Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker

pistol?”
    Pengrove rose on his elbow and waved the weapon. “I say, you! Nasty thing!” As the automaton turned to track Pengrove’s movements, Edward lunged at it. It whirled around, flailing steel fists, but Edward caught it about the knees and toppled it. The automaton fell with a horrendous crash and Edward was on it at once, raining a series of blows on its throat, where a skin of canvas impregnated with gutta-percha seemed to conceal vital pipes and tubing.
    The automaton’s siren howled, it thrashed and spat blue flame from its mouth, and at last a shower of sparks shot out. Ignoring all these, Edward struck at it relentlessly, until its head parted company with its neck and rolled drunkenly across the floor. The light in its eyes died.
    “That’s quite enough,” said Ludbridge, stepping forward. “Fabricationwill weep when they see him. Was it really necessary to tear his head off?”
    “How could we be certain we’d killed him otherwise, sir?” Edward got to his feet. He lifted his skinned knuckles to his mouth.
    “Yes, but you’ve effectively halted your course of study until they can repair him. Note that it required all three of you to dispatch him! Even if Bell-Fairfax delivered the actual coup de grace. Let’s see that hand, man.”
    “It isn’t broken, sir, I promise you.” Edward held it out. Ludbridge inspected it briefly.
    “Hm! We’ll let the medicos decide that. You’ll come along with me to the infirmary. Pengrove, Hobson, take our headless friend down to Fabrication. You might want to join us in the hospital afterward, Hobson; get your nose seen to.”
    Warily the others lifted Spring-heel’d Jack’s body and strapped it to the wheeled stand. The thing made no protest. Bell-Fairfax followed Ludbridge to the ascending room and they rode it down to the floor on which the hospital was located.
    “There’s no need to act the stoic, Bell-Fairfax,” said Ludbridge. “It’s a damned foolish vanity to conceal an injury. You’re not the Spartan lad with the fox.”
    “No, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax. The door before them slid open and they emerged into a room furnished with chairs, at the opposite end of which was a counter and window. Several heavily bandaged gentlemen occupied the chairs, placidly engaged in reading copies of
The Times
,
Punch
or
The Illustrated London News
. A young lady in a coif, clearly a nursing sister, was seated beyond the window, engaged in some task or other.
    “Hallo, Atkinson,” said Ludbridge to the nearest of the men, who raised his bandaged face. “Trouble with the eye?”
    “Broke the damned infrared lens,” said Atkinson glumly.
    “Line of duty?”
    “No. Went night-shooting in Scotland and the fool bird flew straight into my face. I shall have to be fitted with a new eye.”
    “Oh, hard luck! This would be, er, what? Your third?”
    “Fifth,” said Atkinson.
    “May I be of assistance, Mr. Ludbridge?” inquired the young lady, looking up from her work.
    “Yes, thank you, sister.” Ludbridge took Bell-Fairfax’s elbow and steered him to the window. “My friend here requires a radiograph of his right hand.”
    “Certainly, Mr. Ludbridge.” The young lady gazed intently into a roundel of blue glass mounted in a cabinet in a brass frame, rather like a ship’s porthole. Her hands moved swiftly over something like a spinet’s keyboard, but with a great many more keys; instead of music being produced, glowing letters appeared and floated in the blue depths of the glass.
    “The radiography room is presently unoccupied. I shall send a notice to the technician. What is the gentleman’s name, please?”
    “Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax,” said he, with a musical quality to his voice Ludbridge hadn’t noticed before. The sister looked around as if startled. Bell-Fairfax smiled at her. She returned his smile, blushing prettily, and turned back to her keyboard to cover her confusion; but the corner of the smile could still be glimpsed, just