The engineer saluted me. “And right glad I am to hear it, ma’am. It’s about time the Tesla had a captain who understood her.”
“Even one who is female, Mr. Mowen?” I couldn’t help but ask as I made my way along the narrow metal catwalk.
He replied after a few moments of silence. “I would be prevaricating if I was to say that, Mr. Francisco aside, we did not have concerns about having a lass as a captain.”
We reached the gangway. I gave the engineer a considering look. I had expected a token amount of resistance when I took over as captain, but surely in these enlightened times no one could protest the fact that I was a woman. “There are several female captains in the Southampton Aerocorps, Mr. Mowen. It is not at all uncommon.”
“Aye, but those captains are limited to domestic routes. You are the first we’ve heard of taking command of an international route.”
“An oversight on the part of the Aerocorps, I’m sure. I served for several years under Captain Robert Anstruther, and he, as you might know, commanded the largest passenger airship to travel the empire. I am quite familiar with both the routes and the duties of a captain, even those that fall under the domain of a small cargo transport, such as the Tesla.”
“Captain Anstruther will be well missed,” Mowen said, his face now somber. “Those damned Black Hand revolutionaries have much to answer for, killing as fine a captain as ever sailed the skies.”
“Indeed they do,” I answered, squaring my shoulders at the pain that always followed the memory of Robert Anstruther’s last hours.
“You knew him well, did you?” Mowen asked, watching me closely.
I made an attempt to present a serene expression. “I did. He was my guardian, and a very great man. I consider him my father.”
The engineer’s eyebrows rose above the steel rims of his spectacles. “Then I am sorry for your loss, Captain.”
I acknowledged his sympathy, the pain that rose at the memory of Robert’s sacrifice a familiar burden. “I was given into his care when I was very young, and both he and his wife treated me as if I was their own child. I miss them very much.”
“The captain’s lady—she died, too, in the airship explosion?”
I closed my eyes for a moment as once again the vision of the burning aerodrome rose in my mind’s eye, the figure of Robert Anstruther silhouetted against the flames licking the black sky stark and hard.
“There is no other way, Octavia,” he had said, and I felt again the pain in his voice. “The emperor will not be appeased this time. If it was just myself, I could bear what would follow. I am old, and my time has almost run its course. But there is Jane and you to consider. I will not let my shame destroy your lives.”
“I will go with you,” I had begged at the time. “Let me go with you and Jane. I can help, I know I can.”
He had merely smiled sadly, and cupped the side of my face. “I bless the day the old emperor brought you to me. Do you remember it, Octavia? You were just a wee little girl, lost and confused, talking of wild, impossible things, and trying so very hard to be brave and not cry. Jane called you our little miracle, coming as you did right after our son died.”
My throat ached as I fought vainly against tears. Robert considered me for a long moment, ignoring the wetness that rolled down my face and over his hands.
“You have a bright future ahead of you, my dear. If we are lost to the fire, nothing will taint that future.”
“Am I to never see you again?” I asked, my voice cracked with pain.
“No. We cannot come back to England. We are too well-known. But you will always be with us, in our hearts.”
I bowed my head, overcome with the grief, wanting desperately to cast aside all my burdens and flee with the two people I loved best in the world.
“Fight for what is right, little Octavia. Do what Jane and I cannot.”
Those were his last words. No more had been needed—I stayed behind to do my duty while Robert Anstruther, decorated three times by the emperor himself, and a hero to the entire empire, walked toward the burning aerodrome, and into the pages of history.
“I’m sorry, Captain. I did not mean to distress you.”
The voice had softly spoken, but pulled me from my dark memories back to the present. Robert and Jane had been gone for almost a year. It had all come to pass as he predicted—the inquiries that had swirled around his activities had withered to nothing, and a nation mourned its lost hero.
I squared my shoulders and gave the engineer a little nod. “Thank you, Mr. Mowen. If any other issues arise, I will be in the forward cargo hold seeing what it is that has Dooley in such a swivet.”
He touched his cap in a salute as I moved down the narrow gangway, past the two rear boilers that powered the steering engines. The low thrum of the engines as they turned the propellers sounded in time to the throb of movement felt in the metal framework structure that ran the length, breadth, and height of the ship. It was a familiar sensation, one I didn’t even think of now, and certainly not one I noticed until I was on land, and it was missing. Indeed, the feeling of the ship as it sailed through the air was as much a part of me as breathing was, and I could tell instantly—as could every man on board the Tesla—when something was awry with the engines. A slight change in tempo in the vibration, or a higher tone in the thrum, was enough to have the crew looking to me with concerned eyes.
“You’re not going to have any problems, though, are you?” I asked the ship softly as I made my way down a small metal ladder to the lower gangway. “You know how important this trip is. You know how valuable the cargo is. You know what will happen should we fail.”
The ship didn’t answer, but I felt an odd sort of kinship with it. The engineer might find it remarkable that an international route had been given to me, but I knew better—it was a payment for services rendered, nothing more. My silence had been bought with the most insignificant, smallest cargo supply route in all of the Aerocorps. The Tesla was a minnow when compared with the new airships that graced the skies, an outdated model that showed visible signs of her age, from the stained fabric that made up the envelope, to the forty-year-old engines that were far from the highly efficient machinery that ran the bigger, longer, sleeker airships.
I knew all this, and yet I was proud of the Tesla, proud to be commanding her. If only everything would go right. If there was the slightest delay or problem that kept us from landing the ship in the small aerodrome outside Rome, all would be lost. I had argued with Etienne that such a tight timeline was tempting disaster, but he ignored my warnings and pleas, as he always did. “The man may be the leader of the Black Hand,” I murmured as I strode the gangway toward the forward hold, “but he’ll always be a presumptuous, stubborn idiot when it comes to listening to me.”
I pushed down the worry of what might happen should things go awry, and focused instead on ensuring they didn’t. “That includes unwanted problems,” I grumbled to myself as I arrived at the hold, one of four compartments that filled the middle section of the gondola.
“Captain Pye.” An elderly, grizzled man who shuffled with an almost-crablike walk moved forward in his peculiar gait to greet me. I knew from perusing the crew dossiers that his odd method of movement was due to injuries sustained when he’d flung himself from a burning airship. “I was hopin’ ye would come soon. We have a great hairy bollock of a problem, we do.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Piper. I assume the hairy bollock must be very great indeed if Mr. Christian is unable to deal with it.” I kept a mild expression on my face, despite the urge to laugh at his colorful language, well aware that it could be another test or an attempt to rattle me.
At the sound of his name the tall, very thin redheaded man who was my new chief officer jumped, his pale blue eyes wide with distress as he stammered out an excuse. Amusement faded as I considered him. There was no denying I was a bit disappointed in my right-hand man—thus far, he seemed ineffectual and totally unsuited for the jo
b—but I reminded myself that everyone deserved a chance to prove himself, and that he might grow into the job. I certainly hoped that was so.
“. . . and I only just arrived here before you, Captain. Didn’t I, Piper? I just arrived here. A matter of seconds, isn’t it? I couldn’t know what’s going on when I only just got here myself, could I?”
“Aye, that ye did, arse-backward and shittin’ coal.”
Aldous Christian looked almost panic-stricken, and I was quick to absolve him before he worked himself up any further. He looked on the verge of an apoplectic fit as it was. “My apologies for my false assumption. Since we are both here now, perhaps we could know the extent of the situation?”
“But I don’t know!” he all but wailed, his face turning beet red.
“I was directing that comment to Mr. Piper,” I said in a soothing voice, giving the chief officer’s arm a reassuring squeeze. He stopped blushing, but looked as high-strung as a racehorse before the wire. “Proceed, Mr. Piper.”
“It’s bodies, Captain,” the bosun answered with brevity.
“Bodies?”
“Oh, mercy,” Mr. Christian said, looking for a moment as if he was going to swoon. He clutched at the edge of the nearest stack of crates and weaved for a moment.
“What sort of bodies?” I asked, eyeing the chief officer lest he suddenly totter toward me.
“Bloody great bodies, that’s what sort,” Mr. Piper answered, scratching absently at his crotch. “Gettin’ in me way, they are.”
“There’s blood?” the chief officer wailed, his eyes filled with horror as he grabbed the bosun. “I . . . I . . . faint at blood.”
“Where exactly are these bodies?” I asked, almost positive that I was being tested again.
“Over yonder, behind the barrels of salted meat.” Piper nodded toward the far side of the hold, where stacked neatly were three dozen barrels of salted venison, pork, beef, and fish destined for the emperor’s troops in the south of Italy. “Neptune’s salty cods, man, let go of me arm! Ye’ll have me uniform wrinkled.”
“Dead or alive?” I asked.
“Alive, we think,” Piper answered, plucking Mr. Christian’s hands from his arm. “That is, there ain’t no great big pools o’ blood soakin’ into everything.”
“Urk!” Mr. Christian said, swallowing hard.
“And no severed limbs that we could find, nor any entrails or guts spewed out everywhere.”
“Entrails,” Mr. Christian whispered, his voice hoarse with horror as he groped blindly for the stack of wine barrels. “Entrails would be the end of me.”
“Aye, and they’re a right shiv up the arse to clean up, too,” Mr. Piper agreed, sucking his teeth for a moment before he continued. “Ye need sawdust to proper clean up after entrails, ye do. An arseload of sawdust. And sodium carbonate, and we don’t be havin’ much of that on board.”
“It’s good, then, that we will have no need for it,” I said, finding it difficult to keep my lips from twitching.
“ ’Tis the truth ye’re speakin’,” he agreed, before adding, “It’s hard to tell if they be alive or dead, Captain. Ye’ll just have to be lookin’ for yerself.”
“An excellent suggestion. Mr. Christian, you will come with me, please.”
I took three steps, but paused when the chief officer made an inarticulate noise of horror in his throat before falling over in a dead faint.
It was going to be a very long trip.
“Son of a whore’s left leg,” Mr. Piper swore, looking with interest at the chief officer’s prone form. “He’s light in the ballast, that one is, Captain. Ye should have seen him carry on when Auld John—he were the steward two seasons ago, before Mr. Ho joined us—when Auld John had three toes drop off.”
I paused on my way toward the cargo in question. “His toes dropped off?”
“Aye.” He sucked his teeth for the count of three. “We’d been to Marseilles, and ye know how it can be there—lads’ll go out lookin’ for a good time, and get mixed up with a strumpet or two, and the next thing ye know, someone’s lopped off a few of their toes.”
I stared at him in growing horror. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of anyone losing their toes because of promiscuous activities, even in so rough a city as Marseilles. None of the crew I’ve sailed with have ever done so.”
“Aye, well,” he said shrugging, and poking at the inert form of Mr. Christian with the highly polished toes of his boot. “Could have been the pox, too. He had that right enough. He thought his rod was going to drop off one time, but it turned out to be the clap.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but there was just nothing I could say to that, so instead I gestured toward the unconscious officer, and asked, “Would you see to him while I view these bodies of yours?”
“They ain’t me bodies, at any rate,” he said, shuffling over to the door. “As if I’d leave them lyin’ about me hold. I’ve been on airships for the last forty years, and never once have I left a body in the hold where anyone can trip arse over ears on it. Dooley! Where are ye, ye useless sod? Mr. Christian’s taken one of his fits again.”
The old man bellowed as I moved off, carefully picking my way around the stacks of scientific equipment and supplies, wondering what on earth bodies were doing on my ship. If they were dead, I would have some explaining to do before the emperor’s men in Rome. If they weren’t . . . I gritted my teeth. Stowaways would spell disaster. Either it was someone Etienne had sent to watch me, or a spy for the emperor. The former I could deal with, but the latter? It didn’t bear thinking about.
A foot came into view as I hiked up my skirts and scrambled over a long packing crate. The crate had shifted slightly during the last day, and now rested a good yard from the wall of the hold. The foot lay in plain view, with the rest of the body assumably wedged between the crate and wall.
I didn’t usually carry firearms, preferring instead the blade hidden inside of the walking stick that Robert Anstruther had given me on the occasion of my thirtieth birthday, but that was unfortunately in the tiny captain’s cabin, whereas the standard- issue Empyrean Disruptor that was given to all captains was strapped to my hip. I pulled out the small weapon, turning a switch that would allow the galvanic charge to be released upon firing.
“I am armed,” I told the foot in what I hoped was a calm voice. “If you intend on attacking me, please be aware that I will defend myself.”
The foot didn’t move, nor did its owner respond. I edged closer to it, frowning at the foot. It was clad in a strange sort of half shoe, with only the front of the foot covered. The rest was bare, as was the ankle. I moved around the crate, leaning over it to peer behind, my grip firm on the Disruptor. “Are you injured?”
It was a man. He lay half-propped-up against the wall, half-flung across another person, a woman. Both appeared to be asleep—or dead—although there was no blood to be seen, and no sign of injury.
“Has Mr. Christian been roused?” I called over my shoulder, straightening up.
“Aye, but he looks as pale as watered piss.”
I counted to ten, then said, “Tell him there is no blood whatsoever, and ask him to come forward.”
Both the chief officer and Dooley appeared, the former looking as if he was going to be sick.
“Are they . . . dead?” he asked in a thick voice. I wondered if he was likely to keel over again.
“No. Their chests are moving, and there is no sign of injury. I believe they are merely unconscious.”
His eyes widened as he glanced around wildly.
“Mr. Christian, please remember you are an officer in the Southampton Aerocorps,” I said purely to brace him up. “Officers do not panic when faced with unconscious stowaways. Nor do they faint repeatedly, or vomit willy-nilly.” That last bit was added in reference to the green cast to his face.
He swallowed hard, his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing a bit wildly, but in the end he squared his shoulders and gave a nod. “Aye, Captain. I’m read
y.”
Oh, I had my doubts as to whether he was ready for the stresses and strains of life aboard a Corps airship, but that was something I would have to deal with at a later time. Right now I had to figure out who the stowaways were, and what it would mean to me. Etienne would kill me if anything happened to mess up the Black Hand’s plans. “Help me move them out from behind the crate. Perhaps they swooned due to lack of air.”
It wasn’t a horribly good theory, but I didn’t dwell on that as we pulled out first the man, then the woman, laying them tidily on the two long crates near the door Piper indicated as suitable resting spots.
“Where’s their velocipedes?” Mr. Christian asked as we stood back to gaze down on the inert man and woman.
I stared at my chief officer. “Their velocipedes?”
“Aye.” He gestured toward the woman. “She’s wearing bloomers, so she must have been riding a velocipede.”
I glanced at the woman, wanting to point out the obvious. But I was captain now, and I had a duty to my crew. “Those are trousers, Mr. Christian, not cycling bloomers.”
“But . . . she’s a lady.” A puzzled frown pulled his eyebrows together.
“There’s more to a lady than a pair of titties,” Mr. Piper offered as he eyed the woman.
“Mr. Piper,” I said, goaded into admonishing him.
He gave an odd little half shrug. “I’m just sayin’ that a woman ain’t necessarily a lady.”
“I do not have argument with your sentiment, just your method of expressing it.” I moved around him to consider the man lying on the crate.
“I’ve heard tell that some ladies wear trousers,” the earnest Dooley offered. “In America. Before the war. I don’t know that they do now, but I did see pictures of ladies in trousers walking in a parade.”
“You aren’t old enough to remember the time before the war,” Mr. Christian scoffed. “It’s only been over for four years, and it was on for eighteen before that.”