Sanaa considered this. “So…if this guy really isn’t your boyfriend, then that makes him fair game, right?”
Othar stopped, shocked. Then he whipped round and thundered at her. “For any young lady of extremely questionable morals and taste
“Oh, no you don’t! Just because you’re a Spark doesn’t mean you get to push me around!” Othar shrank before Sanaa’s fury. She continued. “You already left me behind once, and I ended up here! You owe me! I want in on this!”
Othar threw his hands up in surrender. “Very well! Just this once.” He scowled and shook a finger at her, “But no romantic ideas. Remember—he is a nefarious fiend who must ultimately die.”
Sanaa squeezed her eyes shut and danced in place. “Whee! I finally get to rescue a Prince!” she sang.
Othar gave up.
In the Great Movement Chamber, Gil was back on his slab, with Agatha, von Zinzer, and Sleipnir reattaching him to the newly repaired array. Tarvek stood by, keeping an eye on Gil. Agatha was describing to von Zinzer what she was planning to do next, and Gil was awake, listening in woozily.
“I guess you could say it’s sort of like galvanizing,” she was saying.
“What?” Von Zinzer asked. “You’re going to dip him in molten zinc?”
Agatha laughed. “Only metaphorically!” she assured him.
“Huh,” Tarvek said. “It’ll probably feel similar.”
“It’ll probably be a step up, actually,” Gil added.
“Yeah,” Tarvek told him, “but then you’ll be completely stable and we can…” Tarvek’s voice trailed off and his eyes lost focus.
Violetta appeared and looked at him critically. “Tarvek? Are you all right?” she asked.
Tarvek swooned slightly and abruptly sat down. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I still don’t feel all that good.”
Gil rolled an eye toward him and frowned. “Why’s he still acting sick?” he muttered. “The secondary core annealing process should have fixed all that.”
Agatha looked at the wrecked machinery, the shattered Muse, the busy scientists and their assistants. She bit her lip. “Um…We didn’t get to do any secondary process.”
Gil’s face cleared and he sank back with a relaxed sigh. “Ah, that would explain it.” He then snapped upright and began to shout. “Sturmvarous! You never finished the procedure? Idiot! What would your father say to a labman who did something like that?”
Tarvek considered this. “I think he’d say, ‘Help me, help me, I’m trapped in this sarcophagus.’”
This checked Gil long enough that Tarvek was able to slam him back onto his slab and tighten a hose that had almost come loose. “We have been kind of
Agatha came up next to him. “Yeah. You’re the one who still needs processing. We feel great. Well, I do, anyway…” A wave of dizziness gave the lie to this statement. It passed swiftly, but Gil missed nothing.
“You idiots are still feeling the effects of the Post Revivification Rush. Look at how flushed your faces are! You’re burning through energy at an unsustainable rate! It we don’t cap it, you two will slip into a neurological cascade and we’ll
Both Agatha and Tarvek looked about at the damaged equipment. “Would reestablishing the
Gil paused. “To stabilize the runaway loss? Maybe…that’s a good start…are the machines intact?”
Tarvek waved this aside. “Enough of them that we can rework them. It’ll be a lot simpler this time, since we’ll just be artificially equalizing—”
Agatha placed a finger on Tarvek’s lips. “I could listen to that kind of stuff all night,” she said. “But don’t
Tarvek took a deep breath and hurried off. Gil tried to grin at Agatha and whispered, “I could explain it better than
Agatha snorted. “Well, let’s hope you get a chance to prove it.” Red-faced, she turned to Professor Mezzasalma, who had found an enthusiastic student in Theo. The two of them had been attacking the aging electrical system.
“Can you two get us a stable power flow?” she asked them.
“It’s tricky, but I think its possible…” Mezzasalma answered.
“Good.” She walked to Tarvek, who was busily scribbling calculations onto ragged sheets of paper.
“There!” he told her, “I’ve calculated the galvanic essence levels we’ll need for each of us.”
Agatha peered at his work. “Oh, very elegant!” she told him. “Now work out the most efficient shunt layout.”
After making sure everyone was busy, Agatha slumped onto a stool and closed her eyes. A while later, von Zinzer prodded her with a sheet of paper. “Here’s the power figures from Mezzasalma, plus the latest readings from the three of you.”
Agatha took the paper and scanned. Von Zinzer saw her face freeze. “Hey—what?” he asked her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s too late,” she whispered. “Between the three of us, we don’t have enough Galvanic Essence left.”