She leaned forward to touch his shoulder, almost brushing the mahjongg tiles from their careful, scattered towers. “You have done well, making goodly choices that may have literally saved the world. Whatever an admiral says to you at a later moment in your life will be forever outweighed in the eyes of both man and God by the good you did for that poor girl.”
“It is to those admirals that I answer, ma’am, neither to man or to God. I have lain hard by an English port for days, and discharged none of my sworn duties.”
Childress sighed. “I speak from no man, and God does not listen to me. But I will not stop believing that you have done well and good by both England as a whole and by those whom you have met and aided along the way.”
His smile, a rare enough commodity of late, quirked at her. “Thank you, ma’am.”
A Chinese sailor dashed up to them. “An airship is outside,” he shouted in his own language. “I was to tell you.”
“We’ll go look,” growled al-Wazir. Childress quickly followed him to the tunnel mouth. The chief grabbed a carbine from the guards there as he hurried into the rising darkness with her not far behind his heels.
SIX
So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword. —2 Chronicles 32:21
BOAZ
Early in his sixth morning on the road, an airship of unfamiliar design cruised past at a fairly high altitude. A Royal Navy scout? Dawn colored the hull pink. Boaz could spot no standards flying.
An hour further into that day, the small airship returned from the west. This time it sailed more slowly at a lower altitude. The vessel moved in a quartering pattern, suggesting the captain searched for something.
Him.
Boaz considered going to ground to wait this out, but realized that if the British truly wished to find him they would so long as he kept to the road. Better to meet them head on, hear them out, and if possible convince them of his own mission to Ophir.
Ottweill must be on their minds. Perhaps Boaz could use his time in the doctor’s work camp along the wall to be persuasive.
He stopped in the middle of the road and waved his arms to signal the approaching airship.
The aerial fast packet HIMS Erinyes was commanded by a Lieutenant Ostrander, a brown-haired boy with brown eyes and brown teeth, sprouting stray hairs from his chin and speaking in a voice that cracked every sentence. At the moment, he focused his very serious attention on Boaz.
“Colonel Pinter wants you back in Mogadishu.”
They stood on the deck of the airship, which was slung very close to the gasbag and thus forced the vessel’s overtall commander to slouch. Al-Wazir would have been scandalized.
The Brass had come aboard in brief, shouted negotiations, and now watched Africa and the Wall turn as the ship’s pilot attempted to head her into the wind, keep station here where they had picked Boaz up and not move her in any direction—three contradictory orders Lieutenant Ostrander had issued in quick succession.
From the expressions of the crew, all had not settled well aboard HIMS Erinyes.
“I cannot travel to Mogadishu,” Boaz said patiently. “I have critical business farther west along the Wall.”
“I—I could take you by force.” Ostrander’s voice was uncertain.
“You could make the attempt, but you would not hold me long.” Boaz turned to look at the bosun, a compact, red-faced man with hair the bluish black of a soldier’s best-polished boots, suspicions burning in his eyes. He grasped a Webley service revolver cocked and ready. “Your men know what it is to fight Brass. I expect they’ve been out to the tunnel camp, or heard stories. I am aboard as your friend, not your enemy.”
Ostrander almost shivered as he continued to stare intently at Boaz. “I am under orders.”
“As am I,” the Brass lied. He would hardly admit his destination of Ophir to this pup. “You brought me onto this vessel under your word we would engage in negotiations. If you arrest me, I will tear your ship apart. If you release me, I will continue on my way west. Or . . .” He did his best to sound sly. “If you carry me westward, once I reach Dr. Ottweill’s encampment, you can seek new orders and we can renegotiate.”
“A word with you, sir,” said the bosun to his commander, keeping his hard eyes on Boaz.
Ostrander held up a hand in protest. “No, no, Mr. McCurdy. I shall work through this myself.” He stepped away from Boaz and paced aftward to stare at the vista of the Wall swinging by, far too close.
“How long has he been in command?” Boaz quietly asked the bosun.
Something akin to relief darted across McCurdy’s face. “Since last night, John Brass.”
“Too many promotions, too quickly.” He’d heard al-Wazir say that.
“There’s a war for you.” The bosun uncocked his revolver and slid the weapon back into its holster. “Ain’t you the fellow who brought the Chinee to Mogadishu?”
“I came out of the west with Chief Petty Officer al-Wazir of the Royal Navy. He was taken by the Chinese during the raid on your city.”
“Ain’t my city,” muttered McCurdy.
“As may be. In any case, too many were lost in that action.”
Lieutenant Ostrander stalked back toward them, head bent forward like some wading bird. “If I convey you to Ottweill, will you return to Mogadishu with me afterward?”
He’s struck at the bait. Al-Wazir in a similar situation would have just thrown a Brass invader overboard, or possibly brazed him into irons and restrained him with an anchor chain upon the open deck.
“Let us sail westward and see what orders wait,” Boaz replied, which was no answer whatsoever. From McCurdy’s expression, the bosun understood that perfectly well.
“Very well,” Lieutenant Ostrander said. “Set a course to the west,” he called out. “The port at Ayacalong on the West African station.”
HIMS Erinyes was a faster ship than Boaz was accustomed to. He measured their progress by observing the apparent passage of features along the Wall. That first afternoon, Ostrander had gone below to do whatever commanders did alone in their cabins. The midshipman had the deck.
Bosun McCurdy seemed to have inherited charge of the Brass interloper. The man’s attitude had shifted from suspicion to resignation. Boaz missed the easy camaraderie he’d shared with al-Wazir.
“Sure you do not somehow imagine that I shall murder all the crew in their bunks?” he asked McCurdy as the two of them stood at the rail, gaping upward at the immensity of the Wall.
The bosun snorted. “You had the right of it, John Brass. I been on the Wall at the camp, running courier when Lieutenant Mafwyn had Erinyes. We heard all about your lot, how you was unstoppable forces of nature and the like. Your kind can take a bullet, spit it out and shove it up a man’s arse without breaking stride. If you were of a mind to pull herself out of the sky”—he patted the rail with his free hand—“there ain’t so much none of us could do for it unless we wrassled you overboard before you tore all our arms off.”
“Then why did you bring me aboard?”
His head tilted, signaling somewhere over his shoulder. “Lieutenant had orders. Looking for a Brass what left the Chinese fight along the Abyssinian coast. No one was sure what they saw, but your footprints was in their beach camp, and word is some of them chinkers got took prisoner and sang.”
Boaz wondered who might have survived among the men he had known. “Orders were to bring me in?”
The bosun shrugged. “Not rightly certain. But the lieutenant here, he’s the talkingest fellow I ever served under. I don’t believe he’d pinch the crap off own his butt if there was someone around to ask about it first. He wanted to talk; you wanted to talk. Me, I’d have shot you down where you stood, sawed your arms and legs off, and brought you back to Mogadishu in five separate barrels.”
“That would probably prove an effective deterrent,” Boaz admitted. “Your honest
y is refreshing.”
“Not my decision. First thing that wet-eared pup Ostrander did once he come aboard was pull me aside and explain the chain of command. Me, in Her Imperial Majesty’s Royal Navy, boy and man, these past thirty-two years.”
::This man does not render the proper piety to his superiors.::
With a tinge of panic, Boaz realized the Sixth Seal stirred in his belly.
“I am well enough pleased with the current state of affairs,” he told McCurdy, trying to change the subject before the voice of the Seal grew stronger. He did not want to slip into lost time again. “How fares the fight against the Chinese?”
“Hah.” The bosun gave Boaz a sidelong glare. “Likely I’m consorting with the enemy to even speak of that with you.”
“Do I seem Chinese?”
“No. But you was with them, before.”
“Taken prisoner,” Boaz reminded him.
“Aye. You being a fellow who can snap mainstays with the strength of his bare arms.” McCurdy reached over and rapped Boaz just above the elbow. A hollow thunk echoed.
::disrespect::
“I prefer you not do such things,” the Brass said quietly.
People touch each other all the time, said the human voice inside his head, that blend of Paolina and al-Wazir. That is how they remember each of them is people. The damage was done, though, as the bosun’s face closed and he turned away.
“Ships burning.” After a moment McCurdy spoke, to Boaz’ surprise. “The chinkers shelled Kismayo. Not enough of either of us around for a fight like this to go on long. Not until someone sends a lot more ships and men.”
Or an army comes along the face of the Wall to put you both down. Boaz was relieved to find that was an Ophir thought, something of his own past and people. Whatever he could see of them, in truth. Not one of the new voices he continued to hear.
More and more he was coming to appreciate the complexity of the human mind, monkey meat being made to think in imperfect channels, not like the crystal arrays and Sealed precision of a Brass brain.
Still, his belly was strangely warm.
“I am certain it will work as you hope,” he told McCurdy. “Dr. Ottweill is poised to discover great secrets.”
“Ottweill?” The bosun snorted. “He’s gone so deep down his own rabbit hole ain’t nobody knows for sure he’s ever coming out.”
“They are truly lost?” Boaz could not decide whether that was good news or ill.
“Why would a John Brass like you be thinking the lieutenant set a course for Ayacalong instead of the Wall camp?”
Their conversation drifted into silence after that, while the little airship beat her way west, ungainly and pregnant with destiny.
As shadows slipped deeper into night, Boaz settled down along the rail for his sort of rest. McCurdy squatted close to him after a few minutes.
“John Brass,” the bosun whispered.
Boaz blinked away muzzy visions of Paolina in a jungle somewhere. “Yes?”
“Ostrander, he’s not such a bad sort. The middie’s all right as well, but he truly is just a lad and needs someone to mind his nappies. Our lieutenant, though, he was a supply officer in the depot at Mogadishu before the Chinese raid. His wife and baby died in the fires, and the colonel gave him Erinyes because there weren’t nobody else to take the ship. But I think . . .”
In the following silence, Boaz held his tongue. Treachery stirred. The bosun seethed with a dire need to confide about something that frightened him.
Finally, McCurdy completed his thought. “I think he doesn’t sleep, because all he sees behind his eyes is flames. That will make any man mad, rightly smartly so.”
“What is it that you believe I might do?” Boaz asked.
“Nothing.” For the first time, Boaz understood the bleakness that had been lurking in McCurdy’s voice all day. “You’re the enemy. But what you might not do is this; you might not break the poor man.”
The bosun feared for his ship, of course. Boaz tried to reassure him. “It is my ambition to better the world, not worsen it. I see no difficulty in applying that philosophy to Lieutenant Ostrander.”
The bosun lightly brushed Boaz’ shoulder with his fingertips. Monkey touch, Boaz thought—the voice of his own mind, though he could hear approval echoing deeper within. “Yes,” McCurdy said, “and if you was an Englishman I might even be trusting in you.”
“I shall endeavor not to disappoint.”
KITCHENS
The airship HIMS Notus headed south and east out of Dover. The English Channel slid by quickly enough; then they passed over the farming country of Normandy. Kitchens watched their progress from the navigator’s station on the poop deck, a folding chart table open before him. He’d clipped a length of foolscap there onto which he periodically made coded notes in a tiny, precise sequence of dots that in truth signified nothing whatsoever.
Captain Sayeed finally stepped away from the helm to approach Kitchens. The special clerk made a point of covering his notes to keep them from the officer’s view.
“Would you prefer to give me my orders here on the open deck,” Sayeed asked, “or should we repair below?”
Kitchens knew he would have to stay far ahead of this man, so best to keep the lead open as wide as possible. “We are proceeding according to a sailing plan delivered by Admiralty into your care. Our destination is known. I am merely here to observe.”
“And report, as well.” Sayeed frowned. “I know what you carry in your papers. Admiral Towle was quite careful to inform me how critical your good opinion is to the continued health of my men and my ship.”
“For my part,” Kitchens said, speaking the words he’d so carefully considered, “I do not believe your ship and crew were well served. You least of all. There has been panic over the secret societies. This fear has been turned on Notus.”
“You have surely seen my dossier.” The captain’s stare was unblinking. “They would not have set you on this deck without knowing of my affiliation with the Silent Order.”
If Sayeed was not worried, he would not be, but this subject was rarely spoken of in open company. “Yes,” he said simply. “That is not my concern. I am charged with aiding Dr. Ottweill and the tunnel project. You and your ship may be redeemed from suspicion through exemplary service in pursuit of my mission.”
“Hmm.” Sayeed looked decidedly unimpressed. “Mr. Kitchens, perhaps you are familiar with the circumstances of my birth?”
“Beirut, 1869,” the dark clerk responded promptly. “Of Arab parents, under Ottoman rule, taken to England as a small boy after the Battle of Acre and raised in fosterage.”
“My skin is an unfortunate hue, and my name condemns me as a wog.” Bitterness laced the captain’s voice. “I have never been redeemed from suspicion before this, Mr. Pale Man with the Very English Name. No more so will I be now.”
“If you have labored under suspicion all your life,” Kitchens asked, leaving his scripted words behind in pursuit of this opening, “why did you become involved in the Silent Order?”
“I rather imagine for the same reason you wear that dark suit and little round hat, and carry those papers under your arm.” Sayeed quirked a secretive smile. “Because I believe the world can be a better place for all men. This path seemed wisest to me.”
“Does it still seem wise to you?”
The captain had no answer for that as his face hardened and he turned away.
Kitchens stood with Simpkins the navigator as the charts were laid out. “Should we meet no adverse weather, twelve days and nights under three-quarter power to make our port,” the officer said.
“With a stop for fuel and ballast in Marseilles or Algiers?”
Simpkins met his gaze. Only one of the navigator’s green eyes was visible—the other was swollen shut beneath a crusted purple bruise. “We can make the whole run without tendering, but there are no facilities at Ayacalong. If we arrive low we should be forced to beat back up the coast to the new s
tation at Cotonou. And sir . . . no sane airman will be over the deep desert without as much gas, fuel and water aboard as he can possibly manage.”
“Would full power trim our air time?”
“Certainly. But we’ll use her fuel twice as fast. Oil is heavy stuff, and Notus does not carry so much of it as you might like to think. You could be walking back from the Bight of Benin.”
“Not many men have made that trip unassisted,” Kitchens said, thinking of al-Wazir.
Later, in his own small cabin, Kitchens considered Ottweill’s mission, and what Notus would likely find amid the savage wonders of the wall. It was not so difficult to build a case that any country wishing to spread its dominion across the Northern Earth was ruled by men as mad as hatters. The awful majesty of Queen Victoria in her sad decline was enough to convince Kitchens that the Wall held no monopoly on the breaking of the human mind and the shattering of the human spirit.
With that thought, he reached for the little case in which the Queen’s bloody paper had been deposited.
It is not about imagination, Kitchens thought. All of this—empires, the Wall, England’s endless bickering with China—all of it was about fear.
The paper had long since dried. He should have unfolded it before the bloody goo had set up to a stiffening dye. Since then, there had been no appropriate moment. Kitchens had not been ready.
He feared whatever message the Queen had given him. He feared what she would ask him to do. He feared turning back to England’s shore and setting his neck before the blade for a command from a madwoman floating in a tank. He feared refusing the lawful order of his sovereign. He feared declining the dying hope of a monarch beloved across half of the Northern Earth.