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“Perhaps, if Sir Isaac would ever give up the secret of its operation. At first I thought it built on the principle of some repulsive affinity, but Newton claims that it is not.”
    “You know,” Robert began hesitantly, “I always fancied that there was some sort of—well, creature in the globe that bore our boat aloft.”
    Ben nodded. “I believe that there was, a sort of creature that he names malakus. But he will say nothing else on it."
    “Could it be some sort of demon?”
    “No. Yes—I don’t know,” Ben said. “Nor at the moment do I much care.”
    “Aye,” Robert grunted. “But there’s the stories about him ‘n’ demons, you know.”
    “Told by whom?”
    “Servants. Them that cleans his laboratories. They whisper things about.”
    “I’m sure a spark of electricity seems a demon to them.”
    “ ‘Tis more than that. What of the weird lights that accompanied that fellow Bracewell? The one as killed your brother and did his damnedest to kill you? I saw those, and you did, too. What would you call them?”
    “An enigma, that’s what. A scientific man does not make hasty conclusions based in superstition.”

    A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
    “Ah. Very well. But the emperor is no scientific man. What if these rumors of weird lights and strange sounds come back to him?”
    “Pfuh. The emperor is like a child. Did I publish to him that rain was the splashing of angels in a heavenly tub, he would agree to it.”
    They continued on for a moment, and then Robert chuckled. “For a colonial lad,” he said, “you have little enough awe of emperors.”
    Ben shrugged. “Why should I? An accident of birth makes him no better than me. The age of monarchs is ending, my friend. Who are the great men of this day? Isaac Newton, a yeoman’s son; Leibniz, the son of a professor; John Locke, an attorney’s boy.”
    “Yes, and Jesus was the son of a carpenter, but a king still had him killed. You may not live in awe of them, but you best not turn your back, Ben, or give your tongue pr’miscus liberty.”
    “Returned to that lesson, have we?” Ben said, but playfully. He didn’t mind Robert looking out for him, and the older man had saved his life more than once. Besides, he was certainly right. The court of the Holy Roman emperor was not the safest place in the world at the moment. With Vienna fallen, Hungary in revolt, Prague laid siege to twice in the last year, and a huge influx of refugees, the emperor and his ministers were often short-tempered. Still, if anyone at court had a secure position, it was Newton and thus himself.
    Without them, Prague would join Vienna beneath the red banner and white crescent of the Ottoman empire or fall prey to a Moscovado army. The Emperor Karl VI, if not a brilliant man, at least knew that. No, the Habsburgs needed their miracle workers.
    At Robert’s suggestion, the two of them had taken a roundabout way back to the bridge, crossing the Old Town square again and wandering vaguely north.
    Their ultimate destination was the banks of the Moldau, which bent eastward around the city. There they could walk a circuit along the embankment back to the bridge. In the meantime, they were in no real hurry; almost two hours remained before Ben’s appointment with Newton, and unexpected sights hid around each corner of the great city, even in the meanest and most out-of-the-way street.

    A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
    The unexpected this time was not some architectural gem or tucked-away shop, however.
    “Someone follows us,” Robert hissed.
    “You are certain?”
    “Five men, all from the Vulture,” he said.
    “What can they want, I wonder?”
    “I don’t know. Perhaps it is an angry father and his friends.”
    Ben strained his ears and heard what Robert heard: footsteps and voices muttering in a language unintelligible to him and yet familiar in cadence, intone…
    “Russian,” Ben hissed. “They speak Russian.”
    “Then probably not simple cutthroats.”
    “Five, eh? Robert,