The Havoc Machine by Steven Harper

pranced into the stable car. The performers who lived in tents busily packed them away, and the ones who owned wagons hitched them to horses and hauled them into boxcars. Mama and Papa Berloni, who ran the grease wagons, handed out box lunches to those who wanted them. Most everyone would ride in the passenger car. Dodd had a private car, of course, and Nathan, the red-haired manager, always stayed with him. No one ever commented on that. Thad certainly didn’t.
    The spiders had all disappeared, though it seemed to Thad that he could feel their hard eyes on him anyway.He told Nikolai to stay with Sofiya at the boxcars and went back to his wagon, where he managed a quick wash and change of clothes, then set about packing. There wasn’t much to do, really. Smart travelers kept everything put away and ready to go at a moment’s notice, and Thad was tidy by nature. He emptied the stove, ran a quick inventory of weapons and tools, and was heading out to borrow a horse so he could bring his wagon to the train when a quiet voice behind him said, “Can I help?”
    Thad jerked around. Nikolai was there. His scarf had slipped, revealing dark hair, and the upper half of his face showed dark eyes. With his lower face still obscured, he looked perfectly human. A masterpiece indeed.
    “I don’t need help,” Thad said shortly. “And you shouldn’t be wandering around by yourself. I told you to stay with Sofiya.”
    “You’re supposed to give me something to do,” Nikolai said firmly. “Even if it’s little.”
    “Little?”
    “Unimportant. So I can learn how to do it, too. And to keep me out of trouble.”
    Thad cocked his head. “Have you been getting into trouble?”
    “You wouldn’t know,” Nikolai countered, “because you haven’t been watching. You’re supposed to watch.”
    A sting touched Thad’s heart. “How would you know that?” he said.
    But Nikolai just looked at him with relentless brown eyes. A long silence stretched between them.
    “Bless my soul,” Dante said at last.
    “I am not responsible for you,” Thad blurted out. “I’m not.”
    Nikolai still didn’t respond. He merely stood there, wrapped in accusing rags.
    A spark of anger crackled inside Thad now. “You’re a machine. You have no right, no right to look at me in that manner!”
    “You saved me from the bad man,” Nikolai said in his firm voice. “You’re supposed to take care of me now. That’s the way it is.”
    “There’s not any way—”
    “I’m hungry,” Nikolai interrupted.
    “Hungry,” Dante echoed. “I’m hungry.”
    “You aren’t hungry,” Thad said to—well, he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. “I just fed you.”
    “Hungry,” Dante repeated. “Hungry.”
    “I’m hungry,” Nikolai said.
    Something small shifted inside Thad. For a moment he was back in the knife shop in Warsaw, with the smell of metal shavings and mineral oil and old water, with David tugging at his sleeve. But David lay beyond hunger now, beyond fear, beyond embrace. Snow lay cold on his grave in long Warsaw winters. In Thad’s quieter moments he thought perhaps Ekaterina might be holding David in some quiet, gentle place where they waited for him. Perhaps Ekaterina told David stories and sang him songs and he laughed and put his hands on her face. And then he remembered how David’s eyes had become fixed on the clockworker’s table and how his chest had stilled—an automaton shutting down. The warm, gentle place faded and the snow returned.
    “Inside.” Thad turned smartly back into the wagon, where a bit of rummaging turned up a bottle of brandy Thad mostly used for cleaning the cuts that were an occupationalhazard. Nikolai accepted it and pulled down his scarf. His metal jaw and the hinge that fastened it to his skull nauseated Thad and he looked away as Nikolai raised the bottle. His initial revulsion warred with an impulse to stop a mere child from drinking heavy liquor.
    Everything should be clear. He should