Last week I introduced you to the rapscallion Schroeder. We continue with the crew of The Clockwork Caterpillar by looking at one of the more quiet members but a vital one nevertheless. The Clockwork Caterpillar occupies the same world as Thyre so it still contains the steampunk mechanists who add an element of technological anachronism to a time period that otherwise feels achingly familiar. Unlike Thyre, however, there is less focus on the competition between magic, technology and faith. This doesn’t mean that technology doesn’t have a dramatic impact on the people’s lives, however. One thing I love about the science fiction genre is its ability to investigate how we as individuals are shaped by the tools and conveniences we develop. It can change the very way we think about ourselves on a fundamental level and the thing that excites me about steampunk is that you can incorporate that conversation about technology in a genre that usually devotes itself to harsh moralistic stances of good and evil. In such a way, Laure explores the freedom that advanced technology can allow for oppressed individuals. As those with power often capitalize on outdated structures, they grow more and more reliant on younger minds able to comprehend these new powerful machines. And the mechanists pride themselves on drawing from any citizen capable of understanding the new scientific lens from which they view the world regardless of social or economic station. Though not all members in The Clockwork Caterpillar may seem like your typical brigands, this merely demonstrates that the lawless life entices many people due to circumstance just as much as it tempts others scruples.
Laure Bastien
Fire the boilers. Stoke the embers. Release the steam gauge. Watch for flarebacks. Shovel the coal.
It was a dance held in the narrow pits of iron and steel lit only with the swinging flame of a hooded lantern. Fire. Stoke. Release. Watch. Shovel.
Again and again in the wavering air and insufferable heat. The clatter of metal and whistle of boiling water was the orchestral accompaniment. The room shook with the performance deep in the belly of the machine. Clatter. Clank. Shovel. Spit.
It was a space few dared to visit, so dark and hot with everything smeared in coal dust, oil and grime. The boiling hot pipes overhead, the grilled furnaces blasting heat and the constant smell of carbon completed the transportation to the untamed Mawqith. Things came in here to be burned and consumed. Anything that survived had to be harder than rock.
It was tough, gruelling work. It was thankless and often forgotten work. It was a place people went to disappear.
And it was perfect for Laure.
Not that her crew knew her by that name. She was simply Jean, a young destitute eager for work and curiously possessed of enough mechanical know-how and spit fire to brave these bellies where older men were loathed to enter. It served a two-fold function. It helped shield her from discovery, protecting her from the discrimination of her ancestry and gender. It also paid handsomely for even brigands needed to keep their vessels running.
And Jean was certainly good at that.
They were called pirates. They were called thieves. They were called murderers and rapists. Some of it was even true. It didn’t matter. Magistrates and sheriffs would use what they could to hang them. Anything they couldn’t prove they would fabricate. It was the sort of work no one in their right mind would wilfully partake. But then none of them were in a position to negotiate anything better.
Some of her colleagues were mad men. She had no delusions about that. She would overhear their braggart claims about in-numerous atrocities performed against the savages, slaves and kuli. For some delighted in the debauchery that came hand-in-hand with this profession. But the boastful weren’t the ones worth concern. The loud were typically the cowards, trying desperately to live a life they heard from their mother’s apron strings. Ride the rails long enough and you learned that most the stories were little more than pure fancy.
They were the greatest nuisances, however. Fragile egos are in a constant struggle to prove themselves otherwise. Entering the engines was a sign of grit. Cutting down the engineers proved their own strength. Invariably, they barged into these blasted sanctuaries seeking approval or validation of their fortitude. Or perhaps they simply needed some audience to reaffirm their bravery. But if any were to intrude, it was those ill-equipped to handle the heat.
They never stayed long. They could usually be chased away with requests for assistance. It was easy enough to play on their arrogance—to appear frail and incapable of one’s own duty. It was no secret that the engineers received an oft times unfair distribution of pay. And every braggart jumped at the opportunity to flex their prowess and show just how good they could be.
They always failed.
Sometimes they managed to escape before receiving a frightening burn. Laure preferred that they did otherwise their foolishness would become a badge of pride as they attempted to spin misfortune into grand acts of heroism.
No, it was the quiet ones that worried her. The ones that watched her closely when she emerged for sustenance and sleep. There was always at least one in every crew. A dark, brooding individual that seemed suspicious of any and everyone. Sometimes they were the outcast, kept only for their particularly frightening viciousness. More worrisome were the left hands of the chiefs: who held his ear and counsel. They were the ones Laure watched most closely.
They usually only visited once. Most were content to stand by the door and watch, their eyes drinking in everything as the puzzle of their mind formulated unknowable thoughts. Sometimes they wouldn’t even announce their presence; Laure would just be working and turn around to find them there, leering.
They were the ones that put her on edge. They were the reason for her hypervigilance. For, until that moment they did their inspection, she couldn’t feel safe in her haven. But once she passed whatever test they held, it was a simple matter of learning their routine. They always had a routine. One they wouldn’t break. So you could find peace in holding opposite time.
And then when left to her own devices, she cared little or what busied the crew. The engines were her world. They were a woman’s world. Here was the heart of the machine that kept them going. While outsiders looked and saw a rattling, fiery contraption of metal and heat she saw something tender. These cries of steam and rumbles of trapped gas were the valves and pipes calling for attention. They were fussy. And if they didn’t receive proper care, they had a tendency for blowing out at the most inconvenient times.
It was the poor engineer that swore and slammed. Too often her fellows solved issues and troubles with the hard end of a hammer. Her very first job was obtained after rushing to the aid of an unfortunate pressure gauge that her predecessor had decided need a sledge hammer rather than a loosening of its restraining bolt. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d entered the engines to find the telltale signs of past negligence. Odd dents, bent pipes and cracked containers were the hallmarks of a talentless tradesman.
But it was understandable even if Laure disagreed with their methods. Engineers were notorious for tempers that matched the furnaces they worked alongside. In the heat and the dirt, it was easy for frustration to take the reins and drive the tools unrelenting against their charges. Twice, Laure herself had lost her own poise and both times she’d regretted it. But while it was understandable, it was also inexcusable. And each strike of frustration did irreparable damage to the very thing they were in charge of safeguarding.
And all the things that made the job miserable could be used to one’s advantage. The dirt and heat kept others away. It peeled off the disguises that people adorned, revealing them for who they really were. In the fire and the smoke, Laure could unbutton her shirt, roll up her sleeves and take off her cap. She could stop being Jean, the vagabond Prisian and be the caring Laure once more. She could keep that doll with the torn arm and missing eye nearby, it’s eternal winking smile reminding her of all that she worked for.
But when she left, she had to put on the short jacket and cap again. She dressed herself in the grease and the coal dust, masking her face behind thick black smudges. No one looked closely at her scratched fingers when she hungrily tore into her bread. No one examined too closely eyes rimmed with the imprints of goggles. The engines cloaked her as best they could and when she returned, the steam and sweat would begin to melt it all away.
Course, the other perk was that she never needed to accompany the crew on their outings. She was far too valuable to put in the line of fire. Engineers were hard to come by, even for honest vessels, and finding a skilled one was more valuable than any chest of gold bars or whatever it was that busied brigands. She was always left alone with the train; she was it’s sole keeper while the others rushed off to further their ill-repute.
Those moments were when she liked to roam its corridors. She inspected her charge like a general would inspect his army. It was important to identify trouble spots that could endanger them later. Weaknesses were noted and marked. Repairs that could be done were performed. But sometimes she would just sit in its cold gizzards, listening to the rumbling of the pipes and the rush of water overhead. It was the peaceful quiet of a living construct: the breathing of a metal giant.
Laure hadn’t always been this way. She hadn’t always been Jean. There was a time when machines were little more than fascinating trinkets and baubles. Curious adornments for the rooftops that told her parents mysterious messages like the approach of a storm. She couldn’t see what they saw; she had eyes only for their bewitching tinkles and the captivating way they spun.
And when the boys were sent to school, it was her duty to stay at home. She assisted with the farm and the housekeeping. Her education wasn’t in letters and numbers. It was in needles and thread, seeds and roosts. A woman’s duty was to house and husband. That’s all she was taught. It was all she expected.
But what’s a woman to do when she no longer has husband or home?
As Laure, she would have never been taught mechanics. That was for men. Only women of loose morals or Thyrian indulgences would ever consider such things. Even when the revolution shook the home country—bringing liberty and fraternity came across the seas—it was in no uncertain terms that these were the fields for men. All men were created equal before the eyes of the Lord. Women were still expected to serve and toil. Those that spoke otherwise were ostracized.
Course, like the rest of the Old World aristocracy, Thyre was quick to bring an end to the Little Emperor’s show and reinstate their old bloodlines on the throne. They brought back the courts and the shackles. And the Prisians rejoiced. But for the colonies, those ideas had taken a more hideous form. They had buried deep their roots and there was no titles or throne to award in order to curtail the change they wrought. Instead, only fire and guns could hope to stamp out those dangerous ideas.
So much was lost in that time. Laure hadn’t understood any of it. She just remembered her mother packing a sack for her and shoving her out the door. Her only instructions were to run. Run from the redcoats. Run for the fort. But it was dark and the woods were thick. The only light she had was the growing flames behind her. She didn’t look back but fled into that night and into that darkness.
But what the soldiers never realized was that bodies and buildings burned, not ideals. In her bitterness, she learned her letters if only to understand the word that came from overseas. While the throne had been restored, satisfaction had not. And it was with great pleasure that a new wave of resentment swept across the Old and into the New. Ideas returned with their own flames and their own guns. The monarchy of Pris fell for the last time.
And the southern colonies were turned over to the restless natives. One force fell to be replaced by another. Yet somehow damnable Thyre held on. Held on because of innovation. They would have been overwhelmed had it not been for the great iron war machine. The throne exerted its dominance not only on its own people but those abandoned by the Prisian throne until even the magnates money couldn’t send the redcoats north enough to route the rest. New lines were drawn and borders were made where railways ended.
Where once Laure had lost a mother and father to ideals, she now gave up a lover as well. It would have been easy to hate the very machine that enacted their downfall. Others did. But Laure had a fondness for the curious contraptions from that earlier time. And she knew if she didn’t study them then she was just as doomed as the savages being driven further and further into the plains beneath the grinding gears of the Empire.
Fortunately, it seemed, she had a knack for it. And when she saw that fateful engineer about to demolish that pressure gauge she stepped in, preserving what she could. And her employer saw potential in her. He had the engineer teach her all that he knew before dropping him off at the next fuel station and leaving her to figure out the rest.
So she did. Every time the crew left she prowled the halls, watching, studying and learning what she could. She mended when she had to. And in the brief respites she sat deep in the bowels and simply listened.