Alice in Steampunk Dalekland
Chapter One: The Clockwork Rabbit
Alice was minding her own business, which is the most dangerous occupation for a girl of her size and curiosity, because one’s own business has a wicked habit of becoming everyone else’s. She had laid out her tools upon the garden path—one honest screwdriver (which insisted it was quite respectable), a pair of tweezers (which took offense at everything), and a clockwork bird with its beak stuck slightly open as if it had been caught forever in the act of saying “Oh!” The roses wobbled about on their stems in a breeze that smelled faintly of coal and toast, and the daisies gave great, polite sneezes.
“Bless you,” said Alice, for she was a well-brought-up child, even when addressing flowers.
“Steam,” sniffed a daisy, quite dignified. “We are allergic to steam.”
“There is no steam,” said Alice, peering about. “Only sunshine and Sunday. If there were steam, I should see it, and if I saw it, I should surely say it.”
At which a discreet hiss sounded from under the azalea bush, and something somewhere went tick-tock, whirr-clank, hiss-puff!—the exact sort of reply that contradicts a person very rudely without saying a word. The roses coughed. The daisies sneezed again. Alice, being one who could not resist a noise that sounded like an argument between a kettle and a typewriter, put down the screwdriver and knelt in the flowerbed.
“I say,” she called into the dark. “Are you a mouse, a mole, or a machine?”
“None and all,” said a voice like a penny-farthing talking in its sleep. “Stand clear of the exhaust.”
Alice had just time to wonder if an exhaust was something you could trip over when the soil trembled and the bush erupted. Out burst a white blur with brass rivets, whiskers wired like telegraph lines, and a waistcoat stitched with gears that clicked themselves in a most improper fashion. It was the White Rabbit—only more so, as if someone had wound him up to a higher setting.
“You’re late!” he squeaked, and a valve near his collar let off an indignant toot. “Horribly, dreadfully, scandalously late!”
“For what?” said Alice, who did not at all like being told about her lateness, especially by a creature whose ears appeared to be tuned to the Foreign Stations.
“For the Invasion Tea, of course!” He tapped his breast, where a pocket watch had given up being merely a pocket watch and bolted itself to his ribs with a handsome row of screws. “The minutes are marching without permission! The seconds have staged a revolt! The hour has barricaded itself behind a samovar! Oh, oh!” He patted himself down as if he might find a spare minute in his pockets. “No time! Even less than that! Negative time!”
“I shouldn’t think one could have negative time,” said Alice. “It would be like owing the day a shilling.”
“Then I shall be arrested for debt!” cried the Rabbit. “Stand aside! Or rather—stand before! That is, come after me at once!” And he sprang toward the rhododendrons with such a sudden clattering that Alice felt he might disappear entirely into the arithmetic of his own legs.
“Pray wait!” Alice called, scrambling up and gathering her skirt. “What is an Invasion Tea? Do they pour the tea into the country, or the country into the tea?”
“Both, if there’s room,” said the Rabbit without turning. “But there never is.” He stamped his foot—clank, clank—and a round, brass-rimmed hatch obediently irised open in the turf, exactly where Alice was quite sure nothing had been but grass a moment before. A breath of hot, toasty air rose up, carrying with it the smell of coal-scuttles and plum jam, and also the teasing suggestion of music that had been disassembled and re-sorted by size.
“Down,” said the Rabbit, and vanished neatly into the hole like a spoon into a sugar jar.
It was not at all in Alice’s plan for the afternoon to go down a hole after a rabbit. However, plans are dreadfully bad at keeping their footing when the ground gives way. Besides, the screw-driver was looking at her as if it doubted her sense of adventure, which no respectable girl can bear. “If one can be late, one can surely be early,” she told it, “and the best way to be early is to start immediately.” She tucked the clockwork bird into her pocket (it rattled crossly), gathered up the tweezers (they pinched her for insolence), and stepped after the Rabbit.
For exactly four steps the world behaved itself. On the fifth, the turf tipped forward like a gentleman bowing too low, and Alice slid into the hatch with all the dignity she could muster in a tumble. The door clanged shut above her with the pleased decisiveness of a teapot lid.
Down she went, though “down” is entirely too simple a word for the direction she pursued. At first she slipped along a polished brass tube wide as a church aisle, with little inspection windows through which she spied unexpected things: a family of teaspoons commuting to work; a regiment of biscuits drilling in neat squares; a cloud being ironed and folded into a drawer. Presently the tube opened into a shaft whose sides were not walls at all but wheels—bright copper wheels big as dinner-tables, tinny clockwork wheels small as buttons, and serious iron wheels that turned so solemnly they might have been thinking theological thoughts.
“Oh!” Alice cried, for her heel nicked a spoke, and she had to hop most inelegantly to another spoke that came (quite kindly, she thought) to meet her. The spoke lifted her, carried her round in a delicious arc—a sort of flying without the inconvenience of wings—and set her upon a catwalk embroidered across the air like a lace ribbon.
And there were pistons: slim, chromed pistons that nodded at her like gentlemen, fat, thumping pistons that shook the air like a drum, and shivering feather-pistons that dabbed at leaks with little lace handkerchiefs. Steam fluttered from valves like sighs. Chains purred. A clock somewhere practiced scales.
“It is very industrious,” Alice remarked, which is what one says when one cannot quite say what it is at all.
“INDUSTRIOUS,” a nearby sign agreed, then flipped itself over to reveal “DANGEROUS,” then “DELICIOUS,” then “PLEASE MIND YOUR HAT.”
“I haven’t got a hat,” said Alice.
The sign, rebuked, printed “SORRY.”
As she tiptoed along the catwalk she found noble columns made of stacked teacups (a particularly Grecian order of crockery), with tea streaming through them in little brown rivers and issuing at the base into squared-off waterfalls that fell exactly to the beat of an unseen metronome. She passed a balcony where brass spiders—very polite creatures with pince-nez and tiny dusters—polished cogs and hummed, “A stitch in time saves nine, but a polish in time saves shine.”
“Do you keep this place very clean?” Alice asked one spider.
“We keep it very kept,” said the spider, which is an answer you may try at home if you wish to confuse the furniture. “And we dust the minutes on Tuesdays.”
“I hope nobody sneezes,” said Alice, thinking of the daisies.
“We have a sneeze-catcher,” said the spider, and pointed to a net strung across a corridor, in which hovered half a dozen dignified A-CH— waiting to be finished.
After a while (or possibly a before), she arrived at a crossroads with a revolving sign. “THIS WAY TO THE RABBIT,” it said helpfully, then spun itself and added, “OR POSSIBLY THAT,” then spun again and confessed, “WE ARE UNDECIDED.” The floor vibrated as if a very nervous kettle were stamping one foot. Far below, something called out, “Inspection! Inspection! All rationales to the fore!”
Alice chose the left because it looked right, and because the right looked wrong, and because she had learned that wrong and right are two sides of the same coin when the mint is in a mood. The path sloped, twisted, disagreed with itself, and finally disgorged her onto a balcony that overlooked a panorama so astonishing that—had there been any air to spare—it would have taken her breath.
Spread before her was a city of copper and comfort, of chimney-pots and impossible courtyards, of kettles the size of houses and houses the size of kettles. Little railways carried cups and saucers with the brisk efficiency of ants transporting crumbs. Over everything, like a clock that had decided to be the sky, turned a single enormous wheel whose rim was inscribed with months, its spokes labeled with days, and its hub—oh, its hub!—tick-tocked so contentedly that you felt hours would line up in good order merely to be near it.
And bustling through the streets, hissing like polite storms, came the inhabitants: Daleks, yes, but Daleks as a toy-maker might dream them after a very earnest tea. Their armor was riveted bronze; their domes wore stovepipe chimneys; monocles were strapped most seriously over their eye-stalks; their plunger-arms were fitted with sugar tongs and butter knives; and on their backs sat charming little boilers with tidy ladders and brass whistles that piped pip! whenever a notion occurred to them.
“TEA-TI-MA-TE!” boomed one from below. Another responded, “BOIL-ER-ATE!” A third, rather scholarly, proposed, “IM-PROV-ER-ATE THE SAM-O-VAR!”
“I haven’t the least idea what it means,” said Alice, “and that is precisely why I must find out.” For she was never so inquisitive as when the dictionary threw up its hands.
“Inspection! Inspection!” cried a voice just beneath her shoes. Alice looked down. There, fussing with a clipboard that was really a chalkboard that was really a harmonium, stood the White Rabbit. His ears had sprouted small weathercocks, and his whiskers traced arithmetic in the air.
“Rabbit!” Alice called, and her voice joggled a passing line of teaspoons, who complained that she’d upset their meter. “I am not late at all, you see. I am precisely when I am.”
“That’s as may be,” said the Rabbit. “But when you are is not where you are, and where you are is not why you are, and since the Why is stuck in the Other Pipe you must make do with a very small Because.” He offered her a brass token stamped BECAUSE, which she put in her pocket beside the sulky bird.
“What is the Invasion Tea?” asked Alice.
“It is the tea with which one invades,” said the Rabbit. “Or else the invasion during which one takes tea. It has not been adequately defined. That is why it is perfectly scheduled. Follow me. Mind the logic.” He hopped onto a spiral stair made of ladles and began to descend so rapidly the steps rang like bells.
Alice followed, and the stairs brought them into the street, where a polite Dalek in a velvet cravat made them a little bow. “GREET-INGS, GUEST AND CLOCK-WORK COMP-AN-ION,” it said. “MIND YOUR FEET. WE HAVE OILED THE COBBLES.” Indeed the cobbles shone like sardines, and Alice slid a little, which gave her the pleasant sense of skating through a soup tureen.
They passed the Kettle Column, which commemorated a famous boil; the Hinge Exchange, where investors traded in hinges and arguments; and the Larder District, where all the cupboards were public and the cheeses stood about gossiping in elegant rinds. At last they entered a square whose centerpiece was a samovar the size of a courthouse, with twelve gilded spouts and a judge’s bench attached to its side. Over the bench hung a banner reading: TODAY’S SPECIAL: JUSTICE WITH LEMON.
“Now,” said the Rabbit, patting his bolted watch, “we shall all be precisely on time together.” He rapped the samovar thrice with a teaspoon. At once a dozen Daleks trundled forward, each bearing a tray of scones in geometric shapes—triangles (which the scholarly Daleks approved), rhombi (which they argued about), and circles (which they regarded with suspicion, for circles had a way of going round and round the point).
A valve opened. Steam breathed. Somewhere a small orchestra tuned its teaspoons.
“BEGIN THE INVASION!” cried a Dalek in a sash embroidered with the words MASTER OF CEREMONIES AND OCCASIONAL MIS-UNDER-STANDINGS.
“BEGIN THE TEA!” cried a second, with a sash that said MINISTER OF SUGAR AND THE UNLIKELY.
“BEGIN THE REASONS!” cried the Rabbit, who had donned a little cap marked WHY (TEMPORARY).
“Do we invade first and then sip,” Alice asked cautiously, “or sip first and then invade? It is always well to know whether one is to spill a country into the cup or the cup into a country.”
The Daleks conferred, their boilers puffing thoughtful rings. At last one announced, “WE SHALL SIP THE INVASION. IT IS MORE COURTE-OUS.”
“Very well,” said Alice, feeling this was the sort of principle a person could embroider on a pillow.
A cup was offered to her by a Dalek with particularly shiny rivets. Inside the cup the tea did not merely steam; it organized itself into tiny marching squares, each square bearing a very small flag with the letter T upon it. Now and then one square would salute and fall into another, which produced a flavor like Thursdays.
Alice sipped. It tasted of toast and thunder, with a suspicion of schoolroom. “It is very brave tea,” she said.
“THANK YOU,” said the Dalek, who was clearly responsible. “WE HAVE BEEN TRAIN-ING IT.”
While they drank, a hush fell. The great wheel in the sky seemed to turn a fraction more noticeably. A breeze passed, smelling of jam and jurisprudence. The Rabbit consulted his watch so fiercely that one might have feared for its springs.
“Now,” he whispered to Alice, “you must be careful. The Great Gear is temperamental. If it feels neglected, it speeds the hours; if flattered, it slows them. And if anyone tells it a paradox, it sulks.”
“I should never dream of telling machinery a paradox,” said Alice, shocked. “They take things so literally.”
“Good,” said the Rabbit. “But do not say ‘good’ too loudly. It thinks ‘good’ is a comparative and will demand to know ‘better’ and ‘best.’”
Alice was about to say she would not say anything at all when a fanfare of kettles blared, and the Daleks parted ranks. Into the square swept a personage who was not at all a person, and yet behaved with such ceremony that even the pigeons rustled into orderly ovals on the rooftops. She was taller than the others, her casing gilded and velvet-draped, her chimney a delicate ruin of filigree, and upon her dome perched a crown of teaspoons arranged like a halo of silver commas.
“THE BOILER QUEEN,” breathed the Rabbit, bowing so low his ears indicated north and south simultaneously. “Be careful—she has the Law of Pressure on her side.”
The Queen surveyed the square with an eye-stalk that regarded things as if it had invented them and was not entirely satisfied. “CIT-IZ-ENS,” she intoned. “WE SHALL PRO-CEED BY THE LAW OF PRESS-URE: MORE PRESS-URE, MORE OR-DER, MORE SCONES.”
There were approving whistles from the boilers. Alice clapped, because it is polite to clap when a queen says anything at all, even if one does not understand it. The Queen’s eye-stalk swiveled upon her.
“SMALL BIO-LOG-IC-AL,” she said. “DO YOU AP-PROVE OF THE TASTE?”
Alice considered the question honestly. “It is very… vigorous,” she said, “but there is a trifle of soot.”
A shock ran through the assembly, as if someone had used the wrong fork at a state banquet. The Rabbit made frantic shh-shh motions with both paws.
The Queen’s chimney gave a dignified puff. “SOOT,” she repeated, very carefully, as if weighing each letter for treason. “THE LAW OF PRESS-URE DOES NOT AC-KNOW-LEDGE SOOT. THERE IS ONLY FLAV-OR OF PRO-GRESS.”
“I am certain progress is delicious,” said Alice quickly, “only sometimes it leaves crumbs.”
There was a pause with stiff elbows. Then the Queen inclined her dome by a single degree. “WE SHALL DE-TER-MINE THE TRUTH,” she declared. “PRE-PARE THE TEA TRI-BU-NAL. SUM-MON THE MAD EN-GIN-EER.”
The Daleks stirred like a hive of polite hornets. The Rabbit tugged at Alice’s sleeve. “We mustn’t stay here,” he whispered. “Trials have a way of starting with questions and ending with answers, and no one enjoys that. Come, quickly—the Great Gear is listening, and when it listens it judges, and when it judges it ticks louder.”
“But where are we going?” asked Alice, as he hustled her through a gate that had disguised itself as a pile of napkins.
“To fetch the only thing the Queen cannot overrule,” said the Rabbit, his whiskers sparking with urgency. “A Stopwatch.”
“A stopwatch cannot overrule a queen,” said Alice. “It can only time her.”
“Exactly,” said the Rabbit. “It is the Stopwatch of Sanity.”
They darted into a corridor of ladles, vanished behind a curtain woven of steam, and were swallowed at once by the humming heart of the city, where the pipes ran closer, the pistons breathed slower, and the air tasted of secrets steeped very strong.
Behind them, in the square, the kettles struck thirteen in perfect unison, which is never a good sign for a clock or a queen, and the Boiler Queen proclaimed, with tea-hot majesty, “LET THE TRI-AL BE-GIN.”
And that is how Alice, who had only meant to mend a bird, found herself—by degrees and degrees—late and early at once, with a Rabbit on one side, a Queen on the other, and the Great Gear turning above, listening for the first question.
Chapter Two: Descent Through the Gearshaft
Down she went. Or up. Or sideways. Alice had long since ceased to expect gravity to do its duty, and she felt that, in this place, even Newton might have had to take a seat and think again.
At first she slid along a copper chute, polished so bright she saw herself reflected: a rather surprised girl stretched and squashed by speed into shapes no mirror should be allowed to manage. Then the chute gave a sigh, as if it had better things to do, and dropped her neatly onto the edge of a wheel so large it might have been rolling the horizon itself.
“Dear me,” Alice said, balancing carefully. “If I fall into the spokes, I shall come out as slices!”
The wheel turned steadily, and Alice clung to a spoke that was considerate enough to bend down for her. She rode it partway round, then hopped to another, and so continued in a sort of hopscotch ballet.
All around, wheels of every kind were whirring. Enormous iron cogs turned with the patience of schoolmasters. Tiny brass cogs spun like busy children, clattering with enthusiasm. Some wheels turned each other, some ignored each other, and a few appeared to be turning purely out of habit.
Pistons rose and fell, bowing politely as Alice passed, and chains slithered in long loops, purring like overfed cats. Every so often a jet of steam burst from a valve, spelling words in the air—CAUTION, MIND YOUR SKIRT, and once, most unhelpfully, OOPS.
Alice edged along a catwalk that wound between the machinery. Below her yawned the shaft, deep as a cathedral turned inside out. She glimpsed strange sights through the gaps:
- a regiment of teaspoons marching in time,
- a whole pudding revolving on its own axis,
- and an elderly umbrella scolding a parasol.
“Do mind your manners,” Alice told it, though she could not say which of them was to blame.
Presently she came to a landing where brass spiders were polishing the gears with tiny feather dusters. Each wore a pince-nez perched on its foremost eyes and hummed a tune that sounded suspiciously like Rule, Britannia! played backwards.
“Excuse me,” Alice asked one. “Is this the way to the Invasion Tea?”
The spider dusted, sniffed, and replied: “This way, that way, or the other way. But not the right way, which is wrong. And not the wrong way, which is right. Have a nice fall.”
Alice thanked it politely and chose the way that looked least likely to end in being flattened.
The path sloped steeper and steeper until it gave up entirely and became a slide. Down Alice flew, her hair streaming, her laughter echoing like silver bells. She shot past ladders made of ladles, pipes that played scales, and signs that flipped themselves every time she blinked. One read: DESCENT TO THE FACTORY. COMPLAINTS TO BE LODGED IN TRIPLICATE.
At last, with a whirl and a whoosh, Alice landed in a puff of soot upon a heap of coal-dust cushions. She sneezed—once, twice, three times. The cushions sneezed back.
When her eyes cleared, she saw before her the strangest city she had ever beheld: all boilers and balconies, chimneys and cupolas, with tea-kettles as tall as towers and stovepipes belching steam like polite volcanoes. And bustling through the streets—hissing, clanking, puffing—came the inhabitants.
Daleks.
But not the dreadful sort from fairy tales. These Daleks were steampunked into eccentric civility: brass-bodied, gear-studded, with stovepipe chimneys fixed to their domes, monocles over their eyestalks, and little boilers strapped to their backs. Instead of “EX-TER-MI-NATE,” they were shouting in hearty chorus:
“TEA-TI-MA-TE! BOIL-ER-ATE! SAM-O-VAR-ATE!”
Alice dusted her frock, stood up straight, and said aloud: “Well, I have come this far, and I shall certainly see what sort of tea is brewed in Steampunk Dalekland.”
And with that, she stepped into the street of brass and steam.
Chapter Three: The Dalek Factory
Alice brushed coal-dust from her pinafore and looked about her with an expression that was half astonishment and half delight, which is the best way to look about when one is in a brand-new land.
The city before her was a puzzle-box of brass and boilers. Chimneys puffed polite rings of steam into the air, towers gleamed with riveted copper, and everywhere pipes ran like snakes that had forgotten how to wriggle. But what caught Alice’s attention most were the citizens—Daleks.
Only, they were not the dreadful Daleks whispered of in bedtime warnings. These were splendidly decked out like Victorian gentlemen who had mistaken the hardware shop for their tailor’s. Their bronze panels were polished to mirrors, monocles glimmered upon eyestalks, and stovepipe chimneys sprouted from their domes, whistling like polite kettles.
“ATT-EN-TION!” barked one Dalek as Alice wandered past. Its plunger was tipped with sugar tongs, and in these it held a scone so delicately it might have been a crown jewel.
“BOIL-ER-ATE!” chorused another, whose dome had been fitted with a velvet cravat.
“STEAM-TI-MA-TE!” added a third, and the whole street answered back in metallic song:
“POUR-POUR-POUR! STIR-STIR-STIR! SIP-SIP-SIP!”
The effect was so comical that Alice laughed outright, though she clapped her hand over her mouth in case it was rude. The nearest Dalek tilted its monocle at her, which seemed to mean forgiveness.
Factories lined the avenue, their gates wide open, inviting Alice to peer within. She did so and found herself gazing into workshops as strange as any dream:
- In one, Daleks shuffled teapots along conveyor belts, polishing them with their plungers until the pots shone like suns.
- In another, they tested jam dispensers: strawberry, raspberry, and a particularly explosive sort called “Experimental Marmalade,” which burst with a fizz whenever the lid was opened.
- Further along, a whole department of Daleks was devoted to biscuit alignment. They measured each shortbread with rulers, rejected the bent ones, and stacked the perfect ones into neat battalions.
Alice tiptoed inside the largest factory. It was louder than the schoolroom bell on washing-day. Giant gears churned overhead, kettles hissed, valves whistled, and Daleks rolled about in strict, noisy harmony. At the center stood a colossal samovar shaped like a palace, its many spouts pouring rivers of tea into waiting vats.
“DO YOU TAKE ONE LUMP OR TWO?” roared a Dalek that seemed to be in charge. Its plunger-arm brandished a sugar cube the size of Alice’s head.
“Just half, if you please,” Alice said nervously.
The cube fell into the cup with a splash that nearly knocked her off her feet. The tea rippled, smelled strongly of toast, and politely tried to salute her.
Alice sipped. It tasted of brass and thunder, with a curious aftertaste of grammar.
“Well,” she said, catching her breath, “it is very industrious tea.”
“IN-DUS-TRI-OUS!” the Daleks shouted proudly, their chimneys puffing in rhythm. “TEA-TI-MA-TE! PRO-DUCT-IV-I-TY!”
The White Rabbit appeared at her elbow, sooty and breathless. “Quickly now! You mustn’t get too comfortable—factory teas have a habit of turning into tribunals.”
“But it is all so very polite,” Alice protested. “Surely no one minds if I drink?”
The Rabbit twitched his brass ears. “Oh, they mind, they mind terribly. They just don’t admit it until the kettle blows.”
And indeed, from the far end of the hall, a whistle sounded so shrill it made the rivets quiver. The Daleks straightened at once, their boilers rattling.
“IN-SPEC-TION!” they cried together. “IN-SPEC-TION BY THE MAD EN-GIN-EER!”
Alice set down her enormous cup with a clatter. “Who is the Mad Engineer?” she asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” the Rabbit sighed. “And I do hope you like riddles, because here they come.”
Chapter Four: A Very Boiling Tea Party
The Dalek Factory did not end with the factory at all—factories are like sentences that go on much too long, and this one tumbled into a banquet hall the size of a railway station.
Alice found herself seated—though she could not remember how she’d been seated—at a table that stretched further than she could see. It was built of riveted brass sheets bolted together, and every time someone clanked a teacup down, the whole contraption rang like a gong.
The table was already crowded with Daleks, each festooned with some personal addition: a bow tie here, a bonnet there, one particularly elegant Dalek with a feathered fan screwed to its dome. Their boilers hissed, their monocles gleamed, and each had a cup in front of it so large that Alice felt like a mouse at the Mad Hatter’s.
“POUR! POUR! POUR!” they chanted, plungers raised. At once, brass tubes descended from the ceiling, spouting hot tea in perfectly measured arcs. The cups filled themselves, while pistons hissed approval.
Alice’s own cup refilled with such vigor it nearly washed her onto the floor. “Thank you,” she gasped, dabbing her face with a napkin that turned out to be made of parchment and had written across it: PLEASE DO NOT THANK THE MACHINERY. IT IS SHY.
Plates arrived on little conveyor belts, clattering cheerfully. Triangular scones marched in neat rows; rectangular biscuits filed behind them like soldiers. Circular buns, however, were stopped at the border by Dalek guards.
“CIR-CLES ARE SUS-PECT,” one declared. “THEY GO ROUND AND ROUND WITH-OUT AR-RIV-ING.”
Alice nibbled a triangular scone, which tasted mostly of geometry but left a pleasant aftertaste of strawberry.
Suddenly, with a hiss and a whistle, a Dalek rose at the head of the table. Upon its dome perched a stovepipe hat, from which smoke puffed in polite bursts. It lifted its plunger and bellowed:
“BEGIN THE TOAST!”
All the Daleks clanked their cups together. Steam gushed from chimneys, valves squealed, and the factory shook with metallic cheer.
“To tea!” cried one.
“To biscuits!” shouted another.
“To jam that does not explode!” added a third, to general agreement.
Alice stood and curtsied. “And to conversation!” she offered.
The Daleks paused, eye-stalks swiveling. “CON-VER-SA-TION?” they repeated, as if testing a word they’d never quite boiled before.
“Yes,” Alice said. “Talking while one drinks tea. It is half the pleasure of it.”
A Dalek raised its monocle. “WE TALK. WE SAY: TEA-TI-MA-TE.”
“But you must say something else as well,” Alice explained. “About the weather, or the biscuits, or whether the sugar is too lumpy.”
The Daleks clattered among themselves, debating. One finally produced a note-card from its hatch. “OBSERV-A-TION: THE BIS-CUITS ARE CRUMB-LY.”
“Excellent!” Alice cried. “Now you are truly having a tea party.”
“HOOR-AY!” chorused the Daleks. “CRUMB-LY! CRUMB-LY! CRUMB-LY!”
The hall filled with steam and cheer until, above the racket, a new sound rose—a shrill, whistling screech, half kettle, half madness. The Daleks fell silent at once, their monocles quivering.
“THE MAD EN-GIN-EER,” whispered the White Rabbit at Alice’s side, his ears trembling like antennae in a storm.
And from the far end of the table, where the samovar-palace loomed, a figure emerged in a soot-blackened top hat with chimneys sprouting from it like horns. His waistcoat bristled with spanners, and his eyes glowed like mismatched furnaces.
“The riddles begin,” the Rabbit said gravely.
Alice straightened her pinafore and thought: Well, I have faced riddles before. And I shall not be out-boiled by a hat with chimneys.
Chapter Five: The Mad Engineer
Out of the steam strode the strangest gentleman Alice had ever seen—and she had seen a good many strange ones in her time. He was neither rabbit, nor cat, nor card, nor even exactly a gentleman. He was the Mad Engineer.
His top hat sprouted chimneys like a small factory, puffing black smoke that curled into the rafters. His coat was stitched from boiler-plates, and his waistcoat rattled with spanners instead of buttons. Upon his nose sat a pair of goggles with cracked lenses, and his beard (if it was a beard at all) appeared to be made of iron filings.
“LA-DIES, GEN-TLE-DAL-EKS, AND AS-SORT-ED OBSERV-ERS!” he cried, in a voice like a kettle coming to the boil. “THE TRI-BU-NAL IS NOW IN SES-SION. WE SHALL TEST THE GIRL.”
Alice curtsied politely. “I am not a test,” she said. “I am a person.”
“ALL PERSONS ARE TESTS,” said the Engineer gravely, “AND ALL TESTS ARE RIDDLES, AND ALL RIDDLES ARE—”
“Trouble,” whispered the White Rabbit in her ear.
“—ANS-WER-ABLE BY LOG-IC, OR FAIL-URE!” finished the Engineer.
The Daleks around the table clattered their cups. “FAIL-URE! FAIL-URE! FAIL-URE!”
Alice folded her arms. “Well then, what is the riddle?” she asked.
The Engineer produced a wrench from his pocket and held it aloft. “QUES-TION THE FIRST: WHEN IS A BOIL-ER NOT A BOIL-ER?”
The Daleks leaned forward, their monocles fogging with anticipation.
Alice considered. “When it is cold?”
“IM-PRO-PER!” cried the Engineer, slamming the wrench upon the table. The cups rattled, and jam leapt onto a biscuit uninvited.
“When it is empty?” Alice tried again.
“IN-SUF-FI-CIENT!” roared the Engineer. Steam burst from his hat so violently that one chimney toppled sideways.
The White Rabbit tugged at Alice’s sleeve. “Say something nonsensical. It’s the only thing that works.”
Alice took a deep breath. “When is a boiler not a boiler? Why, when it is a kettle dreaming of becoming a teacup!”
The hall went very still. The Daleks froze. Even the great samovar seemed to hold its breath.
Then—clang! Whistle! Puff!—the Daleks cheered. “SPLEN-DID! SPLEN-DID! SPLEN-DID!”
The Engineer’s goggles flashed. “QUES-TION THE SECOND!” he bellowed. He held up two spanners, crossed them like swords. “IF A COG TURNS CLOCK-WISE, AND A SEC-OND COG TURNS COUN-TER, WHICH WAY DOES TIME IT-SELF TURN?”
Alice thought carefully. “It doesn’t matter which way time turns,” she said, “so long as it arrives for tea.”
The Daleks erupted again: “COR-RECT! COR-RECT! TEA-TI-MA-TE!”
The Engineer slammed his spanners together, sparks flying. “FINAL QUES-TION! BE-WARE!”
The hall dimmed, as though the smoke itself was listening.
“WHAT IS THE DIF-FER-ENCE,” roared the Engineer, “BETWEEN A GREAT GEAR THAT TURNS THE SKY, AND A SMALL GIRL WHO FALLS FROM IT?”
All eyes turned to Alice. She swallowed, feeling the hush press around her. The White Rabbit looked ready to bolt.
At last Alice said, “The Great Gear turns because it must, but the small girl falls because she chooses.”
For a moment—just one—the Engineer froze, his chimneys silent. Then he threw back his head and laughed, a noise like a hundred whistles shrieking at once.
“VER-DICT!” he cried. “THE GIRL PASSES. SHE MAY PRO-CEED.”
The Daleks pounded their plungers on the table in thunderous approval. “PRO-CEED! PRO-CEED!”
The Rabbit leaned close and whispered, “Proceed where?”
And Alice, who was still catching her breath, whispered back, “That, I suppose, is the next riddle.”
Chapter Six: The Revolt of the Gears
No sooner had Alice answered the Mad Engineer’s last riddle than a curious noise rose above the banquet clatter. At first it was just a faint tick… tick… tick, like a mouse tapping its nails on the rim of a saucer. Then it grew louder, deeper, until the very rafters seemed to vibrate with the rhythm.
“The Great Gear is restless,” whispered the White Rabbit, his ears twitching. “And when it grows restless, it grows unreasonable.”
The Daleks turned their eye-stalks upward. Above the hall, through the fog of steam, Alice glimpsed the great wheel itself, the colossal gear that hung like a second sky. Its teeth ground slowly, grinding time and tea in equal measure. Now it shuddered, juddered, and slipped one tooth forward with an echoing clang.
“GEAR-SLIP!” shouted one Dalek in alarm.
“GEAR-SLIP! AL-TER-NA-TION OF HOUR-AGE!” cried another.
At once pandemonium broke out. Half the Daleks argued that the Gear must be turned faster to keep the hours hot; the other half insisted it must be slowed to keep the scones from burning. Plungers waved like banners. Boilers hissed angrily.
“FASTER!” cried the Daleks in stovepipe chimneys.
“SLOWER!” cried the Daleks in bow ties.
“JUST RIGHT!” squeaked a very small Dalek wearing spectacles, but nobody listened.
The Mad Engineer slammed his wrench against the table. Sparks flew. “SIL-ENCE!” he bellowed. “WE SHALL RE-SOLVE THIS WITH A VOTE—OR A RE-VOLT!”
“RE-VOLT! RE-VOLT!” chanted the Daleks, who were fond of rhymes even in crisis.
Alice climbed onto her chair, which wobbled uncertainly beneath her. “Pray stop quarrelling!” she cried. “If everyone pushes in opposite directions, the whole contraption will come apart!”
“LET IT COME A-PART!” shouted one particularly sooty Dalek. “WE SHALL RE-AS-SEN-BLE IT BET-TER!”
“Yes!” cried another. “BIG-GER BOIL-ERS, LOUD-ER WHIS-TLES!”
The Rabbit tugged urgently at Alice’s pinafore. “This is no place for sensible advice,” he whispered. “Here, common sense is considered highly inflammatory.”
Indeed, the Daleks had begun forming into factions, trundling to opposite ends of the hall. One group surged toward the staircases leading up to the Great Gear, brandishing sugar tongs and biscuit trays as weapons. The other group rolled in the opposite direction, dragging enormous teapots on chains, chanting: “SLOW THE GEAR! COOL THE TEA!”
The Gear above gave another shudder, grinding sparks into the air like fireworks. A terrible groaning rolled through the walls. Time itself seemed to hiccup—one moment Alice saw the Daleks halfway up the stairs, the next they were back at the bottom, only to be halfway again the instant after.
“It’s skipping!” cried Alice. “The minutes are tripping over themselves!”
The Mad Engineer clutched his chimneied hat with both hands. “THIS IS A RE-VOL-UTION!” he howled. “AND I AM FOR IT!”
Alice turned to the Rabbit, her face set. “If the Gear breaks entirely, what becomes of Dalekland?”
The Rabbit’s whiskers drooped. “Oh, just the usual. First the clocks melt. Then the kettles forget how to boil. Then the biscuits begin singing.”
“That will never do,” said Alice firmly. “I shall have to stop the Gear myself.”
The Rabbit’s eyes widened. “Impossible!”
But Alice was already looking upward at the mighty wheel, its teeth grinding like thunderclouds. Somewhere within its iron spokes she thought she saw a glimmer—like a watch face, or perhaps a keyhole.
“If I can only reach it,” she whispered, “perhaps I shall find the answer.”
And as the factions of Daleks rolled and clattered in noisy revolt, Alice set her jaw and began to climb the staircase of ladles that led toward the very heart of the Great Gear.
Chapter Seven: The Boiler Queen
Up and up Alice climbed, until she stood upon a platform polished so bright she could see her own astonishment reflected in the brass. Before her loomed the Great Gear, vast as the horizon, its teeth turning with the groan of a thousand grandfather clocks disagreeing at once. Sparks danced between the spokes, and the air smelt of smoke, metal, and something faintly jammy.
From a balcony above, a herald-Dalek blew a whistle through its chimney and cried:
“ALL HAIL THE BOIL-ER QUEEN!”
At once the gears hushed, the steam folded itself into neat ribbons, and every Dalek below abandoned its quarrel to swivel upward in reverence.
Then she appeared.
The Boiler Queen was taller than the rest, her casing clad in gold and velvet draperies. Her dome bore a crown of teaspoons, arranged like a halo of shining commas, and from her chimney drifted perfumed steam smelling faintly of cinnamon. Her eyestalk swept across the city with majestic disdain before fixing upon Alice.
“SMALL BIO-LOG-IC-AL,” boomed the Queen. “YOU HAVE ME-DDLED WITH THE GEAR. EX-PLAIN YOUR-SELF.”
Alice curtsied, though the wind of steam nearly knocked her sideways. “Please, Your Majesty, I have not meddled at all—only climbed. The Gear seemed to be slipping, and I thought I might help.”
“HELP?” the Queen repeated, as though the word were a foreign teabag. “THE LAW OF PRESS-URE DOES NOT PER-MIT HELP. IT DE-MANDS O-BE-DI-ENCE.”
The Daleks below echoed: “O-BE-DI-ENCE! O-BE-DI-ENCE!”
Alice stood her ground. “With respect, ma’am, I think obedience without thinking is dreadfully dull. One must stir an idea, or the tea of life goes quite flat.”
The Queen’s chimney puffed sharply. “DISSENT!” she declared. “THE GIRL SPEAKS OF STIR-RING. STIR-RING IS UN-LAW-FUL WITH-OUT PER-MIT. SEN-TENCE: TRI-AL BY TEA-POT!”
Alice clutched her pinafore. “Trial by teapot?”
The Rabbit, appearing suddenly at her elbow, whispered, “Oh dear, oh dear! That’s the most serious kind. No one survives without at least being scalded.”
The Queen raised her plunger like a sceptre. “SUM-MON THE JURY!”
From a side door marched a dozen brass monkeys, each in a wig of foam and a gown of napkin. They carried typewriters clattering away by themselves, filling page after page with nonsense verdicts. The monkeys seated themselves in solemn rows, pounding out opinions before the trial had even begun.
Alice’s heart raced, though she raised her chin bravely. “If there is to be a trial,” she said, “then I shall defend myself.”
The Queen’s voice echoed like a kettle at full boil. “SO BE IT. THE TRI-BU-NAL OF STEAM SHALL DE-CIDE. PRE-PARE THE TEA-POT!”
And from the shadows rolled forward a monstrous teapot on wheels, brass and blackened with age, its spout dripping molten drops that hissed as they hit the floor. It creaked to a halt beside Alice, towering like a dragon disguised as crockery.
The Daleks below clattered in unison: “TRI-AL! TRI-AL! TRI-AL!”
Alice folded her arms, though her knees were knocking. “Very well,” she said. “If I must be judged, then I hope at least the tea is properly brewed.”
The Jury of Brass Monkeys clattered on their typewriters, producing endless lines of: GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY—OR POSSIBLY NOT.
The Rabbit covered his eyes. “It’s no use,” he whispered. “The Boiler Queen never loses a trial.”
Alice looked from the Queen to the Great Gear, still groaning above, and thought: Then I shall simply have to win it myself.
Chapter Eight: Trial by Teapot
The monstrous teapot rumbled forward on brass wheels, its spout steaming like a dragon’s nostril. Each drip that fell to the floor hissed and left a tiny hole in the brass tiles, which hurriedly patched themselves up again with embarrassed clinks.
Alice folded her arms and tried to look braver than she felt. “If this is to be a trial,” she said, “then I shall need proper charges.”
“CHARG-ES!” boomed the Boiler Queen. “THE GIRL IS CHARGED WITH—” she paused to puff cinnamon-scented steam, “—DISSENT IN THE KET-TLE, AND HER-ESY OF THE BIS-CUIT.”
The Jury of Brass Monkeys typed furiously. GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, OR PERHAPS AFTER LUNCH, clattered their machines.
Alice shook her head. “This won’t do at all. A trial must have evidence, or it’s only half-baked. And half-baked trials are worse than half-baked scones.”
At once a Dalek rolled forward, balancing a saucer upon its plunger. Upon the saucer sat a teacup—half full, or half empty, depending on one’s inclination.
“EX-HI-BIT A!” cried the Dalek. “A CUP WITH NEI-THER ALL NOR NOTH-ING IN IT.”
“PROOF OF THE GIRL’S UN-CER-TAIN-TY!” bellowed another.
Alice curtsied to the Jury. “If the cup is half full, it means I am an optimist. If it is half empty, it means I am a realist. Either way, I am something sensible, which is hardly a crime.”
The Jury typed: SENSIBLE… SUSPICIOUS.
The Boiler Queen’s eyestalk glowed hotter. “SUM-MON EX-HI-BIT B!”
A second Dalek trundled forward with a sugar bowl. The lid rattled off, and a single enormous lump sat within.
“EVI-DENCE OF DE-FI-ANCE!” cried the Dalek. “THE GIRL RE-QUEST-ED HALF, YET HALF IS NOT PER-MIT-TED!”
“HALF IS HER-ESY!” declared the Queen. “IN TEA THERE IS ONLY WHOLE OR NILL.”
Alice stamped her foot. “Nonsense! Halves are quite proper. Without halves there would be no wholes, and without wholes there would be nothing at all!”
The Jury’s typewriters smoked with confusion. NOTHING AT ALL? HOW DREADFUL. GUILTY OF PHILOSOPHY.
At this the monstrous teapot gave a terrible groan, its spout lifting high. A jet of boiling steam shot into the air, curling into the words VERDICT PENDING.
The White Rabbit tugged frantically at Alice’s pinafore. “Quickly! Quickly! You must cross-examine something before the Teapot declares its judgment!”
Alice looked about, her eyes settling on the sugar bowl. “Very well. I shall cross-examine the sugar.”
The court gasped. Even the monkeys paused their typing.
Alice fixed the lump with her steadiest glare. “Do you, sugar, confess to being divisible?”
The lump was silent, but the Daleks murmured in shock.
Alice pressed on. “And if divisible, then surely capable of being halved?”
The lump gave a faint crack, splitting neatly down the middle. One half fell to the floor and bounced away like a guilty child.
“HAH!” cried Alice. “There is my evidence!”
The Jury’s typewriters hammered wildly: HALVED! HALVED! THE GIRL SPEAKS TRUE!
The Daleks fell into clattering dismay. The Boiler Queen’s crown of teaspoons rattled furiously. The Teapot wobbled on its wheels, then spat out a puff of steam that spelled ACQUITTED, before sulking back into the shadows.
Alice straightened her pinafore, cheeks flushed but proud. “There, Your Majesty. That’s the end of it. I told you I would defend myself.”
But the Queen’s voice rose, colder than steam and heavier than brass. “PER-HAPS YOU HAVE WON THE TRI-AL, SMALL BIO-LOG-IC-AL. BUT YOU HAVE NOT YET WON TIME.”
And above them, the Great Gear gave another dreadful slip, showering sparks that rained like stars across the courtroom.
Chapter Nine: The Stopwatch of Sanity
The courtroom still trembled from the verdict. The Boiler Queen glared down, teaspoons rattling in her crown, while the Jury of Brass Monkeys collapsed in a heap of tangled typewriters. Daleks muttered among themselves: some cheered Alice’s defiance, others hissed that she was dangerous, and a few quietly debated the merits of triangular versus square scones.
Through the steam and confusion, the White Rabbit tugged urgently at Alice’s sleeve.
“This way—quickly! Before the Queen demands an appeal! Appeals always last for centuries, and they never bring sandwiches.”
He whisked her through a hidden archway behind the dais. They hurried down a narrow corridor lined with pipes, where every so often a spigot spat out an exclamation mark in steam. At last they reached a small chamber where the air hummed as if an enormous clock were breathing.
In the centre sat an object on a pedestal: a plain silver stopwatch, its glass face cracked, its hands trembling uncertainly between the minutes. Around it, the walls ticked like teeth.
“The Stopwatch of Sanity,” whispered the Rabbit, ears drooping reverently. “The one thing that can halt the Great Gear. It winds backward, not forward. But beware—each turn will unmake a moment.”
Alice stepped closer. The watch ticked irregularly, as though it were both remembering and forgetting. She saw strange reflections in the glass: her own face smiling, then frowning, then tumbling endlessly.
“How does it work?” she asked.
“By nonsense, naturally,” the Rabbit replied. “It only obeys a rhyme no one quite remembers. Some say it is hidden in the steam; others say in the jam stains of history.”
Alice thought hard. In Wonderland, riddles had always yielded to rhyme. She closed her eyes and recited softly:
Tick tock, stop the clock,
Turn it backward, make it knock.
Gear be still, kettle rest,
Time take tea and do your best.
At once the watch shivered, its hands spinning backward with a squeal. The whole chamber rattled, and the pipes sang like organ pipes in distress.
The Rabbit’s eyes widened. “You’ve done it! You’ve wound the Un-Wind!”
Far above, the Great Gear gave a groan so loud it shook the city. Its teeth slowed, caught, and—for the first time—stopped. The chimneys froze mid-puff. The Daleks in the streets halted mid-clank, cups suspended halfway to their mouths. Even the Queen herself stiffened, her crown of teaspoons tilting.
Alice looked around. “Everything’s stopped.”
“Not everything,” whispered the Rabbit, pointing.
The Stopwatch glowed faintly, and within its cracked glass Alice glimpsed something new: a door, tiny but clear, waiting to be opened. Beyond it, she saw a glimmer of her own garden, daisies sneezing and roses complaining.
“Your way home,” the Rabbit said softly. “But beware—the Queen will not allow it.”
As if on cue, the chamber filled with a dreadful hiss. The Boiler Queen forced her way through the pipes, steam trailing like fury. Her voice shook the floor:
“SMALL BIO-LOG-IC-AL! YOU HAVE STOPPED THE GEAR. YOU HAVE BROKEN THE LAW OF PRESS-URE. THIS IS UN-AC-CEPT-ABLE!”
Alice clutched the Stopwatch of Sanity to her chest, heart hammering. For a moment she considered fleeing through the glowing doorway. But another thought struck her: If I leave now, Dalekland will remain forever frozen, trapped in stopped time.
She turned to face the Queen, her eyes steady. “Perhaps it is not I who must obey time,” she said, “but time that must learn to obey me.”
The Stopwatch ticked once—very loudly—as though it agreed.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 