Chapter 3

You've heard about clockwork bartenders before, you've never seen one. You've all seen clockworks before, most of them are vanity projects of the rich and famous. Tweeting birds, clockwork cats and dogs that manner of thing, this one seems particularly complicated because it appears to understand simple verbal commands.

Nathaniel recockons there must be a difference engine somewhere in the car, the reedy voice is clearly produced by a number of pipes contained in the wall behind the bar. Almost like a sophisticated pipe organ.

A while later Francis, the steward, returns with menus for each of you. The fair while limited is vastly more impressive than what you could have obtained in the second and third class cars. They're offering roast bison, quail, rabbit, two types of soup and even ice cream for dessert to be followed by cigars and sherry.

Buford blinks at the menu after Francis has departed to fetch drinks, "Is this normal for ya'll?"

"Non," Mariette says with a smile, "but we will survive I suppose."

Ruby giggles, "I've never had someone bring me dinner before," she looks around at everyone somewhat aghast, "are you certain this is alright? It seems most improper."

"Ruby," Helen says swirling her whiskey, "are you not a paying passenger?"

Ruby nods, "Yes ma'am."

"Then might I suggest we owe it to ourselves to experience how the other half lives just this once?"

Experimenting with the machine Nathaniel determines pretty quickly that it's probably not as smart as his dog back home. It seems to know a fair amount about alcohol but nothing else. The the alcohol it does understand is very American in nature, exotic drinks are clearly not on the menu and anything that requires more than one or two types of alcohol is definitely beyond its abilities.

It is impressive to him nonetheless. Its ability to listen for orders is something he hadn't considered before, clearly it is always listening and the pipe organ speech is equally astonishing.

Helen nods at Napoleon as Ruby orders for herself.

"Be careful cherie," Mariette warns her, "to much rich food can make you sick if your stomach is not ready for it."

Ruby nods, "Am I ordering to much? I've never ordered anything before."

"Yer doin' just fine missie," Buford grumbles, "you order what you want and if it's to much we'll know better for next time."

Francis bows after taking everyone's order and heads back through the door at the front of the car.

Buford reaches into his carpet bag and pulls out a cardboard box full of revolver cartridges and puts them on the mahogany table in front of him.

"What are you doing Buford?" Helen asks.

"I ain't showing up in San Francisco unprepared and if anyone else tries to rob this train they're going to be in for a bit of a surprise."

"You ever shot a firearm Miss Helen? Ruby? Mademoiselle d'Nimes?" Buford asks laying a Colt Peacemaker on the table.

Helen looks at the weapon and shakes her head.

Ruby makes a face, "Goodness no."

Mariette nods, "Oui."

Ruby looks at Mariette aghast.

"There was a revolution in France, I did what had to be done to survive."

Dinner is served soon after the order is taken and it consists of several courses of delicious fair, to be honest it's more food and far richer than anything you'd expected. You'd heard that the other half lives well, you had no idea just how well until tonight.

Once the meal is complete Francis comes back with a small wooden box filled with Havana cigars, and a bottle of whiskey. The ladies ponder retiring to the car immediately in front of the lounge car thus leaving the men to their own devices but Buford will have none of it and Miss Helen is inclined to agree.

Buford sit' back on the sofa and props his foot up on the table with an audible clunk that makes Francis wince prior to departing.

"Buford," Helen says with a frown, "get your boot off the mahogany."

He chuckles and puts his foot back down on the carpeted floor. "So," he says looking at Napoleon and Nathaniel, "what's your stories?"

Buford points to himself, "Veteran of Appomattox and Antietam, bounty hunter."

Helen smiles, "Reporter, I was supposed to be doing a story about travelling around the world in 80 days like Jules Verne's book but that snake Nellie Bly caught wind of what I was up to and departed two weeks before my funding could come through."

Ruby looks about nervously, "I'm just a maid servant."

Mariette smiles sadly, "I was travelling to San Francisco with my sister and a friend of ours, although I did not see him after the wreck so I presume he is no more. We have friends there we were to stay with before travelling across the Pacific."

The train travels on into the night and eventually, one by one the group all turn in to their private sleeper compartments in the next car forward. The night passes uneventfully and in the morning they're awakened as the train comes to a halt to take on water just before dawn.

Glancing out the windows you see that all around there are arid mountains, dry and brow but further up the slopes there is a smattering of green trees covered in light dusting of fresh snow. There's a noise outside in the hall as someone moves past and towards the lounge car at the back of the train. The scent of fresh brewed coffee drifts in, clearly an American roast not quite as strong as Napoleon or Nathaniel are used to but it still smells inviting.

There's a thump and a bump from the cabin between them were Buford is staying followed by a grumbling sigh, "Mmmm... Coffee."

The person in the hall moves forward again and a door opens in the hall, "Francis? That's yer name right?" Buford asks.

"Yes sir."

"Where we at son?"

"In the pass before Bakersfield sir, it's just a whistle stop in the middle of nowhere really. We'll be here for about an hour taking on water and coal."

"Alrighty then, thank you."

"Anytime sir."

There's some shuffling and moving about and a minute or so later Buford starts pounding on some doors further up the train car. "Come on ladies, times as good as any to teach you how to shoot."

Nathaniel explores the train, it is laid out a lot like the last one, not that he ever saw the last 3 cars of the last one but. Engine, tender, mail car, two second class cars, a dining car, first class sleeper with a small "ladies lounge" to the rear and finally a first class lounge car at the very back. He can't get further forward in the train than the mail car, it's locked. There are fewer than a dozen passengers in the second class cars. They must have boarded at stops that occurred in the middle of the night.

Napoleon spreads out the documents again and goes through them one at a time. He spots nothing that he hasn't seen before, in fact he feels to be going a little cross eyed by the time the train is ready to carry on.

While this is going on Buford takes the ladies out the the back deck of the lounge car, sets up some empty targets for them to shoot at and lets them practice with a variety of pistols for almost three quarters of an hour. To Napoleon's ear he's patient and skilled, he teaches them about breathing and aiming, squeezing the trigger and cocking the revolver prior to firing. He must have done this kind of thing before, he did say he was a soldier, maybe he trained new recruits.

Eventually the train starts moving again and heads down into Bakersfield. Here they observe a large aerodrome across from the train station, a large coal powered British liftwood ship is moored near the edge of the field. It's an iron clad gunboat of some kind, large black sponsons jut out from the main hull with large armored cannon mounts set into them.

Ruby smiles as she see's the gun boat, its Union Jack flying from the mast, an American flag flies from the other side of the mast.

Mariette frowns, there's a long enmity between the French and the British, it's hard to say if hers is a cultural dislike or a dislike of the warship itself.

Helen and Buford look at the armored gun boat in awe, this kind of thing is pretty much unheard of here, zeppelins yes but liftwood warships are exceedingly rare on Earth.

"What do you suppose it's doing here?" Helen asks staring at the craft as the train pulls into the station.

"Must be someone terribly important aboard," Ruby says. "tis not often that we see such a vessel even at home. M'lady has a friend, Lord Harrowgate, who owns a steam powered launch, it is quite the contraption."

The man at the train station looks over at Nathaniel, "That thing? It's the Dauntless, been here for better part of a week, they had some malfunction over the South Pacific, limped it to here before the driveshaft on the main propeller broke."

He shrugs and goes back to sweeping the platform, "Was supposed to arrive via train two days ago but that accident back near Ashfork kind of mucked that up."

Making their way to across the train yard the Aerodrome, perhaps it's an aetherdrome, Nathaniel and Napoleon get a little closer to the great flying machine. They can see a crane hanging off the side that appears to have recently hoisted a new propeller shaft into place. There's a large disassembled crate on the ground and a dozen or so British Marines on duty on the deck. There's a handful of crew on the ground and a number of local workers going about their business.

A young man, blonde hair and green eyes looks the two new comers up and down as they approach. He's dressed in engineer type coveralls, a dirty grey shirt, black boots and a broad brimmed hat, "Come to check out the Brit's fancy flyer huh? Pretty impressive, wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of those cannons."

The man points towards a fellow in a blue uniform with a large blonde handlebar mustache, "He's the one who's in charge of the ground crew." He looks Nathaniel up and down carefully, "Watch yourself though, he's got a bit of a temper."

Napoleon notes that the grass of the field under the vessel is flattened out and rustling, as though a breeze or a force is being pressed upon it. As they walk closer there's a definite down draft of air from beneath the vessel, not nearly enough to keep the iron clad aloft but there's definitely a force being exerted on the ground below it.

The man in the blue uniform with the blonde moustache notices their approach and quickly intercepts them before they can get to close. "That's close enough laddies, what's your business with the HMS Dauntless?" He's a stern no nonsense career military man by the look of him. Tall, muscular with piercing blue eyes and close cropped blonde hair held in place by some kind of hair cream.