The Chemickal Marriage

against the far wall.
    ‘What is that room?’ Svenson asked Trooste.
    ‘The foundry.’
    ‘For what is it used?’
    ‘Smelting metals, what else?’
    ‘Is there a door inside, to the corridor?’
    ‘Of course not –’
    Francesca coughed into her hands and sank down on a wooden crate. Her lips were dark and moist. Trooste squirmed to his feet. ‘Is it plague?’
    ‘It is not. Mahmoud, if you would prevent the Professor from leaving?’ Svenson crossed to the child. ‘What do you remember, Francesca?’
    The little girl groaned, as if the disturbance in her body would not submit to speech.
    ‘Try shutting your eyes. The memories will be less insistent –’
    She shook her head with a whine. ‘I
can’t
– I can’t look away.’
    Svenson turned to find Trooste had edged near.
    ‘She is sick with the genius of your master, through close contact with indigo clay.’
    ‘Indigo clay?’
    ‘Do not pretend you do not know it.’
    ‘On the contrary …’ Trooste studied Francesca like a fox eyeing a fallen fledgling. ‘Close contact, you say?’
    A sharp word from Mahmoud called Trooste to assist in situating MrsKraft on the table. Mrs Kraft remained silent, gazing into the high, conical ceiling, an enormous brick beehive.
    Svenson wiped Francesca’s mouth with a handkerchief and left it in her hands. ‘Once this is finished, you shall have anything. Back in your own home, safe with your brothers, all the tea cakes you can eat –’
    Francesca nodded weakly, but her pallor forestalled further mention of food. The child had visibly deteriorated, the laboratory too resonant for her frail frame. It could not last.
    ‘We need to align these machines,’ he told Trooste. ‘You will obey the child’s instructions.’
    ‘Obey
her
?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘How provocative. That a child might possess such knowledge – one speculates …’
    Svenson ignored him and began to take stock of each device, speaking aloud for Francesca’s benefit. ‘Copper wiring connects each gearbox to leads at the foot of the table, and runs inside these rectangular crates –’
    ‘Crucibles,’ interjected Trooste. Svenson glanced at Francesca, who nodded, pinching her nose. Svenson went on.
    ‘More wires pass from the
crucibles
to the table and hoses, which attach to the subject’s body – no doubt there is an esoteric meaning to each point of contact – and also, most prominently, a mask …’ He found the thing hanging from a peg, rubberized canvas on a metal frame. ‘The current is passed through a bolus of blue glass inside the crucible. I assume you have an adequate supply?’
    This was to Trooste. The Professor nodded, adding in a crafty undertone, ‘Lord Vandaariff assured me there was no rival inquiry in these subjects.’
    ‘He is a liar. And I tell you here: every man to study indigo clay has paid with his life. Gray, Lorenz, Fochtmann, the Comte d’Orkancz himself – all of them dead.’
    Trooste chewed his lip, shrugged.
    ‘You
knew
this?’
    ‘O yes. Lord Vandaariff was quite candid. But once I knew the details of each man’s failure, I saw how my own efforts –’
    Doctor Svenson dug into his tunic and came out with one of the glass spurs. He flung it at Trooste. The disc harmlessly struck the Professor’s chest and dropped into his gloved palm.
    ‘Packed into every bomb set off in the city,’ Svenson announced. ‘By the thousands. I trust you recognize the
provenance
.’
    ‘But that’s ridiculous –’
    ‘Look
into
it, Professor!’
    At Svenson’s shout, Trooste raised the blue disc to his eye. An ugly grunt came from his mouth. Before the anger in the glass could fully insinuate itself, Svenson slapped the spur away.
    ‘
Doctor Svenson
.’
    With a cold horror, Svenson followed Mahmoud’s gaze. From within the foundry came the rattling of a doorknob.
    Mahmoud whipped a sheet of canvas over Mrs Kraft and shoved Svenson under the table. He plucked Francesca off her feet and carried her behind a tall cabinet, a hand across the child’s mouth.
    Trooste stood blinking, still confused by the glass and staring at the tip of Svenson’s revolver beneath the hoses, ready to fire at the Professor’s first mischosen word.
    Mr Foison entered from the foundry. With the knife in his right hand he pointed past Trooste to the main entrance. ‘Why is that door locked?’
    ‘Is it?’ asked Trooste.
    Foison surveyed the room. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘Nothing
objectionable
, I hope. I