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beautiful for anything so mundane. Most of the pieces had been milled by hand, as if its inventor hadn’t wanted mass-produced parts to sully his vision.
    “If I may ask something, sir?” Bauer asked.
    Alek nodded. “Of course, Hans.”
    Bauer turned to Dylan. “We might understand this machine better if we knew why the czar tried to sneak it past you.”
    “Dr. Barlow reckons the czar doesn’t know about this machine,” Dylan said. “You see, the man we’re headed toward has a reputation. He’s a bit mad. The sort of fellow who might bribe a Russian officer to smuggle something for him, without thinking of the consequences. The lady boffin never liked the fellow, she says, and this just confirms that he’s a . . .” He shrugged and switched to English, “A bum-rag.”
    “Bum-rag,” Bovril said, and giggled.
    “But who
is
he?” Alek asked in English.
    Dylan shrugged again. “A Clanker boffin of some kind. That’s all Dr. Barlow will say.”
    Alek finished his bacon, then looked at the parts scattered all around them and sighed. “Well, let’s finish and see what happens when we turn it on.”
    “Is that a good idea?” Dylan looked down at the batteries, which Hoffman was charging with the power lines for the airship’s searchlights. “It’s stored enough electricity to throw sparks, or even explode. And we’re hanging from a million cubic feet of hydrogen!”
    Alek turned to Klopp and said in German, “Dylan thinks this could be dangerous.”
    “Nonsense.” Klopp prodded the battery case with his cane. “It’s designed to run for a long time at low voltage.”
    “Or designed to
look
that way,” Dylan said, then switched to English. “Newkirk, fetch Dr. Barlow, would you?”
    The other middy nodded and scampered off, looking happy to leave the Clanker device behind.
    As they waited, Alek put together the control panel, polishing every piece with his sleeve. It was good to feel useful again, to have built something, even if he had no idea what it was.
    When Dr. Barlow arrived, she walked once around the machine, both she and the creature on her shoulder inspecting it closely. The two lorises jabbered to each other, Bovril repeating the names of electrikal parts that it had learned during the night.
    “Well done, all of you,” Dr. Barlow said in her flawless German. “I take it this is a magnetic device of some kind?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Klopp glanced at Dylan. “And I’m certain it won’t explode.”
    “I should hope not.” Dr. Barlow took a step back. “Well, we haven’t much time. If you please, Alek, let’s find out what it does.”
    “If you please,” her loris added imperiously, which made Bovril giggle.
    Alek took a slow breath, his hand pausing over the power switch. For a moment he wondered if Dylan might be right. They had no idea what this machine was.
    But they’d spent all night putting the device together. There was no point in letting it sit here. He turned the power switch. . . .
    For a moment nothing happened, but then a flickering glow appeared in each of the three glass spheres on the machine’s top. In the drafty cargo bay Alek felt heat emanating from the machine, and a soft whine built in his ears.
    The two lorises began to imitate the sound, and then Tazza joined in, until the cargo bay was humming. A sliver of light came into being inside each of the glass spheres, an electrikal disturbance, like a tiny, trapped bolt of lightning.
    “Most intriguing,” Dr. Barlow said.
    “Aye, but what
is
it?” Dylan asked.
    “As a biologist, I’m sure I don’t know.” The lady boffin lifted Bovril from Klopp’s shoulder. “But our perspicacious friend has been watching and listening all night.”
    She placed the loris on the floor. It immediately clambered onto the machine, sniffing the batteries, the control panel, and finally the three glass spheres. While it moved, it kept up a steady nonsense conversation withDr. Barlow’s loris, the two beasts repeating