. You want to care, she thought. But you have too much on your mind now.

But before she could speak, the floorboards sighed again, and the door opened.

“Excuse me, my lady,” Hollings bowed. “Lady Byron bids me to say if you are quite ready, the carriages are waiting and so is...” Hollings hesitated.

“The Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and half the world await my childish delays?” Ada finished for him.

Hollings said nothing. Ada looked to Mr. Babbage and he nodded, dismissing Hollings.

“We will talk more...at a later time,” Mr. Babbage said to her, reclaiming hat and stick. “You have the codex?”

“Yes.” She indicated a locked iron box beside one of the still and silent keymen. “It arrived last night.”

“And you have examined the cards?”

“Yes, Mr. Babbage. They are perfect and complete.” She hesitated for a moment, and then risked a rare, truthful admission. “I wish I did not have to do this.”

“I know.” Mr. Babbage covered her hand with his. “But you must understand, Ada, the public likes to see you with the machines. Such a young woman handling the language that commands them...it makes it seem less threatening. You don’t look as if you could do anything harmful.”

“So you’ve told me.” If only they knew what I have built in this house... “Fear not, Mr. Babbage. I will do my part.” She arranged her face into a sunny smile for him. “After all, the play’s the thing.”

“To open the pockets of a king. Just so, my lady.”

III

“Really, Ada, you should have informed me Mr. Babbage had arrived. I thought it was only the family you kept waiting.”

Lady Byron, widow of the infamous Lord Byron, waited in the grand foyer as Ada and Mr. Babbage descended the stairs followed by one of the workroom keymen. Lady Byron was still a handsome woman, despite the thick black crepe she donned whenever she went forth in public. As if she mourned the man she helped drive from the country. 

Around Lady Byron stood her three confidantes, also dressed in fashionable but soberly coloured costumes. Mrs. Carr was fussing with the flower arrangement on the central table. Little Miss Doyle stood at Mother’s side, dabbing at her thin mouth with a handkerchief, while with needle-sharp awareness, Miss Frend simpered up at Ada’s husband, William, Earl of Lovelace, who towered over them all, thin and pale in his neat blue suit.

Whenever her mother could not hear, Ada called the women The Furies.

“It is entirely my fault that we are late, Lady Byron.” Mr. Babbage made his bow and then stepped up to shake hands with William. “I insisted on viewing the codex for the New Britannia once more before we left.”

“A wise decision,” said Lady Byron. Her cool eyes never left Ada’s face as the maid helped Ada on with her coat. “One cannot be too careful on such a day.”

“Of course Mr. Babbage will see to it that everything goes smoothly,” purred the plump and diminutive Mrs. Carr, first among the Furies. “He always organises events so splendidly.”

Babbage bowed, acknowledging the compliment.

“Shall we go?” William smoothed his coat sleeves and held out his arm to Ada.

“If we are all quite ready, that is?” added Lady Byron.

“Quite ready, Ma’am,” Ada replied. She turned to the automaton holding the codex chest. “Bastion. Take the box to Carriage Number One and load it securely onto the rack, then take your station.”

Lady Byron’s lips thinned with disapproval. “Really, Ada, I should think one of the footmen...”

“Forgive me, Lady Byron,” interrupted Mr. Babbage. “But I thought it advisable that Countess Lovelace be seen more frequently with her own automata.” He smiled conspiratorially at William. “There are still those who think they are somehow vulgar.”

Which costs us business and consequently money. Ada watched the calculation flicker behind her mother’s hard eyes, as Mr. Babbage had known it would.

“An excellent thought, Mr. Babbage,” said Mother promptly.

Ada mentally set aside the sting from her mother’s disdain as she took her husband’s arm to walk out to the carriage. Lady Byron was a spectator today, nothing more. This day would prove to the world that Ada Lovelace, who could make bronze men walk and fight and sing, could make the greatest of machines dance to her command.

This is my day. Mine.

By the time their party reached the London Docks, Ada almost believed it.

IV

The launch of the New Britannia was a grand celebration, and the whole of the city turned out for it. The great blue dirigibles, the Flying Bobbies, floated in neat formation overhead while the personal fliers darted between them, their wings flapping like great copper albatrosses, plumes of steam trailing behind them. A full half of the Metropolitan Police had been brought out to attempt to hold back the crush of observers that strained and surged against their linked arms, struggling to keep a lane free for the carriages from Lovelace House.

Ada twitched the carriage curtains closed, ignoring both William’s and Mr. Babbage’s frowns. She had to endure the mob, but she did not have to let them gawk.

She wished there were a way to shut out the noise. There were cheers enough to satisfy Mr. Babbage--thankfully--but there were the other voices as well.

“Jobs for men, not machines!”

“Down with the Mathematical Witch!”

“Trust God’s Creation, not Man’s!”

Then there were the final set of voices, the ones that would never forget her paternal heritage.

“Ada! I love you, Ada!”

“Ada! I’ve a message from your father! He says not to believe her, Ada!”

“Ada!” They called as the carriage halted and William helped her out. “Darling Ada!”

It only got worse when Mother emerged from her carriage, the Furies in tight formation to create a wall of black crepe and silk at her back.

“Witch!”

“Liar!”

“You drove him to his death!”

Mr. Babbage doffed his hat to the friendly portion of the crowd, and they cheered in response. Ada wondered if he even heard the shouts of the Luddites and the Byron acolytes.

Ada called on her well-honed powers of concentration to shut out the noise and fix her face into the serene and smiling mask that was expected in public situations. Ahead waited the new viewing platform built on the bank of the Thames. Flags and bunting draped the stage. Men in high hats and perfectly cut coats crowded together at the banister. Their wives stood with them, adorned in the latest fashions, parasols held high in case the sun should chance to peek through the grey clouds.

But none of them really mattered, either. What mattered was the smooth, black sides of the New Britannia towering over them all.

“Lady Lovelace!” Lord Normanby, the Home Secretary, stepped forward eagerly. “So elegant, as ever. We are greatly looking forward to your amazing us afresh with your new accomplishment.”

“Thank you, Lord Normanby.” Ada took his hand briefly. Then, she turned to greet the Prime Minister, and her jaw nearly dropped.

Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister, was a tall, serious, conservative man. But beside him--wearing a dress of a cut that would have been difficult for a woman twenty years her junior to carry off--stood his wife, Lady Melbourne, Caroline Lamb, who also had been Lord Byron’s second most infamous lover.

“Good Morning, Prime Minister,” Ada made herself say. “Thank you so much for coming to our demonstration.”

“Good morning, Lady Lovelace,” Lord Melbourne replied. “Lord Lovelace. Mr. Babbage.” And with only the barest hint of a pause he added “Lady Byron.”

“Lord Melbourne,” said her mother. There followed a heartbeat of hesitation, the barest flicker of an eye. “Lady Melbourne.”

Of all her father’s affairs, the longest lasting and most public had been Caroline Lamb. She was the one who declared Byron “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” She had tried to prevent Lord Byron’s marriage to Lady Byron, but once that marriage was accomplished, she had thrown other women into Byron’s path in an attempt to break it.

Caroline Lamb hardly ever appeared in public any more, let alone in situations where a stray word might embarrass her husband, the Queen’s Prime Minister. Why on earth has he brought her here? It was beyond comprehension. But then, it was beyond Ada’s comprehension why Lord Melbourne remained married to the woman who had so publicly cuckolded him when he was merely William Lamb.

Ada glanced toward Mr. Babbage, trying to catch his eye, but he, of course, was already deep in conversation with the Home Secretary.

“....But do you really believe you will be able to create sympathetic action without a sympathetic form?” the Home Secretary asked.

“The automatic sciences are not black magic, Home Secretary,” Ada said, boldly stepping into one of the few areas of conversation where her mother and the Furies could not follow. “Mr. Babbage’s analytic engine will respond to pre-designed commands given in the correct order, no matter what shape houses them.”

“Just so.” Babbage puffed out his chest ever so slightly. Indeed, it had been easier to create a working codex for the ship than for a human shaped automaton, but since they first entered into partnership, Charles had insisted they begin with what he called ‘the golems.’ “They are so like the toys people are used to, no one will object to them,” he had said. “Once they have been accepted, we can move on to the truly useful engines.”

“And what of the question of the soul, Lady Byron?” asked a man she didn’t recognise. He wore a bowler hat and a badly-tailored brown suit.

“I beg your pardon?” She looked down her nose at him, an expression she had learned from her mother.

But the man did not flinch, nor did he offer to introduce himself. “The soul. You’ve heard the reports, I’m sure--automata falling in love with their owners, or the mechanical valet running off into the woods in Scotland. People are saying your thinking machines are growing souls of their own. What sort of soul could a steamship house?”

“People say all manner of ridiculous things,” snapped Ada. “But no transference of soul from natural to mechanical form has ever been reliably recorded.”

“Then you don’t believe it?”

“I believe people mistake form for function.” Her voice was growing warmer than she intended. “They see a face and believe they see a human being, and ignorantly attribute a broken codex to voluntary control.”

“Well, I know I very much look forward to the demonstration,” interrupted the Home Secretary, drawing Ada’s attention from the bowler-hatted stranger.

“As do I,” said Lady Melbourne. Her voice was low and husky, with a velvet quality to it. “It is so wonderful to see what form your father’s gifts have taken in you, Lady Lovelace.”

“Are we ready to begin?” inquired Lord Melbourne, a little too hastily.

Mr. Babbage took Ada’s arm and positively hustled her down the quay with its red carpet and row of solemn, blue-coated sailors, away from Mother and her rival, toward the waiting ship.

Tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of steel, brass and teakwood had gone into the New Britannia’s construction. Her high-efficiency boilers could stand pressures higher than any ship on the Thames. Her steel prow was sharp, and her stern broad enough to hold the three enormous paddles, freshly improved on the basic design of America’s Mr. Fulton. The deck was wide and flat as a barge, but where an ordinary barge would have had a pilot house, there waited an enormous metal and glass enclosure for the analytic engine and its command console. There was a wheel and speaking tubes, in case of emergency, and hand-brakes for the paddles. Captain Wedderburn had insisted on them.

“It is not that I don’t trust you, Mr. Babbage,” he’d said brusquely. “But you’ll not find a sailor willing to take command of a ship he can’t turn should he have a need.”

Which was the truth. Babbage had looked for such a man and come up empty-handed.

On a working ship, the analytic engine would be housed more practically below decks. But New Britannia was the showpiece, and Mr. Babbage insisted it be grand and beautiful. So the columns and gears and bearings that were the brain of the ship gleamed beneath crystal windows for the world to see.

“All correct, George?” Mr. Babbage asked the engine foreman as they and the keyman entered the pilot house.

“As you left it last night, sir.” George nodded to the line of men and boys with their bare feet and stained clothing. “I’ve had them up with the sun, running the checks. She’s sound and she’s ready.”

The New Britannia was not the largest of what people were coming to call ‘Babbage engines’--not like the great Westminster Engine or the Defence Engine in Dover--but it was the most complex and delicate. As Mr. Babbage gazed upon the gleaming construct, Ada watched the rest of the world fall away from him. Here was the work of his hands, here was his heart, his fortune, his future.

At last, Mr. Babbage blinked and moved to the codex console, a brass and teakwood cabinet beside the ship’s wheel and, like the rest of the ship, larger and gaudier than it needed to be. “Lady Lovelace, if you please?”

Ada drew a small key from her reticule and handed it to Mr. Babbage, who opened the chest Bastion held. He folded back the white linen to reveal the first of the golden command cards. Ada lifted out the card. It was more like a piece of gilded lace than an important piece of a steam engine. She inspected the carefully aligned holes in their complex patterns, so familiar to her eye.

Ada slotted the first card into its rack in the console, then the second and the third, through to number ten. She closed the housing and stepped back. The crowd on the dock saw her motion and set up a cheer that reverberated through the windowpanes.

Captain Wedderburn drew a deep breath. “Are you certain you will not return to the dock, Lady Lovelace?”

Ada faced the weathered man and mustered her best smile. “Captain, this is a test of confidence as much as of the mechanism. If the engines fail, at worst we will have to be towed back to shore.” She raised her brows. “Or are you expecting a more dramatic situation?”

“Not at all, Madame. I have every confidence in your success here today.” But his eyes would not leave off searching hers.

“Then I suggest we proceed.”

“Very good, Lady Lovelace. Mr. Babbage, if you are ready?”

Mr. Babbage raised his hands with the air of a church organist taking his place in front of his instrument. “With your permission, Captain?”

“Granted, sir.”

Mr. Babbage waved to George. George herded the under-engineers and the steam monkeys to the starboard side of the pilot house. He turned one wheel, then another, opening the valves. The steam hissed out into the already moist air. Mr. Babbage cranked the key over, once, twice, three times.

The decking creaked. The analytic engine ticked and clacked and clanked. The hull shuddered as if the ship were waking from its sleep. Charles tweaked the valves once more.

The deck dipped slightly as the windlass turned, drawing in the great anchor chain. The cheering on the dock redoubled, and the crowd became a sea of waving flags and hats tossed into the air. The clang reverberated through the hull as the anchor slotted into place.

Slowly, ponderously, New Britannia slid from the dock, her paddles engaging smoothly. The steam hissed, and the analytic engine gears clacked in staccato rhythm. Underneath their chatter, Ada heard the delicate bell-like ring as the codex rack rotated, bringing the second card into place. Needles ticked and pricked as they read the patterns. Smaller gears chinged as they communicated motion to larger gears and larger yet. In the belly of the ship, chains strained to raise the hoppers of clattering coal to feed the furnaces that heated the boilers which drew their water directly from the Thames. Behind her, George watched the gauges like a hawk. He ordered the steam monkeys up among the gears and the bearings. They tended the mechanism, but they did not command it.

New Britannia, without a human hand to guide it, sailed upriver through the heart of London Town.

Overhead, the dirigibles unfurled swaths of red, white and blue bunting, and the fliers released tinted streamers of smoke. Ada saw the waving crowds on the shore, but she could hear nothing except the ticking, the chiming and the long dragon hisses that were the voice of the machine answering her commands.

The captain, foreman and engineers crowded around Mr. Babbage, shaking hands and offering their congratulations. But Ada stayed where she was at the gaudy codex console, communing with the sounds of the analytic engine, for one moment alone and content.

“We’ve done it, Ada,” said Mr. Babbage, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Whatever happens after today, we’ve done it.”

The chime of the card changes rang again, and Ada tilted her head. Too soon? She checked the watch at her waist.

A moment later, a wave slapped the bow, and the deck pitched, just enough to make Ada stagger.

“Ahoy! Ahoy the tug!” cried the lookout overhead.

Ada whirled around to face the bows, but she could see nothing past the expanse of the New Britannia’s deck. Fear constricted her chest. She gathered her skirts and ran up the spiral ladder to the lookout’s post above.

“...Where did it come from?” a lieutenant demanded as she entered the house. “This section of river was supposed to have been cleared!”

Ada snatched the spyglass from his hand and put it to her eye.

A battered wooden tug boat looked like a blocky minnow beneath the shadow of New Britannia. But it chugged steadily onward, oblivious, or at least unconcerned about the larger, faster ship.

What’s the matter with them? Why don’t they get out of the way?

“With respect, Lady Lovelace,” the lieutenant said from behind her. “Is it part of the test?”

Footsteps rumbled up the ladder behind them and the hatch slapped open again. “Mr. Babbage! I should have been informed...”

Something’s wrong.

“This has nothing to do with the test!” cried Mr. Babbage. “This was a preliminary trial only...”

The shape’s not right. The pilot house is wrong...

“Where’s the damn captain!” cried the sailor beside her.

Where’re the crew? Where’re the crew?

“It’s unmanned!” she cried. “It’s an automatic ship!”

“We’re going to ram it!” cried the sailor.

“Turn off the engine!” commanded Captain Wedderburn. “I must have the wheel!”

Ada flung herself down the ladder to the pilot house right behind Mr. Babbage and Captain Wedderburn. She jammed the key into the codex console lock and cranked it around hard to stop the rack and freeze the cards in place, unlocking the gears and returning command of the rudder to the wheel on the bridge.

Captain Wedderburn grabbed the wheel, wrenching it around, bellowing at the mate to reverse the paddles. What few sailors there were rushed to the rail.

Then came the sickening crunch of wood, and the deck bobbled and shuddered. They all stared at each other, white in the face. New Britannia had plowed the smaller ship under.

“The paddles!” shouted Mr. Babbage. “If any of that flotsam gets jammed in them...” He dashed out the cabin door, running for the stern with George hard on his heels.

All around her men and boys shouted questions to which there was no answer. Ada looked over to Captain Wedderburn, but the captain’s eyes fixed straight ahead as he bellowed into the speaking tube to the lookout.

What was it? A competitor? A Luddite trick? What is going on? Why would anyone build an automatic boat, then deliberately send it out to be destroyed?

The answer came immediately: No one would. This was something else. A distraction? To slow the ship and get us all looking ahead...

Then what’s behind?

“Mr. Babbage!” Ada whirled and ran out onto the deck. The wind slapped against her face. Her thin-soled shoes skidded on the slick planks and she had to grab the rail.

“Mr. Babbage!”

The howl split the air a second before she rounded the corner of the cabin. She looked upon a nightmare.

A black and dripping tentacle towered over the ship’s railing. Before Ada had time to blink, it wrapped around Mr. Babbage’s waist and yanked him from the deck. George cried out in horror. The lieutenant fired his side arm wildly, uselessly.

For one instant, Ada saw Mr. Babbage held up in the air. She saw his mouth shape her name.

“Canto Thirteen!” she screamed. “Canto Thirteen!”

And then the tentacle hauled him down, below the rail, out of sight. Then a loud splash.

The world narrowed to a single point of light. The decking hit her knees, her shoulder, her head.

Darkness.

V

Hands supported her. Voices babbled, blending into a single incomprehensible stream of sound. She was passed from the deck of New Britannia, to the quay, to the carriage, to her own room. Something was put to her lips. She drank it because she could not stop it.

After that, she did not so much sleep as wait, suspended in darkness as Mr. Babbage was suspended in mid-air in front of her. She screamed command after command, all of them useless.

William came in with the morning and her maid. Very gently, for him, her husband told her she was needed in the salon and insisted she rise. But she could not. It was as if her inability to command the release of Mr. Babbage had cost her the ability to command her own limbs.

After a few moments, William gave up and left.

Eventually, her mother came in.

“Ada, I will not have you disgracing me in this manner,” Lady Byron announced. “There are decisions which require your consent. You will compose yourself and do your duty.”

To Ada’s shame, her mother’s orders did what her husband’s chiding could not. She rose. Mother stayed, her face stony, while Ada’s maid dressed her in solemn grey. Then, Mother walked three paces behind her down the corridor, as if afraid Ada might bolt.

The grand salon was filled with a crowd of sober men interspersed with all of Mother’s Furies. She recognised the head of the police force and Home Secretary Lord Normanby among them. The men parted and bowed as she entered the room and sat down.

“Lady Lovelace, I know you are as shocked as we are at this terrible tragedy,” Lord Normanby said. “But our first thought must be that this was only an initial attack and we need to secure the facilities at Camden.”

She could not, however, fix her thoughts on this point. “There was a stranger,” she told Lord Normanby. “A man on the quay I did not know. He spoke to me...”

“All appropriate inquiries are being made,” said William. “Ada, the Home Secretary requires your attention.”

Ada stopped, and tried again. “The boat that cut across our path was an automatic...”

“They are aware of that, Ada,” said William. “Please, try to concentrate.”

The Home Secretary nodded his thanks to William. “No one wishes to appear indelicate, Lady Lovelace, but we cannot give whoever committed this heinous act any opportunity...”

Ada knew she was supposed to listen, but she could not. She knew these men wanted her consent to take over the Camden factory. They’d require a written direction to the manager, Mr. Eldrige. That was simple enough.

A deeper part of her mind would not be shifted from the deck of New Britannia.

I thought they wanted us looking forward, I thought it was a distraction, but it was a trap...

“...Therefore must ask you to surrender the...”

The tentacle was dripping. So black. Wrapped tight around his waist...

“...pro forma of course, but a written direction from you...”

“Vulcanised rubber,” said Ada abruptly.

Lord Normanby blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“Vulcanised rubber. That’s how the tentacle was made so flexible, and waterproof. We use it for gaskets on the engines, but our people have been experimenting with other applications.”

“Of course. Now, if I might...”

Ada got to her feet. “You were mistaken, Madame,” she said to her mother. “The decisions have already been made. Lord Normanby, my man will deliver the written direction you require within the hour. Excuse me.”

She left the saloon without looking back. It was imperative she think. She could not think down there, not with Mother looking on and all those politicians gabbling.

Ada reached the workroom door and undid the lock. She walked inside, and stopped dead.

A man in a rumpled brown suit stood at her marquetry writing desk. His collar was askew and a dented bowler lay on the table.

Her hidden drawer gaped open, all its contents laid out neatly on the desktop.

The man turned to see who had interrupted him.

“Lady Lovelace.” He bowed.

Outrage blossomed inside Ada, burning away the grey fog that had divided whole portions of her mind since the incident. “Who are you? What gives you the right to paw through my personal things?”

“Damon Worth, m’lady,” the man in the brown suit replied calmly. “Special adviser to Her Majesty the Queen. And the kidnapping of Mr. Charles Babbage gives me the right, m’lady, as I’m sure you’ll realise once you’ve given it a moment’s thought.”

Memory snapped into place, of a brown suit and ridiculous questions about machines and souls. “You were on the quay. Before.”

“I was, m’lady.”

Ada pressed her hand against the nearest tabletop, oddly dizzy. “Special adviser to the queen?”

Mr. Worth bowed again. “Her Majesty is aware that the automatic sciences are reshaping the world. She desires that a close eye be kept on new developments.”

Blocks of thought tumbled into place slowly, clicking one against the other. “Is my loyalty under question?”

“Not at all, not at all. But, as one of the geniuses behind the Empire’s new industry, it was necessary that you be kept under surveillance, for your own safety.”

“Were you also keeping Mr. Babbage under surveillance for his safety?”

“Of course.” Mr. Worth held up his hand, forestalling her next words. “You cannot reproach me worse than I have reproached myself, Lady Lovelace. I already attempted to hand in my resignation, but have been refused.” He spoke calmly, but his words grew clipped, hardened, as if he were struggling to hold back his emotions.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Ada forced herself to ask the question calmly.

“I do. The question is, what do his abductors want of him?” Mr. Worth met her gaze. His eyes were a bright pale blue, like glass. “If it is him they wanted.”

Ada’s throat seized tight. She had not stopped to consider she might have been the actual target of this bizarre kidnapping.

No, I did not permit myself to consider it.

“Was it the Luddites?”

“We don’t think so. The Luddites would have been more likely to destroy the New Britannia or murder Mr. Babbage outright. And they do not have the funding to build a mechanism like the one employed in this case.” He laid the paper down. Her father’s memoirs. He was reading her father’s memoirs and discussing so calmly the abduction of Mr. Babbage.

“Do you know who might have been able to build a mechanism like the one we saw, Lady Lovelace?”

Be calm, be calm and answer. “I can only guess, as I saw only part of it.” Black, dripping wet, sweeping him off the deck, into the air, down, calling my name... “However, we may venture to say it needed to go under the water, control the...tentacles...and be able to see or otherwise identify the...individual required. Taken with the automatic tug that crossed the path, I would estimate there are only half a dozen individuals who could create such devices.”

“One of whom would be Mr. Babbage?”

“Yes.”

“And you would be another?”

Ada hesitated for a single heartbeat. “Yes.”

“You also shouted something at the end, as Mr. Babbage disappeared. What was that?”

Ada felt immensely weary, as if she’d been standing for hours on a high mountaintop, exposed to the elements.

He knows everything else, he may as well know this.

“Canto Thirteen.”

He cocked his head. “Why would you shout such a thing?”

Ada felt her knees begin to tremble. She wanted to sit. She wanted to call the servants for food and drink.

She wanted to order Bastion to throw this man with his glass-blue eyes out the window, gather up the memoir pages and hide them away again.

“What do you know of automata codices?” she asked.

Mr. Worth shrugged minutely. “They carry the encoded language that determines how an automaton will behave, which commands it will follow and so forth.”

“And on the cards that I have designed personally...there is an extra set of codes. Those codes identify a command that will stop the mechanism if spoken.”

“I see.” But he didn’t. Neither did he believe her.

His open doubt bit hard. “No machine is infallible, Mr. Worth, and a number of the automata in this house are highly dangerous. It is necessary that there be a safe word of some sort.”

“A very sensible precaution,” he agreed smoothly. “But I ask again, why would you call out your private safe word to a machine you did not build?”

“I thought perhaps someone had counterfeited some of the codex cards I created. It has happened before. If so, they might have unknowingly copied the safe word codes.” More thoughts clicked into place. “Perhaps they had access to the Dover Patrol, or the Panzance Guard.”

“Perhaps.” He ran his fingers over the scarred table edge. “The only remaining question to ask is what can you tell me about the charred body we found in the alley behind your Camden factory?”

Ada briefly considered lying. A day ago, she would have.

“His name was Gordon Beale. He was a private agent and I was employing him to discover who was sending me these papers.” She gestured toward the pages on the table without looking at them. “His flier crashed, but he made his way back to me. I did not wish his body found in the house, so I had it removed.”

Mr. Worth blinked once. “Very cold of you, if I may say so, my lady.”

“Yes.”

“And quite illegal.”

“Yes.”

They stood, gazes locked, neither giving ground before the other.

“And did he tell you anything before he died?” Mr. Worth asked at last.

“I asked who had...harmed him. And he said...” She swallowed. “He said, ‘Your father.’”

Mr. Worth rubbed the side of his jaw but to her surprise did not continue the questions. “Thank you, Lady Lovelace.” He bowed to her. “I have left my card with your butler. You will be so good as to contact me if you think of anything new, or if you decide to leave London for any reason. Now, with your permission, I will show myself out.”

He bowed and left, closing the door behind himself.

The floor outside made no sound.

Ada realised she was shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out the window. Down in the street, carts and horses jostled with the steam wagons. A tinker family carried clockwork birds in cages and cried out their wares, but made room for the pair of whistling automatic horses that pulled a carriage the size of a rolling house.

The gossips and the tittle-tattles liked to speculate that she was hopelessly in love with Charles Babbage. How could a woman and man create so much together without love between them? But Charles loved the work, the machines, the acclaim. Oh, he cared for her, more than her husband, certainly more than her children. But love? That raw storm of endless, unstoppable emotion her father had written of? No. No one felt such a thing for her.

But she liked Mr. Babbage. She respected him, and he had seen at once what she meant when she showed him the notebooks filled with switching diagrams that could be used to directly command automata and engines. No one else had ever believed her when she spoke of her mechanical dreams.

Ada looked at the secret papers laid out so neatly on her desk. It was impossible to leave them there, naked to the world. She gathered them gently up to return them to their safe hiding place.

It was only then she realised one was missing. Gone. Into the hands of Mr. Worth of the glass-blue eyes, who did not believe her explanation as to why she had called out the safe word command.

Slowly, awkwardly, Ada Byron, Ada King, Countess Lovelace began to cry.

VI

“You have been keeping silent about a great deal, Lady Lovelace,” Mr. Worth said.

It had been fully four days since Mr. Worth had interviewed her and removed the page from her father’s memoirs. Since then, Ada had felt herself caught up in some strange country dance in which she was required to move through an infinite formal succession of figures without being able to control them. If she was not talking with the head of police or the Home Secretary, she was at the Camden factory. If not there, she was in the salon with Mother and the Furies, receiving visitors and saying again what a shock, what a dreadful shock it was.

It was a strange relief to have Mr. Worth stride into her workroom again, barely waiting for the footman to step aside. She had always felt a kinship with his kind of man, to her mother’s dismay. Mr. Worth was, in his own way, a creator. He dealt in the real and was not too proud to use his hands. That he did not trust her was almost beside the point.

But not entirely. “You stole my property, Mr. Worth,” said Ada, even as she gestured him toward a chair in the library alcove.

Mr. Worth ignored her words, and her invitation to sit. “You have been receiving mysterious packages, my lady. Your investigative consultant died recently in a highly preventable accident.”

Ada drew herself up straight. She’d had her reply prepared from the first. “My inquiries had nothing to do with my work or with Mr. Babbage, Mr. Worth. It was a purely personal matter.”

Mr. Worth sighed. “Lady Lovelace, before last Tuesday, Mr. Babbage’s life was proceeding normally. But you...your father’s memoirs are resurrected, your man died, and your partner was kidnapped. Whether you wish it or not, your personal affairs must be at the centre of my inquiries.” He drew out the ragged, water-stained page he had taken from her and unfolded it carefully. “Now, I was under the impression your father’s memoirs had been destroyed?”

“By his publisher, John Murray.” Ada drew in a deep breath and forced her thoughts to hold their places. Mr. Worth had the paper in his hand. She could not prevaricate. Neither could she--no matter how much she wanted to--snatch it from his fingers. “Mr. Murray said they were...unsuitable for a general readership.”

“Mmm.” Damon Worth pursed his lips. “But this page at least does not include the usual unsuitable reasons. For example, ‘Why do I find myself thinking of baby Ada now? What place will that child--or any child--ever again hold in my thoughts after the morrow? Perhaps that is what disturbs Mother Mary...?’” Mr. Worth raised an eyebrow at her. Ada opened her mouth, but no words emerged. “I will have to have a word with Mr. Murray.”

He sat regarding her for a long moment. He was waiting for her to grow uncomfortable and fill the silence, he hoped, with revealing or poorly considered words. But Ada had suffer this tactic from her mother and had years of practise keeping silent.

At last, Mr. Worth inclined his head as if to acknowledge her victory, and changed the subject. “What’s behind that curtain there?” He asked, turning toward the green baize draperies that hung between two of the bookcases, where a fireplace might be in a more usual sort of sitting room.

I would not be at all surprised if you already knew. “A portrait of my father. My mother presented it to me on my wedding night.” A test, you see, to determine that I was beyond being affected by the sight of him.

“May I see it?”

“If you wish.” She stood up and pulled the cord.

The curtains opened to reveal a space of blank wall with a faint square of dust marking the place where the portrait had been.

Ada stared. She saw the empty spot, but it made no sense whatsoever. The portrait had to be there--a young man in Albanian dress with dark hair and narrow moustache and a strong smooth profile. He looked confidently into the distance. It was a handsome face, a face that had once driven young women to swoon and much more.

The wall was blank.

Ada rounded on Mr. Worth.

“Where is it?” she cried.

He neither moved nor flinched. “I don’t know. When was the last time you looked behind that curtain?”

 “I...I cannot remember.” Ada pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. A tremor shook her. What is happening?

“A month? A year?”

“I...I don’t know.” She’d hidden it because it was hidden while she was growing up. But she’d known it was there, an embodiment of her father’s ghost in oil and canvas.

Do not let him distract you. Do not let him command this. “Did you know about this?” she demanded.

“I did,” said Mr. Worth, quite unperturbed. “But I needed to find out if you did. Do you need to sit down, my lady?”

She did, but she did so quickly, so that he would not have time to step forward to help her. Now he could look down on her from his great height.

“Your mother, Lady Lovelace. Her feelings toward your father seem to have been...somewhat complex.”

Ada’s hands twisted together. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

The corner of Mr. Worth’s mouth curled up. Again, he did not believe her. “She was instrumental in spreading the rumours of an affair with his half-sister that caused him to enter his self-imposed exile,” he said. “She accused him of sodomy. And yet she keeps his name, his ring, his portrait and his child.”

He waited. He would wait for an hour, or longer. She could tell. He was that sort. Not too proud to use his hands, or anything that came into them.

“My mother, Mr. Worth, is acutely aware of the realities of power.” She had never spoken aloud of these things. Not even to Mr. Babbage. “If she is Lady Byron, she has power. If she is the keeper of Lord Byron’s daughter, she has a kind of legitimacy that just being...another castoff woman cannot confer.” Her thoughts flashed to Lady Melbourne in her unsuitable dress, smiling beside her husband on the quay.

“Could Lady Byron have removed his portrait?”

“She would have no reason to do so.”

“I did not ask if she would,” said Mr. Worth patiently. “I asked if she could.”

Ada swallowed and shuffled through her thoughts. “If she acquired the key to the lock, it is physically possible. She knew where it was, and it was not secured to the wall.” She paused. “You are aware that Lady Melbourne was on the quay as well, that day?”

Mr. Worth nodded. “And I am of course aware of her...connection with Lord Byron. It is a difficult matter to discover information about the wife of the Prime Minister, but inquiries are being made.” His eyes went distant. She could practically hear the turning of the gears in his mind as he totted up a list of all that needed to be done. “Now, Lady Lovelace, I must ask you for the remainder of your father’s memoirs.”

Ada lifted her eyes and frowned deeply. “You have no right.”

“My lady,” he sighed, and Ada saw the dark rings under his eyes. She also noted for the first time that his collar was dirty, and crooked. “You know that is not a true statement. Do you want me to get them or will you?”

Ada rose and walked to her desk. She worked the marquetry switch she had thought so clever. She glanced at her keyman, Bastion. Mr. Worth had no idea what commands Bastion answered to. With a word to her automatic servant, Mr. Worth could find himself restrained, or worse. With a word, he could be made to regret he had come to turn her world over.

She lifted her father’s papers from the drawer, placed them in a portfolio and handed them across.

Mr. Worth received them with a bow. “Thank you for your time, Lady Lovelace.”‘

“Mr. Worth,” she said as he turned away. “If I might ask you a question.”

“Of course, my lady.” He faced her fully, patiently.

“On the quay, you asked me several questions about souls and machines. Why?”

His smile was small, almost bashful. “Because I very rarely have the chance to indulge my personal curiosity.”

“But why that particular subject?”

“Because, Lady Lovelace, the person from whom that automatic valet fled in Scotland was my brother.”

He bowed once more, his glass-blue eyes shimmering bright. She closed the door behind him and listened while his feet passed over her nightingale floor without triggering one of the loose boards.

VII

Three more days passed before Ada could contrive sufficient excuse to allow her to visit Lady Melbourne. Three days of signing papers, writing letters, and issuing orders. Three days of listening to her men of business explain that they did not wish to be indelicate, but this was a marvellous opportunity. The abduction of Mr. Babbage had shown that the government and the police needed to increase the investment in the automatic sciences, and the firm of Babbage & Lovelace was uniquely qualified to answer the national need, provided she would appoint a temporary director, in Mr. Babbage’s...absence.

Ada knew what she was supposed to do. Mother and the Furies, with William’s support, had made it all plain. She was to keep on. The proper men would find Mr. Babbage, if he was to be found at all. If not, another partner would be taken on, or the business would be sold. That would be even better. That would leave a fortune for William to be in charge of, and she could retire to her parlour and do charitable works, possibly even found a school. Activities proper to a titled lady.

Ada demurred and delayed and finally locked herself in the workroom, where she did nothing but look up at the green curtain covering the wall where her father’s portrait had been. It was too much. She needed to act, and to understand. She needed to know why her father was being resurrected at the same time Mr. Babbage had been taken.

###

As Ada expected, she was admitted to the Prime Minister’s private residence as soon as she presented her card. Lady Melbourne sat alone in a well-appointed blue and green parlour. When Ada entered the room, that lady stretched out both hands.

“Ada, my dear! This is most unexpected! How are you, poor, dear child?” She gripped Ada’s hands as if her strength could convey sincerity.

“I am perfectly well, thank you, Lady Melbourne.”

“Of course, of course.” She laid one dry hand on Ada’s cheek. Ada had to work not to shake her off. “Anyone can tell by looking at you how well you will bear up under your trials. Such strength. So very like your father.”

Which was not an assessment of Lord Byron that Ada had ever heard before.

“I have often longed to be able to speak with you about your dear father, you know,” Lady Melbourne went on as she settled back in her plush chair and motioned Ada to the green sofa. “I even wrote you once or twice. I do not expect you ever received my letters?”

“I did not.”

“As I thought. She sought to separate you from all knowledge, all memory...” Lady Melbourne’s face spasmed in anger.

“It is about my father I’ve come, Lady Melbourne,” said Ada quickly.

Lady Melbourne’s smile was all sunshine, but the gleam in her eye was cold triumph. “I knew it! Oh, Ada!” Again Lady Melbourne seized her hand. “You want to bring him back, don’t you?”

“I am not precisely sure what you mean,” said Ada, extricating herself gently but firmly.

“You want to fully acknowledge that you are his heir, his living legacy.” The triumph was gone from Lady Melbourne, replaced by something almost ethereal. “You wish to be reunited with him, as a portion of his greatness.”

Lord help us, she’s been listening to the ghost-gossipers. Not a week went by without someone attempting to proclaim that her father’s shade still lingered on Earth, and that he had a message for Ada. “I wish to know, Lady Melbourne, if you are the one who has been sending me pages from my father’s memoirs.” Ada found no polite way to introduce the subject gradually, and so determined to be direct.

Lady Melbourne blanched. “You’ve been receiving...?”

“Journal pages, Lady Melbourne. Indisputably in my father’s hand. Most of them concern his summer in Switzerland in 1816. The first after he...left...England.”

Lady Melbourne stood abruptly and moved to the fireplace. She leaned there, staring at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror. Ada watched her mouth move. She watched the aging beauty say over and over, They survive. They survive!

“Do they...is it suspected this paper of your father’s has something to do with Mr. Babbage’s disappearance?” enquired Lady Melbourne aloud.

“Everything is suspected at this time. But, I confess, I do not see how the two could be related.” Ada tilted her head a little. “Do you, Lady Melbourne?”

“I? Not I,” She waved her hand toward the door. “I am locked in my rooms, not to be let out if it can be avoided. I’m sure I am permitted to know nothing.”

Which is an interesting turn of phrase.

Lady Melbourne turned toward Ada again. Her colour was very high and her breath came short. Ada drew back a little, expecting that lady to reach for her salts or to swoon, and she found she had no wish to witness such a scene.

“It was not I, Ada, who sent these papers. Although, had your father left any instruction for me to entrust his journal to you, I would have carried it out faithfully.”

Ada mustered a smile and got to her feet. “I am sorry I cannot stay, Lady Melbourne. I have another engagement.”

 She took Lady Melbourne’s hand in farewell. That lady’s eyes glowed as radiant as a new bride’s, as she rang the bell for the servant to show Ada out. Ada left the parlour too unnerved to look back.

###

“Ada.” Mother set down her teacup. “I’m so glad that you place such confidence in the officers of the law that you feel perfectly free to go on as if nothing had happened to Mr. Babbage.”

Mother’s parlour had been very carefully arranged. She always sat in the exact centre of her gold-upholstered sofa so that she was the first thing one saw upon entry. The Furies sat on either side of her in smaller chairs, never altering their accustomed positions.

The overall effect was of walking into a queen’s formal court.

Ada had not wanted to come here. She had wanted to go to her studio and think, but Mrs. Carr had been waiting in the foyer with a summons when she returned, and Ada knew from long experience if she put the encounter off it would only grow worse.

Ada folded her hands and reminded herself that she was no longer a child. “I was confident I could not be harmed on the short drive to the Prime Minister’s residence.”

For one of the few times in her life, Ada saw her mother startled. “You called on the Prime Minister?”

“Lord Melbourne was not at home. I spoke with Lady Melbourne.”

With a startling amount of inner satisfaction, Ada watched her mother flush from paper white to beet red.

Ada felt her mouth settle into a hard line, and she once again heard Mr. Worth say, Your mother’s feelings for your father were...complex.

And Mother could have commanded a servant to take the portrait at any time. Or she could have done it herself. She could have an entire store of her husband’s papers, unknown to any. Lady Byron had long ago perfected the art of keeping her own counsel.

“Years ago, I forbade you to speak to that woman.”

“I have not forgotten.”

“But you disobeyed me?”

“It would seem so.” The Furies murmured their distress, but Ada remained utterly still. Her mother had insisted she learn to be so; had, in fact, made her lie on a board in absolute stillness a half-hour at a time every day as a child. “I wished to ask her about some papers I have received.”

“What papers?” demanded Lady Byron.

“Papers that appear to belong to my father.”

For a moment Ada thought her mother might actually faint.

So, apparently, did Mrs. Carr and Mrs. Doyle, both of whom started to their feet before Lady Byron shot them a quelling glance.

“You will bring these papers to me at once.”

“I cannot. Mr. Worth has removed them all.”

Lady Byron’s hands trembled. Perfect stillness, Mother. It is not so simple, is it?

“And did...that woman send these papers?”

“She said she did not. Did you?”

“Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. Where my father is concerned you have done many unusual things. The portrait, for instance.”

But mention of the painting elicited no further reaction. Lady Byron stared at her, gimlet-eyed, searching for the object or subject where her next words could do their worst. This time, though, Ada found she was able to stand that fierce, righteous gaze. Her mother’s disapproval was nothing compared to the reality of Mr. Babbage’s disappearance, of the threat that her world, her work, might be stripped away.

“I had credited you with a more logical mind, Ada,” said Lady Byron at last. “But I see that sentiment has blinded you to duty. All I have done, I have done to preserve my freedom, and yours.”

Mine? Ada’s brows shot up. You would have controlled the beating of my heart if you could.

“Perhaps you wish you were like his bastard, Allegra, abandoned to die in a convent. Or perhaps you wish you were like his half-sister’s child, the product of so much fierce and unnatural love.”

Shock sent an involuntary tremor through her. Mother had never once spoken of those other children to Ada’s face. “You have no idea, foolish girl, how you must fight, how I must fight, against the curse of him. He returns again and again, seeking to strip all away and leave behind nothing but what gratifies his selfish, mindless need for continuance. From this I have done my best to shield you. Perhaps this was my mistake. Perhaps I should have made you face it, fight it for yourself.” She frowned, but Ada knew she did not see the room before her, not any more. “Perhaps then you would have understood the nature of the war.” She closed her eyes. “You may leave, Ada. I must think.”

Ada chose to ignore the nature of the dismissal. She curtsied and withdrew.  Safe in her workroom, she sat down to pen a letter to Mr. Worth.

But it was Lord Melbourne who arrived first.

VIII

The Prime Minister was pacing up and down in the grand salon when Ada entered. They made the proper greetings and Ada sent for refreshments. Mother and William arrived, only to be summarily dismissed by Lord Melbourne. Ada thought her mother would spit nails right there.

“Is there any news of Mr. Babbage?” asked Ada as soon as the salon door closed.

“None that I am aware of,” said Lord Melbourne, sitting on the edge of a wing-backed chair. “What I want to discuss, Lady Lovelace, is your visit to my wife.”

Ada hesitated, but Lord Melbourne went on. “It is beyond me, my lady, with all your responsibilities at this crucial, unsettled time, why you would choose to trouble Lady Melbourne.”

“I’m sure I did not mean to trouble her.”

“Do not pretend to me,” whispered Lord Melbourne harshly. “You come to my home, you drag up the past and create agitation and dismay. Is it entertaining to you, Lady Lovelace? Do you enjoy the spectacle?”

Anger poured in waves from the Prime Minister’s frame, and his sharp chin trembled.

I miscalculated. I misunderstood. He loves her. God help him, he loves her and can never have her love.

“I am sorry, Lord Melbourne,” she said. “Truly.”

“Years ago.” The Prime Minister leaned forward. “I warned the government that development of the automatic sciences should not be left in your hands. I reminded them how dangerously unstable your father was, with his wild conduct and unceasing perversions.”

“Lord Melbourne...”

“I warned them, Lady Lovelace, that madness can run in families. That the strains of such an enterprise on the female mind could bring on hysteria and instability. Especially if any additional, unforeseen pressures should be brought to bear.”

His eyes did not flicker once from hers. This was a man of power, of privilege, and a man who would protect what was his, whatever the cost.

“You are an intelligent woman, Lady Lovelace. You will think about what I’ve said.” Lord Melbourne stood. “Keep your seat. I will see myself out.”

Ada did keep her seat. She sat in perfect stillness as the light faded around her, and she heard the gong ring for dinner. She sat alone, seeing her mother, and Lady Melbourne, and Lord Melbourne.

And her father hovering over them all, his arms outstretched, his hands open to claim them for his own.

IX

After the Prime Minister’s visit, the atmosphere at Lovelace House became almost unbearable. Mother or the Furies patrolled the corridors constantly to watch for Ada’s comings and goings. William had gone so far as to insist that she not leave the house unaccompanied, and she found she did not have the strength to argue with him.

She spent more and more time in the Garden of the Automatic Sciences, among the blooming trees and the silent keymen. She adjusted the mechanisms and considered improvements, listened to the ticking and the birdsong. She did everything she could to try to shield herself from the sense of impotence gnawing at her heart.

In midafternoon the peacocks opened their tails and the mastiff raised its head.

The door opened a heartbeat later. Mr. Worth walked in. She suppressed a smile as she saw his glass-blue eyes widen.

“Vigilance,” said Ada to the Mastiff. Its bronze ears pricked up. “This is Mr. Worth. He is welcome here.”

Mr. Worth bowed, but he was not really looking at her. The great stag peeked from behind the lemon trees.  Mr. Worth caught his breath. For the first time in days, Ada smiled.

But the smile was fleeting. Mr. Worth still wore his brown suit and his stained collar. He had not shaved today, possibly for several days, and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull.

She did not have to ask. “There has been no word.”

Mr. Worth dropped onto the edge of the nearest fountain and tossed his battered bowler down beside him.

“Nothing. No demands, no corpse... Forgive me, Lady Lovelace.” He smoothed his hair back. “It’s as if he’s vanished from the face of the earth.”

“Did you receive my letter?”

He nodded. “And then I received one from the Prime Minister informing me if I continued to harass his wife, or permitted you to do so, he would make it his business to ruin me.” He spoke with calm disinterest, but his eyes were fixed and purposeful.

“He made similar threats to me.” Ada sat on the wrought iron bench across from him. Vigilance, ever alert, lay down at her feet.

Slowly, Mr. Worth’s shoulders straightened. Slowly, his tired eyes grew hard.

“Lady Lovelace, is Mr. Babbage a man who can be worked upon? Is there anything he could be threatened with?”

“Aside from drowning in the Thames?” she snapped back. But the words made no change in Mr. Worth.

“In truth, no.” She sighed. “He lost his wife and three of his children in ‘27. Since then...since then he’s only cared about the automata. About creating the machines to make the empire great.”

Whatever happens after this, we have succeeded, Ada. We have done it!

“And in fact, since his public and dramatic disappearance I understand Babbage & Lovelace stands to gain several lucrative new contracts?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Does Mr. Babbage want to be found, Lady Lovelace? Do you want him found?”

Anger surged through Ada’s blood as she realised the extent of the accusation, but Mr. Worth sat as still as if he had been trained by Mother.

“Lady Lovelace, you know a great deal about hidden commands and how small actions propagate across a much larger mechanism. You appear to live entirely in this house, and yet when I look, I find all manner of strange investments and involvements: an unusual bookshop in Charring Cross, journeys of exploration in Africa, scholars in Amsterdam and Vienna... Then I find you’ve gained great benefit from this untoward disappearance of your partner, and might even be able to raise a scandal that could bring down the Prime Minister.”

Ada’s throat seized tight, but before she could clear it and formulate a reply, the nearest peacock spread its tail and Vigilance lifted smoothly to his feet.

William strode into the garden.

He marched straight up to Mr. Worth. Ada saw how his hands clenched into fists.

“This is most irregular, Mr. Worth.”

Mr. Worth bowed, as calm and controlled as if he had never accused her of fraud. “I beg your pardon, Lord Lovelace. I had business with Lady Lovelace.”

“Then your business is with me,” William spat.

“William...” began Ada, but when he turned toward her, she found she barely recognised him. This was not mild, politic William, but a man made reckless by fear.

“I have permitted this up until now because I had hoped my wife might be able to assist in the recovery of Mr. Babbage,” he said to Mr. Worth. “But clearly you have failed in that, and your impertinence and insistence on private meetings have become intolerable. You may leave the house.”

Ada felt her cheeks flush. With William ordering him out of the house, Mr. Worth’s suspicions toward her would only increase.

Mr. Worth bowed again. “As you wish, my lord.”

And he was gone. Ada faced her husband.

“What do you think you’re playing?” William demanded before she could get a word out. “Your mother’s been conspiring with those women of hers for days now. I can’t get her to say three words to me!”

“You place a great deal of store on my mother’s regard for you,” she sneered.

“God Almighty, Ada!” he cried. “I would think you of all people would understand what she’s capable of? She mounted an utterly ruthless campaign against her husband so she could keep hold of you. Do you think she will not mount an equally ruthless campaign against you, against us if you threaten her?”

“What threat have I made against her?”

“You went to see Lady Melbourne. You are holding secret conference with Mr. Worth.”

“I want to find Mr. Babbage!”

“Hang Mr. Babbage, Ada! It’s ourselves and our children you should be troubled about.” He scrubbed at his scalp. “You must pull everything apart. You can never let it be and just do your part!”

An idea slotted into place. “Has Lord Melbourne been talking with you?”

“Worse. He’s been talking with your mother, Ada.”

Ada felt the strength drain out of her knees. She sat down abruptly.

“Now you understand.” William made no move toward her. “You have never realised how important you truly are, how important it is that you of all people keep up appearances!”

“I never asked for this,” she murmured.

“Well, you’ve got it, Ada, and now you might be ruined by it.”

She looked up at him, looming over her, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Why did you marry me, William?”

He regarded her with a bleak honesty of expression she had never before seen in him. “You were Byron’s brilliant daughter. You were going to change the world. Everyone knew it. I wanted to shape that change.” He shook his head. “The more fool I.”

He left her there. Around her, the garden ticked and the birds sang and the mastiff sat still as the machine it was, as still as her mother had always wanted her to be.

I built this world. She wrapped her arms around herself. I taught it to move and think and speak. I hold its keys and commands. Why have I done so much and it still means so little? Nothing matters but the blood in my veins. That’s all anyone sees.

The play’s the thing...

No matter what happens, Ada, we did this.

There are half a dozen people with the technical expertise for this. You are one of them. Mr. Babbage is another.

Does Mr. Babbage want to be found?

She saw it, cascading into place, a perfect formation, as perfect as any arrangement of commands. It was perfectly clear, interconnected, and clean.

Her first thought was to call Mr. Worth back. But she hesitated. To bring in Mr. Worth would be to remove affairs from her own hands, and enough had slipped out of her control already. Whatever happened that day on the river, she still owed Mr. Babbage a great deal--too much to permit him to be exposed without warning.

But she could not do what was necessary alone.

But she was not alone.

The world out there was her world, her Garden.

You’re wrong, William. I understand appearances perfectly. I understand that if you appear powerless, people will underestimate you. It was unsurprising, really, that the person who came closest to deciphering this was Mr. Worth.

Ada rose. What she did now might be a mistake. She might risk exposure of her most carefully constructed secrets. She would certainly never be able to hide behind the mask of the retiring lady of numbers and languages again.

But if she stayed inside, then the Prime Minister and Mr. Worth, and even William and Mother, would make of her what they could. Which might very well be a Judas Goat.

“Keymen, come here.”

Smoothly the three keymen moved to stand in front of her. She opened their backs and extracted from each of them three golden cards. These she slotted into the back of the mastiff. When this was done, she spoke one word. A moment later, three sparkling black spiders, each as big as a pigeon, scuttled down from the trees. Ada picked them up gently, one by one, and tucked them into the folds of her crinoline petticoat.

“Come, Vigilance.”

With her dog following close behind her, Ada Lovelace unlocked the central window of the conservatory and walked out into the night.

X

The New Britannia still stood at the London docks, with naval men to guard it. They were highly reluctant to allow anyone onto the ship, being under orders, as they repeatedly told her. But she was Ada Lovelace, and when she said she had thought of something that might help recover Mr. Babbage, they believed her and let her pass, carriage lantern in hand and automatic dog pacing close behind.

In the pilot house, the analytic engine cast long shadows across her, giving the place the feel of a pagan temple. Ada stopped at the codex console, which was too big for the ten cards she had inserted into it. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over the teakwood fittings and brass flourishes. One was loose. She turned it, and heard the click.

The back of the cabinet came open, revealing the second codex rack, with its second set of cards still in place.

Oh, Charles.

“I told them you would find me.” His voice reached her a moment before his shadow crossed her.

Ada straightened up. A gentle sorrow filled her as she saw him standing there, holding a second flickering lantern, his clothing rumpled and his hair uncombed.

Sorrow, but no surprise.

“You should have disappeared more quietly, Charles.”

“Perhaps.”

“I see now how you moved the commands.” She gestured at the second codex rack. “How did you conceal the tentacle?”

“There are at least a dozen spools of cable in the hold; it was easy enough.”

“I see. And you were drawn back into the ship through one of the water in-take ports for the boilers?”

“Just so.”

“They must have searched the ship.”

“But they did not search inside the boilers, or look at the fittings closely enough to see that one of them was false.” He smiled weakly. “They should have sent George and the steam monkeys down. They would have spotted my little house in an instant. As would you.”

“Are you going to tell me why, Mr. Babbage?”

“I thought perhaps you might like to come and see.” He gestured towards the hatch to the lower decks. Ada frowned and lifted the lantern.

“Vigilance will not be able to negotiate the ladders.”

“Then Vigilance can wait here.”

She looked into Mr. Babbage’s eyes. They were tired and sad, but otherwise they were as they had always been, clever, bright and sure: sure of himself, and sure of her.

For who knows me better?

“Stay, Vigilance.”

Charles led the way down the steep ladders, past the first deck, down to the second, and the third. At last Charles pushed open a metal hatchway and stood aside. Heat and light from an open furnace poured over her. Ada stepped over the threshold into the long, low boiler deck. The furnace filled the air with stifling heat and stench. The silent boilers waited hulking in the darkness, giant brass and copper spiders casting confusing shadows in the blazing furnace light.

On a long table by the furnace lay a skeleton of brass and of bronze, struts, gears and delicate cables designed to simulate joints, bone and muscle. To one side lay the carefully crafted face, painted with startling realism. Above hung the portrait from which the likeness had been taken.

Ada found she no longer had the strength to hold her lantern, and set it carefully on the floor. She could not bring herself to approach the table with its gleaming metallic burden. “What are you doing, Mr. Babbage?”

“He is building an automaton, Lady Lovelace.” A rail-thin and stooped old man stepped out from behind the nearest boiler. “I thought you would recognise the process.”

Ada tried to draw herself up and failed. What strength and determination had carried her here had vanished. “And you are...?”

The man bowed. “Fletcher, my lady.” His face looked chalky, almost cadaverous, in the blazing light. His clothes were worn, but the holster containing the pistol at his side was very new. “I have the honour to serve your father, Lord Byron.”

“My father is dead.” You’re a ghoul, sir. A ghoul!

Fletcher smiled, and she saw his blackened, crooked teeth. But his lips quickly spasmed as a violent cough took him.

“Not so, my lady,” he said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “Not entirely, not yet.” He smiled at the portrait, and the half-completed automaton. “Your father long dreamed of another, more perfect, more enduring home for his soul, which was too strong for his mortal shell.” Fletcher smiled fondly, and his long fingers caressed the metal struts of the automaton’s arm in a way that made Ada shudder inwardly. “But the first great endeavour failed. He never spoke of why, and I was not able to read his papers before they were stolen by those who only professed to admire him.”

“Mr. Murray.”

“And a certain Thomas Moore. Small-minded men, only after profit. But I kept faith. Across all the years, I kept faith.” Fletcher’s face was sad and proud, and Ada realised in his youth he must have been very handsome. “But I am dying, my lady. If I have a year left to me, it is more than I expect. I had to act. I needed to create a new housing for my lord by whatever means could be found.”

“A new housing? What...?” She stared at the half-completed automaton on its table. She stared at the portrait hanging on the wall above. “Oh, no, Mr. Babbage. No.”

“The men of the East Indies have long known the secret of the transference of souls,” said Fletcher. “As did the pharaohs of Egypt. Old Daedalus of Greece knew, and it was in Greece where my master was made immortal, a pure soul, asleep and waiting until I could bring him into the world again.”

But Ada found she was barely listening to him. All her attention was on Mr. Babbage hunched beside the table, his shadow falling across the perfectly painted, perfectly cast face. “Mr. Babbage?” His name burst out of her. “You permitted your life’s work to be endangered for madness?”

Mr. Babbage spread his hands. “They would have ruined me, Ada. They would have said I stole the design of the original difference engine. They had the documents ready. The scandal...the scandal would have destroyed me. Us.”

“You are stronger than anyone this man could bring to bear.”

“Not stronger than Lord Melbourne.”

Ada’s mouth snapped shut.

“Yes,” said Fletcher, still stroking the automaton’s arm. “Lady Melbourne was the only other so unswerving in her love to his lordship. While Mr. Babbage has led an exemplary life, her husband’s reputation is much more fragile, as is his position with our young queen who is so eager to make her court and cabinet over to undo the... excesses of the late king.”

Appearances again, always appearances. And to whom would appearances matter more than the Prime Minister?

It was madness. It was said her father drove those nearest him to insanity, and here was proof.

No more. Ada straightened. I will not permit it. “I am taking Mr. Babbage out of here.”

Mr. Babbage raised his hands, warning her, but Ada stopped him with a gesture. “It is over. Whatever this insanity is, it is done with, and we are returning to London. And do not,” she added to the sad, mad old man, “think of attempting to threaten me.”

“I make no threats, my lady,” Fletcher replied harshly. “Promises only, and I promise I will not permit even you to interfere.” He drew the pistol from his holster. Ada was quite sure the antique thing was loaded and primed. “Mr. Babbage will not lift a finger to help you”--He cocked the hammer back--“and you’ve left your dog far above. You are quite alone, my lady. “

“There, Mr. Fletcher, you are most mistaken.”

Ada raised her overskirt. The shock of that unladylike act froze Fletcher in his place, but it was the sight of the spiders, the three huge black spiders scuttling down from her white crinolines, that sent him reeling backward.

“They don’t know you, Fletcher,” said Ada as the man bumped against the cold boiler. “They are commanded to attack the ones they do not know.”

“Call them off!” Fletcher aimed at Ada. “I will shoot!”

Ada remained perfectly still. The first spider sprang, and the pistol fired. Mr. Babbage cried out, and Fletcher fell.

The spider scampered off his breast, and Ada lifted her overskirt again and spoke another word. All the spiders returned to their hiding place in the voluminous folds of starched white muslin.

She lowered the skirt and looked at Mr. Babbage, much saddened. “I know why you did it, Charles,” she murmured.

He turned his face away.

“You thought if my father could be brought back, perhaps your wife could be, and your children.”

“I’m sorry, Ada.”

She held out her hand. “Come, before the men on guard become worried and try to get past Vigilance.”

Together, she and Mr. Babbage walked out into the honest night.

Ada found she was not in the least surprised to see Mr. Worth was waiting for them on the quay.

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