Her consciousness jerked back into her body, slamming back into a hot tiny prison of thirst and exhaustion. She stumbled and fell to the ground, groaning. She tried to pull her mind back together, but it was like trying to refold a map, she couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. She felt Stanton kneeling beside her, a steadying hand resting on her back.
“Miss Edwards,” he said softly.
She tried to move her mouth, tried to make words come out of it, but it was impossible. It was all she could do to open her eyes, to admit the piercing unwelcome brightness. Eyes were such ridiculous things, so limited, all they could see were reflections, never the truth itself …
“You’re exhausted,” Stanton said. “We’ve been walking for miles.”
Emily sat up, coming back to herself bit by bit. Her mouth was bone dry and her head ached. She saw that they had left the road and had crested a little rise. She looked down on a field planted with a winter cover of hairy vetch that bloomed with pretty curves of tiny purple bells. In the center of the field there was a broad spreading tree in full leaf. The cool shade beneath it looked indecently inviting. But as she lifted a mute, trembling hand, it was not the tree that she pointed to.
“What is that?” Stanton said.
An odd machine rested a little ways off from the tree. It wasn’t a farming machine. It was much larger, and unlike any farming machine it had long broad silver wings resting slack on either side. Helping her to her feet, Stanton took two steps forward and shaded his eyes with his hand.
“That looks like … but it can’t be!”
“Can’t be what?”
“If that’s not a Cecil Carpenter, I’ll eat my hat.” Stanton started running down the hill through the field of purple flowers and tangled foliage.
“What’s a Cecil Carpenter?” Emily called after him. Her legs were sore and her feet ached and she wasn’t about to do any running.
“Cecil Carpenter is a designer of biomechanical flying machines,” Stanton began, only to fall into awed silence as he came upon the machine. The thing was even more imposing up close. Its body was as broad as a railcar. Each wing was as long as a hundred-year fir and as wide as a wagon.
“Tail of a serpent, body of a rooster … this is one of his Cockatrices!”
The creature was made of a softish silver metal, dull from oxidation and battered from wear. Its rooster head and sinuous tail had been intricately decorated with smooth hard-fired enamel—now chipped and cracked—in deep shades of lapis lazuli, cherry-heart crimson, and pollen yellow. There was a deep-set passenger compartment scooped out of the back between the wings, which contained a half dozen wide banquettes upholstered in red plush. These also showed signs of hard use; the nap was rubbed off the seats and backs and there were several patches.
Stanton ran his hands over the individually molded wing feathers, each one delicately engraved to look like a real feather.
“All aluminum! That must have set him back a pretty penny.”
“So what’s it doing here?”
Stanton pointed to a place on the Cockatrice’s side, just below the wing. An ornate cartouche bearing the words “Myers & Shorb’s Traveling Carnival of Novelties” had been half painted over.
“It must have been a carnival attraction,” Stanton said. “But why anyone would just leave it sitting out in the middle of a cornfield—”
There was the sound of something clacking shut. Emily and Stanton looked up quickly, found themselves looking down the twin blued-steel barrels of a shotgun.
“Ain’t no one just left nothing sitting nowhere,” said the old man holding the shotgun. “Now get your gol’durn hands off my Cockatrice.”
Emily and Stanton lifted their hands slowly.
“Just who th’ hell are you two?” The old man wore tobacco-stained overalls and a straw hat. He was as thin and hard-tanned as a piece of jerky; the deep wrinkles on his face were lined with grime. “Coupla nice-dressed young people, pokin’ around where you’re not wanted … you two from the guv’mint?”
“Certainly not!” Emily responded to the question with the same vehemence. “We were just …” She paused. Telling him that the great spirit of the earth had led her here probably wouldn’t cut much ice. “We were just out walking. It’s so hot, and I saw the tree, and … and then we saw this beautiful machine.”