Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

you think of this.”
    Selwyn joined him and leveled his appraising gaze at the tempered glass chamber with its brass fittings and tubing. “Andrew. It looks exactly the same as it did yesterday when you showed it to me. And she wasn’t just any girl. She was St. Ives’s daughter.”
    “It isn’t the same.” Andrew flipped up a lever and ten pounds of coal rattled down a flume and into the chamber. “Look, from here I can control exactly how much current passes through the coal, and how much gas. I’ve been waiting all evening to show you.”
    “I was delayed by a game of poker.”
    Poker? Andrew focused on James’s twinkling eyes. “I thought you said you were going to Carrick House for supper and cards.”
    “I did. And a little baggage called Peony Churchill taught a few of us how to play. She says she learned in the American Territories but I find that very hard to believe.”
    “Peony? Not Isabel Churchill’s daughter?”
    “The very one. In Viscount St. Ives’s sacrosanct parlor, no less. Isabel, regrettably, was not there, or you could have read about the resulting fracas in the Times tomorrow.”
    “We may yet. I’ve already had a tube from Cadbury at the Royal Society of Engineers about the demonstration this evening at Whitehall. Apparently there is unrest among the good English folk who have invested their life savings in the Persia-Albion Petroleum Company. The Peers could barely get past the door to vote.”
    James snorted. “Fools. Their feeble combustion engines are too unstable, and no one can seem to make them otherwise, no matter how many exhibitions they put on at the Crystal Palace. Steam is the technology that will continue to power the world.”
    “Which is why I draw your attention to this chamber.” He handed James a pair of goggles with lenses shaded to a deep brown. “Put these on and watch.”
    Andrew put on his own goggles, then pressed two levers. The chamber began to hum. When he pulled on a third, a thin stream of green gas entered the chamber from the top, which condensed to a solid immediately on contact with the coal. The hum intensified and suddenly a brilliant flash exploded within, as though lightning had been generated from the walls of the chamber itself.
    In point of fact, it was pure electrick current. “You see? The powerful charge forces the gas into the coal, enhancing its combustion power.” Andrew allowed the chamber to power down, and reached in with a gloved hand to retrieve a piece of the supercharged coal. “Put this in a boiler, and you’ll only—”
    The piece of coal crumbled to bits.
    James peered at it, then removed the goggles to look even more closely. “Is it supposed to do that?”
    Andrew’s hand closed in a fist of frustration. Through the leather, he could feel particles of coal grinding together in his palm. “Of course it’s not supposed to do that. All my calculations indicated the gas would harden the coal, enhancing its propensity to burn longer, thus allowing the steam trains to travel further before taking on more.”
    “I’d have another go at those calculations.”
    Andrew struggled to conceal the disappointment and—yes—humiliation warring inside his belly at this ignominious conclusion to an experiment he’d been working on for weeks. “Are you laughing at me?”
    “Indeed not.” He put an arm around Andrew’s shoulders. “I haven’t your talent for figures and physics. I’m just the idea man and the financier of this enterprise. We’ll find the correct combination of elements, never fear.”
    “I know we will.” Andrew’s shoulders slumped while he regarded the recalcitrant chamber. “But time is of the essence. The world is moving quickly.”
    “I have complete faith in our ability to match its pace, Andrew. This invention will make our fortune. Every steam company and builder of trains will be on our doorstep, clamoring for a license for this process. Every railyard will have a man educated in how to operate the equipment. Why, these chambers will become so vital to the railroad industry that entire companies will be formed just to manufacture them.”
    Andrew allowed himself a moment to take in the grand vista of James’s vision. This was what he needed in a partner—a man who could see beyond the confines of a compression chamber to the horizon of a future limited only by their abilities and dreams.
    “You are right.” He removed his gloves and laid them aside, and slipped the lead-lined